The Spirit Banner (20 page)

Raised sleeping pallets lined the interior of the
ger,
each one covered by its own draped canopy of silks. A dark shape occupied the center of each platform.
Annja stepped up to the nearest one and drew back the silk curtains, shining her light inside.
The mummy of a young woman stared back at her from the center of the bed, its wrinkled face and hardened eyeballs framed by a long, luscious swath of black hair. The mouth was partially open, which, when combined with the protruding eyeballs, gave the corpse the appearance that she was about to speak.
Annja wondered what the girl would say if she could.
A quick count of the sleeping platforms told Annja her suspicions were correct.
They had found the sixty virgins.
This one was dressed in the remains of a traditional faded blue
del
, blue being the Mongol color of eternity, and on her feet were a pair of brocade slippers that Annja suspected were part of the plunder Genghis Khan had taken from somewhere in China. She looked peaceful, as peaceful as an eight-hundred-year-old mummy could look, she thought.
Mason and Annja went around the room, drawing back the silk curtains one by one, looking for anything that might possibly contain the final directions they needed to locate the Khan's grave site. In each bed they found the same thing, a lovingly dressed mummy of a young Mongolian woman, that was all.
No clues.
No map.
No hidden verses.
They were running out of options.
The final section of the
ger
was sectioned off by intricately designed
tangkas
that looked as if they had been made by the same craftsman who had crafted the one in which the black
sulde
had been stored. They had the same recurring patterns, the same symbols scattered throughout, the same colored fabric.
With nowhere else left to look, Annja pulled back one side of the thick fabric and looked into the inner sanctum just beyond, as Mason peeked over her shoulder.
A platform about the size and height of a pool table rose out of the floor, as if it had been hewn from the living rock. Even that couldn't hold their attention, though, for their eyes were drawn immediately to the object it supported.
A figure lay atop the platform and even from where they stood they could see that it was dressed in armor that hadn't seen the light of day in hundreds of years. A thick coating of dust coated it, but Annja could still make out the vibrant colors that had been painted on the leather plates, the sheen of the silver rings that made up the mail coat beneath, the snarling wolf's face that had been painted on the shield that was hung on the wall behind the body, along with a sword and a bow. Both arms were crossed over something resting on the corpse's chest, but from where she was she couldn't make out what it might be.
Rising up behind the platform like a ceremonial flag was a
sulde,
identical to the spirit banner they had found at Shankh except for one respect—this one was white.
It was the
sulde
the Khan had used in times of peace.
Annja heard Mason's shocked gasp from behind her.
"Is that…?"
She didn't know.
But she had to find out.
Slowly, almost reverentially, she stepped closer to the funeral bier.
A helmet rested atop the head and she recognized it immediately as the kind worn by Mongol warriors after the unification of the empire. It had a headpiece made of iron and flaps of leather that came down over the ears and the back of the neck to protect them from attack.
A square piece of silk covered the front of the helmet and, as a result, the face it rested on, as well.
Annja's professionalism warred with her curiosity. She wanted to know what was under that cloth but at the same time didn't want to disturb the scene until it had been properly documented. In the end, given all the time and hardships she'd endured to get there, her curiosity won out.
Her heart was beating so hard her hands were shaking as she gently picked up the edge of the silk covering and drew it to one side.
A blank, featureless face stared back at her.
She recoiled in surprise. He has no face, she thought, and then realized that she wasn't looking at a body at all, but just a primitive mannequin made from bundled cloth.
They had not discovered the body of Genghis Khan.
Disappointed, she stepped back to let Mason have a look. As she did so, her gaze fell on the thick book the corpse held in its hands.
It had clearly been in that position for some time. dust and cobwebs ran across the gauntlets of the mannequin and over the book they contained. The book's leather cover was stained a deep blue and a series of words had been branded into its surface. She could recognize the writing as Mongolian, but that was all.
With a start, she realized she might be looking at the Great Yasa of Genghis Khan.
Because of the vast diversities among the tribal units that made up the core of his empire, Genghis chose to allow local leaders to govern the way they traditionally had, provided that their rulings did not violate the universal laws that the Khan put into place. The laws did not cover day-to-day life on the steppes, but rather dealt with only the most troubling aspects, those that could cause the most discord. The laws were written on white paper and bound in blue to match the color of the eternal sky above. In time, the book itself became known as the Great Yasa, the Great Law.
Being careful not to damage anything, she lifted one of the corpse's gauntlets and slid the book out from underneath it before returning the hand to its proper place. Turning away from the platform, she took a deep breath and blew as much of the dust off the cover of the book as she could.
Satisfied that she wouldn't get any dirt on the pages, she sat down and very gingerly opened it, leafing through the pages. She noted the careful writing, the orderly handwritten script. There wasn't a single correction. Not a single mistake. Whoever had written it had taken extreme care to be certain it was perfect.
That supported her belief that it was the Great Yasa, the written text of Genghis Khan's universal laws. She'd know for certain once she had Nambai look at it, for the written language of the Mongols had changed little in all the intervening years. Archaeologically speaking, it was likely the find of the century.
But to Annja, it was somewhat of a disappointment.
It wasn't what she had been looking for.
She let her gaze sweep the room, trying to figure out what they had missed, where she had gone wrong. She just didn't understand. As far as she knew she'd interpreted each line of the coded message correctly, going from one clue to the next. She'd found the
sulde
at Shankh and used that to lead them to the hidden chamber inside the cliff face containing the map. The map had led them to what was clearly the Tomb of the Virgins. If the coded message was correct, the tomb was then supposed to lead them to…
Wait a minute. Where was it supposed to lead them?
She pulled out the card she'd been carrying around in her pocket for days and reread the last few lines of the message.

She read it again, this time aloud.
The last two lines made sense. Tengri was another name for eternal blue heaven and Gazan was the name for earth mother. So, where Tengri and Gazan meet was where the sky met the earth. That could only be Burkhan Khaldun—God Mountain—the highest point in the region, especially if you took into account the reference to climbing. And Batur was simply a Mongol word for clan leader or chief. So the clan leader, in this case the Khan, made his home on God Mountain. The tomb was somewhere on God Mountain.
But where?
That's what the tomb, or rather the clue hidden in the tomb, was supposed to tell them.
Except it didn't.
Annja read the lines over again.
" In their arms is the truth you seek, the way to all that was and more.'"
She wasn't certain who the lines were referring to—the sixty brides or the soldiers, listed as "those who came before"—but what was clear was that the next clue was supposed to be in their arms.
They'd examined each of the bodies carefully and hadn't found anything.
That's when it hit her.
She hadn't noticed it before but looking at it repeatedly she saw that there was a distinct break between the last two stanzas. Unlike the earlier portions, which seemed to flow from one to another, there was something disjointed about how the fourth stanza flowed into the fifth. "
The way to all that was and more
" was followed by "
then climb to the place where Tengri and Gazan meet
."
They didn't go together. It was almost as if there was a line or two missing.
A sinking feeling filled the pit of her stomach. She had made a mistake, had missed something. That was the only possible answer.

Despite all they had found, disappointment filled Annja and Mason with their failed search so they made the decision to return to the others. They retraced their steps, heading back through the hall of warriors, as Annja was now calling it, and into the connecting tunnel where they had nearly drowned, only to meet the others coming through in the opposite direction.
The stone slab that had previously blocked their escape route was gone. Davenport told Annja and Mason about how he and the other three had been sitting on the far side, trying to think of some way through the barrier, when it just quietly slid back upward into its previous location. Fearful that it might close on them again, they had gone back and brought their makeshift bridge down the tunnel with them, using it to brace the stone in its upright position just to be safe. They had just finished doing so.
Word of what they found fanned the curiosity of the rest of the team, so Annja agreed to take them back inside the cavern to give them a chance to see for themselves. Mason chose to remain behind; he'd seen enough mummies for one day apparently.
While he waited, he tried to come up with a plan as to what to do next.
They had accomplished so much. They had found the Khan's
sulde,
long thought lost to antiquity and the ravages of war. They had used it to locate the voice in the earth and the map chamber with it. They had used the clues in the map chamber to bring them to the legendary Tomb of the Virgins. They were so close he could taste it.
But now what? Mason thought.
Without that missing clue, they could flounder around for weeks without finding anything.
And yet…
Short of heading back down the mountain, the only option he could see was to check out the region on the other side of the rope bridge. It had been built for a reason and so it seemed the natural course of action to take.
What did they have to lose at this point, anyway?
When he laid out the plan for the others upon their return, they agreed that it made sense.
The bridge it would be.
There was probably just enough daylight left to get the group across the bridge and to find a decent place to camp for the night, so they wasted no time in dragging the bridge back down the tunnel, setting it into place and then using it to get them all over to the other side of the chasm. After that, it was simply a matter of rappelling down to the base of the cliff and heading back down the trail.

* * *

W
HEN THEY REACHED
the cemetery clearing they decided to take a five-minute rest break.
Mason was turning to say something to Annja, clearly intending to try and pull her out of her funk if the smile on his face meant anything, when the sharp report of a rifle echoed through the trees.
Annja watched an expression of confusion cross his face and then they were both looking down at his chest where an angry red flower was rapidly blossoming. Two more shots rang out, both of them striking Mason in the back, and then the light was fading from his eyes as swiftly as his body was tumbling to the ground.
Time seemed to stop for Annja as her combat reflexes took over, her unconscious mind recognizing the ambush for what it was before her conscious mind had gotten over the shock of seeing Mason gunned down in front of her.
She threw herself sideways into Davenport, knocking him to the ground, as the rifle fire was replaced with the chatter of automatic weapons and Williams and Vale were practically torn apart by the fusillade.
The gunfire stopped and silence fell.
Annja heard a voice shout, "Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands over your heads!"
Fat chance of that, Annja thought, as she raised her head off the ground to try to get a look at what they were up against.
More gunfire came their way as a result and Annja crawled behind a nearby boulder. Davenport had already taken cover in the same location. If they crouched very close together, the stone was just big enough to cover both of them.
Bullets whipped through the trees and smacked off nearby rocks.
If they stayed there they were dead. Annja knew it was as simple as that. Some of Ransom's men would pin them down with gunfire while sending others around to flank them on the sides. Eventually, the enemy troops would simply walk up and shoot them both in the heads.
She had to get them moving!
She waited for another lull, then jumped to her feet, dragging Davenport with her.
It was now or never.
"Run!" Annja yelled.
She shoved Davenport ahead of her, forcing him to move, and headed down the left trail, away from Ransom and his thugs.
Gunfire split the air and bullets whined around them like giant prehistoric insects, but thankfully none of them found their marks. The thick trees and the suddenness of their rush for safety protected them in those first few seconds, before the winding nature of the trail took them out of the ambush team's sight.
Annja knew that it wouldn't take them long to come after them, however.
Ahead of her, Davenport stumbled and fell forward, but Annja reached him before he could hit the ground and hauled him back to his feet, practically dragging him after her as she sprinted down the trail.
If they could reach the bridge, she thought, they might have a chance to cross to the other side and then drop it into the gorge behind them, temporarily separating them from Ransom and his men. Hopefully that would give her enough time to figure out a plan to get them out of this alive.
Visions of Mason being cut down by the enemy's gunfire rose in her mind, but she chased them away angrily. You don't have time for that right now, she told herself. Mourn for what might have been later. For now, concentrate on getting the two of you out of this alive.
It was a feat that was going to take all of her concentration.
Both of them were exhausted. They'd been climbing all day, only to face the disappointment that they had overlooked a crucial element. In the midst of that blow to their morale had come the attack. The emotional impact of the sudden ambush was almost as bad as the physical one. Losing Mason was even worse. She didn't realize how much she'd come to rely on his calm leadership and good sense until it was abruptly stripped away from her.
Davenport was her responsibility now and she'd do her best to see to it that he survived. As the bearer of Joan's sword, she could do no less. And the first thing they had to do was increase the distance between them and Ransom.
She realized that she had no idea what had happened to Nambai. She hoped he'd managed to get away from Ransom and his thugs as going back for him was out of the question at this point. None of them would survive if she did.
Their headlong rush down the meager trail continued, brushing aside low-hanging branches, stumbling over rocks partially hidden in the thick undergrowth, their breath pluming out around them in the high mountain air.
Before they knew it, the trees abruptly gave way, leaving them exposed on an open stretch of ground that ended at the lip of the ravine. Annja's innate sense of direction hadn't failed her. The bridge she'd glimpsed on the way up was directly ahead of them.
The two of them plunged ahead.
There was a good twenty yards of open ground between the tree line and the bridge, Annja calculated. The bridge itself was probably a hundred feet in length, so make it two hundred feet total that they had to cross before Ransom's men caught up with them. She knew that if they were caught in the open they were done for. Ransom's goal was to prevent them from getting word about the Khan's tomb out of the country. Once they had, he wouldn't be able to muscle in with a claim. That meant they were better off dead than alive to him. If they were caught here, his men could gun them down with impunity and no one would be the wiser.
They had to get across that bridge!
The few moments it took to cross that open stretch of ground felt like hours to Annja, but then her feet hit the wooden slats holding the bridge together and she had more important things to worry about.
The bridge seemed ancient. Two thick ropes served as railings on either side above the narrow walkway constructed across the ravine. The rope and wood slats that made up the walking surface of the bridge were worn smooth from years of use in some places and missing entirely in others.
The sound of the raging river far below could be heard clearly, a testament to its power and strength.
Annja went first, gripping the rope rail on either side tightly, knowing that if her feet slipped off the slats the railing lines would be the only thing keeping her from a long plunge into the raging river below. Behind her, Davenport struggled along as best he could. He stayed about ten feet back, not wanting to unbalance her with his own shifting weight, as the bridge rocked to and fro with their movement.
The narrow gorge acted as a natural wind tunnel, so that they were buffeted by gusts that shook and moved the bridge beneath their feet. Annja kept her eyes on the far side, trusting her balance, not wanting to be constantly reminded of the sheer drop beneath her.
She was about three-quarters of the way across the bridge when a horse burst out of the trees on the other side. Its rider stood high in the stirrups in the manner Mongolians had ridden for centuries, guiding the horse with his thighs, leaving his hands free for other things.
In this case, one of those other things included pointing an arrow directly at Annja's head.
She froze, astonished by what she was seeing. The man on the horse looked as if he'd just stumbled out of the history books. He wore armor made from cured leather and overlapping metal plates over a thick coat and had a sword hanging from the belt at his waist. Dense boots of leather and felt protected his feet and a helmet complete with a plume of horsehair covered his head.
A small round shield was strapped to his lead arm, ready to be put to use in defense if need be, once he'd loosed the arrow currently in his bow.
His face was relatively broad and flat, with a high forehead. His hair was dark, if the edges peeking out from under his helmet were any indication. She was also close enough to see that his eyes were a deep gray in color, a striking change from the dark brown eyes she'd seen in so many Mongol faces since arriving here.
The rider's gaze met hers.
Very clearly, so that there could be no misunderstanding, he shook his head.
His message was obvious.
You are not welcome here
.
He tucked his head back down and sighted carefully along his bow, lining it up with her so that she could not mistake the warning.
Annja knew just how deadly accurate those bows could be in the right hands. Historically, Mongol children were taught to use them as early as age four, which was also about the time they began to learn how to ride. By the time a warrior reached middle age, he was extraordinarily proficient in both skills.
While she debated what to do about this new arrival, several other riders emerged from the trees behind him. They quickly spread out into a semicircle at his back, marking him as their leader. All of them were armed in a similar fashion, many with bows pointing in her direction, though some suddenly shifted position and aimed at something back in the direction she and Davenport had come.
Annja turned and looked behind her, only to see Ransom and his men emerging from the woods. They spotted the fugitives, and the Mongol cavalry, almost immediately and, in response, fanned out in unconscious imitation of their foes, shouting in defiance and taking a few potshots at Annja and Davenport.
The Mongols took that as an act of aggression and, their leader's signal, let their arrows fly.
Suddenly, Annja and Davenport were caught in the midst of a savage firefight. Bullets and arrows flew back and forth around them and the air was filled with the painful cries of the wounded and the dying. Davenport's hat was knocked off his head by a low-flying arrow and a bullet snatched at Annja's coat, punching a hole right through it when the wind lifted it away from her body.
As if that wasn't enough, a thunderous roar suddenly filled the canyon.
Annja turned to her left just in time to see Ransom's helicopter rise up out of the depths and hover in line with the bridge itself, looming there like some great dragon out of legend. The downdraft of the chopper's massive rotors sent the bridge bounding left to right like a drunken partygoer. Annja was so close that she could see herself reflected in the dark Plexiglas that covered the cockpit. She could just imagine the expression of glee on the copilot's face as the chain gun mounted under the helicopter's nose turned in their direction.