Somehow they found an exit and got out of there before the rabble in pursuit caught up with them. This door, like all the others, was constructed out of wood; it opened outward on a patio that seemed to join the courtyard proper somewhere to their right, around a corner of the temple. Remo dug his fingers deep into the wooden door and ripped a six-inch wedge-shaped portion free before he slammed the door and held it shut. The wedge went underneath, a solid kick ensuring that the hostiles on the other side would have their work cut out for them if they intended following this way.
"Come on," said Remo to the others. "We're already out of time."
They followed him through darkness, toward the open courtyard, where the awesome sounds of mortal combat told them that a battle from another age was taking place.
Chapter Nineteen
Audrey Moreland's mind was racing as she followed Renton Ward—or whoever the hell he was—in the direction of the courtyard. From the sounds, it was apparent that the dinosaur these tribesmen worshiped as Nagaq had left the temple, made its way outside, where it was raising hell. Its snarling, roaring voice was readily identifiable before she glimpsed the monster—and, Audrey suspected, she would hear it in her dreams for months to come.
It was the other sound that puzzled her right now. A kind of trumpeting. Some other animal perhaps… or were the natives trying to distract their killer god by blowing horns?
No, that was wrong. The sound was something she had heard before, if she could only place it, drag the necessary sound bytes from her memory and bring them forward into conscious thought. It sounded like…
An elephant!
Sherlockian deduction played no part in Audrey's sudden breakthrough. Rather, she had reached the corner separating her from the main courtyard, and she saw the looming pachyderm in front of her.
Not just an elephant, at that. It was an elephant complete with rider, and a queer old duck he seemed to be. A slight figure with white puffs of hair and wearing what appeared to be a jet black robe. An Asian of some kind, she realized, and clearly not a member of the local tribe. He held no staff or riding crop, as was the normal practice with most handlers, yet the elephant appeared to understand and willingly obey his orders… to a point.
The creature was distracted now, of course, by the ceratosaurus pacing back and forth some thirty feet away. From all appearances, the two great beasts were strangers to each other, nothing in the way of species recognition visible on either side. The reptile's attitude combined suspicion, anger and a kind of raw malevolence rarely associated with nonhuman species in the wild. The elephant, for its part, seemed determined not to give its snarling enemy the satisfaction of displaying fear. As Audrey watched, it raised its trunk and screeched another challenge at the prehistoric hunter.
The ceratosaurus hesitated briefly, rocked back on its haunches, great tail twitching, then shot forward, massive jaws agape and hissing. If the elephant was startled or intimidated, nothing showed. Instead of bolting for the open gates, it put its head down, furled its trunk to clear the long white tusks—and charged.
Before the two behemoths came together, Audrey saw the rider leap to safety, his kimono flared around him like a vampire's cloak open to the night. He made a perfect three-point touchdown, scrambled clear and turned to watch the jungle giants as they met with a resounding crunch of flesh and bone.
All eyes were on the grim, primeval contest, Audrey's no exception, but her thoughts were not confined to the potential fate of two inhuman gladiators. In the background, when their lurching bodies cleared the way, she had a fair view of the courtyard's phosphorescent fountain, shining like a beacon to her fortune.
The uranium was down there, somewhere underneath this city of grotesque inhabitants. Her contact with the rebels had been broken permanently, thanks to Renton Ward, but there was nothing to prevent her passing map coordinates along to the Chinese, fulfilling her part of the contract to ensure that she received the second payment of five hundred thousand dollars. She would walk into the Chinese embassy in broad daylight, if necessary, and concern herself with consequences afterward.
When she was wealthy and retired.
It crossed her mind that there might even be a bonus in the deal if she could block the Malay government from finding out about the lode before her Chinese sponsors had a chance to make their move. As far as she could make out, only Renton and herself knew anything about the city's radioactive foundation so far. Dear old Safford was off in a dreamworld, watching the ceratosaurus like a child with a new toy on Christmas morning. Sibu Sandakan might work it out if he had time, but it was still a long way back to Kuala Lumpur. Anything could happen on a trip like that—assuming Sandakan escaped the ancient city with his life.
And that left Renton Ward. From what she had already seen, there would be no point trying to surprise him or knock him on the head. Some kind of kung fu expert, for heaven's sake, from the damned New Orleans Serpentarium! That cover wouldn't hold for long, once he got home and started spouting off about their find.
If he got home.
She might get lucky, see an elephant or dinosaur step on him yet. It would be quite a waste, considering his talents in the sex department, but a million dollars would ensure that Audrey Moreland never lacked for male companionship again. Not that she couldn't find a man these days, but something told her she would meet a better class of lover on the Riviera, maybe down in Rio de Janeiro—or Tahiti. Sure, why not?
The first step was to get away from her companions, find a decent place to hide. And with the contest going on in front of them, she knew that there would never be a better time to make her exit.
Next stop, Audrey thought, the land of milk and honey.
Remo marked a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned in time to catch a glimpse of Audrey running toward the wall that marked the ancient city's boundary line. The massive gates were sixty yards to her right, but she didn't veer off in that direction. Rather, she appeared intent on getting to a kind of lean-to shed that stood against the inside of the wall, its wooden door ajar.
"Stay here!" he told the others, hoping they would follow his instruction, less concerned about their fate just then than with the prospect of the ringer making good her getaway.
He spared a glance for the immense combatants, ducked a spray of blood as the ceratosaurus raked the elephant across one ear with four sharp claws. It left the ear in tatters, but the elephant wouldn't back down. If anything, the sudden pain appeared to galvanize the pachyderm, propelled it forward, slashing with its tusks. The reptile scuttled backward, snarling, but a long gash opened on its flank before it hopped out of range.
Remo was in full motion now. On the far side of the jade arena, he saw Chiun, a tiny, black-clad witness to the clash of titans. Chiun saw Remo, too, and raised an open hand. From the expression on his face, they might have met by accident, outside a restaurant in downtown Seoul, instead of on some blood-smeared battleground where living nightmares dined on human flesh.
He kept on after Audrey, knowing Chiun could take care of himself in any given situation. Remo didn't have a clue as to where Chiun had found an elephant, but from the trail of broken corpses leading to the open gates, he knew the beast had paid its way before it ever caught a glimpse of old Nagaq.
As for the outcome of the present contest, Remo figured it was still too close to call.
Across the courtyard, Audrey was within a few strides of the lean-to, gaining fast, when she stopped short, recoiling in apparent fear. The door flew open, and a hulking, mud-caked tribesman leaped out to confront her, brandishing a spear. Her scream was audible above the snarling, grunting sounds of mortal combat at his back as Remo poured on speed.
Chiun was humming softly as he watched the contest that no living man had witnessed heretofore. Brute creatures lacked finesse, of course, but it was still an honor to observe their efforts from a ringside seat. His sympathy lay with the elephant, since it had served him well with no reward, but it was difficult to see the dragon as a loser, with its nimble sidesteps, wicked claws and flashing fangs.
Still, it was something of a disappointment when he thought about the great scrolls of Sinanju. Chiun had hoped the dragon would have wings, perhaps breathe fire—in short, put on a better show. It would have made the combat hopeless, stolen any chance the elephant might have, but there was something in the preservation of tradition that appealed to him.
Chiun doubted whether this big lizard even had an eye for gold and gems.
A sudden jabbering of voices from his flank distracted Chiun, and he was turning to confront the natives when the first spear whispered past him, struck the elephant and pierced its shoulder. Two more lances followed swiftly, striking home, and while they were no mortal threat to the behemoth, it was clear they irritated him. He shook himself, dislodged one spear, but the other two held fast.
Chiun was not amused.
He counted seven natives—three of whom had foolishly disarmed themselves—with two more poised to hurl their spears. They shouted for Nagaq as if they were a group of drunken white men watching football on a Sunday afternoon and rooting for the quarterback.
The Master of Sinanju moved against them, killing two before they seemed to recognize the threat. Nagaq's surviving acolytes turned their attention to Chiun, but it was already too late for them to save themselves.
Too easy, thought Chiun as he swept through their ranks without resistance, cleaving flesh and bone the way a butcher opens lifeless carcasses. There was no contest, and he finished swiftly, picking up one of their fallen spears and hefting it, considering its usefulness before he frowned and cast it to the side.
Chiun did not feel pity for his enemies. It had been their choice to attack, when they could just as easily have run into the jungle and concealed themselves. If they elected to do battle with the Master of Sinanju, it was understood—by Chiun, at least—that they would die in sundry violent and humiliating ways. There was no dignity in foolishness, and Chiun felt nothing but contempt for those who threw their lives away in hopeless causes.
He returned his full attention to the clash of giants in the courtyard. It wouldn't be long, pure logic said, before a winner was revealed.
His heart was with the elephant, but if he had been forced to bet, Chiun would have put his money on the reptile.
Remo was a dozen paces from the lean-to when the tribesman drove his spear through Audrey's abdomen, below the ribs, and hoisted her as if she were a fish, still wriggling on the tip of his harpoon. She screamed—a wild, unearthly sound, half pain, half disbelief—and Remo saw the warrior tilt his head back, opening his mouth to catch the first warm drops of blood that showered on his face.
It was the moment something snapped inside him, and a red haze blurred his vision for perhaps two heartbeats. Remo had been sent to kill this woman, and he would have done the job without complaint, but there was something so barbaric in the act of her impalement, something so inhuman in that thirst for blood, that Remo voluntarily let go of his reserve, felt fury energize him as he closed the final distance to his prey.
The tribesman saw Death coming through his one good eye, but there was little he could do about it. The man's first instinct was to drop the spear, drop Audrey and retreat in the direction of the lean-to.
He never made it. Remo caught him by the nape and hauled him back before the tribesman reached the threshold of his sanctuary. Simple pressure at the point where skull met spine would do the trick, but Remo didn't let his adversary off that easily. Instead, he hauled the native back and set him on his big, splayed feet, stood waiting for the guy to make his move.
The cyclops blinked twice, muttered something in his native tongue and threw a roundhouse punch at Remo's head. It was the final voluntary move his body ever made. His arm was snapped like kindling at wrist and elbow, twisted from the shoulder socket with a gruesome sucking sound. Before the native even knew he was disarmed, before the agony could register, his own arm whipped around and struck him in the face with force enough to crush his nose and cheekbones, shearing off his front teeth at the gum line. One more stroke before he fell, and that was all it took to split his skull, the lifeless body falling next to Audrey.
Remo knelt beside the woman, cradling her head without a sudden motion that would fire new jolts of pain off through her body. He didn't remove the spear or otherwise disturb it, understanding that her wound was hopeless from the dark blood soaking through her denim shirt in front and back. A modern hospital with trauma surgeons standing by might just have saved her, but there was a shortage of facilities in the Malaysian jungle. Even with a helicopter on the scene right now, she would have bled to death or died from shock within the first few minutes, miles away from any kind of help.
So Remo, helpless, brushed the hair back from her face and asked her how she felt.
"Like shit," she told him honestly. "It isn't fair."
"What is?"