Casca 18: The Cursed Read online

  The rumble of iron wheels on cobblestones alerted Casca that Deng had brought his two wheeled cart to the door, and he watched as the family carried out the sack wrapped dismembered body and stowed the individual bundles under the grass and manure where he himself had hidden the previous day.

  They carried out the task in full view of the people passing in the street. Much smarter than waiting for darkness, Casca thought.

  But what was he to do with himself, and the horse?

  CHAPTER NINE

  "Where will you bury the body?" Casca asked Deng.

  “Bury?"

  "Well, what are you going to do with it?"

  "Why, just dispose of it like any other garbage, of course."

  "Of course. But where?"

  "Anywhere. Here. There. What difference?"

  "You mean you're just going to throw the bits about the countryside?"

  Deng's puzzlement showed in his face. "What else?" "Well, isn't that unhygienic?"

  "Hygienic?"

  The hell with it, Casca thought. What the hell do I care what they do with the bits. Aloud he said: "And the horse?"

  Again Casca saw the look of bewilderment at his questions, which, for Deng, were not questions.

  "Horses are to ride."

  Goddammit, the old bastard's right.

  As the idea registered Casca was already on his way. In a moment he was out in the street untying the horse's reins and vaulting into the saddle.

  He paused just long enough to take the face guard from the pommel and put it on. Then he dug his heels into the horse's flanks. "Let's go, let's go. C'mon horse, we're getting out of here."

  The horse reared slightly, then took off at a fast canter that carried Casca to the village gates before he had time to think more about it.

  The startled gate guards made as if to run into the road. To leave the village any faster than a walk was a serious, punishable offense. Two more heavily armed men, whom Casca took to be part of the warlord's force, looked on amused.

  One of the guards was moving, arm upraised, into the direct path of the horse, when some survival instinct alerted him that this horse and rider were not going to stop for anything.

  He stopped stock still where he was, and as Casca thundered by, he used his upraised arm to salute.

  "Who was that?" his startled comrade asked.

  "You want to know, you run after him," was the reply, and the two guards tacitly agreed to forget about the masked rider. So one of the warlord's men had left the village. So what? The sooner they all left, the better.

  But Casca heard one of the other armed men laugh and shout to his comrade: "Hu Wei's in a hurry as usual."

  Half a mile or so beyond the gates Casca slowed his mount to a comfortable canter.

  The animal loped along with Casca enjoying the ride immensely. All around him the countryside unfolded. The road ran through groves of cypresses and teak trees. In what Europeans called the thirteenth century the great Kublai Khan, whose empire extended from the islands of the China Sea to Poland, had decreed that roads be planted with trees to provide shade in summer and covered with road markers for the benefit of travelers when the ground might be blanketed with snow. His edict had been followed ever since, for the astrologers told that those who plant trees are rewarded with long life.

  Small green fields were intersected by shallow irrigation ditches. Peasants in blue smocks and cone shaped hats were at work with draft animals. Low, steep mountains broke the sky in the near distance.

  This was the road along which Casca had traveled from the river port of Tsungkow.

  "Sure beats the cowshit express." He laughed heartily.

  A new plan was formulating in his mind as he rode the long slope to a crest in the road. He would ride all the way to Tsungkow, where he would contact the Irish missionary priest who was the British consul's local intelligence agent. He would send a dispatch to Hong Kong that the situation had deteriorated drastically, that the village of Shou Chang had been occupied by the warlord Zhang Jintao, and the people were hacking each other to pieces over involvement with foreign devils, and that he had barely escaped with his life by killing one of the warlord's men and fleeing on his horse.

  The consul would readily believe this behavior of the Chinese and would accept Casca’s assessment that all foreigners were now in grave danger and that all hell was about to break loose.

  In Tsungkow he would sell the horse and saddle and Hu Wei's weapons and take a river boat to Chaochow to make his way eventually to Hong Kong.

  And to hell with secrecy. The intelligence mission was over. Once in Tsungkow he would abandon all pretense and declare himself a British soldier and so claim the protection provided by the treaties. He would travel in luxury to Hong Kong, charging the queen of England with the expense, and the emperor of China with his protection.

  What he got for the horse and arms and what he still had in his pouch would nicely complement his sergeant's pay. And if the consul wanted to retrieve what he had cached at Ju Liqun's house, well, Casca would be happy to lead an armed force to the village of Shou Chang to recover it.

  There was going to be great strife between the village and Zhang Jintao over the disappearance of his tax collector, surely a sufficient uproar to satisfy the consul's predictions of dire troubles. And the appearance in the village of a British army force might well set off enough fireworks to ignite the whole countryside and get the consul the attention from Whitehall that he so earnestly craved.

  Yes, Casca thought, it should all work out pretty nicely for me.

  The thought was still running through his mind when he suddenly found himself flying through the air over the horse's head.

  And when he came to alongside the horse, still struggling to rise on a broken leg, his last thought rolled through his mind again. But somehow this time it didn't seem to fit quite so neatly. There were all sorts of jagged edges to the idea, like the splintered pieces of bone he could now see showing through the flesh of his horse's leg.

  And there seemed to be altogether too much noise.

  Gradually the focus of Casca's mind cleared and he recalled the horse stumbling on the rutted roadway. Then he realized that he was not alone. Not at all alone, he discovered with a start as he recognized the noise as men's voices and the stamping of hooves, and saw the many horses' legs around where he lay in the road.

  His horse snorted violently, then lay still, and Casca realized that one of the riders who surrounded him had driven a lance through its heart.

  A painful throb started up in his head, and another in his left wrist. Through the pain, the voices that he could hear started to become clear.

  His eyes roved over the horses and riders before him. They were almost identical with the imperial knights who had greeted him at the Jade Gate on his first visit to China in the time of the Roman Emperor Nero.

  The horses' heads and necks were protected by padded silk. Gilded rivet heads told Casca that the silk was lined with interlocking metal plates. The saddle flaps, great disks of studded leather, protected the flanks, and a padded silk crupper covered the hind parts. The bridles were of leather, ornamented and protected with numerous tiny lacquered metal shields. The riders' gloves were of the same material, three shields to each finger, a dozen or so on the back of the hand, and more on the cuffs, which extended up the arms over the sleeves of armored shirts.

  One rider was covered from neck to ankle in gold brocade embroidered in green and edged with black velvet. Hundreds of gilt rivet heads studded the brocade, securing the metal lining plates, and there were shoulder pieces in the shape of gilded dragons. His iron helmet was decorated with raised scrolls of gold, set with ruby, turquoise, and pink coral. Casca recalled that this indicated that he was an imperial baron, an official of the second class.

  No mean thing to be a baron, even second class, thought Casca, who had once been one. There were only twelve thousand of them in all of China.

  A long lance rested in a
leather socket, beside it a round shield of studded leather, and a huge bow, the back of which was of horn, the ends bound in sharkskin. Casca remembered these bows, much larger than anything ever used in Europe, with an immensely heavy pull, extraordinary considering the small size of the archers. The quiver held many arrows, most of them about three feet long with heavy iron heads.

  There was only one modern touch – the gun that hung in a holster alongside the lance. The gun barrel was about five feet long, but it ended in a pistol grip that would surely need two hands to hold. The end of the barrel was exposed, and there seemed to be no sight, but Casca could see that it was inlaid with flowers in gold and silver for its entire length.

  A weapon or an ornament? he wondered.

  "You're sure he's one of Zhang ]intao's extortioners?"

  "The worst of them, Baron Ying. His size is unmistakable, and we have many reports of that fiendish mask and that huge body in action. He's a foul animal. Not Chinese, thank the gods."

  "What is he then?"

  "Don't know. I've never seen his face. Some who have say he's Korean."

  "Well, let's have a look."

  There was a creaking of leather as one of the riders dismounted and the mask was jerked down from Casca's face.

  "Blue eyes! Does Zhang have a British devil for his tax collector?"

  Casca looked around him. He tried to rise, but when he put his weight on his hands immense pain shot through his left wrist, taking his breath away.

  He struggled to his feet. What the hell to say? "Greetings, noble baron," he said to the man he took to be the leader.

  "Silence dog," the leader snapped. He motioned to the man standing beside Casca. He went to his horse and returned with a long leather whip.

  Fire seared through Casca's neck as the thong wound around it. He grabbed the thong and tugged, yanking the man off balance and pulling him toward him. With his good hand he clubbed him on the neck, knocking him to the ground. He drew his sword and backed away.

  One man on foot, four men on horseback. Not good odds, but the only odds going.

  With his left hand Casca tried to unbuckle Hu's heavy sword belt. If he could get his Webley in his hand he could adjust the odds a little more favorably. It might be small and the barrel lack ornament, but he would back it against the baron's giant pistol.

  But his injured left hand made no impression on the heavy buckle.

  The leader looked at him in some amusement. "The dog has some spirit, anyway." He drew his lance and pointed it at Casca's chest. The other three riders drew their weapons and moved their horses to surround him, while the man he had felled got to his feet and faced him, sword in hand.

  "Put down your sword," the leader said. "You are our prisoner."

  "I prefer to die here," Casca answered, and slashed at the man on foot, who parried the blow skillfully and lunged at Caca. The mounted men looked on as they fought.

  "But we are not going to kill you." The leader spoke easily. "We have need of what you can tell us, and you are going to tell us."

  Torture had never been a strong point with Casca. He hated to have to suffer it, didn't even care to inflict it. Better to die on the sword.

  But then he felt the jab of a lance at his back, not quite heavy enough to pierce his leather armor.

  He swung to face the horseman just in time to parry another thrust of the lance.

  From behind a sword struck him on the shoulder, and again his armor saved him a cut. But the next lance thrust from behind found a gap in the leather scales over his shoulder blade and he felt a spasm of pain shoot through his right arm, almost enough to make him drop the sword.

  He swung the heavy sword in a furious arc and drove back all of his attackers. He continued to swing the weapon in a figure eight, turning all the time so that none of the attackers came close.

  Indeed they didn't try. They watched in amusement and waited for him to tire.

  It wouldn't be too long, Casca realized as he felt warm blood oozing from his wounded back. He leaped at the man on foot, aiming a downswing of the blade at his head.

  But the man retreated, then riposted skillfully, forcing Casca to yield ground to back into another lance and collect a wound in the buttock. He started forward only to be met by the skillful swordsman and be driven back onto the lance again.

  Then another lance pinked him in the arm and the sword fell from his grasp. Before he could reach for it the swordsman was standing over it.

  In furious humiliation Casca drew Hu's knife and charged at the baron, intent on dragging him from his horse and killing him or being killed in the attempt.

  But the swinging shaft of another rider's lance caught him in the throat and stopped him in mid rush.

  He opened his hand so that the knife lay on his palm and swung overarm to hurl the knife at the baron's throat. But his wounds sent a spasm through the arm as he threw, and the knife went wild.

  He stood glowering, four lances and a sword pointed at him.

  The hell with it. He wasn't about to run onto a lance. He didn't intend to suffer an agonizing death from which he knew he would come back to life.

  He sat on the ground and went back to trying to unbuckle Hu's sword belt so that he could get at his pistol. "Well," the one who had identified him, said, "you're made of better material than your reputation would suggest. I understood your specialty to be fighting women and old men."

  "I am not who you think I am."

  "Then get up," the baron said, "and we will learn who you are."

  Casca seethed. He cursed the Nazarene, whose curse deprived him of the dignity of an honorable death.

  "Which way?" he spat from his position on the ground.

  The baron gestured with his lance. "To Shou Chang, where I believe we will find your master Zhang Jintao and his horde."

  "I do not know this Zhang," Casca said, "but I doubt that five men can defeat his forces."

  The baron smiled and socketed his lance. He waved his arm and pointed toward Shou Chang. Casca heard the movement of many men, and a small army appeared on the road at the crest of the hill where they had been resting amongst the trees that fringed the road.

  "Get up, dog," the leader repeated, "we have need of your information."

  Well, he wasn't finished yet.

  The whip that had been wound around his neck now lay on the ground beside him. He snatched it up and came to his feet, flailing it about, taking out the swordsman's eye, and lashing the mounted horses so that they bolted away with their riders struggling to control them.

  He leaped into the, one empty saddle and hammered his heels into the horse's flanks, racing down the road past two of the riders who were just succeeding in bringing their mounts under control.

  The flailing whip caught one horse in the throat and it reared and threw the rider. The other he lashed on the rump and it broke into a wild gallop, crashing through the trees that lined the roadside to fall heavily into an irrigation ditch.

  Three thoughts suddenly came to Casca. All bad.

  His left wrist, which he had used to haul himself into the saddle and to hold the reins, was now aching horribly and he could feel the fingers growing numb.

  His right arm, thanks to the wound in his shoulder blade and the other in the arm, was now also a throbbing agony, and he could scarcely hold on to the whip.

  Worst of all he was going the wrong way.

  His heels were still raking the horse's sides with his spurs, the animal giving its all as it galloped toward Shou Chang, where the warlord Zhang and his troops waited. And they would scarcely welcome the man who had slain and robbed their tax collector.

  And behind him were the five nobles he had escaped, and behind them their small army. There was nothing for it but to keep going.

  Well, at least the gate guards would not stand in his way.

  They didn't.

  They saw him coming from a distance, and Casca's fast clouding senses were just sufficient enough for him to remember to pu
ll up the face guard.

  The gate guards stood carefully aside as he raced through the portal. The warlord's two men laughed uproariously: "That's Hu Wei. Always in a hurry." In spite of his wounds Casca laughed. Another few moments and they would be in something of a hurry themselves.

  But, by the great balls of Mars, what the fuck was he going to do now?

  As if in answer, Deng Ziyang chose that moment to haul his cart into the road.

  Casca tried to wheel his horse, but in the narrow street there was nowhere to go, and no space to stop.

  He tried desperately to will the horse to jump the width of the small cart as he had often seen cowboys do in America, but neither he nor the horse knew how.

  The horse's chest struck the cart at full gallop, smashing and overturning it, and strewing its load of grass and cowshit and dismembered body pieces along the street, with Casca tumbling among the mess.

  The impact wrenched the crossbar of the shafts from Deng's grasp, leaving him standing. The shrewd old man appraised the circumstances in an instant and slipped quickly through the open doorway into Ju Liqun's store.

  He was already moving before he saw the great warlord Zhang approaching from the other end of the street, but this appearance hurried him, and he was quick to close and bar the door behind him, motioning to his daughter's family to be quiet while herding them into the back room where all five of them huddled in the farthest corner.

  Zhang and his entourage were startled by the noise of the crash and were astonished to see what appeared to be Hu Wei flying through the air, accompanied by a number of sackcloth bundles which came apart in their flight to reveal the same Hu Wei's head, as well as his arms and legs and trunk. The horse was screaming shrilly, its chest impaled on the iron boss of the wheel, its belly punctured by several pieces of broken wood, the blue bag of its intestines oozing out.

  Zhang and his men came to a halt.

  Two Hu Weis?

  Zhang was not a man to worry easily, but he was highly superstitious. It had never occurred to him that his tax gatherer might have two heads, but now it seemed that he had, and a whole lot of other spare parts as well.