‘Aye. One I tried to do it for was Nandi, but I was too late. Too bloody late, again.’
William shook his head and squeezed his temples between his forefinger and thumb, massaging the skin with his rough fingertips. Zakaria walked over to him and clamped a hand on his shoulder, gripping it reassuringly.
‘You did all you could for her, William. You know how she was; she was a lone wolf, well, leopard. We Rebels had been trying to get her into our ranks as an active member for decades, but she had no interest in it. We could have saved her … if she had made that choice for herself.’
‘But she chose herself,’ Njinga interjected, ‘instead of community. And in the end, that choice was her undoing.’
‘It was,’ Zakaria continued, ‘and it shall be for any others of our kind who try to resist the terrible might and power of the Huntsmen and the Alliance on their own. We all know this.’
A sadness was heavy in William’s eyes as he looked up at Zakaria, wearing the expression of a child recently bereaved of his parents.
‘Aye,’ he murmured in a voice that barely cleared a whisper. ‘Aye, such is the truth of the matter. No one of us can stand alone against such a depth of evil, such a vastness of hate.’
Zakaria gripped William’s forearm and squeezed it with his powerful fingers.
‘That is why you need to return to us. The time is ripe, William, the time is ripe for what I have wanted to do, what we Rebels have needed to do for a long, long time now. And we need you to help us do it.’
William nodded.
‘I’ve been feeling the same, brother. I’ve been wandering like a lost soul for years now, for far too long, without the brotherhood and support of my kind … of our kind.’
A fire burned in Zakaria’s eyes, and a grin of quiet triumph spread across his face.
‘Yes! Yes, William, yes! Finally, we are ready to make a counterattack, a precision strike against our enemies. A last stand!’
‘Tell me the specifics of this mission.’
‘I know that when I give you the answer to that question, you will want to lead the charge yourself.’
‘Sigurd? The Ice Bear?’
‘Indeed. Your nemesis, the leader of the Alliance himself! Yes, we have been planning a major strike against him, at his headquarters.’
William nodded and clasped his hands together.
‘Bold, audacious … and extremely risky. There can be no other way though, I suppose.’
‘Damn straight,’ Njinga said. ‘To ensure that we kill the snake we gotta cut its head off, an’ the body will soon follow in death. Anyway, we picked up a lead that’ll take us directly to the Ice Bear’s headquarters. They’re in—’
‘Bangkok yeah?’
Njinga raised both eyebrows with surprise
‘How did you know?’
‘Hernández’s phone got a call from Bangkok. My own prior research indicated that the Ice Bear was most likely in Thailand, and that call confirmed it for me.’
It was at that moment that William remembered Ricky again, and a debilitating depth of pain billowed inside him like the collapse of subterranean caverns in on themselves. Swallowing the agony, he clenched his fist and bit into the foremost knuckle, turning to gaze out of the window so that his friends would not see the tears welling at the corners of his eyes. Zakaria seemed not to notice William’s silent grief, however; the big man simply nodded, his face grim.
‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘We have known their exact location for some time. Indeed, we have a mole working on the inside for us, and another mortal we have recruited. Our intelligence has confirmed that the time and date of our battle will be perfect for striking a mighty blow: a number of members of the Huntsmen Board of Directors will be there too. We will kill them as well … as many as we can.’
Flashbacks of battles, fights and violent death came crashing to the fore of William’s consciousness. His mouth became uncomfortably dry, and he shifted in his seat, his recent wounds and injuries now pounding a throbbing agony through his bones. A chill swept with sudden violence through his body, and he licked at his dry, cracked lips.
‘It is … unfortunate,’ he whispered, ‘that we have to use violence ourselves, my friends.’
Zakaria’s heavy jaw tightened and he turned, folded his thick arms across his barrel chest and drew in a deep breath, flaring his nostrils.
‘Believe me, it grieves me as much as it does you. Yes, I was a warrior before I became a monk, but had I also renounced my martial skills when I renounced my lands and title, my brothers and I would never have founded our Order, and I would likely have died in some quiet monastery in Alwa or Ethiopia nine hundred years ago, having made little difference in the world. As it has stood, my sword has been put to use over the centuries in fighting those who would crush the weak beneath their heels, and my shield in defending the meek and helpless from all manner of tyrants and warlords.’
‘Saint Francis of Assisi made as much difference as any of us have without swinging a sword. And so have many other figures. Ghandi, Mahavira, Tolstoy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dr Martin Luther King—’
‘They were not up against a force as dark and terrible as the Huntsmen.’
‘Many of them were up against the Huntsmen, Zakaria,’ William countered. ‘They just didn’t know it.’
‘And had they known the full extent of the Huntsmen’s depravity, ruthlessness and cruelty do you think they would have remained pacifists? Could anyone who uncovers the secrets of the Huntsmen, and who realises just how insidious and far-reaching their influence is, and the ultimate endgame they wish to achieve … could anyone who understands this simply be content with singing songs and chanting slogans at them? While the Huntsmen commit genocide against an entire race of beings and prepare to turn the vast majority of humanity into
