Struggle: The Path to Power - Владимир Андерсон

The warriors looked at what they had written and almost simultaneously shook their heads affirmatively. It seemed that they had agreed on something small. It was becoming something important, and now it was time to see if anything had changed inside the scroll.

And at that moment, one of the warriors turned to her and looked her straight in the eye. It seemed impossible to her. No one had seen her and could not see her now. She felt completely like a ghost. But he was definitely looking into her eyes now.

— Only together will you be able to understand its mystery. — said the warrior, and his eyes reflected the inscription on the scroll of the single word "Mary".

***

Misha woke up to someone shaking him from side to side. He had just dreamed that he was pounding a column of chums with a large-caliber machine gun, and the pieces of his enemies were flying from side to side, but now Natasha's green eyes were in front of him.

— What the hell happened?! — Misha wiped his eyes in bewilderment. — I had everything going according to plan…..

— Maria!

— Maria what? The Virgin Mary? I'm not Catholic.

— Yes, Mish! I'm saying, I think I might know how to break the spell of the Black Stone!

— What? — Misha was surprised. — What's in it for us?

Right now, it was really hard to see how the Black Stone's enchantments helped the plagues or hindered the humans. When the plagues first attacked, their sacred artifact had opened the gates and silenced all earthly technology, which allowed the plagues to win. But now that people are already slaves, portals don't need to be opened, and there is almost no equipment at all, there is no special use or harm from the Black Stone either.

— I don't know! — Natasha cried out. — I see this dream. And I see that it's very important! Very important! I can't explain it, I just feel it. I feel that it's very important. That it has to be done. I don't know why!

— All right, all right. Okay. What do we do?

— Maria. We have to find Maria. He said that with her, we could find the answer. Understand the secret of the Black Stone. Mischa, we can be free then.

— Yeah, yeah, okay. — Misha got out of bed and stretched. — Good. We'll find Maria… The Black Stone will fade and the plagues will evaporate… I'm all for it.

— Trust me!

— Honey, I believe you like I believe myself… I just had a dream that I shot up a convoy of enemies with an assault rifle… How nice. Where would I get a PPG? That'd be a great way to go.

Natasha waved her hands despondently, lay back on her back and leaned her hand on her forehead, thinking: "There must be something… There must…

— I'm going for a walk. — said Misha and left the house.

It was still very early, and it was still dark. But the freshness that hung around me was invigorating, and I had the strength to walk around. Someday we will be able to walk like that, as much as we want and wherever we want. And we won't think that a shell will come from somewhere, or they will suddenly raise the alarm. It may not be soon, but that time will definitely come.

When he reached the end of the street, Misha turned the corner and walked perpendicular to it. If you walk like that, you'll come across the headquarters in a couple of minutes. At the same time, you can check how the guys' shift is going on there. It should be quiet, but with sentries walking along the perimeter.

It turned out to be quite noisy. Several people ran out of the headquarters and ran somewhere in the direction of the brig, and near the entrance to the headquarters instead of two sentries there were a dozen and several armored Tiger trucks on the sides of the road.

Misha ran up to the nearest of the sentries: "What is it? The command 'Assemble'? An alarm?"

— Negative, Comrade Captain.

— Amplification?

— I don't know, Comrade Captain. The order is to keep no one in.

At that moment Viktor Khmelnitsky came out of the headquarters. The chevron of a penalty officer (a white skull in a beret) looked on his uniform not as an encumbrance, but as a badge of honor. Having noticed Zhivenko, he passed through the cordon of sentries and greeted Misha by the hand.

— Well, good morning Misha… The traitor has been taken.

Misha stood as if stumped, waiting for it to continue.

— Raniere.

— The Raniers? — I couldn't believe my ears. That bastard was always minding his own business. And there was no better candidate for the role. But really… A bastard is one thing, but a traitor is quite another. And he's too negative a character, like in a Shakespeare play. It's too much of a wishful thinking.

— Yeah. We got him… And we're very lucky that in the decimation of the penalty pool, we didn't get him… Otherwise, we'd have gotten screwed for that.

Misha's mood, which had been a little high since morning, had fallen to zero. He hated Ranierov, and several times wished he could smash his face in. But to see him as someone who would essentially serve the plagues. No. That's something else entirely. It can't just be taken for granted. He has to see for himself.

Prefect

Life at the mine became so efficient that people could not only rest for the time they needed, but also prepare for something more. Tikhomirov organized training shootings and tactical exercises on short-range maneuvers in one of the worked-out sectors of the face. The shooting was mostly "silenced", that is, with empty magazines, and live ammunition was spent about 1 in 20 silenced shots.

On this day the prefect was, as usual, at his place. He had received a letter