The Emperor's Tomb

His insides boiled like lava.

This man had been nothing but trouble on every occasion. Now Cassiopeia was dead, thanks to him.

“Aren’t you a tough guy with a spear?” he taunted.

Viktor tossed him the weapon, then grabbed another.

CASSIOPEIA HEARD THE FIGHT. SHE NEEDED TO POSITION HERSELF to help. That meant taking out the man she was creeping toward, whose attention was on the melee. She passed wall mirrors and a pair of cabinets displaying bronze, jade, and porcelain treasures. The morning sun filtered in through mussel-shell panes dotting the gallery’s length. She held the knife, but another option formed in her brain. To her right, displayed in a wall niche, were a dozen or so figurines. Human bodies with animal heads, arms folded across their chests. Maybe thirty centimeters high. She stepped close, stuffed the knife in her pocket, and grabbed one.

A dog-faced piece, heavy, with a thick rounded base.

Perfect.

She headed straight for her target.

One swing to the base of the neck and the man crumpled to the marble. As he fell, she relieved him of the crossbow. He’d have a headache later, but that was better than being dead.

She glanced down.

Viktor and Cotton faced each other in the center of the hall, each holding a lance. Ni still had the sword to Pau’s neck. No one seemed to have noticed what had happened one floor up. She stared across at the remainder of the first-floor arches and spotted no one.

She was alone, armed, ready.

TANG HAD INSTRUCTED ONE BROTHER TO POSITION HIMSELF in the upper first-floor gallery, crossbow ready. He should be stationed to his left, about halfway down toward the main entrance. Two other brothers waited to his right, within the ground-floor gallery, out of Ni’s sight.

As the fight continued in the center of the hall, he casually glanced right and caught sight of the two brothers.

A gentle shake of his head signaled, Not yet.

But soon.

MALONE KEPT HIS EYES LOCKED ON VIKTOR.

Pupils that smoldered like black embers stared back, and an ugly scowl twisted the face.

“Do you know how many times I could have let you die?” Viktor asked.

He wasn’t listening. Memories washed over him in sickening waves. All he could see was Cassiopeia being waterboarded, her body dropping into the river, Viktor taunting him on the video, appearing on the rocks, to blame for it all.

He lunged.

Viktor countered, deflecting the jab, sliding his lance across Malone’s, angling downward, then twisting back.

Malone held tight and deflected the maneuver.

Viktor’s brow was covered in sweat. Malone, too, was warm from the fires burning less than thirty feet away. He decided the braziers might present an opportunity, so he cowered back, dueling with Viktor, drawing his opponent closer. Each hearth stood on three-legged iron stands, elevated about four feet off the floor.

Just unstable enough for his purposes.

Viktor kept coming, following Malone’s lead.

NI PRESSED THE EDGE OF THE BLADE INTO PAU’S NECK. THE OLD man was not resisting, but the two brothers, though unarmed, worried Ni.

He kept his attention on them.

“You can both learn something from their courage,” Pau said.

Tang seemed to resent the jab. “I didn’t know that I lacked courage.”

“Did I tell you to kill Jin Zhao?” Pau asked. “He was a brilliant geochemist. A husband and grandfather. Harmless. Yet you arrested and beat him into a coma. Then you had him falsely convicted and shot while he lay unconscious in his hospital bed. Does that exhibit courage?”

Tang’s shock at the rebuke was obvious.

“When you trapped rats on Sokolov’s stomach and watched his agony, was that courage? When you destroyed Qin Shi’s library, how much courage did that require?”

“I have done nothing but faithfully serve you,” Tang declared.

“Did I tell you to burn that museum to the ground in Antwerp? One of our brothers died in that fire.” Tang said nothing.

“And you, Minister Ni,” Pau said. “How much courage is required to slit an old man’s neck?”

“Not much, so it should be an easy matter for me.”

“You sell yourself short,” Pau said. “In my home you faced the challenge of those killers. It is similar to what we are watching here, as two men confront each other. Both came here totally unaware of what awaited them. Yet they came. That is courage.”

CASSIOPEIA COULD SEE THAT COTTON WAS DRAWING VIKTOR toward the brazier. She debated whether to intervene, but she commanded only one arrow. The robed man unconscious on the floor beside her carried no more.

Revealing her presence now would be counterproductive.

She had one shot, so it had to count.

MALONE KNEW HE WAS CLOSE TO THE HEAT. HE COULD HEAR snapping coals behind him as he fended off another thrust from Viktor’s lance.

He needed a moment, so he swept his spear around in a wide arc, which forced Viktor to grab the shaft with two hands, countering, blocking the blow. In the moment when Viktor readjusted his grip and prepared a strike of his own, Malone slammed his right foot into the iron stand, toppling the copper vessel.