Bamboo Dragon td-108

by Warren Murphy

  And it was easy after that. She used her thumbs to pull the gag down, off her chin, and worried at the knotted shirtsleeve with her teeth until the knot gave way and she was free. Another moment, stretching stiffened muscles, working achy joints, and Audrey knew she was as ready as she'd ever be.

  Another flare of anger burst inside her when she missed the Geiger counter, realizing instantly where it had gone. Ward knew her business now, what she was looking for, and it appeared that he was bent on getting there ahead of her.

  But what did that make him? Forget about the serpentarium in old New Orleans. Renton might know snakes, but Audrey doubted whether any desk-bound herpetologist could move like he did, decking someone like Pike Chalmers with a single blow. Where had he come from, popping up behind her on the trail that way? Was he some kind of gymnast, in addition to the other talents he possessed?

  Or could he be some kind of spy?

  It hardly mattered at the moment. He had duped her for a while, and it had been a pleasure—some of it, at least—but she saw through him now. They had the same goal, more or less, and while she had no way of knowing who his sponsors were, she didn't really care. There was a million dollars riding on the line, half of it sitting in a special numbered bank account already, and she didn't plan on giving back one solitary cent.

  Worst case, if Renton got to the uranium ahead of her, and she could find no way to rid herself of the intrusion, Audrey had a fallback plan that would allow her to escape with the half million she had already received. Of course, successful execution of the scheme required her to survive this foray in the jungle, but she still had confidence, despite her inexperience and the fact that she was now entirely on her own.

  She was determined to track Safford's party and would willingly proceed on hands and knees if necessary. Renton said the others had been taken prisoner by natives, which would mean she had a larger group to follow, with a greater likelihood of clues along the way. The downside, Audrey realized, was that the tribesmen might be taking Safford and the others anywhere, perhaps away from the uranium, and in the absence of her Geiger counter, Audrey couldn't know for sure if she was getting warm or cold.

  Damn Renton anyhow!

  He had a swift kick coming when she caught up with him, and the delivery would be a pleasure. She would have to watch him, though. That one had more tricks up his sleeve than David Copperfield, and Audrey had the feeling he could just as easily have killed her instead of simply knocking her unconscious.

  What had stopped him? Did she have a small edge where his feelings were concerned? If so, could she exploit it when they met again, to throw him off his guard?

  She made herself slow down and take it one step at a time, or she risked losing everything, her life included. Even as a novice, Audrey knew the jungle was more dangerous at night, when predators came out to stalk the darkness, seeking prey. It would be bitterly ironic if she tangled with a panther, or whatever prowled this territory after nightfall, and wound up as so much raw protein on the big cat's menu.

  Audrey found her way in moments, grinning as she realized that Renton had seen fit to leave her within several paces of the trail. She noted, too, that he had left her on the ground, where anything from ants to this Nagaq the natives raved about could come along and nibble on her flesh.

  Some gentleman!

  Make that two kicks where they would do the most good when she saw him. Nothing personal, old buddy, just a little message to your gonads from my foot!

  Despite the darkness, Audrey found the trail wasn't as difficult as she had feared. The party—more than twenty strong now, from appearances—hadn't wasted time covering its tracks, as if the natives had no fear of being followed on their own home turf. So much the better, then, except that Renton Ward would have a decent lead by now. Without the Geiger counter, she couldn't tell exactly how long she had been unconscious, but she guessed at something like two hours, judging from the darkness and the drop in temperature.

  Two hours was a lifetime in the wilderness, but she had managed to survive. And that was Renton's first mistake.

  She took it easy on the trail, despite the sense of urgency that called for haste. The last thing Audrey needed at the moment was to blunder through the jungle in a rush, make noise enough to wake the dead and wind up drawing every predator and native in the neighborhood. At last she found her rhythm and moved along at a steady pace. She was just congratulating herself for her presence of mind when she realized her assessment might have been premature.

  First she became aware of a muted throbbing in the foliage, then realized she must have been hearing the drums for a while. The natives seemed to come from nowhere, as if rising from the earth in front of her. She stopped short, biting off a scream, and turned to flee, but there were more behind her, blocking her escape. She stood her ground, willing herself not to panic as the shadow-shapes moved closer, spears in hand.

  It was the moonlight that undid her, breaking through the canopy just then to pick her captors out. Two dwarfs, she saw, with queer, misshapen hands like crab claws, feet splayed out with webbed toes, like a scuba diver's fins. The other three were taller—normal size, in fact—but there was nothing else about them that would classify as normal. One appeared to have no nose, just shiny sockets in the middle of his moon-shaped face, below a pair of bulging eyes. Another had one normal arm, its withered mate the size she would have looked for on a five-year-old. The last one, their apparent leader, was a walking nightmare: earless, bald, with bright eyes glaring from beneath a caveman's brow, and crooked, fanglike teeth protruding from his thin slash of a mouth. Instead of a chin, there was something that appeared to be a second, half-formed face regarding Audrey from the middle of his chest.

  She couldn't help it then.

  Opening her mouth wide, she screamed and kept on screaming, helpless to resist them as the human monsters swept her up and carried her away.

  The city's inner walls were etched with vast, elaborate designs in bas-relief, depicting men and animals, some of them giant creatures that could pass for dinosaurs—or dragons. Remo didn't linger for a critical assessment, but followed the pulse of drumbeats toward their source, a winding trek that led him from the phosphorescent fountain to the ancient city's very heart.

  He found guards posted on the way, avoided them whenever possible, but had to kill a pair who blocked his access to a giant, looming structure where the throbbing dirge originated. They died instantly and silently, still on their feet, before they even recognized their peril. Remo took the bodies with him as he crept inside what seemed to be a temple dedicated to the worship of a giant lizard-god.

  Nagaq, he thought, and stashed the corpses in an alcove to his left, not far inside the temple where he hoped they would go undiscovered long enough for him to scout the place and find out where the prisoners were being held. If an alarm was raised before he found the others, he would have to carry on and play the rest of it by ear.

  So, Remo asked himself, what else is new?

  The corridor in which he found himself was dank, dark, musty, lit by torches in the distance, where it turned into another, wider corridor. The sound of drums was louder here, and behind the pulsing drumbeat, he could make out chanting now—male voices, by the sound of it, no language that he recognized.

  No language anyone would recognize, he guessed, if his suspicions were correct. This tribe wouldn't have lasted long if strangers from the outside world knew they existed, where they could be found. A generation earlier, they would have been packed off to populate the freak shows of a hundred circuses and carnivals in Europe and America. These days, they were more likely to be singled out for "help" from some well-meaning agency that would invade their world with scholars, doctors, CARE packages—inevitably followed up by medical researchers, newsmen, missionaries, tax collectors and police. The military would be coming, too, when they got wind of weapons-grade uranium.

  There goes the neighborhood.

  One corridor led Remo
to another, on and on. He memorized the twists and turns, took care as he approached each corner just in case another group of sentries might be waiting for him on the other side. But there were none, and soon the throbbing in the ceiling overhead told Remo that he was below the drums and chanting throng. He found a narrow staircase, carved by hand, and scaled it, moving without a sound.

  The staircase was blocked off by a hatch made of wood and relatively new, as if—unlike the gates outside—it had been recently replaced. He raised it cautiously, a half inch at a time, prepared to turn and flee if it made any noise at all.

  From the trapdoor, Remo had a rat's-eye view of an expansive dais, with a terraced amphitheater in front of it, the stony benches packed by what looked to be scores of tribesmen. Remo didn't bother with a head count, since he was more involved with an examination of their faces and the various mutations they displayed. Except for tentacles and trunks, they could have been the barroom cast from Star Wars, turning out in costume for the grand premiere.

  Onstage were Dr. Stockwell, Sibu Sandakan and Chalmers. They were kneeling, arms behind their backs, wrists bound to ankles so they could not rise, hand-woven ropes around their necks tied off to rusty metal rings set in the dais. Standing over them, the honcho of the tribe commanded full attention from the audience.

  No wonder, Remo thought.

  The guy was tall enough to make an NBA scout promise him the moon—if not eight feet, distinctly pushing it. Where several members of his audience had only one good eye, the chief had three—two normal ones, plus what appeared to be an embryonic orb set in the middle of his forehead, raised an inch or so above the others. Woolly hair was visible beneath a headdress fashioned from a large iguana's carcass, with the lizard's face protruding from above its wearer's, while the dorsal skin and tail hung down his back. Bright feathers had been thrust into the reptile's skin as decoration, to create the likeness of a mythical winged lizard, but the chief was otherwise entirely nude. No loincloth to disguise the mammoth genitalia, which, when added to his stature, clearly marked him as the biggest man in town.

  It's quality, not quantity, thought Remo. Sure, and I'm a tenor for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

  He tore his eyes away from Mr. Big and made another circuit of the room, saw that a portion of the roof was open to the sky, so moonlight aided the illumination of the torches set into the walls at ten- or twelve-foot intervals. In back, behind the ghastly audience, a pair of massive doors was closed against the night, and Remo guessed the courtyard lay in that direction, with the wall and outer gates beyond.

  He was considering a move, convinced that he could drop the chief and liberate at least one prisoner before the audience responded in a screaming, killing rush, when there was a disturbance in the back rows of the amphitheater. Someone was pounding on the massive doors, and two sentries hastened to check it out. These doors were easier to handle than the outer gates, but they still needed muscle, with the two guards getting help from those outside.

  As Remo watched, a squad of six more tribesmen trooped in to join the others, every eye in the assembly turned to follow them, weird faces scowling at the interruption, then displaying disapproval as they got a look at the captive boxed in by her guards.

  Audrey Moreland.

  Remo cursed himself and let it go—no more time for recriminations at the moment. He would have to think of something fast, before the party started heating up.

  And from the looks of Mr. Big, his visible reaction to the struggling blonde, there would be little time to waste.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was all too much for Audrey's mind to process, pouring in on her without a breather. Being decked by Renton Ward and waking up to find herself alone, trussed up like Grandma's Christmas turkey in the middle of the godforsaken jungle. Struggling to get free and picking up the trail, only to find herself surrounded by a gang who could be poster children for the next Wes Craven movie. Marching through the darkness to an ancient, obviously undiscovered city, where her captors led her past a glowing fountain—the uranium?—to reach a kind of Stone Age auditorium. Her traveling companions kneeling on the stage, tied up, while an ungainly three-eyed giant with a schlong the size of Baja California, shouted gibberish to an assembled audience of living, breathing nightmares.

  What was she supposed to do?

  Scream, baby, scream—and fight as if her life depended on it, which it obviously did.

  She gave a fair impersonation of a grownup temper tantrum, kicking, screaming, spitting, scratching at her captors. She stopped short of biting them, since they were smeared from head to foot with mud or something worse that came from God knew where, but her resistance had its impact Her fingernails plowed bloody furrows down the cheek of Mr. No Nose, after which she kicked him in the loincloth, hard enough to leave him gasping on his knees. The pygmies tried to stick her then, but Audrey grabbed one of the spears and swung the first runt hard into his stubby buddy, dropping both of them.

  She had a weapon now, and was prepared to use it, but she never got the chance. Someone came up behind her with a club and tapped her skull just hard enough to dim the lights, turn her legs to rubber, while a swarm of mud-caked hands reached out to grab the spear away from her, pin down her arms and legs.

  One chance, she thought. I had one chance, and that was it It's gone.

  They dragged her toward the stage, boots scuffing on the stony floor, where Three Eyes waited for her, showing signs of interest that a naked man had difficulty hiding. Hell, with that equipment, his excitement would have been apparent in a suit of armor.

  Others noticed his reaction, too, and as the sleeping giant rose to full attention, certain members of the audience began to chant, a rhythmic, off-key dirge.

  She reached the dais, borne on eager hands, and was deposited at Long John Silver's feet, his fleshy cudgel aimed directly at her face. No way, thought Audrey. Where the hell is Linda Lovelace when you need her?

  Giant drums had fallen silent when the raiding party entered with their captive, but the beat resumed now, throbbing in the amphitheater like some great, cosmic heartbeat. Someone found a length of rope and bound her hands behind her, tied off to her ankles as the others were secured. If Audrey struggled now, she had a choice of four directions she could fall in: right, left, backward or directly on her face.

  The three-eyed giant and his one-eyed buddy had begun to sway in front of her, a jerky little dance that matched the rhythm of the drumbeats more or less. She closed her eyes, preferring not to watch, her mind already focused on the prospect of what former generations had described—and accurately, she decided—as "a fate worse than death." There could be no "relax and enjoy it" with this freak, or those who might line up behind him if worse came to worst.

  I wonder, Audrey thought, if you can will yourself to die?

  The morbid train of thought was interrupted by a new sound, emanating from outside. Behind the chanting of the audience surrounding her, she heard one man, and then another, shouting frantically, their shouts resolving into screams of pain or panic. There was a distant sound of old wood groaning, screeching, splintering, but even that wasn't what riveted her full attention.

  Something else.

  A loud, unearthly snarling, as of some fantastic beast enraged.

  The snarling, roaring, air-stirring sound had barely died away when the assembled natives went berserk. As one, they leaped up from their stony seats and rushed into the aisles, stampeding for the nearest exit. Some of them were shouting, and while Remo didn't speak their language, he could make one word out loud and clear.

  "Nagaq! Nagaq!"

  There was no time to hesitate or wonder what in hell was going on. He bolted through the trapdoor, charged across the stage and met the three-eyed giant just as Mr. Big turned back to face him, his impressive scepter thrust out like a weapon.

  Remo saw his opportunity and seized it with a clutching, twisting move that left his eight-foot adversary standing in a pool of crimson,
hitting high notes for the first time in his life. A crushing backhand silenced the soprano aria and closed the three-eyed stare forever. Remo stepped past the chief before he fell and moved on to free the hostages.

  A number of the tribesmen saw their leader fall, and three of those were bold enough to leap on-stage, despite their panicky reaction to the noises emanating from outside, and try to dish out instant justice. They walked into a whirlwind of destruction, fists and feet they never saw before the lights went out forever. Their bodies sprawled on the dais while their mud-caked countrymen bailed out with all deliberate speed.

  "Nagaq! Nagaq!"

  Outside, the noises that had prompted the stampede were getting louder, closer. Remo couldn't place the snarling—if reminded him of King Kong talking tough in Dolby stereo—but something large and angry was advancing on the temple, obviously giving hell to anyone who crossed its path. He wondered if the drums—all silent now—had summoned it, and whether this kind of intrusion was a normal part of tribal gatherings.

  From the reactions of the audience, he guessed that it wasn't. Apparently, no evacuation drill had been prepared, no chants or prayers designed for the occasion. They might worship great Nagaq, but they were plainly unaccustomed to its putting in a personal appearance in the middle of the ceremony.

  Now they had a party crasher who—from what was audible outside—could really crash a party when it wanted to. The screams outside were frantic, terrified, some of them cut off sharply, like a chicken's squawking severed by a hatchet blade. And over all, the snarling bass tones of Nagaq provided background music for a waking nightmare, echoing inside the amphitheater as the creature from hell drew ever closer to the open doors.

  Professor Stockwell gaped at Remo, evidently stunned to see him. "Dr. Ward! Where did you come from?"