by David Bishop
Boyle silenced her with a kick to the stomach, then sent Dobie out in search of Dante. "Beg, steal or borrow a kilt and get yourself entered into the Games. If you can't extract Dante, arrange for him to meet an unfortunate accident. I'll bring the ambulance over and we can get the hell out of this place. Got it? Good, then go!"
Dante marvelled at the Games' bizarre range of sporting contests. An area at one end of the vast field was devoted to conventional track and field events like the sprints, long jump and the hop, step and jump. But the rest of the show ground was devoted to more arcane pursuits. Wrestling was a popular spectator sport, with a crowd of excited women watching men in kilts grapple with each other, their kilts frequently flying above the waist to great cheers of approval. Nearby burly men were attempting to toss a mighty weight over a bar that was being raised progressively higher and higher. Others were throwing a hammer, trying to get it the greatest distance. But the most spectacular of the heavy events was tossing the caber. Each man was given a length of wood that resembled a tree trunk and was expected to throw it through the air.
Now the Douglas men had found sufficient numbers to enter themselves as a group, Tam was quickly showing why he was their leader. His hammer throwing easily won first prize, while he proved a demon at wrestling. But the red-haired hurler overdid it tossing the weight over the bar and came away nursing his back. The other Douglas men winced in sympathy, but none were willing to take his place in the caber tossing. "It's a crying shame," Tam said through gritted teeth. "That's my speciality too!"
Dante turned away from him. "Crest, are all my enhanced abilities back at full strength?"
Yes, but that doesn't mean-
"I'll toss the caber!" Dante shouted.
The others looked at him as if he were mad, but Tam smiled and nodded. "I knew you were something special laddie, the first time I saw you!"
When he says special, do you think he means mentally impaired?
Dante strode into the open space where the caber was being tossed. So far, few competitors had managed to lift the six-metre-long wooden pole, let along throw it any distance. A judge asked for his name. "Nikolai Dan- Douglas! Nikolai Douglas!"
"Next to toss the caber is Nikolai Douglas," a loudspeaker announced to the rest of the show ground. "This year the caber weighs more than sixty kilograms, a record for these Games!"
Fortunately for Dante, the caber was already standing on one end, held in place by several organisers. He crouched beside the tall length of wood, making a great show of preparatory puffing and panting to mask a conversation with the Crest. "How do I actually toss this thing?"
You volunteered for this and you don't even know how to take part?
"I didn't want to let the Douglas clan down," Dante said with a shrug.
Of course not. Very well. First, you lift the pole with a swift movement into a vertical position. Dante dug his fingers underneath the caber. Try not to open your legs too wide while crouching, the Crest suggested. You may be dressed like a true Scotsman beneath the kilt, but you haven't got a sporran to protect your modesty.
Dante glanced across the field and noticed a cluster of young women pointing at him and laughing. "Bojemoi!" he muttered. "As if I haven't got enough to think about." With a mighty grunt he pushed up from the ground, lifting the caber into the air.
Good. Now you start running forwards.
"You've got to be kidding me."
You volunteered for this, remember? You start running forwards...
Dante did as the Crest urged, slowly putting one foot in front of the other until he gradually picked up speed. "Okay, now what?" he gasped between gulps of air.
Evasive action!
"What do you mean, evasive action?" Dante snapped, still running with one end of the caber balanced in his hands, the other end pointing into the sky. "Is that part of the event?"
One of the bounty hunters is on the other side of the field, aiming a gun at you!
By this point Dante was close to the far side of the area cleared for the caber tossing. "Crest, I'm running out of room! When do I toss this bloody tree trunk?"
Sorry, it said apologetically. I was distracted by the imminent threat to your life. Pardon me for trying to keep you from being shot.
"Crest!" Dante bellowed. Ahead of him he could see Dobie standing apart from the rest of the laughing spectators, taking aim with a silenced pistol.
You're meant to stop dead and hurl the caber upwards.
Dante did as he was told, launching the mighty pole into the air. It turned over three times before plummeting back down towards the spot where Dobie was standing. The rest of the crowd had already dived out of the way, but the bounty hunter was slow to realise his danger. He dived out of the way with moments to spare, his weapon falling to the ground. The caber slammed into the earth, crushing the pistol beneath it. The judges ran forward with a measuring tape to see how far Dante had tossed, while Dobie melted away into the crowds. Within a minute the show ground's public address system crackled into life. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Games record! Nikolai Douglas has tossed the caber twelve metres further than anyone ever before! Can we have a big round of applause for Nikolai Douglas of the Clan Douglas!"
Having impressed the crowds with his record-breaking efforts with the caber, Dante found himself in demand for all manner of events afterwards. Every time he tried to make his way back to the ambulance, another group would grab his hand and drag him away to a different area of the show ground. He was a useful addition to the Douglas men in the tug of war, helping them reach the semi-final before they were eliminated, but was worse than useless when dragged into dancing a reel with three sprightly youths. Dante staggered off the raised dais where the dancing events were taking place and walked straight into Dobie. The bounty hunter was dressed in a red tartan kilt and was clutching a long sword in each hand. "Going native, are you?"
"You may have buried my gun but I don't need it to finish you off," Dobie snarled. "These ceremonial sabres will do the job just as well!"
Dante smiled as the purple and silver cyborganics extruded bio-blades from his fists. He crossed them in front of his face, raising an eyebrow at the bounty hunter. "You were saying?" The two men circled round each other, searching for an opening.
But before either of them could strike, an adjudicator on the dancing stage saw what they were doing and commandeered the public address system. "Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have a treat in store. Two of our male competitors are volunteering to perform a Gillie Chaluim!" The crowd gave a collective gasp, everyone nearby looking round to see who the announcer was talking about. "That's right, a Gillie Chaluim! And unless I'm much mistaken, it looks like one of our volunteers is Nikolai Douglas!" Dante and Dobie stopped circling each other and looked up at the dais. The adjudicator gestured for them to come up on stage. "Come on, now, don't be shy!" she called out. "Everybody, give these brave boys a round of applause!"
People left nearby events to join the crowd around the dais, all of them clapping wildly and shouting their approval. In less than a minute more than a hundred spectators were gathered to watch. Dante could see Tam among those joining the throng. "Good on you, son!" the red-haired man shouted over the cacophony. "But you be careful, you hear?"
The adjudicator waved for Dobie and Dante to join her on stage. "Come on," she urged. Trapped by the surging crowd around them, the pair had little choice but to do as she said.
"Try to escape and I promise you a long, slow, painful death," Dobie said into Dante's ear as they climbed up on to the dais. Meanwhile the crowd was shouting, clapping and stomping their approval of this new development.
"Crest," Dante whispered. "What the hell is a jilly charloom?"
I was wondering when you'd ask. A Gillie Chaluim is the oldest of the Highland dances, said to date back to the time of King Malcolm Canmore in the Eleventh Century. After defeating an enemy in battle, the king would lay his sword over that of his adversary in the sign of the cross
and execute a dance of victory. The Gillie Chaluim was an exclusively male dance at first, but later it was kept alive by women and particularly young girls. The object was to dance with the feet as close as possible to the swords without ever touching the blades.
"That doesn't sound too bad," Dante said. "From the way it was announced, you'd think we had to dance each other to death."
Funny you should say that. The Gillie Chaluim was outlawed thirty years ago after the name became associated with an altogether more dangerous form of dancing. Men reclaimed the name and used it for a duelling dance where each combatant wields a pair of swords.
"Let me guess - it was made illegal because so many people get hurt?"
Because so many people died, Dante. The winner is usually declared when one of the dancers draws the blood of his adversary. But at its most savage, the Gillie Chaluim is a dance to the death where neither opponent puts down his sword until the other man falls.
The adjudicator called for silence from the hundreds now gathered around the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, quiet, please! If there are any children present, they must be taken away now - the Gillie Chaluim is not to be witnessed by anyone under eighteen." There were disappointed cries from children clustered at the front of the crowd as parents dragged them away. Meanwhile the adjudicator approached Dante and Dobie. "Well, how far are you gentlemen wiling to go? Will first blood be enough to satisfy honour?"
"That sounds good to-" Dante began.
"To the death!" Dobie interjected. "We fight to the death!"
"You dance to the death," the adjudicator corrected him.
"I dance," the bounty hunter spat, then pointed at Dante. "He dies!"
The crowd overheard this interchange, shocked whispers passing through the throng. "Did you hear that, hen? They're dancing to the death!"
The adjudicator looked both men in the eye. "Are you both agreed on this? Your decision must be unanimous or else the Gillie Chaluim cannot go ahead."
"Well?" Dobie asked his target. "Have you got the guts for this?"
Dante sighed and nodded. "We dance to the death."
"Very well," the adjudicator agreed, then announced their decision to the crowd. A thrill of excitement passed through the people thronged around the stage. The adjudicator made the sign of the cross, then rested a hand on both men's shoulders. "May God have mercy on your souls." She climbed down from the dais, leaving the two enemies surrounded by a thousand people.
"How do I get myself in these situations?" Dante wondered out loud.
Stupidity and stubbornness usually do the trick, the Crest replied.
Inside the ambulance Boyle was getting restless. "What's taking Dobie so long?"
"Finding Dante will not be easy," Penelope said. "He's a master of disguise, able to blend into any crowd and simply disappear. If he is still here, your partner could walk right past him and never even notice. But Dante's got no reason to stick around. Best guess? He'll be a hundred kilometres away from here by now. You'll never find him." She paused, savouring the pained expression on her captor's face. "I'm sorry, was that a rhetorical question?"
Boyle grabbed the front of her catsuit and wrenched Penelope towards him until their faces were almost touching. "Shut your mouth, or else I'll take great pleasure in smashing your teeth down your throat, one by one," he snarled.
"You have the most amazing eyes," she said softly. "A shade of a blue like I haven't seen outside the Mediterranean, flecked with white like shards of ice. A person could lose themselves in those eyes, Ray." She stroked the side of his face tenderly, softly caressing the bruised cheekbones and taut, angry mouth. "Someone hurt you once, I can see in your eyes, the set of your mouth. Someone hurt you and you swore you'd never be hurt again. I could take the pain away, I could kiss it all better." She moved closer, her lips hovering over his, her eyes staring into his, her breasts pressing against his chest. "Let me make it better, Ray..."
He reached a hand up to Penelope's face and shoved her backwards across the ambulance, so her skull smacked against the wall. "Get away from me, you bitch!"
She shrugged while rubbing the back of her head. "Well, you can't blame a girl for trying."
"I can," Boyle warned, aiming his pistol at Penelope's face. "I don't care what Rucka says. Try one more stunt like that and I'll bury your corpse where they can never find it. You won't be dead, just missing in action - one more secret agent who disappeared in the line of duty."
Dobie attacked first, a crude lunge with the sword in his left hand that Dante easily eluded. But the bounty hunter's attempt was merely a feint, drawing his opponent off balance. While his left sword was still in motion, Dobie pivoted on one heel and whipped his other sword through the air. The blade cut through shirt fabric and sliced to the bone, the metal edge gouging into two ribs. Dante cried out in pain, a crimson stain spreading down his left side.
"First blood to me," Dobie crowed. He took a step back and licked the blade clean with his tongue. "It's said the first cut is the deepest - but I promise my last cut will hurt the most."
"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough," Dante replied. When Dobie stepped in for another attack Dante's bio-blades cut his opponent's shirt into rags, leaving two livid cuts in opposite directions across Dobie's chest. "X marks the spot," Dante said. "That's where I'll bury my blade when I kill you."
"Promises, promises," Dobie smiled. He bowed to Dante, then struck a pose with his two swords. "Enough of the preliminaries. Let battle commence!" Dobie hurled himself at Dante, who danced aside, spinning through the air in a graceful pirouette. The bounty hunter went high with both his blades, but Dante ducked under them. When Dobie went low, his opponent jumped over the top of both swords. "Stand still, damn you!"
"This is meant to be a sword dance, not a sword fight," Dante smirked. "Can I help it if you're not much of a dancer?" He attempted a few dance steps of his own and tripped over his own feet, landing clumsily on his behind.
The bounty hunter laughed, his blades drawn back for the kill. "You were saying?" But when he attacked, Dante rolled aside. Another attack and Dante rolled the other way, narrowly avoiding being impaled. On the third time his luck ran out and Dobie stabbed a sword clear through Dante's stomach so the tip was buried in the wooden dais. The crowd gasped in horror, their new found favourite pinned to the stage, his blood forming a scarlet pool underneath him.
Dobie took a step back, savouring his triumph. "And now, for my next trick..." he announced, turning in a slow circle to look at the audience round the stage, ten-deep in places.
Suddenly Dante rammed his left bio-blade through Dobie's back so far the front half emerged from the bounty hunter's chest. "How do you like your wounds?" Dante said, his teeth flecked with blood. "Straight up?" He wrenched the blade round through ninety degrees, bringing a scream of pain from his opponent. "Or with a twist?" Dante ripped his bio-blade back out of Dobie's back and walked round so the bounty hunter could see his sword was still wedged through Dante's body. The bounty hunter collapsed to his knees, disbelief clouding his eyes. He tried to swipe his remaining blade at Dante but it fell uselessly to the floor, along with Dobie's neatly severed right hand. The crowd was chanting, baying for blood.
Dante slowly, painfully pulled the sword out of his stomach then let it drop to stage. The dais was awash with blood spilling from his wounds and those of Dobie. The bounty hunter's face was ashen, the knowledge that death was upon him all too obvious. "Please," he gasped, his breath a series of short, wet wheezing sounds. "Don't let me bleed to death."
Dante drew back one of his bio-blades, ready to finish Dobie off, urged on by the crowd around him. Instead he paused and looked up at the sky, studying the clouds as they floated lazily overhead. "Enough," he murmured to himself and turned away.
The crowd booed and jeered, but Dante paid them no heed as he stumbled down the steps to the grass, his knees almost buckling beneath him. Tam was waiting for him, the burly redhead slipping Dante's right arm ove
r his shoulders. "Come on, laddie! You've done the Douglas tartan proud today. I'll see you to that ambulance, get you cleaned up."
On the dais Dobie fell face first into his own blood, splashing those nearest. He gasped a few more times, then made no further sound, his eyes staring lifelessly at nothing.
Flintlock woke to find a dozen guards standing over him. "Spatch, old boy, I think we've got company." The two prisoners were still being kept in the ground floor room looking out on the Tower of London's courtyard, where Princess Marie-Anne had visited them the previous day. By now the air was ripe with the stench of Spatchcock's all-pervasive body odour.
"I had nothing to do with it," Spatchcock mumbled as his eyes opened.
"You say that every time you wake up," Flintlock sighed.
"It's a defence mechanism." He stretched and yawned, then counted the heavily armed sentries filling the room. "All twelve of you to look after the two of us? Isn't that overkill?"
"I'd prefer if you refrained from using words like that," Flintlock whispered.
Spatchcock shrugged, then shifted his attention back to the guards. "I was beginning to think you had forgotten all about us." The sentries remained silent, their faces impassive, weapons aimed at the two prisoners. "Talkative bunch, aren't they?"
"You'll have to forgive them their silence," a man replied from the doorway. He paused to light a pipe, its pungent smoke quickly spreading through the confined space, then made his way through the armed guards. The new arrival had a thoughtful face with piercing eyes, and receding ginger hair. He sucked on his pipe, smiling contentedly. "They are trained not to speak unless given permission by a superior officer or authority figure."
"I'm guessing we don't qualify," Flintlock ventured.
"You guess correctly," the man said. "My name is Rucka, Rucka of Scotland Yard."
Spatchcock grinned wolfishly. "Rucka? That rhymes with mother-"