Outlanders 39 Hydra's Ring, page 16
Temporarily blinded by blood and flying brain matter, the man paused to clear his vision. Brigid twisted around and squeezed off a single shot, the bullet snapping his head back and sending blood misting over the people behind him.
Panting, Brigid looked around and saw Lakesh crouched beside the pilothouse, his Colt autopistol held in a two-handed grip. Brigid acknowledged his lifesaving shot by saluting him with the barrel of her own weapon as she shrugged back into her coat.
The field of combat wasn't designed for mutual advantage. There were only winners and losers, the living and the dead. It was the code by which the pirates and Kane and Grant lived, how they had been trained as Magistrates. The pirates and the crew battled without order or plan, massed in a straining, screaming, hacking mob. Swords clashed and clanged with gong-like chimes. The chopping through flesh and bone was like the sound of a very busy butcher's shop.
Bodies slammed into Kane, nearly knocking him off his feet, fetching him up hard against the base of the main mast. He couldn't fire his Sin Eater safely without hitting his allies or non-combatants, so he used it as a bludgeon, clubbing away hands and blades menacing him.
With a semi-musical clang, the barrel of the pistol impacted against a sword blade and knocked it from a man's grip. He snatched it out of the air by the ivory grip and flicked out the blade, the tip dragging across his attacker's throat. The man stumbled back, a hand clapped to side of his neck. A bright arterial jet spurted from between his fingers.
Another pirate loomed up in front of him, and he glimpsed the glint of steel driving toward him. Kane tried to sidestep, but his movements were restricted by the press of bodies and the mast at his back. He felt the dull impact of the sword point as the man stabbed at him, trying for his heart. The tough fabric of his coat resisted the steel tip, and though he was pushed off balance, Kane returned the thrust with his own weapon.
The two-foot-long blade struck the pirate at an upward angle, sliding between his ribs, grating on bone. The man coughed and convulsed in a death spasm, folding over the sword and wrenching it from Kane's hand. He didn't bother trying to withdraw it. Instead he lunged away from the mast.
The pirates, divided into broken groups, were hewn down or driven over the sides. Some closed ranks and fought back with their swords, but they were overwhelmed by the infuriated sailors and an equal number of the passengers converging on them, flailing away with farm implements. Hoes and rakes didn't inflict lethal wounds, but they were most definitely incapacitating.
Shouting in fear and confused anger, their morale broken, the surviving pirates fought their way back to the gunwales and dived overboard. The ones who could struck out swimming for the bank opposite Yichang. Others clambered aboard the sampans. Calmly, Grant picked off a pair of the swimming men, drilling them with a single shot apiece to their backs. They splashed and floundered, then sank amid spreading red stains.
The teenaged girl Kane had noticed earlier stood at the side, emptying a glass hurricane lamp full of clear fluid over the rail. A boy a few years younger than her, followed the fall of liquid by dropping a makeshift torch made of twisted strands of smoldering hemp.
The straw cabin of the sampan went up in a whooshing billow of yellow flame. There were screams and splashes as the men dived for safety into the river. The pandemonium ebbed by degrees. The passengers moved cautiously along the deck, gazing after the pirates as they turned their sampans upriver or crossed over to the opposite bank. When the people realized their attackers were thoroughly routed, they broke into ragged cheers, pumping victorious fists into the air.
Aware of the presence of Brigid, Grant and Kane on the blood-washed deck, the smiling Chinese people milled around them, patting their shoulders, clutching at their hands, speaking loudly and rapidly.
"Old Chien Ho didn't expect this kind of reception," Grant commented, toggling home a fresh magazine in his Sin Eater.
"Speaking of whom," Brigid said, "was he part of the boarding party?"
"No," Sun Fan said from behind them.
They turned to see the captain sagging between Lakesh and Seng Kao. A makeshift bandage had been crammed under his shirt, but blood crawled down his torso and soaked into the waistband of his pants.
Between clenched teeth, Sun Fan said, "Old Ho stayed in the village and watched...he and his men probably took a few elders hostage so nobody would raise an alarm." His slanted eyes considered Kane angrily. "You piled up my ship, damn you."
"To save her, I had to pile her," Kane retorted with a studied nonchalance. "If I hadn't, your ship, the crew, the cargo and the passengers would be in the hands of your old Ho right now."
"You'll understand if I check her over for damage afore I kiss your ass in gratitude." The captain coughed and pink foam flecked his lips.
"You've been hit in a lung," Brigid observed. "You're not checking anything over. We don't appear to be taking on water, so I think you can rest easy."
Lakesh handed Sun Fan over to a sailor. "We need to go ashore and try to get a line on Erica. Seng Kao, will you act as our guide?"
Seng Kao spoke softly, questioningly in Chinese to Sun Fan, and the captain waved him toward the village, coughing again. "Go. Any of you see that old Ho, kill him for me."
"We don't know what that old Ho looks like," Grant remarked.
Seng Kao stated tersely, "I do. His family is from here. I'm very familiar with the Hos."
"We are talking about a man, right?" Kane ventured doubtfully.
The five people retrieved their belongings and hoisted themselves over the rail of the junk, dropping the few feet to the dock. Nearly half of the pier was warped out of shape, knocked out of true, with planks shattered like matchwood and pilings broken off below the waterline. However, the hull of the junk, although deeply scored and scraped, had not caved in at the point of impact.
Looking toward Yichang, they saw people slowly, timidly emerging from houses and peering down toward the riverfront. Men, women, children crept out onto the street and cautiously approached the pier. Dogs began to bark, tremulously at first, then with growing enthusiasm.
The passengers of the ship jumped onto the dock and set up a relay system to pass down possessions, children and bleating goats to the people who had already disembarked. Villagers came out to greet them, studiously ignoring the outlanders.
Once out of the waterfront area and into the village, the Cerberus warriors were surprised by how quickly flies, people, cattle and chickens started clogging the streets in stark contrast to how deserted Yichang had appeared barely half an hour earlier.
Seng Kao stopped a gray-haired man wearing the dark blue tunic and threadbare trousers of a peasant and questioned him. Although he answered the man's questions, he did not make eye contact with the outlanders.
"Like Sun Fan figured," Seng Kao stated, "old Ho came here last night and took the entire village council and their families hostage, threatening to kill them if anybody interfered with his plan."
"Where is he now?" Lakesh asked.
Seng Kao shrugged and gestured vaguely toward the countryside. "He fled. Nobody wanted to pursue him."
Grant scowled. "Why the hell not? Ho could just regroup and try this again."
"They are a poor people here...they have more than their share of worries ...too many to go tracking down a pirate chief who they all fear."
"Don't they have enough men to fight?" Brigid asked.
"Yichang is much like my own village. They have fought against bandits and warlords before and paid for it with dead children, women who were raped and babies whose heads were smashed against trees." The man smiled sadly. "I know you people of the West think that death is better than slavery, but to people like these who have only rice and fish and family, slavery can seem like a luxury."
Kane glanced around uneasily. "What about the smallpox outbreak?"
"Only a few people are ill. They are quarantined in houses at the edge of the village."
Brigid patted the medical kit hanging from her shoulder. "Perhaps we can be of some help."
"Perhaps," Lakesh said uneasily. "But we have our own agenda."
The five people strode into the village, finding it a fermenting cauldron of people, noise, color and stink. The smells of fish, rice and cinnamon, as well as poor sewage drainage, filled the air as the morning brightened. Most of the houses were made of woven bamboo with thatched roofs and the classic upturned eaves of Oriental architecture. There was a small marketplace with food stalls and little apothecary shops. The odor of roasting fish reminded them all of how long it had been since they had last eaten.
Noticing Grant eyeing a steaming dish of vegetables and meat, Kane warned, "I'd be careful about what I choose to eat around here."
"It's been a long time since I've had fish or fowl," Grant retorted.
"Who says that's fish or fowl? Instead of glub-glub or quack-quack it could be bowwow or even meow."
Brigid shot him an irritated glance. "Thinking that way about foreign food is one of the first misconceptions about different cultures, Kane. I thought you knew better by now."
He shrugged negligently. "I don't know, what would have given you that idea."
At the sound of shrill, atonal pipes, mingling with the shiver of reverberating gongs, Seng Kao led them toward a big pagoda that dominated the village square. The ornate structure looked almost absurdly out of place among the humble shacks and huts. Four wide stone steps worn shallow by centuries of worshipers ascended to an open, central hall.
Between the support columns stretched silk tapestries bearing colorful images of votaries in hundreds of prayerful moods—standing with bowed heads before a weeping willow, kneeling, reading scrolls, or sitting in a lotus position. One of the images depicted a man with his eyes concealed by a strip of cloth pulling back on a bowstring, an arrow nocked and ready.
"A Buddhist temple," Brigid said.
"Shaolin, actually," Lakesh replied.
"What's the difference?" Grant asked.
"Buddhism is a relatively new religion to China,"
Lakesh answered. "Over a thousand years ago, during the reign of Emperor Liangwuti, an Indian monk named Bodhidharma came to China to preach Buddhism. After he had been received in audience by the emperor, he went to the Shaolin Temple of Mount Shung and meditated there for nine consecutive years. During his stay in the temple, he taught the monks the special, almost mystical art of making every finger a dagger, each arm a spear and the open hand a sword."
"And shooting arrows while blindfolded?" Kane asked. Lakesh nodded. "Among other things."
From within the temple trudged four saffron-robed, shaved-headed priests. They strode down the steps in single file and moved in a shuffling, almost gliding dance step toward the riverfront area. They walked past the outlanders apparently without seeing them.
The last monk in line paused and regarded them with a grave, over-the-shoulder glance. Middle-aged and medium-sized, he whispered briefly to one of his companions, then approached. He wore round gold-rimmed spectacles over smiling, slanted eyes. Steepling his fingers beneath his chin, he inclined his head in a bow and Lakesh followed suit.
"You are outlanders," he said in surprisingly good English.
"Obviously," Lakesh replied.
"My name is Tai Mi. And you; I understand, are Mohandas Lakesh Singh."
Surprise widened Lakesh's eyes. "You understand that from whom?"
Tai Mi did not answer the question. "You have come to this village at a difficult and dangerous time. Our lives are confused, in turmoil. There is illness and there is fear."
"So we can see," Lakesh replied respectfully. "But we are here with a very definite purpose in mind." "Yes, I know. However—" "Who told you about us?" Kane broke in bluntly. "Word has reached us about all of you. It does not matter how, but—" "It fucking well does matter," Kane interrupted again, a steel edge to his voice. "Tell us."
"Ease up, Kane," Brigid whispered reproachfully. Diplomacy, turning potential enemies into allies against the spreading reign of the overlords, had become the paramount tactic of Cerberus over the past year. Lessons in how to deal with foreign cultures and religions took the place of weapons instruction and other training, but Kane's impatience often led him to forget what he had learned.
Still, over the past three years, Brigid Baptiste, Grant and Kane had tramped through jungles, ruined cities, over mountains, across deserts and they found strange cultures everywhere, often bizarre re-creations of societies that had vanished long before the nukecaust. The village of Yichang was a utopia compared to some places they had visited.
Tai Mi eyed Kane impassively. In soft, gentle tone, the monk said, "I beg your pardon, but you are strangers here and uninvited ones at that. I suggest your search for Tui Chui Jian is, at this point in time, futile."
"So you do know who we're looking for," Kane challenged. "Where is she?"
The monk shook his head. "I cannot help you." "Why not?" Grant demanded harshly.
"Because I can only try to save your lives."
Lakesh frowned. "From what? The smallpox?"
The monk turned his dark eyes toward him and answered wearily, "No, from something far worse... from Wei Qiang. He is on his way, and will be here before the day is out."
Chapter 19
The house to which they were escorted was a long, two-story bungalow situated on the outskirts of the village. It was a peasant's farm, built in the old provincial style with a tiled roof and a walled court. The farm animals ran loose, with grunting pigs, clucking chickens and honking geese chasing one another around the compound. The backyard was heaped with debris.
Beside the gate that opened into the courtyard a little jade image of Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy, stood upon a pedestal. A placard covered with bold Chinese characters was nailed to the wooden slats above it. Brigid and Lakesh gazed at ideographs, their lips moving as they tried to read them.
Kane turned toward Seng Kao. "You know what that says, right?"
Seng Kao nodded. "Yes. It is a warning that smallpox is in this house."
Grant whirled on the monk, face contorted in incredulous anger. "What the hell are you pulling here, Mai Tai?"
"Tai Mi," the man corrected. "And I'm not trying to pull anything but to save your lives."
"By quartering us in a house full of disease?" Kane challenged.
Lakesh chuckled, but it sounded forced. "Can you think of a better place in which to hide?" He cut his eyes over to the monk. "This is a ruse, right?"
Tai Mi smiled slightly and nodded. "Of course. An old woman whose son deserted her lives here, and though she is very advanced in years, she does not suffer from the smallpox."
"What does she have?" Brigid asked, hefting the medical kit. "Perhaps I can be of some help to her."
The monk nodded again. "Perhaps you may." He gestured toward the gate. "Please go in and stay within the walls. I will let it be known throughout the village that you have not been seen."
"We haven't?" Grant inquired skeptically. "How can you be so sure of that, especially if money is offered?"
"Yeah," Kane said in a voice heavy with suspicion. "What if somebody spills their guts the second Wei Qiang shows up?"
"Wei Qiang is a terrible man," the Shaolin priest stated with no inflection in his tone, as if by rote. "But do you think he is the first terrible man who has come this way? Yichang has seen many of them, since ancient times. We have survived while they have perished. You should take some solace in that."
"Will your priesthood resist Wei Qiang?" Brigid asked. Tai Mi sighed. "We are forbidden by our creed to use axe or knife or club."
He turned away. "Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. We will send someone with food and information before much longer."
They watched Tai Mi trudge back toward the village. "What the hell did he mean by taking solace in that?" Grant demanded impatiently.
Brigid smiled wanly. "I interpreted it to mean that Yichang has survived encounters with warlords and conquerors in the past because everyone cooperated with one another and was of one mind to survive."
Grant eyed her bleakly. "That's a nice spin on it. For everybody's sake, I hope your interpretation is the right one."
"Me too," Brigid murmured fervently.
The interior of the house was dusty and musty, full of shadows and cobwebs. It was built with a very open floor plan, basically only one huge room that seemed large enough to accommodate the Cerberus armory. An old kerosene stove sat in a corner, an iron pot of rice still warm there.
A big bed with a gilt-edged headboard dominated one side of the room, and it was draped by a fall of gauzy mosquito netting, hanging from a ceiling hook. A three-paneled dressing screen partitioned a corner. They could barely make out the shape of a woman reclining, half-submerged in a mass of pillows and blankets. A stout middle-aged woman in a high-collared tunic with baggy trousers and black cotton shoes sat on a stool at the right-hand bedside. When the outlanders entered she rose swiftly, bowed and scuttled through the nearest door.
Seng Kao did not answer.
"Well, now, don't be too upset," Kane continued blandly, uncapping a bottle of water. "She's never been what I'd call trustworthy. I wouldn't have been too surprised to find her married to old Chien Ho. She'd make a good Ho."
Seng Kao's shoulders stiffened and even in the dim light, they saw a red flush working its way up his neck.
Wearily, Brigid said, "You don't need to bait him, Kane There are better ways to pass the time."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he inquired sarcastically. "But if we can't find Erica, this has been one hell of a wasted trip. I suppose I can pass the time figuring out a way to get us past Wei Qiang's army so we can return to the vortex point in Xian and go home."
"You're being a bit premature," Lakesh said sternly. "Obviously Erica told Tai Mi to expect us."
"Yeah," Grant grunted. "But why, if she's not around and he's not going to take us to her?"
Lakesh shrugged. "I'm sure both of them have their reasons."
"Yeah," Grant said sourly. "Too bad neither of them are around to explain them."
