Jun looked at one of the hunters, a lean, hollow-faced Han with a curiously blank expression. His necklace was thick with beans, maybe forty or fifty of them.
“But it is possible to escape, isn’t it?” asked Ketut.
“Look around you—outside of this compound what do you see?”
“There are no walls,” said Jun.
“Exactly right,” the warrior said. “They don’t need walls.”
“But some people must escape—some must get away.”
“Some do—for a while. Then the Mbaru either kill you or bring you back.”
Jun stared down at the ground between him and the woman warrior. He felt the hardness in his gut shift a little; it seemed bigger, more solid. The food had made him feel stronger; he could feel the blood running in his veins. He was not born a slave. He was Wukarta—and from time immemorial the Wukarta had been warriors.
“I’m going to escape,” he said. “It is not my destiny to be worked to death in some dirty hole in the ground. You girls can come with me. Or not, as you choose.”
CHAPTER 22
Farhan looked down at the piled gray ropes of hair on the white-painted savage twenty feet below him and held his breath. He had the parang gripped in one sweaty hand; the other was tight on the branch of the tree that grew out by his waist.
Don’t look up, don’t look up, don’t look up. This silent mantra was circulating inside his head. He could hear his own heart beating, seemingly louder than a Moon Festival drum. He had not recovered his calm since the mad rush through the forest, with the sound of the blowpipes—ffft, ffft, ffft—giving his feet wings. He had run as fast as he ever had in all his thirty-nine years of life, hurtling through the jungle with no thought to where he was going, his only urge to get away from the hideous men who were hooting to each other and crashing through the foliage behind him. The parang, in its leather sheath hanging from his belt, had tangled with his legs. He had cursed it then and for an instant he considered tugging his belt loose and discarding the blade, just as he’d discarded the rifle. But that would have cost time. Now he was glad that he had not. It was the only weapon he had—not that this clumsy length of sharpened steel would be much good against a blowpipe unless he could get in close.
It had been lack of breath that had caused him to be in this situation. He had never taken much interest in exercise, preferring to spend any leisure time he had at the gaming tables, rather than in a gymnasium or at the running tracks. And he was paying for it now. After only three or four hundred paces he had realized that he could not run at that speed for much longer and had begun looking for places of concealment. Glancing behind him and seeing that he was out of sight of his pursuers, he had swung himself up into a tree and climbed as far up as he could.
Now, as he looked down at the savage beneath him, he prayed to the Gods he did not truly believe in for the man to walk on. It was hot. The running and the terror had combined to overheat his body and he was sweating hard as his system tried to cool itself down. His armpits were drenched; he could feel the beads on his brow form, join with others and run down his cheeks. He lifted his knife arm to wipe his face with his sleeve—but it was too late. A large droplet of sweat fell from his forehead and dropped into the leaf litter below. It made a tiny noise, a little “pat,” as it landed. But it was enough. The painted man turned his head to the place on the ground where the noise had come from. Then looked up.
Farhan gripped the parang with both hands and dropped out of the tree.
He fell straight down and would probably have broken at least one of his legs had he not timed his parang blow to perfection. The long thick steel blade sliced down into the astonished savage’s head, cutting through the greasy ropes of his hair, punching through the skull and brain and on through the jawbone, dividing his poll into two pieces like an apple under a butcher’s cleaver.
Farhan crashed down into the leaf litter, his own body tangled with the instantly lifeless corpse, which safely broke his fall. He staggered to his feet, pulled the blood-slick parang from the savage’s split head, raised it for a second blow—and realized that it was unnecessary. He stood there panting and staring at the carcass, unsure what to do next. He collected himself swiftly. Looked around him. There was nobody else in sight. And again he took to his heels. Jogging this time through the forest in the direction in which he believed the Mongoose camp lay.
Two hours later, and utterly lost, Farhan climbed another tree. The soft dusk was stealing up on the jungle and he knew that in these latitudes he only had a few moments before it was fully dark. He climbed to the very tallest branch of the nearest hardwood tree and, in the last golden yellow light of day, he looked out over the canopy, a thick carpet of green that seemed to stretch out forever in all directions.
West. The sun must be sinking in the west. He was looking the wrong way. He orientated himself and looked north and there, just before the last glimmer sank over the far horizon, he saw to his relief a flash of blue sea at least a dozen miles away. But at least he had his direction. And he had seen nothing of his painted foes.
After a very long and uncomfortable night in a hard fork of the tree, Farhan checked his bearings again and stiffly climbed down. He began to walk, stopping every hour or so to climb up and check his direction—and quite often finding that he had strayed alarmingly from his path—and so it was not until late afternoon that Farhan, hungry, thirsty, dirty and exhausted, his clothes stained green with lichen and ripped in places by thorns, stumbled on jelly legs into the camp clearing.
He immediately drank two full dippers of water from the barrel, poured one over his head, then, dripping and hollow-bellied, he went to seek out Captain Lodi.
The fortress, Farhan noted with satisfaction, was almost complete—and he made a mental bow to Captain Ravi for his efficiency. But it was down by the river that he found his friend Captain Lodi supervising the reconstruction of the hull of the Mongoose, which had been dragged from the river and was lying forlornly on its side.
“We need to get everybody inside the fort—right now,” he said. And Lodi took one look at him, gaunt, damp, dirty, and asked no questions at all.
In moments, the Buginese sailors, still clutching their precious shipwrights’ tools, and the few Dokra guards around were all streaming toward the fort.
Inside the four stout bamboo walls, with the door barred and double sentries posted on the ramparts, Mamaji was woken from her afternoon nap. She was given a brief account of Farhan’s adventure. Then Lila was dispatched to prepare a simple meal for Farhan, and the two men and Mamaji sat down at a small, rickety table inside the big officers’ tent to confer.
“You might think that I’m being alarmist, Mamaji,” said Farhan patiently. “But these tribesmen are extremely dangerous—you didn’t see the Dokra who was stuck by the poisoned dart. He died in a handful of moments. Convulsed so badly his spine snapped like a straw. And, remember, we are the interlopers here. This is their homeland and we have come here uninvited and killed two of their friends.”
“It is you who has done all our killing so far, dear,” said Mamaji, with a hard smile.
Cyrus Lodi grunted. “What else would you expect him to do? Negotiate? Ply his famous charm—in the few instants before he died of whatever foul poison they use?”
“I am happy to take the blame, Mamaji. That’s not important. The question is what do we do now?”
Captain Ravi came into the tent, pulled out a chair and sat down next to Mamaji. “The sentries report no sign of activity,” he said. “Are we sure this threat is serious?”
“It is deadly serious, Captain,” said Farhan. “Two of your men might attest to its seriousness except for the fact that they are both stone dead.”
“Yes, that is unfortunately true,” said Ravi. He looked at Mamaji. “I would like to request permission to send out a strong patrol to retrieve their bodies.”
> “Are you mad?” said Farhan. “They are out there, somewhere, in the trees. Their body paint makes them very difficult to see. If they are hostile, they could pick off the members of your patrol at their leisure. You could end up killing all or some of your men and learning nothing about the enemy. It’s far too risky.”
“Taking risks, my dear sir, is what we are paid for by the Federation,” said Ravi, his back stiffening, one hand going instinctively to curl his mustache.
“I would like to continue with the refit of the ship, if I may,” said Captain Lodi. “The sooner she is whole again the sooner we can get back to sea.”
“We can do nothing tonight, anyway,” said Mamaji. “It might be best if we all remained in the fort—with a double guard on the ramparts. And tomorrow we shall see what we shall see. Shall we adjourn till the morning, gentlemen?”
* * *
• • •
The night was uneventful and when Farhan went up onto the bamboo ramparts after a cursory wash and a cup of tea, the cool but sunny morning seemed to be nothing but benevolent, so much so that for a moment he wondered whether the events of two days ago had really happened. He stared out beyond the clearing, trying to penetrate the green curtain of the forest and saw . . . nothing. But there could be a thousand painted men with skull faces and blowpipes out there and Farhan would not know it.
Captain Ravi was especially bullish at the morning meeting and, although Farhan put up a token resistance to the idea of the patrol, he was overruled. They agreed that Captain Ravi would lead a strong patrol of thirty men—guided by Farhan—to recover the bodies of the two fallen Dokra and to scout the immediate vicinity. Meanwhile, Captain Lodi would continue with his repairs of the Mongoose. A sharp lookout would be kept on the walls for any sign of the painted men.
“It may be that they were a band of itinerant hunters, dear,” said Mamaji. “In fact, I think it more than likely. And if that is the case, they will be long gone by now.”
Farhan disagreed but held his tongue. In the hour before they departed he found himself a large, shallow wickerwork basket, cut off the handle and spent some time sewing two leather straps on the inside to create a primitive shield. He wanted to be able to put something between himself and those lethal darts if they came into contact with their foes. He also strapped the parang in its leather sheath around his waist, and shoved the loaded iron pistol into his waistband.
It was more difficult than Farhan had imagined to find the place where the two Dokra had died. But after several hours of panting through the roasting jungle, taking wrong turns and having to retrace their steps—with Captain Ravi becoming more short-tempered with every pace—Farhan finally recognized the huge banyan tree where they had encountered the painted men. However, there was no sign of the bodies. He was almost sure it was the right place but Ravi seemed to doubt him.
In the end he was forced to reenact his panicked flight from the blowpipe-wielding savages, much to Ravi’s amusement, and try to work out where he might have thrown his rifle as he fled. He found it in a thick patch of high grass and with a huge sigh of relief, and not a little flourish of triumph, he showed it to Ravi.
“If you were one of my troopers, I’d have you flogged bloody for losing your weapon,” sniffed the Dokra captain. “Perhaps shot for desertion in the face of the enemy.”
Farhan took the iron pocket pistol from his waistband; he cocked the hammer, extended his arm, aimed carefully and shot Captain Ravi in the center of his small, mustachioed face, blowing his brains all over the trunk of the palm tree behind him.
But only in his mind. For a moment, Farhan indulged himself in this delightful fantasy, then he said mildly to the captain, “I think we should head back to the camp. These savages have taken the bodies. Which means they cannot be itinerant hunters. They’ve taken the bodies somewhere—to a village, to a farmstead. To their home.”
He slung the recovered rifle onto his shoulder, picked up his wickerwork shield, turned his back on the mercenary captain and led the way.
* * *
• • •
For three days, there was no sign of the painted men. Work on the ship continued, the Dokra kept a watch from the ramparts and toiled on strengthening the walls of the fort. Even Farhan began to relax, wondering if the savages had seen, noted and comprehended their overwhelming military strength and decided to leave them in peace.
But, on the afternoon of the fourth day, they came.
Farhan was sitting by the riverbank beside a spread blanket under a wild fig tree and playing dice with two off-duty Dokra troopers and a Buginese sailor. He had just thrown sevens and was crowing excitedly about his luck, when he heard a sharp cry and looked over toward the fort. He saw a Buginese plucking angrily at a dart with a tuft of fluff at the end that was sticking out from the meat of his bare arm. And then he saw them, beyond the dart-stuck man in the trees, ghostly figures slathered in white clay, overpainted with black and gray stripes. He saw the long blowpipes and heard the eerie “ffft, ffft, ffft” as they put the long tubes to their lips and blew. Three men now were staggering about the clearing, shouting in pain and shock. A Dokra put his musket to his shoulder and fired, a crack and a spurt of flame, and one of the figures in the tree line dropped.
“Back to the fort, get inside, now,” Farhan was shouting as he scooped up his rifle in one hand and urged his dicing partners up off the blanket with the other.
Lieutenant Muda was blowing short sharp blasts on a small brass whistle, and Captain Lodi was bellowing at his men to get inside the fort or die.
There was a stream of men now running for the stockade’s narrow door, and a thick scrum there, as too many tried to enter the narrow portal at the same time. There were a dozen men in the clearing who had been struck by the darts, Dokra mostly and a few of the Buginese sailors. Some were running toward the fort, not knowing that they were already dead. Others stood and tried to level their muskets at the white figures in the trees. Farhan wasted no time at all and shoved his way through the crush and inside the entrance, running for the stairway that led up to the bamboo walkway behind the bamboo rampart. He looked out over the clearing and saw that the men who had been struck by the darts were now either convulsing manically in that impossible manner or already dead and quite still. And the painted men were coming out of the trees, cautiously, timidly even, making little scuttling runs toward the fort, stopping to put their pipes to their lips, shooting their darts, then running forward a little more.
Captain Ravi had gathered a score of Dokra in the space before the fort and had ordered them in two perfect lines. Magnificent in their scarlet coats, white cross belts and glorious turbans, they were marching from the north, by the river, toward the tree line and advancing on that handful of attacking enemy tribesmen who were out of cover. Ravi halted his men thirty paces from the enemy and ordered them to shoulder their muskets.
Two of the white savages aimed their pipes at the immaculate line of Dokra and blew. Ffft, ffft. Two Dokra in the front rank were struck.
“Aim,” roared Captain Ravi.
Ffft, ffft, ffft. Three darts came spitting out of the tree line to the Dokra’s left. One of the troopers began to twitch and froth at the mouth.
“Run,” shouted Farhan from the ramparts. “Run back to the fort, you fools.”
“Give fire,” shouted Ravi. And a ragged volley lashed out from the line of red-coated men. Three of the white-painted men were blown off their feet. Muskets were crackling from the ramparts by now. Farhan lifted his own rifle onto the firing platform and sighted down the barrel.
“Second rank three paces forward,” shouted Ravi. And half a dozen men stepped bravely forward and made a new line three paces in front of their comrades. “First rank reload. Second rank make ready!” Ravi was bawling now, but the darts were steadily coming in—ffft, ffft, ffft, ffft—and his men were dropping. Some now curling, writhing, twisting
and screaming on the ground.
“Run, you fools. You mad, brave blockheads, run!” Farhan could not help himself. He was shouting at the top of his voice, rifle unfired, forgotten in his hands.
A dart whizzed across the space from the tree line and plunged into Ravi’s right eye. The little man clapped a hand to his wound, and shouted, “Second rank, aim.”
Farhan was dimly aware that Captain Lodi was off to his left, issuing brisk orders around one of the ship’s cannon that had been mounted on a platform there.
“Second rank, give fire!”
Only three men answered his call. Their muskets spat once before the men succumbed. The painted men were coming out of the trees in huge numbers now, scores, hundreds of them even. They were converging on the fort. Farhan saw that all the Dokra in Captain Ravi’s force were down now, although some were still moving. Their leader had sunk to his knees and was still clasping the dart in his eye. He was twitching, shaking, the spittle white below his fine black mustache. The savages were advancing, coming across the clearing in a mass. They were murmuring something, a two-syllable word, chanting it over and over, and it took Farhan a few bewildered moments to recognize what they were saying. It was, “Vharkash! Vharkash! Vharkash!”
Every white-painted man, he now saw, had a black scythe painted on his forehead between the eyes. They were coming on at a rush, trampling the dead and dying men on the clearing floor, rushing at the flimsy walls of the bamboo fort, pipes in hand but some also carrying bamboo spears and crude, wavy-bladed iron swords.
“Fire,” said Captain Lodi, his single word seeming to cut through the hubbub.
There was a fizz and a booming crash as the cannon spoke. In a vast belch of flame, two hundred lead balls were blasted at the advancing savages in a wide spray.
Canister, thought Farhan, with one part of his mind. Like a gigantic shotgun, the iron tin filled with lead balls belched out and shredded the oncoming warriors, blowing a score of them into the next life and wounding a similar number, ripping off arms and legs, shattering bone, flensing the living flesh from their clay-caked bodies.
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