Chiun looked at him.
"Are you mad? There is one of these monsters left. Here, I will show you the best way to defeat him."
"Hold your horses, Little Father," Remo said.
The octopus pyramid suddenly stopped waving its many limbs. Its hoooing sound began to die like a failing wind through a hollow tree.
Remo walked up to the thing, not bothering to raise his arms to ward off the blows that would surely come. "Remo!"
"Yes?" Remo asked, turning casually. It was unbelievable. Had Remo learned nothing from his battle? Turning his back on the evil thing like that.
Chiun flashed into action, his sandals beating the ground, his hands reaching out to yank Remo from harm.
Then Remo turned back and waved good-bye to the octopus pyramid. The silent thing waved its arms back. They were feeble little shakes. Then, stepping up to it, Remo pushed the lowest man in the chest.
The entire octopus man fell back like a fallen tree.
It struck the edge of the coral cliff, and without breaking into individual men, splashed into the ocean below. The Master of Sinanju peered over the edge into the water.
"They did not fight you," Chiun said in disbelief.
"How could they?" Remo asked. "They were already dead."
"Already?"
And from a back pocket Remo pulled out a blowgun. "I took this from my guy. One of them, anyway."
"You . . . YOU . . . " Chiun sputtered.
"Neat, huh? I figured, why screw around with them? Well, aren't you going to say something? Aren't you proud of the slick way I handled my end?"
"Proud?" Chiun screeched. "Do you know how this will look in the Book of Sinanju? This was the last battle with these creatures."
Remo's face acquired an injured look. "Why should I care how it will look? I got them. Dead is dead."
"It was ridiculous. And you used a weapon. What will the High Moo say?"
"He'll say it's about time. He thinks you forgot your weapons."
"I am mortified," Chiun said huffily.
"You're just pissed because when you write in your dippy scrolls how Sinanju conquered the last octopus worshiper, I'll get all the credit."
"Glory hound," Chiun spat.
"I knew it," Remo laughed. And laughing felt pretty good after all he had been through.
Chapter 20
Remo finished lashing the bamboo poles together.
"I think it's long enough now," he called to Chiun. "Then bring it here," Chiun said testily.
Remo hefted the pole onto his shoulder. To his surprise, it held.
The sun was coming up. Pinkish rays tinged the Pacific. There were birds calling now. Not the twittering birds of the States, but the cacophony of jungle birds. Mynahs. Parakeets. Terns.
The Master of Sinanju finished lashing the hands of one of the octopus worshipers behind his back with a vine. "Give it to me," Chiun said.
After Remo had handed over the pole, the Master of Sinanju ran it up under the man's bound feet. It passed up his back, under his tied hands, to the next pair of bound ankles, and then to the next lashed wrists.
Remo lifted the hands as necessary, until the pole's end bumped the shattered skull of the topmost man.
"This is ridiculous," Remo said for the twelfth or thirteenth time as he examined the monstrosity that lay on the ground.
All nine octopus men had been joined into one huge octopus man. Remo had been harangued into retrieving the group he had knocked into the water. They had been easy to handle because they had stiffened into position from the effects of the poison darts.
But the others had to be reassembled one by one and their limbs set and then broken so they were locked into place. Chiun had done that. He knew how to crush bone and joints so that they fused.
"Now what? As if I can't guess," Remo asked.
"Take your end. I will take mine."
"On a count of three," Remo said, bending down. "One, two, three. Lift!"
The bamboo pole groaned, but it held. The bodies hung off it like slaughtered chickens. Tongues lolled. Some of the eyes stared glassily.
"Now, carefully," Chiun said, "back to the palace."
"The mighty hunters return, huh?"
"Say nothing about the blowgun," Chiun said in a sour voice.
They trudged down to the water, sloshing inland and through the jungle. Dead Moovian heads bounced like overripe fruit. They stopped to pick up the other bodies they had vanquished along the way, piling them unceremoniously atop the others. When they neared the village, Chiun suddenly called a halt.
"Lay it down," he ordered.
"Tired, Little Father?" Remo asked solicitously.
"Do not be ridiculous," Chiun countered, joining Remo in front of their burden. "I am reigning Master. To me goes the honor of entering the village first."
"Oh," said Remo. "I guess that means the back of the bus for me." And without another word he took Chiun's place at the end of the bamboo pole.
When they entered the village outskirts, Chiun began to call out in a loud singsong voice.
"Arise, O children of Moo. See what Sinanju has brought you. No longer need you fear the darkness. For the last of the spawn of Sa Mansang, known to you as Ru-Taki-Nuhu, has been vanquished! Arise, O children of Moo, to greet a new day and a golden era."