Lara Croft and the Blade of Gwynnever

  He had the canisters.

  Carter Bell pulled the straps of the knapsacks up over his arms and secured them at his shoulders, one on his back and one on his chest. He wore them like body armour. The Wolf-Heads could not attack him without destroying the payload.

  Then he armed himself. He stood, his guns aimed at the Wolf-Heads.

  But Lara was fighting so hard, swinging, attacking, reacting with such force and energy that Carter could not get a clean shot. He stepped from one side to the other, trying to lock on to a target.

  Finally, Bell began to move forwards, knees bent, weaving. He moved to Lara’s right, away from the great tree where the altar had once stood, and took a shot. Then another. He winged one Wolf-Head, shooting him in the left shoulder. The man drew his gun, but somebody barked at him not to shoot.

  Carter smiled. He hadn’t liked their chances: just one man and one woman against more than a dozen hardened paramilitary types, but they had two distinct advantages. Lara Croft was a force of nature, and Carter Bell was the only person in the fight who could legitimately fire a gun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:

  DIVISION ELEVEN

  Candle Lane

  “What happened to Sweeney?” asked Franks.

  “Nothing, sir,” said Beecham.

  “Well, you see, that’s my problem.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “No sitrep from Sweeney?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m calling command,” said Franks. “After the fiasco with that art student earlier, and the thing with those men walking onto the site, we’ll be cautioned for vigilance at the next debrief. I don’t like this.”

  The two black-clad men were standing outside the boarded-up tube station on Candle Lane. There were so many lights shining down on them that they cast no shadows on the empty street. There were more Division Eleven officers stationed at either end of Candle Lane and at intervals along its length. Nobody had tried to enter the lane for several hours, not since the strange men had been turned away. There had been no repercussions from the earlier events, despite the men asking too many questions, but Franks still didn’t like it.

  “It’s just Sweeney, sir,” said Beecham.

  Sweeney was on the rota for the belowground shift from ten until two, and his main duty was to make hourly situation reports.

  Beecham pulled a slim, black notebook from a breast pocket and opened it.

  “Twenty-three hundred hours. Sitrep logged at twenty-three-zero-four, sir,” said Beecham.

  “It’s not good enough.”

  “There’s nothing down there, sir. One way in, one way out. And nothing and no one has got past us, sir.”

  “He’s ten minutes late for his zero-hour sitrep, and it’s me who’ll have to answer to command,” said Franks. “It’s just not good enough.”

  Franks turned and began to walk away, talking into his comms unit.

  “Franks to Sweeney. Sitrep required. Franks to Sweeney...Franks to Sweeney. Shit!”

  Franks walked briskly to the end of Candle Lane. He keyed his comms unit again and spoke into it.

  “Franks to Sweeney. Sweeney?”

  Franks keyed an open link and said, “Roll call.” The names came back one at a time in alphabetical sequence.

  “Adlard.”

  “Beecham.”

  “Corbett.”

  “Chandar.”

  “Franks,” said Franks when it was his turn.

  “Heggarty.”

  “Jaganathan.”

  “Millward.”

  ...

  “Sweeney? Are you there, Sweeney?” asked Franks. “Okay, continue roll call.”

  “Tyson.”

  “Watkins.”

  “Watson.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all,” said Franks. He keyed the command channel.

  Three minutes later, Division Eleven reinforcements were on their way, and Franks was restructuring his group on the ground in Candle Lane.

  “Heggarty and Jaganathan, cover the north end of the street, armed,” said Franks. “No one enters the restricted area. Chandar and Millward, cover the south end of the lane. Same applies. The rest of you are with me.”

  “Permission to speak, sir?” said Watkins.

  Franks nodded.

  “Is this search and rescue, sir? Or something else?”

  “Buggered if I know,” said Franks. “We treat every situation as if it’s hostile. Sweeney might have banged his damned head for all I know, and be lying unconscious down there. But we don’t walk in blind and stupid. We assume we’re entering a hostile situation.”

  “Right, sir,” said Beecham.

  “Heggarty, when reinforcements arrive, fully secure the street and send the rest down to us,” said Franks.

  “Understood, sir,” said Heggarty.

  “Right,” said Franks, arming himself with his baton, “let’s do this. Remember, no ballistics at any time.”

  “Bring Baris,” Vata said to his bodyguard, “and follow me.”

  The three men left the fighting behind and wove their way through the site in search of the Dornier.

  “Miss Croft has eight of the canisters. Denny Sampson had one. A full payload could contain up to thirty-two canisters. You two will retrieve the remainder,” said Vata.

  “If there’s a gun battle?” asked Vata’s bodyguard.

  Vata glared at him.

  “I have set an example,” said Vata, “and I have given an order. You are a Wolf-Head. Would you disobey an order?”

  “No, sir,” said the bodyguard. “But what if the canisters are destroyed? What if the gas is released?”

  “It cannot happen,” said Vata. He was dismissive. “The men have their orders.”

  “You saw the woman fight—”

  Vata drew his gun again and put it to his bodyguard’s head, wrapping his arm tight around the man’s neck.

  “Do you want to die, Rugova?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” said Rugova. “I want to do what is right.”

  “Is it right to follow your commander’s orders?” asked Vata.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Vata let go of his bodyguard, straightened his suit, and holstered his gun. Rugova said nothing, and he did nothing. He had misspoken, and he would not make the same mistake twice.

  “Over here,” said Baris, holding the torn end of a piece of hazard tape and looking through a hole excavated in part of the wall close to where Vata had subdued Rugova.

  Vata was first through the gap and into the chamber that housed the Dornier.

  “Up, up,” he said. “Empty it. Find everything.”

  Rugova and Baris climbed the ladder onto the scaffold boards and began to inspect the wrecked airplane. They did not have the skill or the finesse of archaeologists, but they knew planes and they knew weapons, and it didn’t take them long to locate the payload bay. They worked their way to the rear of the bay and found the cradles into which the canisters had been loaded.

  “You were right, sir,” Rugova called down to Vata. “There are more canisters...many more.”

  “Retrieve them,” said Vata.

  Baris had been first to climb the ladder, so he was in the best position to unload the canisters. He took them from their cradles one at time, handling them carefully and giving them to Rugova to inspect and line up on the scaffold board. From there, they could be bagged and carried down to Vata.

  It took only a few minutes for the first seven canisters to be removed, checked, and lined up. The next rack of eight was situated behind and above the rack that Baris had just emptied. He had been squatting; now, he stood and leant in. His position was awkward, and it took him longer to empty the next set of cradles. Four canisters came out.

  “What’s wrong???
? asked Rugova when Baris failed to hand him the fifth canister from its cradle in the rack.

  “It will not come,” said Baris. “The canister is stuck.”

  Rugova cast an eye along the row of canisters on the scaffold plank next to him.

  “We have eleven,” he said. “It is enough. We take them down.”

  The two men filled net bags with the canisters, five in one and six in the other, working their way along the row, back towards the ladder. Then they descended to Vata, who had been watching their progress intently.

  “You have them?” asked Vata.

  “Yes,” said Baris.

  “All of them?”

  “Eleven, sir,” said Rugova.

  “All of them?” asked Vata again. “That makes only twenty in total.”

  “There are more in the wreck,” said Rugova.

  “Then retrieve them,” said Vata. “Do you know what this means for our cause? Are you a patriot? Is it right to follow your commander’s orders?”

  “As you command,” said Baris.

  He laid the net bag that he’d been carrying at Vata’s feet and strode back across the chamber. Rugova hesitated.

  “You are waiting for what?” asked Vata, glaring at Rugova.

  Rugova followed Baris, and within moments they were back on the platform.

  “You did not say that the canisters were stuck,” Rugova said to Baris, quietly so that Vata could not hear them.

  “So, I try harder,” said Baris. He adjusted his position and put his arms back into the wrecked fuselage. He grabbed the end of the canister, wedged tight in its cradle. He pulled, but nothing happened. He tried to rotate the canister, first anti-clockwise. Nothing. He adjusted his hold on the canister and tried turning it clockwise. There was a grating sound of metal on metal, and the canister moved an inch.

  Baris turned to Rugova and smiled, his hands still buried to the elbows in the fuselage. He rotated the canister back and forth, pulling as he went. The grating sound continued, but the constant, even pressure paid off, and finally the canister was free of the cradle and nestling in Baris’s hands. He held it out for Rugova to take.

  Rugova looked at the thing. The cylinder was no longer true, and clean, bright metal showed where layers of dirt and paint had been scoured away by the action of removing it.

  Rugova took it carefully in both hands and placed it on the scaffold board, close to the top of the ladder. When he returned to Baris’s side, he could hear the same ominous scraping sounds coming from inside the payload bay. He held his breath while Baris worked the next canister free.

  Franks and his men made their way through the underground station and down onto the platform. They checked and covered at every touch and turn, completing the patterns and formations that they had drilled. Division Eleven worked by the book.

  Any combat would be close combat. They were armed with knives and batons and with flash bangs. They had all been issued protective eyewear, ear defenders, and body armour, although not all chose to wear some or all of their gear. Some specialised in stealth and agility, and they trusted their skills more than they trusted their equipment. There was always a compromise, always a price to pay. Some preferred to keep their senses intact; they’d be at a disadvantage if the flash bangs came into play and they weren’t prepared. But the alternative was to be permanently compromised. They trusted each other.

  They heard the first shot as they reached the platform.

  Franks gave the signal, and they dropped down onto the tracks into the lee of the platform, where they could not be seen.

  Another signal, and the men made their way along the tracks in the direction of the site.

  The second shot came soon after the first. No one spoke, and no one signalled. They didn’t need to. They knew that Sweeney was not in a firefight. They had been ordered not to use ballistics, and they would not disobey an order.

  The situation was hostile.

  Franks’s next signal was for the men to put on their gas masks. Word had not come back from command verifying the contents of the canisters or the lethality of the gas. They did not even know how effective the gas masks would be, but they had been issued masks, so Franks gave the order.

  All but one of the men put on a mask.

  Progress through the site was slow, and it was Adlard who gave the next signal. He was not wearing protective eyewear or ear defenders, and he’d taken point. He was the first to spot Sweeney.

  Sweeney was conscious, but when Corbett removed the ropes and gag and performed a quick exam, it was clear that Sweeney was concussed. The medic put his patient in the recovery position with the last gas mask securely in place and reassured him that they’d return. Then he rejoined the group.

  The signs were clear. Fresh footprints, broken hazard tape, equipment shifted and knocked over: a number of people had passed through the site, heedless of disturbing it.

  Franks signed for a halt, and the men took cover. Franks removed his ear defenders at a sign from Adlard. There was considerable noise coming from the oldest part of the site, from the ancient chamber where the historic finds had been made: shouts, scuffles. It was physical. This was not a raid, a burglary. This was combat.

  Franks replaced his ear defenders and spoke.

  “Ear defenders and eye protection, everyone, now.” Then he signalled the same command. When everyone was kitted out, he gave the attack signal and started the countdown.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:

  THREE FACTIONS

  The Chamber

  Two Wolf-Heads charged Carter. He shot once, into the chest of the man to his right, throwing him off his feet. The second shot thudded into the mulchy ground, as Carter’s aim was deflected by a kick from the second assailant.

  The kick was followed by a second that came in higher and harder, against Carter’s armpit, throwing him off balance and sending the gun spinning out of his hand. The canisters in the knapsacks on his chest and back clanged ominously together, and their weight shifted, changing his centre of gravity.

  Carter stumbled and took several staggering steps to his right, kicking up earth and leaves. The momentum turned him, and he finally crashed into a mossy tree trunk, jarring his left shoulder and falling to his knees.

  The man he had shot got back to his feet. Body armour had saved his life, but the point-blank shot had knocked him onto his back and pissed him off. He kicked out at Carter, but missed as Carter turned, stepping onto one foot to stand. The Wolf-Head went down for a second time, under his own momentum.

  His other assailant was faster, getting Carter in a headlock as he tried to get to his feet, but his grip was compromised by the bulk of the canisters. Carter grasped the Wolf-Head’s hand in both of his own, locked it at the wrist, and twisted it, breaking the choke hold. An elbow to the Wolf-Head’s gut dropped him, for the moment.

  Carter turned his attention to the man he’d shot. They squared off against each other. The Wolf-Head had pulled a knife and was making fast, jabbing movements at Carter’s body, trying to get in below the knapsack that covered his chest and belly. Carter reached for his own blade.

  It was a standoff. Both men were armoured.

  Another Wolf-Head began to circle Carter, and another. The man he’d just dropped came in low, slashing at Carter’s legs, making him dance from foot to foot. Another produced a telescopic baton, which he flicked out to its full length and tried to deploy, swinging it at Carter’s right arm.

  It was chaos.

  The Wolf-Heads were tripping over each other to do battle with Carter and Lara, but they were getting in each other’s way, and the strange atmosphere and the morphing landscape felt like another adversary.

  Lara was deep in the old English woodland, breathing the smells of the land and the air, hearing the creak of the trees and the rustle of the leaves in the wind, seeing the changing light in the dap
pled spots on the ground. The animals, too, smelt of musk and warm fur, of the cycle of life and death, and of the wild, savage lives they lived. Breathing them in was a heady sensation. The snuffles of the boar, the howls of the wolves, and the roar of her beloved bear spurred Lara on, and the gleaming obsidian blade in her hand did the rest.

  She felt as if she had come home. This was her place, her time to shine, to thrive, to show the world who she was and all that she could be.

  Wolves circled her, wild boar stood guard, and men fell at her feet, not in fealty, but in death.

  The sword swung again, as if of its own accord. It crashed against some weapon, a blade that it locked with, bit into, and twisted away. Lara’s wrist turned, and Gwynnever’s sword crossed in front of her body in another perfect arc, smashing the blade out of the Wolf-Head’s hand, sending it spinning into the canopy. Her grip altered, as if the sword required it, and she was thrusting down, driving the obsidian blade into her combatant’s belly.

  Lara was ready when another Wolf-Head attacked, and another. They breathed hard and sweated. They exerted themselves, spent their energy. They grunted and spat. They groaned and fell. Lara’s battle was a dance, her breathing light and sweet, her heartbeat slow and steady.

  But there were so many of them!

  Lara felled three Wolf-Heads...four. She caught sight of Carter as she circled with her latest attacker, waiting for another long swing of her sword. He was surrounded. She frowned, confused, afraid for a moment.

  Lara blinked and glanced again, worried that Carter would be gone, disappeared beneath a pile of Wolf-Heads baying for his blood.

  He was there...and gone. In his place, standing a head and shoulders taller, was her bear, soft eyes looking at her across the void, huge paws flailing, swiping at the nearest Wolf-Heads, maw wide open in a great roar.

  Lara did not hesitate. She swung the sword, letting its weight and momentum do its work for her.