"Ting! Ting!"
"You win," Remo told him, throwing his hands up in the air. "I surrender."
The soldier advanced.
The descending ammo case clouted him in the shoulder. He fell backward. Remo stomped his head into bonemeal and blood, getting a satisfying pang! sound. He retrieved the case, bouncing it from hand to hand like a basketball.
"Anybody else want to play gong?" Remo called.
The answer split the air. Remo dropped the case and began weaving in and out of the furious bullet tracks, the air cold in his lungs, filling him with energy and power. He felt like a Master of Sinanju again, sowing death among his enemies.
Remo tried every variation--a knuckle punch to the knees. A knee to the small of the back. He cracked a neck with an elbow, jellied genitals with a booted toe, never repeating a blow and never missing.
But even as he thinned the first skirmishers, others crawled out of the wreckage. The air was warming with the spilled contents of the ruptured steam engine.
Then, from behind him, came a low drumming rumble.
Remo looked back, not sure what to expect.
Strung along a rise was a line of Mongol horsemen brandishing curved bows like American Indians. They raised them into the air with a high, nerve-chilling cry.
Then the arrows were nocked and the horses thundered down.
"I hope they know whose side I'm on," Remo yelled at Kula.
"They are Mongols," Kula called. "They are gentle people-to other Mongols. I would not want to be a Chinese soldier at this moment."
What followed next was a one-sided massacre. The air filled with the fluttery hiss of arrows. Remo, knowing that an arrow inflicted a more lethal wound than a bullet, took pains to stay out of the rain of shafts. And that was exactly what it was.
They fell in waves. Line upon line of arrows. They struck chests, arms, heads, and legs. One hapless PLA conscript sprouted quills like a porcupine. He screamed until a willow shaft impaled his throat.
Answering fire was ragged and without heart. Chinese soldiers feared Mongol cavalry more than they feared death, and on this snowswept plain, the Mongol horsemen represented both.
A horseman galloped into view, and without stopping, pulled Kula onto his pony. They rode away, and Kula regained his steed.
That left Remo all alone under the next wave of arrows.
Remo had found shelter behind an overturned tank tangled with a splintered flatcar. Occasionally a PLA soldier would join him, seeking refuge from the endless fall of arrows.
Remo let them know they were not welcome by using them as shields. He caught dozens of arrows that way. When one human target was sufficiently punctured, Remo threw him contemptuously to one side and simply waited for another.
It took a while, but finally the PLA stopped trying to hide behind Remo's flatcar.
The PLA started to retreat, the Mongols hot on their heels.
The arrows had stopped, so Remo stepped out to meet the oncoming figures. He tore into the PLA with enthusiasm.
The sight of a lone Mongol-so Remo appeared from afar-single-handedly ripping PLA soldiers to shreds was enough to give the Mongol cavalry pause.
They came to a stunned stop and watched mute as statues. Kula's voice lifted over the screams of the dying, his words unintelligible to Remo's ears, but his tone unmistakable. It rang with pride.
Finally Remo had his fill of dismembering PLA soldiers and waved the Mongols on.
They came in like Apaches, whooping and using short daggers and swords to finish off the last stragglers.
The snow was pink and red when they were finished. The air was warm with rising steam and the heat that was escaping human bodies for the last time.
Kula cantered up to Remo, astride his own horse and leading Smitty. He offered Remo his reins in silence.
Remo mounted. "So much for phase one," he said. "There's time before the Mongol army gets this far south. Next we gotta find Fang Yu."
"She is lost?"
"She's not who I thought she was," Remo explained. "I gotta find out who she really works for."
"There are many ways to make a Chinese spy talk," Kula suggested, wiping his blade clean of blood with the shaggy mane of his pony.
Remo shook his head. "I'll handle Fang Yu on my own."
"We ride with you, white tiger." Before Remo could protest, Kula turned to the regathering horses and shouted in his native tongue.
The answering roar that filled Remo's ears meant nothing to him. But the intent was clear. Blades were lifted to the steely blue sky in salute.
"Looks like I have a following," Remo grunted.
Kula reached over and clapped his hands on Remo's shoulders.
"You and I, our blood is of the same color," he said with simple sincerity. "You lead and we will follow. No one will stand before us."
Remo glanced back to the wreckage of the Chinese troop train. Snow melted around the broken boiler.
"Let's hope this is the beginning of a streak," he muttered. But his voice lacked conviction. What would happen when he tangled with the Master of Sinanju?
He wheeled and spurred his pony back toward Sayn Shanda.
The Mongols fell in after him like the troubled wake of a great ship passing through white water.
Chapter 27
They swept through the Middle Gobi, between the provincial capital of Mandal Gobi to the north and Holodo Suma to the south.
By this time, the New Golden Horde was three thousand strong. It was no longer a line of cavalry, but a caravan.
Collapsible gers were carried on camelback. Supplies burdened creaking yak-drawn carts. From each saddle hung a leather sack containing hardened milk curd and water, which after a day's bouncing would be churned into an edible porridge.
Heeding the call to horse, they had come from Ulan Goom to the west, from distant Tamsang Bulag, and even from the remote villages of the Delugun-Boldok Mountains, the fabled resting place of Genghis Khan himself.