Marius considered his haul from the scrapyard – the spotlights and sensors from the crashed fire truck, the power amplifier from the media truck and the loose sheet steel that he had mentally earmarked to repair and cover the 7.62mm holes from the AK fire. Checking the limited toolkit they had with the van, and the uncertain road ahead, he realised that the team was far better using the facilities here to install the parts, than trying to do it on the road. It would take less time, be far easier, and the results would be better quality. Eeymal seemed more than happy for them to use his facilities, and they set to, installing the new equipment, and managing to patch up the worst of the holes in the vehicle. This took them until around lunchtime, so of course Eeymal and his wife insisted they stay for lunch before they finally got on the road around 2pm.
As they left the shelter of the garage, they got hit with the strong westerly winds again, feeling the bite of the cold mountain air through their clothing, and cranking up the truck's heater to compensate. Fortunately, the truck was designed with the harsh northern Russian winters in mind, and they were soon cosy, well fed and comfortable – and back on the road to Bostan Abad. Their heavy dut handled the road well, the wide wheel base cutting through fresh snow in places, and the deep treads combined with their weight crushing through the ice and slush to give them solid traction – more than could be said for the few cars they saw. Most of these were being driven at what was quite clearly an unsafe speed, and they saw a number of cars failing to take bends in the roads, departing at speed and ending up in snow drifts and banks. They trundled onwards, slow and steady, their 6.8l diesel engine throwing out black smoke behind them as they chewed up the distance to their destination.
After a short while on the road, they came across the village of Seyah Nab, about one hundred houses scattered on either side of the main road, following the gentle slope up to the hills on either side. The crisp, clear air gave them chance to study the settlement, and to spot the fallow fields, covered in undisturbed snow, surrounding the village. The houses were mostly single storey, densely packed with no gardens or greenery present, arrayed tightly to the twisting and turning roads that spread off the main highway. On their way out of the village, they spotted a fuel station, and noted down the price for diesel – 90,000 per litre. Racking their brains, they realised that they hadn't made a note of the fuel price previously, so they had nothing to compare it to. Not wanting to pay over the odds, they moved on for the moment, continuing their journey south.
Just over a kilometre further on, they came across another village - Gogarchin, which also seemed to have about a hundred houses, along with more fields on either side of highway, laid out in the same manner as Seyah Nab – this seemed to be the standard building practice, and made their first encounter at Raazi seem unusual – nowhere else had they seen the trees, gardens and cultivation that had been present there. There was no fuel station here, so they pushed on further.
About three kilometres further on, they came across another village - Abriz, which sprawled on the left side of road, again seeming to be about a hundred houses in a densely-packed sprawl, but with fields on the right side of the highway. A slight increase in elevation now bought the river into view, winding along the base of the hill to the right of them – presumably this was what made this particular stretch of country fertile and able to support crops, bringing down silt and nutrients with every flood from the hills and mountains. At the moment the river was swollen and fast-moving, the water quite clearly brown and full of froth as the snow and sleet of the previous night added to its' volume.
As they closed on Bostan Abad, Hunter was looking at the maps, seeing if they could skirt the town, avoiding as much attention as they could. They saw a turnoff to the east, which they were tempted to take, but at the last moment Aswon spotted a sign, which with his limited knowledge of Faarsi said "Private Camp". They backtracked a little, looking for another way, but again found that the road to the mountains up to the east had another sign, this one with a faded flag symbol and "Mountain Camp" sign. Unsure of what this meant, but unwilling to risk it, they stuck to the main road and drove into Bostan Abad, turning west and crossing the narrow stone bridge over the raging river, into the outskirts. They quickly found another fuel station, this time charging 95,000 per litre of fuel, so they pushed on again. Bostan appeared to have a population somewhere in the two and a half to three and a half thousand range, had a small bazaar in the centre of town, and a variety of shops and services. Again though, the town was a ribbon development, hugging the main roads, and rarely being more than a hundred metres wide. They made the intersection with route thirty-two and turned south-east, without incident and with no attention from the local police force. At the southern edge of town they found another fuel station – this time selling at 89,000 per litre. Marius slewed the truck in, and they added a hundred litres of fuel to the tank, replacing just about everything used between their last fuel stop at Lankaran, back in Azerbaijan.
As they were filling up and grabbing a few snacks, Marius noticed something odd – despite most of their phones being off for a large portion of the time, they were nearly all on half charge. Sure, the cold would chew through their batteries a little, but there was no way they should be dropping charge like this. They had a discussion, throwing ideas around – maybe it was because they had Azerbaijani SIM cards? Not really coming up with anything definite, they decided to physically remove the batteries from the phones to ensure that they weren't chewing power when they weren't supposed to be, loaded back into the truck and headed out. South of the town, the highway swept along the valley floor between the two ranges of hills, or mountains – it was hard to tell from here. The road was equally covered with the compacted snow and ice from yesterday's fall, and much like route sixteen, there were an equal number of bad drivers, idiots and people who thought that having an expensive car, or four wheel drive somehow made them an expert driver. Marius trundled along at a steady speed, ignoring the traffic when it built up behind them, sighing when a wider part of the road let the traffic power past him, fishtailing wildly or throwing up slush from their wheels in a wide arc, and smiling when someone lost it as they tried a risky manoeuvre to get past him and spun out onto the verge.
The road dropped very slightly as they pushed onwards, but the terrain remained fairly constant – a few fields on the low slopes on either side of the road, giving way to barren land on the higher slopes. As the daylight faded, Tadibya gathered her robes around her and concentrated, calling to the spirits of the mountains. Still suffering from the lingering effects of altitude sickness, she looked even more stunned after the summoning, but announced with satisfaction that the local spirits were now protecting and guarding the vehicle. Taking a few painkillers and some water, she settled back to rest, trying to get rid of the throbbing headache the summoning had given her.
Night fell rapidly as the sun disappeared behind the mountains to the west, and they pushed on through the slush, now taking even more care as the idiotic drivers continued to drive with scant regard for the conditions around them – though this became less and less of an issue quite rapidly, as the traffic eased off a great deal. It appeared that few people travelled after dark, if they could help it. Hunter checked the maps, and selected a place where they could pull off to rest, just a short way ahead.
Aswon was the first to notice the sets of headlights behind them – closing fast on their position. He pointed them out to the rest of the team, and then studied them carefully, watching them in the rear view mirror, his intense body control letting him slit his irises to filter out some of the glare from the headlights. What he saw worried him – four SUV type vehicles, all in the same shade of dark blue. No markings, no decals… but it seemed likely that they were police – or something worse – with them being identical.
Tadibya took a deep breath, and let her spirit divorce her body, floating out the back of their vehicle, and towards the pursuit vehicles. She tried to synchronise her spirit with that of the vehicles, latching onto them so she could peer inside from astral space – but she was unable to adapt quickly enough, leaving her astral form on the road behind them as they sped past. She accelerated for a split second at the speed of thought, then waited for them to catch up with her and tried again – still no good. Giving it up as a bad job, she headed back to their vehicle, and tried to rejoin her body – and found the same issue. It took her three more attempts to rejoin body and soul, and she realised that this was a risky manoeuver to perform until she was a little more skilled. Finally getting back to her body, she announced that she hadn't been able to gain any knowledge of the pursuers. The four vehicles continued to close, now being less than fifty metres from the truck. With a surge of power, they accelerated hard, and moved around the truck, one pulling ahead, two to the side and one to the rear, and the team saw the windows start to wind down, revealing the barrels of several rifles amongst the passengers.
Marius acted instantly, his hind-brain analysing positions, the road surface, speed, vehicle weights and then throwing the truck hard to the left with a suddenness that surprised the pursuit vehicles. He clipped the back end of the front vehicle by his left side, performing a perfect PIT manoeuver. The SUV spun out of control, doing three full revolutions at speed and bouncing over the central reservation into the opposite lane, ending up facing north with the occupants completely disoriented. The second vehicle to their side got rammed broadside, his vehicle being bashed sideways hard by the much heavier truck, and forced to go wide, throwing off the aim of the assailants there, who fired off long burst of fire into the air.
Aswon stuck the barrel of his rifle out through the firing port, took careful aim and then fired a single shot at the trail car, hitting in the corner of the windscreen on the driver's side. His high power rifle starred the screen massively, making it almost impossible to see through. Shimazu aimed his pistol with equal care at the front vehicle, firing off a single round straight into the front tyre – but was disappointed when apparently nothing happened. He scored a good hit, he was sure! A moment later, the tell-tale signs of escaping foam revealed that at least one of the vehicles had run-flat tyres.
Hunter moved through the vehicle towards the back doors, thinking he could throw them open to spray the trail vehicle with some autofire, but ducked and threw himself into cover as someone from the rear vehicle opened up, and managed a lucky hit – his weapon punched holes through the back of the truck in a rising line, and lead started to bounce around inside. Another line of fire stitched the chassis to one side, and the truck gave a lurch as something was hit. Marius winced in pain, "feeling" the hit on his mechanical body, and a few drops of sweat dripped from his hairline as he felt the damage mounting – past the level of the redundancies and battle compensators ability to deal with. He activated the speakers and shouted "hang on, hard turn", and then slammed on the brakes and threw the vehicle around in a punishing turn.
Warned by his shout, the team hung on as best they could and concentrated on the bad guys. Another shot slammed out from Aswon's rifle, taking out the gunman in the front seat of the chase car. Tadibya concentrated, hard, and threw everything she had into a spell. For a moment, her face became furry, her eyes enlarged, and vestigial antlers appeared around her head as her Shamanic mask manifested in reaction to her tapping into the manasphere. A moment later she grunted and winced in pain… and the truck vanished to the outside world. A powerful invisibility spell bent the world around them, obscuring the truck from view. With the power poured into it, their assailants had no chance of seeing through the illusion. Marius killed his acceleration and let the engine idle, pulling them away from the spot quietly and cautiously. Between the spell and the careful driving the attackers were robbed of both sight and sound, and they quickly gave up the hunt, and started to recover their vehicles – and dead.
The team drove cautiously to the south, glad to have escaped with no injury to themselves. Unnoticed by the rest, Marius gritted his teeth as he examined the truck, and realised that all of the repair work he'd done had now been compromised, and he needed to make another set of repairs to his vehicle.