by Marc Olden
Looking to his left into the room, the Black Samurai saw no one. Dragging the unconscious guard out of sight of the door, Sand crouched and stepped into the muggy heat of the generator room, within seconds the hum of the machines attacking his ears.
Silently he padded across the floor of faded brown stones carved with the names and initials of prisoners of hundreds of years ago. He stopped behind a row of heated, humming generators, his fingers touching one of the machines, feeling it vibrate. On the opposite side of the dungeon, the other guard leaned back in a chair, leering at a girlie magazine, the chair balanced precariously on two legs, its back touching a gray metal table.
The Black Samurai moved behind a row of generators and began to circle the stone dungeon.
Touching his bearded pink face with thick hairy fingers, the guard found a pimple and squeezed it hard, his eyes still on the naked women spread across the page before him. When he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his left eye and turned toward it, it was too late.
Like a black blur, Sand rushed forward, kicking at a chair leg with his right foot. The chair crashed to the floor, the guard landing on his back, his head turning toward his .38 on top of the table.
The Black Samurai drove his foot downward, smashing the guard’s nose, driving the man backward. With one hand the man covered his painfully throbbing nose, while the other hand pushed against the stone floor for balance. He was in a sitting position when Sand stepped to the side and kicked him in the temple. He fell on his back and lay still, blood pouring from his shattered nose.
Quickly Sand ran across the floor, dragged the first guard inside, then stepped outside again into the darkness, picking up his weapons and black canvas bag.
Inside the generator room, with the door closed behind him, he took another small clocklike device from the bag, set it, and pushed down a red button. Ten minutes. After that, anything in this room would be destroyed. Placing it at the base of one of the generators, he backed away from it, then turned and went through the door, closing it behind him. Ten minutes.
Again he was in the hidden passage, racing toward the second generator. Lisa. She was important. When the explosion went off over the drawbridge, that would be a signal to Taper: start driving toward the castle as fast as hell, and don’t stop. Taper waited three miles away in the darkness of the last clump of trees offering cover. A man like Robert Sand could get close to the castle on foot. But no car could get closer than three miles without being seen or heard. So Taper waited. Sand hadn’t told Lisa this, nor had Taper been told anything except to watch for the explosion at the front gate. Then speed toward it.
Sand moved through the darkness, brushing the cobwebs from his forehead with the back of his hand. He smiled, remembering something Master Konuma had once told him. The old man had quoted Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of his favorite non-Oriental writers. “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”
If Lisa and Taper were killed, it meant Robert Sand’s death as well.
His eyes followed the pale-green flashlight beam as he stepped through the misty darkness.
Holding the small bomb in her hand, she reached out for the thick, rusty chain holding up the drawbridge.
“Lady Warren?”
Her head snapped at the sound, and one of her hands flew to her mouth, stifling a cry. She felt dizzy, and fear took hold of her immediately.
Talon. Standing in the darkness.
She had not heard him.
Like one of his hawks, he appeared to have dropped from the darkness. There had been only three guards on the ramp, all of them on the other side, away from the front gate, far enough away from her so that she could pretend to be walking the ramp only for fresh air. Far enough away not to see her place the small bomb where Robert had told her.
Talon!
Without a word, he moved to her, gently took the bomb from her hand, his animal bright eyes covering its entire surface as he slowly turned it around in his own hand. “Well, well, well. What have we here?”
Flattening his back against the wall, Sand reached out with his right hand and knocked gently on the door to the castle armory, site of the emergency generator. Hundreds of years ago, armor, swords, knives, and gunpowder had been stored down here. Today the stone room contained a small generator and one guard.
Most of the guards were up in the courtyard, on the ramp, or near the freezer in the great hall. The armory was located underneath the courtyard, not far from the dungeon. He knocked again.
“All right, all right.” A man’s voice on the other side of the door. It opened, sending light into the dark hallway. The man, stocky and muscular, stood in the doorway. “Where’s the fire?” he said.
The knife edge of Sand’s right hand came fast and hard into the man’s throat, causing him to make a horrible sound, half crying out, half hoarse breathing. As his hands reached to his throat, the Black Samurai turned to face him, simultaneously lifting his left leg high and driving it in a roundhouse kick to the man’s fat stomach.
The man doubled over, then moved backward into the room. Moaning, he fell to the floor, his nails trying to dig into the stone floor. Reaching into the black canvas bag, Sand took out a small clocklike bomb, setting the timer for seven minutes. Placing it at the base of the small emergency generator, he quickly took a quick look around the room.
He pulled the red telephone from the wall, dropping it at the feet of the guard lying and vomiting on the floor. The guard was still moaning and coughing in his green and yellow fluids when Sand stepped through the door, closing it behind him.
Something was wrong. Tense guards ran by him, their voices low, hands clutching shotguns dangling at their sides.
He was behind the tapestry in the great hall, still in the narrow passage where he had found the brick carved with Lisa’s name, the one she had told him she removed to spy on Print and Talon.
The fabric of the huge tapestry had worn thin in this spot. He saw the freezer, small, white, on top of the huge long wooden dining table. Standing near it were two shotgun-carrying guards, talking excitedly to each other. At each of the two open arches leading to the great hall, one guard stood, armed with a shotgun and a pistol tucked in his belt.
Four guards had left the room.
Why?
He didn’t know why, and that bothered him. He looked at his watch, then shifted his gaze back to the dimly lit huge room with high tan stone walls and brown wooden ceiling.
Two minutes until the explosions. Time enough to find his way to the nearest door and wait. Disturbed by the unexpected movement of the guards, he turned, and running slightly sideways, hurried along the hidden passage.
The cold and shame made her tremble. Fear made her numb. Lisa Warren stood naked in the center of the darkened courtyard, her feet tense on the cold cobblestones.
The cold wind blew her hair into her face, and she stiffly shook her head from left to right to clear her vision. Through tear-filled eyes, as though looking through thick glass, she gazed up to the courtyard walls, hearing the wind whip the flames of the torches, dimly seeing the darkened figure of Print Drewcolt stare down at her.
Her throat was knotted, her heart pounding as though it would burst through the bones of her chest. She turned, seeing Talon stare down at her, seeing the killer hawk Rajah sit lightly on his right arm, held out stiffly from his side.
More men filed into the courtyard, quickly running up the stairs to the ramp, then spacing themselves and staring down at her, their heads turning from her to whisper to each other, then back down to her.
The blood from a corner of her mouth quickly hardened in the cold. Print had struck her, cursed her, his eyes as wild as a savage animal’s, his fist driving her teeth into her gums.
Again and again he had asked her, “Why did you betray me, Lisa, why?”
She said nothing, and Print glared at her in silence.
Talon smiled. “Lady Warren, you were never off my list of potential informants. Never. I am a
very careful man. Surely you didn’t think you were the only one who knew about that secret passage?”
Print glared at her, his mouth twisted with sick hatred. “You will talk, Lisa. You will. Believe me.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak. Slowly, the salt taste of her blood harsh in her mouth, she had shaken her head from side to side, her eyes closed, her head bowed. No.
Behind her, she had heard Talon’s voice say softly, “The hawks, Mr. Drewcolt. The hawks.”
Minutes later, naked and shivering, frightened but somehow stubbornly clinging to something within her, she trembled in the darkness, hearing the sounds of the men taking positions to watch her. Mr. Drewcolt’s orders. It would add to her horror.
She had heard the flapping wings of the three hawks as they were taken from cages behind her. Wind-blown straw brushed against her ankles, and she smelled gasoline stored in carrying cans on the back of one of the trucks used to convoy the virus and guards earlier today.
“Kaaaaaa!” The terrifying noise made her turn around and look up at the huge hawk Rajah, now flapping his wings, his primitive, bloodthirsty cry echoing in the night.
Talon turned to Rajah, soothing him with wordless sounds.
Hate. That’s what had made her resist Print. Not courage, but hate. With a sinking feeling within her, she knew that wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive tonight. Sooner or later, the hawks would make her talk.
The explosions came within seconds of each other, dull roars from under the castle, rattling windows, sending smoke up from under one corner of the courtyard. Men yelled, and Lisa Warren turned to see every light in the castle go out.
The pressure was too much for her.
Placing her hands on her ears, the terrified naked woman screamed and screamed. In the panic, shock, and sudden darkness, with men shouting and Print Drewcolt racing along the wooden ramp yelling at the top of his voice, no one heard what she yelled.
Her sound mingled with the other sudden sounds of shock and surprise.
She had yelled the name “Robert.”
Chapter XVIII
A SECOND AFTER THE entire castle plummeted into total darkness and chaos, the Black Samurai leaped into action.
His foot smashed into the stomach of a guard in the open archway, driving him back into the wall, and as the guard’s heavy shotgun clattered to the tiles, Sand was racing across the floor toward the small white freezer. He had trained in darkness, learning to see with his ears and with senses other than his eyes.
Ahead of him he heard two guards call to each other, one of the men cursing loudly, each of them moving around in short circles. Instinct made the Black Samurai stop. He knew there was a guard in front of him. Sand’s keen eyes picked out the guard’s dim form, now crouched, his back to the black man. Moving quietly up to him, the Black Samurai reached down, grabbed both of the guard’s ankles, then pulled hard, dropping the man face-down onto the floor.
The man cried out, and Sand saw the dim form of the other figure turn toward him. As the man took a step, the twenty-seven-inch steel blade passed across his throat, biting deeply, slicing it evenly and smoothly, the warm blood spurting out quickly down his chest.
Turning, Sand stepped toward the table, reaching for it in the darkness with his sword. Shouts echoed throughout the castle, and to his right, in the other archway, a second guard cried out, “Flashlight, quick!”
In the blackness, Sand’s fingers touched the small freezer, then stopped.
It was locked!
Lisa had forgotten to tell him that.
Locked.
No time.
Jamming his sword down into his belt, he took the .45 from the small of his back, felt for the lock in the blackness; then, placing the gun directly on the lock, he turned his head sideways and pulled the trigger.
The roar of the powerful handgun echoed and reechoed throughout the huge hall, deafening Sand for seconds. Orange flames spitting from the barrel briefly lit up the Black Samurai’s tense face. The shattered lock clattered to the floor.
Ignoring the freezer, Sand dropped down flat on the cool tile floor, his .45 gripped tightly in both hands, aimed toward the last of the four guards, now running toward him in the darkness.
Sand pulled the trigger twice, the orange flames lighting up the dark area around him for a brief fraction of a second. The powerful gun lifted the guard off his feet, driving him backward to the floor, sending his shotgun sliding across the tiles.
Leaping to his feet, Sand fumbled for the freezer, found it, yanked open the door, and dug at the crushed ice, finding the steel canister. Dropping it into the black canvas bag slung across his chest, he turned and ran across the huge room.
Behind him, footsteps ran toward the great hall, men shouting, drawing nearer.
“I want her dead, Talon.” Print Drewcolt’s voice was strange, as though someone else had crawled inside his body and was speaking through his mouth.
“Mr. Drewcolt, we don’t have the time.”
“Make time! You hear? Make time!”
They stood in the courtyard, watched by silent armed guards with flashlights and torches. Talon tried once more. “Mr. Drewcolt, he’s only one man, I’m sure of it. It can only be the black Samurai we spoke of earlier tonight. Can’t be anyone else, and he’s always worked alone. We’ve got him trapped somewhere inside the castle. There’s only one way out, and that’s through the front gate. Mr. Drewcolt—”
The white-haired man’s voice was eerie but firm. “I want her dead, Talon. She’s turned against me, tried to destroy me, betrayed me. She goes, then the black. That’s the way I want it, Talon. The hawks. Now!”
Talon was silent. Then, exhaling loudly, he signaled the men around him to clear the courtyard. “Two stay here to help with the hawks. Rest of you get flashlights and put down the guns. Empty them first. He’s got the virus. One bullet into that thing, and we’re all dead in minutes. I repeat: no guns. Use iron pipes from the cellar and the dungeon, use castle weapons—swords, knives, flails, clubs, anything you can use to beat him with. Work in teams, two or more men to a team. Start running him down now. Don’t let him find a place to hole up in. He’s special, don’t play him cheap. I know he’s only one man, but mark him down as a dangerous one man.”
His silence said the instructions were over. They turned, rushing to follow his orders.
Minutes later Talon and Drewcolt stood up on the walk surrounding the courtyard, looking down at the naked woman slumped on the cobblestones below them. Talon’s arm was again held out stiffly, Rajah shifting along it in nervous anticipation of a kill.
The two remaining men in the courtyard each held a hooded hawk in their hands, and at a signal from Talon, the small black leather hoods were removed from the heads of the killer birds. As the birds nervously flapped their wings, snapping their heads quickly from side to side, balancing themselves on the back of the leather-gloved hands of the two men, Talon nodded again.
The men tossed the hawks into the air, wincing at the loud flapping of their strong wings, then turning to run under the ramp and back into the castle. Throughout the castle, men shouted and flashlights sliced through the darkness.
Both hawk men ducked inside a small room used for the hawks’ feed, quickly moving to windows to watch the woman die. Their backs were turned, and neither saw a shadow move toward them through the blackness of the small room.
Holding the .45 flat against the palm of his hand, Sand swung it in a flat, vicious circle, slamming the blue metal into the back of one man’s head. The man spun around, his back to the window, then slid to his right and down to the floor on his side. Gripping the gun by the barrel, the Black Samurai backhanded the butt into the second man’s throat, crushing his larynx, filling the guard’s throat with blood and torn cartilage.
The man tottered backward, both hands at his throat, his face a ghastly blue in the slivers of torchlight coming through the window from the courtyard. Falling to his knees, his eyeballs protruding,
he hoarsely cried out in a loud whisper, “Aaaaagh!” then toppled forward on his face, choking to death on his own blood. The dark-blue metal .45 was again flat against the small of Sand’s muscular back. Stepping to the left of the door, he bent down in the darkness, moving his fingers along the base of the wall until they brushed against his bow.
Lisa’s scream—a shrill, high sound of fear and pain—pierced the thick wooden door.
He yanked the door open, crouching low in the darkness, feeling the cold air lash his face.
Footsteps clattered along the wooden walk above him. “I want to see her face, Talon! I want to see her die!” Drewcolt. His voice was hoarse, the sound coming from a throat scraped raw crying for revenge.
Sand, hidden from both men by the thick ramp, was directly under them. Directly in front of him, Lisa Warren, fighting in a crazed frenzy caused by fear, pushed and shoved at the huge hawk Rajah.
She lay kicking and screaming on her side, the stones around her dark and slippery with her blood. “Kaaaaa!” Rajah, his wings flapping loudly, danced lightly backward, bouncing on the cobblestones, circling away from her, but never more than inches out of her reach.
The Black Samurai’s hand touched the .45 in back of him, then moved away, leaving the gun where it was. The .45 was a powerful handgun, capable of driving a bullet through Rajah as well as Lisa.
He notched an arrow to the bow. Then, holding the bow high overhead, he brought it down until the arrow was level with his eye, drawing the string back as far as it could go, the bow bending deeply.
In the flickering torchlight, the razor-sharp steel spurs attached to Rajah’s thin yellow legs glittered with an evil brightness. Flapping his wings loudly, the huge hawk cried out in the night and moved awkwardly across the cobblestones toward her.
Lisa screamed. The Black Samurai drew the bowstring back another inch, then let the arrow go.
