Remo whirled to meet the oncoming wolves.
One leapt for his throat. He was the easy one. Remo grabbed his forepaws on the fly, spun and sent the wolf, legs kicking air, into one of the shattered bus windows. The wolf broke what was left of the glass and landed amid the seats. He didn't get up again.
"One down," Remo said tightly.
The moon came out again, igniting evil green wolf eyes like witch candles. One crouched to Remo's left. The other padded on from his right.
That one leapt with a sudden gathering of gray fur. Remo faded back, kicking high. His foot drove the wolf into a backward somersault. The snap of its neck told him it wouldn't rise again either.
"That's two."
The third skittered to a halt. His back arching, he slunk back three steps, eyeing Remo with furious intent.
"Come on, Lassie," Remo taunted, crooking one finger at the glowering beast. "Time to learn a new trick."
Warily it slipped to one side. Remo feinted with both hands. It dodged back. Remo advanced.
As Kula and Fang Yu watched from a safe distance, Remo did a slow dance around the last wolf, and he around Remo.
"We're not getting anywhere," Remo complained loudly. "Come on, stop wasting my time."
The wolf shifted one way, then another, sometimes advancing, other times retreating. It growled exactly like a dog.
"It is too smart for you," Kula shouted over. "It knows you are a formidable enemy. Better that it think you are weak."
"Appreciate the tip," Remo said. He retreated a few paces. The wolf advanced warily.
Remo broke into a run, presenting his exposed back.
Emboldened by this show of cowardice, the wolf went after him.
Remo reached the bus, broke off a shard of window glass, and spun to meet the charging canine.
Snarling, the wolf jumped.
A glass fang whizzed through the Mongolian night.
It took the wolf full in the chest as its teeth snapped at Remo's throat.
Remo's throat, along with the rest of Remo, ducked under foam-flecked canine jaws. The wolf thudded against the side of the bus and landed atop a frozen PLA corpse.
It leaked a little blood, and snow began collecting on its gray-white fur. Its paws jerked briefly.
"And baby makes three," Remo muttered, picking himself up.
Casually Remo walked up to the others and accepted Smitty's reins from a stupefied Kula.
"Shall we go?" Remo said lightly, feeling infinitely better.
They formed the horses into a line and pressed on.
"You learn to ride well in a short time," Kula ventured after they had fallen into a rhythm.
"Farhvergnugen," Remo rejoined.
"Is that not German word?" Fang Yu asked in perplexity.
"Could be."
"You fight steppe wolf like you been fighting them all your life," Kula said with newfound respect in his voice.
"One wolf is like another," Remo said airily.
"You fight like a tiger," Kula said. "Like white tiger. Maybe I call you white tiger from now on."
"Call me what you want," Remo said. "Just don't call me a quitter. I intend to find my friend."
"I believe you, white tiger," Kula said with simple sincerity. Following the Great Mongolian Road, they came upon the PLA jeep with its frozen driver next.
The snow had obliterated any further tracks. It made Remo think of the mysterious footprints back in New Rochellewhich seemed like another world removed from this one. He cleared those thoughts from his mind. He had to find Chiun.
But all around him the steppe blended in a whirling world of snow. He felt like he was a tiny insect riding through one of those glass knickknacks that make snow when they're shaken.
Well into the night, they came upon a cluster of tiny brick houses from whose oilskin windows wan light glowed.
"We will sleep here," Kula announced brusquely.
"What if they don't want company?" Remo wondered.
"All Mongols know Kula. We will be welcome. Eat our fill of mutton and drink airag-fermented mare's milk."
"I'll pass," Remo said. But the warmth emanating from the house was welcome-even if it did smell like manure.
Chapter 22
By the time it reached the border outpost at Koko Jebei, the New Golden Horde was five hundred strong.
Word had been flashed by shortwave from Beijing and the capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region to halt the movement of Mongol cavalry at all costs.
General Bo Wanding was prepared.
At the outpost, he had gathered the Fist Platoon, China's equivalent of a rapid deployment force, behind a wall of mechanized armor. They were the toughest, strongest, most politically unshakable soldiers in the Chinese Army. They feared nothing, not Russians, not Mongols.
They waited behind a line of T-55 tanks whose cannon pointed southward to the distant horizon line from where they knew the Mongol army must approach.
An impatient captain came up to the general.