foliage below.
So they at least have some sense of self-preservation
. . .
‘’Ere, you watch where you’re swingin’ that chopper!’ gasped Gibbs’s voice.
Barclay only said, ‘Gor blimey, it’s the fucken mikado!’
Asher stepped forward, tripped over something that rolled slightly under this foot, and Karlebach gasped. ‘Are you all right, Jamie?’ He grasped his arm with his twisted hand. ‘You are not injured—?’
‘I’m fine. Is everyone all right? Is anyone hurt?’
‘What the
hell
were they?’ demanded Willard, and two pale forms emerged from the darkness and bowed.
‘Ashu Sensei—’
Asher bowed in return, deeply. ‘Mizukami-san? Are you well? Ten thousand thanks—’
‘What were those things?’ demanded the deep voice that he well recalled from his earlier days in the Shantung Peninsula. Behind the bespectacled little Japanese, his bodyguard – a broad-shouldered young man in his twenties – held a hand pressed to his side, his light-colored military jacket darkening with blood.
‘We will speak as we walk, if this suits you, Mizukami-san? They will likely return. Is your man able to walk?’
Mizukami asked something in Japanese; the bodyguard straightened his shoulders and replied. Almost certainly, reflected Asher, he said that it was only a scratch . . .
‘Colonel the Count Mizukami, may I present the Rebbe Dr Solomon Karlebach of Prague?’
More bows, but instants later they were moving off, the darkness in the gorge so intense that Asher was barely able to make out the dark notch in the land to the right where the trail veered and began to climb the ridge. The wind shifted, blowing colder from the north, and Asher smelled on it the unmistakable dry whisper of a coming dust-storm . . .
Please
, he thought wearily,
not until we get back to town
. . .
Willard swore. ‘Just what we bloody need.’
Bringing up the rear of the party, Asher turned and looked back as the first light of the moon appeared over the hills. It was nearly full and showed clearly the slumped shapes of their erstwhile attackers clustered around the hacked pieces of the
yao-kuei
that Mizukami and his bodyguard had killed.
At that distance he couldn’t be sure, but he thought that an arm lay on the pathway a few yards from the main scene of the carnage. The arm was moving, pulling itself along by its fingers, as if in dogged pursuit.
Beside him he heard a hiss of indrawn breath, and Count Mizukami whispered again, ‘
What are they
, Ashu Sensei? And why are you not surprised to find them here?’
One of the Others scrambled up from the shadows below the trail, caught up the arm, and trotted back towards its companions, tearing chunks from the flesh with its teeth, like an American devouring a turkey leg.
EIGHT
‘A nd what did you tell him?’ asked Lydia the next morning, when Asher related the events of the previous day in more detail than he’d had the energy for, in the small hours after half-carrying Karlebach up to the suite.
‘Nothing, at the time.’ Asher poured coffee rather gingerly from the bright polychrome pot that Ellen had set before them accompanied by scones (fresh), buttered eggs (excellent), extremely Scottish marmalade (tinned), and pungent commentary on heathen countries where the weather was enough to send a good Christian running for home. Asher got the impression that in the maid’s opinion the dust storm currently wailing over the tiled roofs of Peking had been visited by a disgusted God upon an unregenerate population of idolaters. ‘We had other things to worry about.’
The dust storm had overtaken them within sight of the lights of Men T’ou Kuo, after a stumbling race along the trail by moonlight, with no thought of anything but haste.
‘Ito – Mizukami’s bodyguard – was wounded, more seriously than he’d admit, I think. Mizukami had to help him most of the way back. And Karlebach was at the end of his strength.’ Asher flexed his wrists, which ached
So they at least have some sense of self-preservation
. . .
‘’Ere, you watch where you’re swingin’ that chopper!’ gasped Gibbs’s voice.
Barclay only said, ‘Gor blimey, it’s the fucken mikado!’
Asher stepped forward, tripped over something that rolled slightly under this foot, and Karlebach gasped. ‘Are you all right, Jamie?’ He grasped his arm with his twisted hand. ‘You are not injured—?’
‘I’m fine. Is everyone all right? Is anyone hurt?’
‘What the
hell
were they?’ demanded Willard, and two pale forms emerged from the darkness and bowed.
‘Ashu Sensei—’
Asher bowed in return, deeply. ‘Mizukami-san? Are you well? Ten thousand thanks—’
‘What were those things?’ demanded the deep voice that he well recalled from his earlier days in the Shantung Peninsula. Behind the bespectacled little Japanese, his bodyguard – a broad-shouldered young man in his twenties – held a hand pressed to his side, his light-colored military jacket darkening with blood.
‘We will speak as we walk, if this suits you, Mizukami-san? They will likely return. Is your man able to walk?’
Mizukami asked something in Japanese; the bodyguard straightened his shoulders and replied. Almost certainly, reflected Asher, he said that it was only a scratch . . .
‘Colonel the Count Mizukami, may I present the Rebbe Dr Solomon Karlebach of Prague?’
More bows, but instants later they were moving off, the darkness in the gorge so intense that Asher was barely able to make out the dark notch in the land to the right where the trail veered and began to climb the ridge. The wind shifted, blowing colder from the north, and Asher smelled on it the unmistakable dry whisper of a coming dust-storm . . .
Please
, he thought wearily,
not until we get back to town
. . .
Willard swore. ‘Just what we bloody need.’
Bringing up the rear of the party, Asher turned and looked back as the first light of the moon appeared over the hills. It was nearly full and showed clearly the slumped shapes of their erstwhile attackers clustered around the hacked pieces of the
yao-kuei
that Mizukami and his bodyguard had killed.
At that distance he couldn’t be sure, but he thought that an arm lay on the pathway a few yards from the main scene of the carnage. The arm was moving, pulling itself along by its fingers, as if in dogged pursuit.
Beside him he heard a hiss of indrawn breath, and Count Mizukami whispered again, ‘
What are they
, Ashu Sensei? And why are you not surprised to find them here?’
One of the Others scrambled up from the shadows below the trail, caught up the arm, and trotted back towards its companions, tearing chunks from the flesh with its teeth, like an American devouring a turkey leg.
EIGHT
‘A nd what did you tell him?’ asked Lydia the next morning, when Asher related the events of the previous day in more detail than he’d had the energy for, in the small hours after half-carrying Karlebach up to the suite.
‘Nothing, at the time.’ Asher poured coffee rather gingerly from the bright polychrome pot that Ellen had set before them accompanied by scones (fresh), buttered eggs (excellent), extremely Scottish marmalade (tinned), and pungent commentary on heathen countries where the weather was enough to send a good Christian running for home. Asher got the impression that in the maid’s opinion the dust storm currently wailing over the tiled roofs of Peking had been visited by a disgusted God upon an unregenerate population of idolaters. ‘We had other things to worry about.’
The dust storm had overtaken them within sight of the lights of Men T’ou Kuo, after a stumbling race along the trail by moonlight, with no thought of anything but haste.
‘Ito – Mizukami’s bodyguard – was wounded, more seriously than he’d admit, I think. Mizukami had to help him most of the way back. And Karlebach was at the end of his strength.’ Asher flexed his wrists, which ached
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