Sacred Ground
“How far?” Annja asked.
Derek studied the map again. “Maybe a mile. I’m not sure.”
“Kind of important that we know,” Annja said. She peered through the windshield. The fissure seemed to be shooting right at them, but she could see that it was cracking slowly. The speed of their truck made it seem as if it was happening all the faster.
Godwin frowned. “I don’t think we’ll make it. We’re going to have to get off the ice or we’ll risk going through it.”
“What’s the temperature outside right now, I wonder?” Annja asked. “Can we handle the temperature if we have to leave the truck?”
“Doubt it,” Godwin said. “We need off this road with the truck.”
Annja could see the water sloshing farther ahead as it crept out of the cracks in the ice like some black viscous blood seeping over the ice itself, dragging smaller chunks under.
“Just how good is this truck at four-wheel driving?” she asked.
Godwin grinned. “I think we’re going to find out.”
Annja nodded. “Do it.”
Godwin guided the truck over toward the bank of the ice road, and then Annja felt the tires bite into the frozen tundra and pull them up off the ice. The truck bucked like a wild horse under them as they hit bumps and dips in the landscape.
“Hang on!” Godwin shouted. “It’s going to be rough.”
Derek pointed back at the ice road. It looks like it’s fine about a hundred yards farther on.”
Godwin nodded. “We’ll have to chance it. If we stay on this stuff, we’ll blow the tires and do worse to the engine.”
Annja would have preferred to take her chances with the ground, but she could see Godwin’s point. The truck was taking terrible damage from the undulating countryside. They had to get back onto the ice.
Then she heard the sudden pop.
She looked at Godwin. He shrugged. “Looks like we lost one of the tires. Maybe two.”
Derek pointed. “The ice looks fine up there. Try going back now, Godwin. We can’t take this anymore.”
Well beyond where the fissure had forced them off the road, the ice looked as solid as it had been before. Godwin aimed the truck and Annja felt it lurch and buck again as they took another hard hit on the underside of the chassis.
And then she felt the vehicle almost skid as it suddenly zoomed back out onto the ice. Godwin fought to control it as the popped tire’s rim bit into the ice and cause them to skid wildly. He turned into the skid and then brought the SUV to a halt about a hundred yards farther on.
Annja caught her breath. “This is turning out to be some kind of trip.”
Godwin kept the truck idling. “I need to check us out for damage.”
He slid out and Annja joined him. Derek unfolded himself from the backseat and followed them around to the back of the truck.
Godwin squatted by the right rear tire and looked at the rim. “Doesn’t look like it got bent, fortunately. It should take a new tire from the back okay. The tire’s shredded, though. We can’t use that anymore.”
Annja could see where the rubber of the tire had been cut to ribbons against something out on the landscape. Probably a rock had started the damage, then the punishment the truck took bouncing all over finished off the tire.
The cold wind blew in to greet them. Annja shivered and zipped up her hood. “How long until we can get going again?”
Godwin opened the tailgate and rooted around in the back, finally heaving out the replacement tire. “Maybe twenty minutes.”
Derek nodded. “Good. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
Godwin rolled the tire over and then went back for the jack. He set about getting it into position and then cranked it up. Ever so slowly, the truck frame lifted off the ice road until Godwin judged he had enough room to do his work.
“Annja, can you get the tools from the back?”
Annja fetched the tool bag and then left Godwin alone while she walked around. It was the best way she knew how to stay warm. As long as she kept moving, she figured she’d keep warm.
Well, somewhat warm.
Derek came up next to her and put his hand over his brow, studying the horizon. “I think our turnoff should be only a mile farther on. We’re almost there, I’d say.”
“So close we could almost walk,” Annja said. “Except if we did that, we’d freeze to death from exposure, huh?”
“Yeah. We need the truck. That’s for sure.”
Annja walked farther up the ice road, studying the ice underneath her feet. It seemed so weird to be standing on the middle of a huge river like the Mackenzie. She could see deep cracks and fissures in the ice, and yet, none of them looked as ferocious as the one had that had forced them off the road.
She wondered what could have caused it. Was it the giant rig from earlier? And if it was, how had it managed to send a fissure rocketing at them like that?
Maybe it was the wave that built up under the ice like the man at the inn had explained to her.
Annja shook her head. If getting there was half the fun, she must have been having the time of her life so far.
She heard Godwin swear and walked back. “You okay?”
He was sucking his thumb. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just been a while since I tried torquing bolts off in the frigid tundra, that’s all.”
“Let me help,” Annja said.
Godwin smiled at her. “You?”
Annja cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t even think about saying anything you might really regret.”
Godwin held up his hands and stepped back. “Hey, be my guest.”
Annja walked over to the shredded tire and picked up the wrench. She clamped it over the closest bolt and then twisted. Godwin was right; the bolt was frozen solid in place on the tire. He joined her and together they were able to loosen the bolt. They worked quickly and removed the remaining bolts from the tire. Then she stepped back and let Godwin take over again. He heaved the tire off and it toppled away. It slid some distance before at last coming to a lopsided stop in the snow.
Derek was still looking at the horizon. Annja approached him. “You all right?”
He nodded. “Thought I heard something.”
Annja frowned. “What now?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Just thought it sounded vaguely familiar.”
“In a good way or a bad way?”
Derek shrugged and walked back to the SUV. “Maybe I’m imagining it. I don’t know.”
Annja watched him go. She smiled. The trip was getting to Derek as much as it was her. Godwin, despite the moments of intensity, seemed all right, all things considered. But then she figured there must have been something about him that kept him pretty even-keeled. She wondered if his father had something to do with it.
Maybe I’ll ask him later, she thought.
“Got the tire mounted,” Godwin said. “Another five minutes and we’ll be on our way again.”
Annja smiled. The sooner they got off the ice road and back onto dry land, the happier she’d be. Their brief respite on the shore had shown her how impossible it would be to travel over land unless there was a road.
She started to walk back to the SUV.
And then she stopped.
The sound came to her like a low growl somewhere far off in the distance, lurking at the edges of her subconscious like a bad dream. She turned around and stared off down the ice road.
A black speck stared back at her.
“Guys,” she called out. “I think we’re going to have some more company.”
Derek looked back. “So, I wasn’t mistaken.”
“Wish you were,” Annja said. “But it looks like you weren’t.”
Derek rushed to assist Godwin. “Better hurry up with that tire. We’re going to need to be mobile pretty damned soon.”
“If the bolts aren’t tightened down just right, the wheel will come off and we’ll crash.”
Annja stared at the black speck. It was getting larger. Much larger. And she could already tell it was the same giant rig that had nearly run them over before.
She doubted very much that it would let them survive this time.
“How long?” she called out over her shoulder.
“Four minutes,” Godwin said. He grunted under the effort to get the bolts fastened.
“We need some time,” Derek said. “Can you do something?”
Annja looked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
But something in Derek’s eyes told her he wasn’t kidding. Not one bit. She frowned. Just how much did he know about her?
Annja looked at the giant rig. It was barreling toward them. It looked as if it had spotted them and seeing them at a complete stop, its front end had zeroed in on their location. It was locked in and nothing could stop it.
Annja walked away from the SUV. She needed some distance from Godwin and Derek if she was going to pull this off without letting everyone know her biggest secret of all.
But would it work?
The giant truck surged closer. Annja could see it looming in front of her. She felt a measure of calm come over her despite the impending doom she faced. If she stayed in position and did nothing, she’d be little more than a smear on the ice road. And soon enough, just a forgotten remnant of the white landscape.
But she had no intention of going so quietly into the night.
She ran away from the SUV, gathering her speed. She could feel the energy from the sword and her connection to it flooding into her body.
Her muscles felt as if they’d been shocked full of juice, as if a huge current of electricity had touched her.
The truck continued to bear down on her position. It looked like a giant seething machine, belching smoke and steam as it tore up the ice road. She could see its tires and the dented red front fender.
I’ll have just one chance, she thought. Only one chance to get this right.
She ran harder, feeling the icy cold bite into her lungs and her face. And yet, somehow, the cold temperature fell away, replaced by the sensation of heat spreading all over her body.
Seen from a distance, Annja looked as if she was going to commit suicide by running right at the mighty truck.
One machine.
One human.
I hope this works, Annja thought.
8
As Annja raced toward the speeding truck, she closed her eyes and saw the sword in her mind’s eye. She reached into the otherwhere for it, felt her hands close around the hilt and then she opened her eyes again.
The sword was in her hands.
She flipped it over quickly, aiming the tip down below her. She could feel her heart thundering inside her chest. The sword’s energy coursed through her entire body, mind and spirit.
She briefly hoped that her action would go unnoticed by Derek and Godwin. Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to see the sword.
With no time to worry about it just then, Annja felt her breathing come in fast spurts. She jumped up as high as she could. And then the ground was rushing up at her fast, almost unnaturally fast. And the truck was still rushing at her.
Annja touched down and drove the very point of her sword into the thick ice beneath her. She exhaled with a loud shout as she drove the metal deep into the ice floe.
From somewhere far beneath her, she heard a deep cracking sound issue up from the ice-cold inky depths and then spread out from her sword blade toward the speeding truck.
Annja twisted the sword blade and almost as if in response, the small fissure gaped before her like a hungry maw, eager to feed on whatever stood before it.
In this case, it was the speeding truck.
Annja watched as more ice broke away into the swirling water of the Mackenzie River. Waves sloshed over the floes. And still the fissure spread toward the truck.
The truck had slammed on its brakes, but all that terrible momentum had no place to go except forward and even as the massive beast shuddered and groaned, straining to halt its progress, the same force that had so threatened Annja and the others now carried the truck toward its final destination.
With a creaking finality, the entire chassis slid right into the water before it, sinking imperceptibly fast. In one blink the truck was on the ice and in the next it simply had vanished.
Annja stood there, watching as the waves quickly returned to their normal ebb and flow. Already, at the edges of the breaks and cracks, the water was freezing back over. She figured in another hour, there’d be nothing to even mark the presence of the truck save for some skid marks on the ice leading to the massive hole that had eventually claimed it.
She took one final look at the water and its darkness. It was almost as if it had its own spirit. Was that even possible? She closed her eyes and quickly replaced the sword back where it rested, waiting to be called forth again.
Annja opened her eyes and turned around to head back toward Derek and Godwin. She hoped Godwin had the tire replaced by now.
Derek was standing closer than she expected. He had a smile on his face and didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed to be standing so close to her.
Annja stopped.
Derek said nothing, but kept smiling and turned to walk back toward the truck. Annja caught up with him.
“You look like you just ate a canary.”
He shrugged. “Better. I just saw something I would never have believed unless I witnessed it with my own two eyes.”
“I could offer to pry them out of your head if it helps you forget what you just saw.”
He chuckled. “I’d hate for that to happen.”
“I’ll bet.”
“That was something quite impressive.”
Annja frowned. “And yet, you don’t seem the slightest bit surprised. Why is that?”
Derek shrugged. “Impressed? Yes. Surprised? Nope. But I thought I already explained to you that our information was good.”
“You did,” Annja said. “I didn’t expect that you’d gotten word about my…talent.”
“Is that what you choose to call it?” Derek smiled. “I’d call it something utterly amazing.”
“Of course you would. Anyone would. Unless they happened to be burdened with the thing.” Annja sighed.
“How does it work?”
“I don’t even know. I’m still working all of its rather unique functions out. Every time I think I know what it’s fully capable of, it has this nagging ability to surprise me.”
“Well, you just used it to save our lives. So I suppose a hearty thank-you is in order.”
“You’re welcome. And you can thank me by not mentioning this to anyone else. And if you have to file a report about me, I’d appreciate you stating that the rumor of its existence is just a silly myth. That you saw nothing out of the ordinary during our entire time together.”
“Why would you want me to do that?”
Annja stopped him. “Because if there’s one thing I definitely do not need, it’s any publicity. I’d much prefer to just live my life and do what I do without being sentenced to a freak-show existence for the remainder of my time on the planet.”
Derek looked at her and then nodded. “I guess I can understand that. I thought you might be one of these people who would want to milk it for everything it had.”
“Not even remotely close.”
Derek smiled. “It’s cool. Your secret is safe.”
“So, who leaked the information to you about it?”
Derek shook his head. “I’m not sure, actually. And before you go accusing me of holding out, I am telling the truth. We gathered our data on you from a variety of sources. Some of it was from reliable outlets, background checks, that type of thing.”
“And others?”
“From less tangible sources. We comb the Internet to compile what we hope is an accurate picture of our subjects. Sometimes the material we turn up is decent. Other times it’s pretty bogus.”
“In this case,” Annja said.
Derek nodded. “We got lucky, all right.”
“I’d be curious to know where that particular nugget came from. Any chance you keep a record of the Web sites you comb on file somewhere?”
“Yeah,” Derek said. “I can hook you up with the information once we’re done up here. Consider it a parting bonus if you want.”
“Thanks.”
“Forget it. Call us even for saving our lives.”
“I will.”
They walked back to the truck just as Godwin was putting away the tools. He looked up as they approached. “We’re all set to go.”
Annja sighed. “Good.”
Godwin looked out around them. “What happened to the truck?”
“Detour,” Annja said. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing it again.”
“Ever,” Derek said.
Annja slid into the front seat and closed the door. Godwin and Derek got in a moment later and Godwin gunned the engine and then slid the vehicle into Drive.
He eased the truck forward. Annja pointed out ahead of them. “I’d steer a little bit over to the right if I was you.”
“Why so?”
From behind her, she heard Derek say, “I’d do as she suggests, Godwin. Trust me.”
Godwin nodded and steered the truck over to the side. But even as they passed the location where the truck had gone through the ice, Annja had trouble seeing where it was exactly. The water had already frozen over and showed little sign that there had been a massive hole there previously.
Annja shuddered. Whatever the case, whoever had been behind the wheel of that truck, they were no longer a threat to them.
And that was fine with her.
Derek had the map open again. He traced his finger along the ice road and then jabbed at a spot on the map. “We should be pretty close, guys.”
“The sooner the better,” Annja said. “I really don’t like traveling this way. Big trucks that want to run us over, cracks in the ice, and this forever-white landscape. It wears on a person.”
“I think it’s kind of beautiful,” Godwin said. “Of course, I’m a bit biased.”
“I thought you hated the cold,” Derek said.
“I do. I meant from inside the warm truck it looks kind of beautiful.” Godwin grinned. “But I’d still rather live in Hawaii any day of the week.”
“We’ll keep that in mind in case we open up a diamond mine in Maui,” Derek said.
Annja smiled. The rush of tension that had plagued them with the giant truck and the ice fissure seemed to have evaporated. They were left with the feeling that they would soon be off the ice road and back on to firm ground. Frozen though it was.
Annja took a deep breath and tried to relax her body. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She felt good. And she marveled at how warm using the sword had made her. Maybe it was a side benefit of it. Still, she wasn’t sure that she’d felt that way when she wielded it back in Antarctica.
Was it possible that the sword was capable of learning?
She frowned. That would mean that it had its own intelligence. And if that was the case, then was Annja ever really in control of it?
Or was she simply being possessed?
That didn’t sound particularly enticing to her. Good or evil, possession meant that she didn’t have any measure of control.
“You okay?”
Annja snapped her eyes open and glanced at Godwin. “Sorry, must have drifted off there for a moment.”
“It happens,” he said. “All this white. Snow blindness. It can make you crazy after a bit.”
Annja sighed. “Yet you don’t seem to be affected by it.”
“My father made sure I knew how to deal with it.”
“Did he, now?”
“Sure. He taught me a lot of stuff.”
“Like how to recognize the assassin’s dagger.”
Godwin glanced at her. “Yes. That, too.”
“Interesting.”
“Is it?”
“I think so.”
“We all have those aspects of ourselves that seem mysterious to everyone else, but aren’t necessarily.” Godwin winked at her. “We all have our secrets.”
Annja glanced back at Derek, but he was still studying the map. Had he said something to Godwin?
She looked back at Godwin but he was already peering out of the windshield again. “We should be just about there.”
Annja followed his gaze. Up ahead she thought she spotted something red amid all the white. “Is that the sign for the turnoff?”
Godwin shrugged. “Could be.”
Derek perked up. “Are we there?”
Annja pointed. “That looks like a sign to me. What do you think?”
Derek leaned forward. “Slow down, Godwin. We don’t want to miss the turnoff and keep driving for hours on end. I don’t think Annja would appreciate that very much, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Godwin slowed the truck even more and then they saw the small piece of plywood tacked to a metal pole jutting out of the snow on the side of the ice road.
“Erop,” Annja said. “I guess this is our exit.”
Godwin wheeled the truck around and they turned to the right. Annja noticed that the road gradually climbed higher in elevation. She looked at Derek. “Am I right in thinking that we are no longer driving over frozen water?”
He smiled. “You’re right. We’re on dry ground again. The ice road is a thing of the past.”
Annja glanced back at the frozen Mackenzie River and shuddered. She hoped Derek was right—that it really was a thing of the past.
9
Thirty minutes of hard, bumpy driving brought them into the tiny town of Erop, a collection of a few buildings, a gas station and two restaurants. It looked more like a refueling point than anything else, its identity marked by whatever or whoever moved through the place.
“Let me out,” Derek said. “If I don’t get to a bathroom after all that bladder beating, I’m done for.”
Annja could sympathize. The drive to Erop had been a constant bouncing and sinking over a road that could only just be called that. She headed for one of the restaurants while Derek headed for the other. Godwin drove on to the gas station, saying he would fill up and get a replacement tire for the one they’d lost.
Ten minutes later, they were back on their way. Derek bought them all sandwiches, which they gratefully demolished and Erop fell behind them, a slightly pleasant memory for the basic human comfort it had offered up and nothing more.
The road twisted through the frozen countryside and then after another thirty minutes, broke out onto Hendrick’s Highway. Godwin gave up a little cheer and steered the truck onto a paved road for the first time that day.
“Hooray,” Annja said. “The mark of civilization.”
“For someone who spends so much of her time in the past,” Derek said, “you sure seem ready to put the past behind you.”
“Bad roads are bad roads,” Annja said. “And there’s nothing of interest to be found on them. Plus, my butt was taking another beating back there.”
“Just so long as you don’t start thinking that where we’re headed is any more civilized, because it’s not.”
“I realize that,” Annja said. “But it doesn’t change my mind about being relieved to be off that road.”
Godwin grinned. “I feel the same way.”
Hendrick’s Highway was a two-lane road, and even though the asphalt had seen better days, the stretch proved to be a welcome change from both the ice road and the roller-coaster ride of the road to Erop. The SUV’s tires all seemed in decent shape and Godwin had managed to procure a spare tire, just in case they should run into another rock jutting out of the landscape.
Annja felt good for the first time all day. An hour of driving would take them to their turnoff and then they could finally get to where they were going. Getting to the dig site was always the hardest part. Annja could put up with a lot of stuff, but she was often impatient when it came to actually reaching the destination. She liked getting there already.
She didn’t kid herself. The events of the morning and the run-in with the giant truck didn’t make her feel especially good about what might be waiting ahead. The incident in the steak house was still fresh in her mind and she turned all these events over in her mind, trying to figure out what could be going on in the frozen tundra that surrounded her.
If people weren’t happy with what was going on with the Araktak, there’d be no telling what they would do to keep the company from completing its deal with the tribe. That meant Annja might have to use the sword again.