A Triple Thriller Fest (130 page)

“They’re not real Rembrandts and Monets, just a bunch of clever fakes.”

He stood back from the group and she went to his side. “Look, you forget what happened before,” she said gently. “This is a new fight and you’ll do well.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“I know what I’m talking about, Lars, trust me. For this one day, at least, you’re a Viking. And you know what that means. Now, where are the goodies?”

“Right here in this box,” Lars said. “No, to your left.”

She found it, groped inside and handed out stun grenades. “Okay, listen to me, because this is important.”

She kept her voice calm and spoke slowly, in a voice that she hoped sounded confident. The drill stopped outside and a boom echoed through the walls. Sounded like a smaller version of the ram in front of the gates. Tess continued, as though she hadn’t heard the sound.

“First, let me explain what Niels told me,” she said. “and then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. If everyone follows my directions exactly, it should work perfectly. Those guys out there will never have a chance.”

Chapter Forty-five:

The castle wall finally succumbed. It shuddered under the blow of the ram, tottered briefly while men shouted on both sides, then sheared away with a thunder of stones and a shower of dust and mud. Someone fell, screaming, from above. The defenders on the south side of the breach struggled to pick themselves up.

“Hold your position!” Niels shouted. Absolutely critical to keep their distance from the walls or his men would suffer the same fate as the enemy.

He stood at the tip of the spear of men that would impale the first wave of attackers, three deep and six across. The front row had spears, everyone else drew swords. Two smaller groups with crossbows crouched to either side, waiting to direct a withering attack from either side as the enemy poured through.

Niels hadn’t yet drawn his sword. Instead, he held a stun grenade in either hand. Lob one into the middle, and a second over the top. If Daria LeFevre could drop even one more into the middle of the pack from her place on the walls, every man in that group would be stunned, helpless.

But the enemy didn’t come. Instead, the dust cleared and the shed with the ram forced itself into the gap. The shed wiggled and jostled to get over the stones, and then the entire shed pushed into the bailey. The ram—a pole on chains, capped with a hammered iron head—blocked most of the entrance of the shed. There were men behind there, but they were protected on the top and the sides from attack and safe in front so long as they stayed behind the ram.

Someone dropped a stun grenade behind the shed. Must be the main mass of the enemies behind it. A flash and a stunning explosion that sent a shockwave past the walls, the shed, and even into the bailey. Niels’s ears popped painfully. He readied to throw one of his own.

A warning shout drew him short. Something flew through the air.

It was a perfectly launched shot from the enemy’s smaller trebuchet. A hail of scalding, burning coals, metal pellets, and half-melted lead rained down on the middle of the bailey. Men screamed. Niels lifted his cloak to shield his face and body.

He recovered his wits just in time. “Move back. Everyone, we need space. Get back.” He found one of the grenades where he’d dropped it in the mud. He still clenched the other in his fist.

The formation inched back with the clank of weapons and armor. Still, he shouted them back. He needed more distance.

By the time Niels pulled the pin and lobbed the first stun grenade, the enemy had fanned out from behind the shelter of the ram shed. More men poured through the breach in the walls. His grenade exploded in their midst, and enemies collapsed or fell backwards. His second landed directly in the gap between the walls. A fourth explosion from the other side of the castle walls.

Half the attackers were on the ground, or leaned against the wall with hands to helmets. Niels’s crossbowmen on the right flank went down as well. The left side got off one volley, then fell back.

That left as many as thirty enemies forming into ranks. Niels had the advantage, but only for a few seconds. He ordered the charge.

Niels was in the lead. He swept aside the spears of two men. His sword came down on one man’s helmet with a shock that jolted through his shoulder. The man crumpled and Niels pried his sword free from the man’s skull.

He found himself face to face with Anton Kirkov. “You’re a dead man, Grunberg.”

Niels answered with his sword. He swung low, for Kirkov’s middle, but the man blocked, and then fell back with his men, uninterested in facing him alone. Instead, he formed a defensive position while his men regrouped.

Kirkov overran the downed crossbowmen. One man tried to lift his crossbow, but Kirkov brushed it aside and the shoved his sword through the fallen man’s chest. Men grabbed the other two, disarmed them, and dragged them back toward the walls.

The defensive position faltered and Niels ordered a retreat. He was nearly cut off before Miko Talo fought to his side with several more men.

“What are you doing?” It was Peter. He’d lost the tip of his sword. Water dripped from his nose. “We could lose the outer wall.”

“There’s no choice, we’ve got to retreat to the keep.”

“They’re attacking the keep too, remember?”

“Tess will hold them, she has to.” He shouted, “Fall back to the keep!”

More and more of Kirkov’s men regained their feet. The last few defenders atop the wall fled to the keep.

The moat was just a few feet behind them. Niels’s men broke ranks and fled for their lives. They reached the drawbridge with enemies at their heels. Chains clinked as someone got hold of the wheels inside the doors and raised the drawbridge. Niels jumped onto the bridge made it over in time. Three men had not yet reached the bridge and were almost surrounded. One of these was Peter Gagné.

“Wait!” Niels shouted. “Don’t raise the bridge!”

#

The enemies burst through the hole beneath the castle so quickly that Tess almost didn’t have time to throw her grenade. The handful of defenders crouched behind boxes near the opening in the wall. The wall collapsed behind the ram and her enemies popped through one after another.

Tess stood with no regard to crossbow fire. She pulled the pin and rolled a stun grenade across the floor rather than throwing it. It rolled against the wall and exploded just as she ducked behind the boxes and clamped her hands over her ears. The light, heat, and sound felt like a lightning bolt had cracked past her head.

She shouted for the others to follow her. Men sprawled in the shadows. Some groaned, others tried to lift themselves on hands and knees.

Tess had no memory of drawing her sword. Suddenly, it was in her hand and she was slashing, chopping, thrusting at the stunned enemies. She killed three men and her companions two more before the enemies behind the wall recovered enough to push inside and join the fight.

Men had fallen under her sword during the fight outside the castle walls. Possibly, some of them had died. But these men were on the ground, unable to lift a hand in self-defense. She watched the blood drip off the end of her sword with horrified fascination.

“Tess, what are you doing?” Lars asked. Her companions were falling back, as she’d instructed, and she stood alone.

Lars lobbed another stun grenade that flew over her shoulder and bounced against the outer wall as she turned to join her friends in flight. The explosion shattered the darkness with light. It felt like someone had slammed cupped hands over Tess’s ears. She nearly fell.

They stopped while Susan put candles to the diesel-soaked piles of broken canvases, boxes, and wooden sculptures. They caught fire and burned. Lars threw another stun grenade, and Tess threw another to force their enemies back.

There were fifteen, maybe twenty inside now, fanned out across the far wall. Some lay stunned, while others rushed forward to intercept the defenders before they could flee. Four men pushed through with the ram, which was not much bigger than what the police used to break down a motel-room door. And there was Yekatarina, stopped next to the first of the smoldering piles, the fire growing by the second. She made no attempt to put it out, instead helping men to their feet and ordering men to search the dark corners for ambush.

The fire revealed a trail of broken paintings across the floor of Peter’s vault. There were Monets, Rembrandts, and under her feet, Girl With a Pearl Earring. A gaping hole opened in the girl’s mouth, punched through by her boot. Men and women clashed among broken and falling boxes across the breadth of the vault.

Yekatarina pointed at Tess and shouted for her men to attack. Tess and the other defenders fled toward the far side of the vault, but she slowed to step over marble busts and exposed paintings.

They’re not real.

“Stop her!” Yekatarina screamed. “Cut her down!”

Too late, she saw that she dangled at the rear of her party. Two men caught her in front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

Tess turned and clashed swords with one man, cut under his defenses, and stabbed him in the shoulder. She scooped up the shroud, which still lay at the base of the statue and threw it up in the air to confuse the second man so she could make her escape. But another man had joined the skirmish. He was a weak fighter, but by the time she drove him back, the other two had rejoined the fight.

Yekatarina’s scream had brought Lars and the others to a halt. The were at her side in seconds and together, they overwhelmed the three men. But a dozen more were on the way. They fought through a quickly-spreading fire and clouds of smoke.

“A grenade,” Tess said. “Someone, quick.”

But there were no more stun grenades. Tess looked up at the Winged Victory.

“Everyone, behind the statue.”

“No, Tess,” Lars said, his voice anguished. Sweat poured down his face and blood seeped from a gash on his forehead.

“Do it. Now.”

Together, they heaved at the marble base of the statue. It wobbled once, then tipped over. For a moment it hung suspended in air, then it hit the cement floor in front of Yekatarina’s men. The delicate, outstretched wings shattered in a shower of broken marble and dust. Larger chunks, from the legs and robes, scattered across the floor.

The defenders fled. All seven reached the doors on the far side of the garage. A fierce, but short fight against a handful of attackers, then they were across the threshold. They shut the doors behind them, then dropped the newly installed crossbars.

They stood behind the doors, panting. There was a trickle of light from the dungeon below their feet, but otherwise it was dark. Someone moaned, “Oh, god. Oh, god.”

“Are you injured?” Tess asked. “No, then calm down. It worked perfectly, and everyone is okay.” In her mind, the image burned in firelight, of the Winged Victory shattering on the floor.

Yekatarina’s men turned the handles on the other side, then banged against the crossbars. They wouldn’t hold long, maybe five or ten minutes once Yekatarina brought that ram into place, but by then it would be too late. Muffled shouts from the other side.

A fresh banging on the door. “Tess, is that you? Can you hear me?”

Tess shouted back. “Shut up, Yekatarina. You’ve lost, so just get the hell out before you die.”

“It’s too late, we can’t get out. Do you understand me, the fire is too big and we can’t get past. Most of us are trapped on this side and it’s filled up with smoke. It’s sucking the air from the room.”

The door was almost airtight, but not so much so that Tess couldn’t smell the smoke that seeped through the cracks.

“I’m not an idiot,” Tess said. “And I’m not going to open the door. You’re wasting your time, just get out.”

“Don’t you understand? We’re going to die!”

Yekatarina’s voice sounded hysterical and there were others screaming now, arguing over what to do. Tess’s mouth felt dry.

“Tess,” Lars said. “What should we do?”

She turned angrily to find them all staring at her. “We can’t let them out, they’re trying to kill us, or did you forget? The rest of you, go, into the bailey. There’s nothing more you can do here. Go!”

“Tess, please, for god’s sake,” Yekatarina cried. “We weren’t going to…we were just…”

“You put your husband in the fucking trebuchet and flung him into the castle. He was still alive, you bitch.”

“I had to, don’t you see? All this was his fault, he was…”

“Will you shut up. You made me do this, I didn’t want to, you forced me into it. And you’re wasting time, just go, run.”

“It’s too late!” Yekatarina screamed. “It’s all on fire and the whole tunnel is filled with smoke and we’re going to die. Let us out!”

Tess turned away from the door. The others had fled, but Lars still stood there, his jaw slack and eyes wide. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the stairs and shoved him toward the hole that led back into the dungeon.

Behind, Yekatarina and her men pounded on the door and screamed. Tess and Lars pulled the trap door shut behind them and they were plunged into silence.

Chapter Forty-six:

The castle had fallen, the defenders had retreated into the keep. Tess pushed through wounded, exhausted men in the great hall, through others trying to form a sortie armed with a motley assortment of swords, crossbows, and shields.

“Raise the bridge. We can’t go back into the bailey.”

“Peter’s out there,” someone told her. The man wore no helmet and bled from a cut above his eye. “And Niels and about ten other men.”

She made her way to the doors and saw it was true. The drawbridge hadn’t been raised because there were still men on both sides. The bailey itself swarmed with enemies, and they’d seized the castle walls, too, including above the gatehouse. Crossbowmen flanked the drawbridge on either side and shot at the defenders both on and in front of it.