Butter ducked as something silver sliced through the air. He brushed his hand over his head and plucked several shortened hairs. ‘Too close for my comfort,’ he muttered, snatching his walrus tusk-handled knife from his belt. He raised the blade in the air, but it never made contact – the butt of a sword struck the back of his skull and he collapsed, unconscious.
As for Ruby, her fighting instinct kicked in and she ducked swiftly, avoiding a soldier’s punch. As his arm flew past her, she grabbed his wrist and forward-rolled on the ground. The soldier screamed as his arm dislocated from its socket.
Prometheus, meanwhile, was having a ball. It had been some time (too long) since he had been allowed to cut loose. His strength and size were unmistakable weapons, and more than one of his foes held back, too afraid to face him – most wisely. The Irish strongman glared at the soldiers. That look alone sent shivers through the three soldiers facing him. Not waiting for an invitation, Prometheus punched one of them in the face and the sheer force of it slammed the Chinaman into his two colleagues, his heavily armoured body pinioning them to the ground.
The battle came to a halt as Quaint, Butter and Prometheus heard a scream. They knew instantly who it belonged to and turned around to see Captain Hienko holding his sword to Ruby’s throat. Butter and Prometheus looked to Quaint for guidance.
Reluctantly, the conjuror raised his hands in the air.
‘Take these fools to the mountain!’ ordered Captain Hienko. ‘They shall stand in line with the prisoners from the mine… and they will share their fate.’
Chapter XX
The Trap is Set
Darkness had taken hold, both in the evening sky above Q’in Mountain and in the hearts and minds of the large group of slaves set out in parallel lines at its foot near the entrance to Cho-zen Li’s silver mine. Iron railway tracks led into the mine, and a wooden platform was situated to the right of them. It was upon this platform that Cho-zen Li’s right-hand woman stood, surveying the lines of slaves. Flaming torches were affixed to the sides of the mountain, flickering in the breeze. Li-Dao snatched one up and inspected the lines of prisoners.
Quaint’s troupe was amongst them. The slaves had been selected from the mine for their lack of physical strength. Cho-zen Li was not about to slaughter his strongest workers. It was a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. A messy way, but a productive one. Every now and then a good culling helped to cement the morale of the slaves. He wanted to show them that escape was hopeless, and if there was one thing that Cho-zen Li wanted his slaves to be without – it was hope. Li-Dao approached the tall, muscular Chinaman stood upon the wooden platform beside her.
‘When should we begin the cull, Wuan?’ Li-Dao asked the bear of a man. His appearance was fearsome. His head was completely shaved, his bare chest and arms coated with sweat, and he carried a long iron chain in his hands, snapping it taut every few seconds, hearing the sound echo within the mouth of the mine.
‘That depends how long you are planning to wait for Makoi to show up,’ answered Wuan, the silver mine’s head jailer. ‘We have over sixty of our weakest workers here, my lady… if we are to kill one a minute this will be over too soon.’
‘Have you no reserves?’ Li-Dao asked.
‘There are always reserves,’ replied Wuan. ‘But the more we kill, the more stock we must replenish. We can slay all of these worms with little impact, but if we exceed one hundred, well… that needs to be endorsed by the Master.’
‘Let us hope that Makoi shows himself soon then.’
‘Do you think he is out there right now?’
A thin smile touched the corners of Li-Dao’s lips. ‘Oh, yes. He’s out there. So perhaps it is time to start the proceedings. I would hate to keep him waiting.’
Cho-zen Li’s bodyguard was right.
Makoi was watching from the treeline just north of the mine’s entrance, and he saw Li-Dao step down from the platform and approach the lines of slaves. His lieutenant, Chia, was at his side, and his band – which numbered only twenty-five – were scattered within the shadowed darkness, awaiting their leader’s word. Each man had not an inch of bare flesh exposed, was covered head to foot in dark cloth. They were like a group of panthers, eager for the kill. They were hopelessly outnumbered, of course – but that had not stopped them being a thorn in Cho-zen Li’s side in the past. Makoi rearranged his golden mask – the snarling features of the dragon’s face almost mirroring his true expression behind the metal.
‘Chia, take the men and spread them out deeper into the forest. I want the entrance to the mine completely surrounded. We need to move in unison or this whole plan is for nothing. If Cho-zen Li wants Makoi, then we shall give him to him.’
Li-Dao walked past the three lines of prisoners, and past the soldiers that guarded them at each end. Three other brigades were situated around the mountain. One by the entrance to the mine, the others stationed at the foot of the mountain and within a clearing amongst the trees. One of the soldiers approached Li-Dao and offered two things: firstly, a salute, and secondly, an ornamental bull’s horn, through which the young woman spoke:
‘I know that you can hear me, Makoi, and I know that you can see me. And now I want you to watch as I will kill one of these prisoners for every minute that you delay revealing yourself.’ Li-Dao lowered the horn and strode over to the nearest slave; a young girl of African descent, another of Cho-zen Li’s waifs and strays that his slavers had picked up along the way. ‘Let me give you a demonstration.’
Li-Dao withdrew her sword from her scabbard and sliced it through the air. The African slave was still standing as her head slipped from her neck and rolled onto the dirty ground, a fountain of blood spraying the air.
In the back row of the lines of slaves, Quaint closed his eyes. Thankfully, he was near the end of the group of unlucky souls about to die, possibly the fiftieth prisoner to be executed – but fiftieth in line for decapitation was hardly something to shout about. There was a school of thought that it was better to be near the end, because then it gave Makoi a chance to surrender and Quaint might go free. But it also meant that he was forced to watch forty-nine executions.
‘Fat lot of good surrendering did us!’ Prometheus groused, to Quaint’s left.
‘Would you rather be closer to the front?’ asked Quaint.
Prometheus scanned his eyes left and right across the backs of the heads in front of him, and his heart missed a beat over something that his eyes had yet to register.
‘Oh, no.’
‘What is it, Prom?’ asked Ruby, as she leaned forwards in the line to see a deep set frown engraved upon Prometheus’s bearded face. ‘Prom?’
Prometheus’s eyes were fixed ahead at a young man dressed in filthy, dirt-stained clothes. Ruby tried to follow his gaze to decipher what had ensnared him.
And then she saw it – or rather – she saw him.
Quaint stared at Butter and motioned to Ruby. Butter shrugged and nodded at Prometheus. Quaint looked swiftly from his left to his right, oblivious as to what had captured Ruby and Prometheus’s attention, and feeling decidedly put out about it.
‘What is it?’ the conjuror was forced to ask. ‘What are you two staring at?’
‘Yin!’ Ruby replied.
‘Or is it Yang?’ added Prometheus. ‘I can never tell the difference.’
‘It’s Yin,’ snapped Ruby. ‘One of his ears sticks out.’
‘Yin?’ mouthed Quaint, silently. ‘So where’s Yang?’
‘I can’t see him,’ said Ruby, ‘but Yin’s the one we want to be worried about – he’s only about two minutes away from getting his head cut off. What do we do?’
Quaint replied, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘But he’s going to die! We need to think of something, Mr Q!’
‘I’m in full agreement, my dear… but a solution isn’t exactly presenting itself. We might be able to save Yin… but who’s going to save us?’
‘One minute is up!’ called Li-Dao,
as two soldiers grabbed the next slave in the line and hoisted him forwards. She swung again with her sword, and the slave’s head was cleaved from his neck. It rolled directionless along the ground, coming to a rest next to the head of the female slave who had been butchered moments before.
From his position, Yin looked anxiously down the line. There was only one more slave between him and the edge of a blade...
Again, Li-Dao raised the horn to her mouth: ‘Two down, Makoi, only fifty-eight to go. How many more is it going to take before you give yourself up?’ Not that she really expected it, there was no reply. ‘I have heard the stories about you, Makoi… how you fear nothing. That is an easy thing to do when you hide behind the comfort of a mask. You are a fraud, Makoi… a coward and a fraud. But perhaps you need some additional motivation to make you see sense.’
She grabbed the slave next in line, and kicked at the backs of his legs causing him to crash down onto his knees. She swiped her sword, and another head fell. Li Dao moved to the next slave in line – which unfortunately happened to be Yin. The acrobat could do nothing as she grabbed his wrist and dragged him towards her.
‘I can’t look!’ said Ruby.
Li-Dao lightly touched the sword against Yin’s exposed neck, aiming her strike. Just like the other prisoners waiting in line, the circus performers were anaesthetised into silence as they waited for the blade to fall. Quaint shook with rage. Yin was one of his people, his family, and he was not about to stand by and do nothing. He ground his teeth, feeling his rage turn to strength, ready to make his move when—
‘Hold!’ called a voice from the trees, and everyone at the mountain’s foot froze as Makoi stepped out of the trees and into the clearing at the mine’s entrance. ‘I will no longer tolerate this senseless slaughter in my name!’
Seeing a far more interesting target, Li-Dao let go of Yin, and stepped over his kneeling body as if he was a muddy puddle. ‘What a shame. I was just getting warmed up.’
‘You are Cho-zen Li’s messenger, Mistress Li-Dao,’ said Makoi, ‘so tell your master that the people of this province will no longer do his bidding. Too much have we sacrificed, too many have we lost. Cho-zen Li’s rule is over!’ Makoi raised his arms into the air to a wall of rapturous applause from the slaves. ‘Run home and tell him that, little girl.’
Li-Dao was unfazed. ‘You will get the chance to tell him yourself, although he will be most disappointed when he learns how quickly you surrendered.’
‘Mistress Li-Dao,’ said Makoi, ‘whoever said I was surrendering?’
He clapped his hands and at the far end of the clearing, something glittered in the half-light of the torches. All eyes watched as a man stepped out of the undergrowth wearing a golden dragon mask – exactly the same as the one worn by the man stood before Li-Dao.
‘Two of you? What is this trickery?’ she demanded.
‘You wanted Makoi, did you not?’ the outlaw said, with another clap of his hands. Another dragon-masked man stepped from the bushes to join his side, and by his side came another, and another, and another. ‘Now you may take your pick.’ On the far side of the clearing, shrouded in the dark shadow of Q’in Mountain, yet another Makoi revealed himself, followed by several more. Soon, a sea of indistinguishable masks surrounded the clearing.
Twenty-seven Makois in all.
Identical in every way.
Cho-zen Li’s soldiers looked to Li-Dao for orders, but she was in no position to give any. Thick beads of perspiration ran down her forehead, and her eyes twitched left and right frantically. Taking charge swiftly, Wuan glared at the battalions of soldiers around the clearing.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he bellowed. ‘Kill Makoi!’
One of the soldiers found his voice. ‘But… which one, sir?’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Wuan. ‘All of them! Kill them all!’
All hell broke loose in a heartbeat as Cho-zen Li’s soldiers began to engage the many Makois in battle. Q’in Mountain was in chaos, and the distraction was just what Cornelius Quaint wanted. Wrenching a torch from its housing near the mine’s entrance, he held the ropes around his wrists over the flame. In seconds, he directed the other slaves to follow suit, and they dispersed in all directions, making a break for freedom into the trees.
‘We need to get out of here,’ said Quaint. ‘Yin, are you all right?’
Reunited and overjoyed, Yin hugged his friends tightly. ‘Yes, boss! I’m a little shaken but otherwise fine. I was captured a few days ago and they put me to work in that hellhole of a mine. I thought I was going to die.’
‘If it makes you feel any better, you still might,’ said Quaint. ‘We’ve got a long way to go yet.’
‘Who are you people?’ bellowed Wuan, tensing both his muscles and his chain as he approached the group of circus performers. ‘You are not prisoners of this mine! What are you doing here?’ He wrapped his chain around his hands, balling them into solid iron fists. ‘No matter, you will die like the rest of them.’
Quaint was about to make a move but Prometheus held him back.
‘Leave this one to me, Cornelius.’
‘If you insist,’ said Quaint, in complete agreement. ‘Now, whilst you’re sorting that chap out, the rest of us should—’
Yin, Butter and Ruby prepared to move.
‘Should what, boss?’ asked Ruby.
‘I was going to say run.’
‘All right then, so let’s run!’ said Ruby.
‘Can’t.’
‘Oh, for crying out loud, Mr Q! We’re liable to get killed if we stay here much longer!’ snapped Ruby. ‘We don’t have time for your heroic sensibilities!’
‘No, I meant we can’t… because of her,’ said Quaint, pointing at Li-Dao stood less than ten feet away.
Quaint was about to make a move but Ruby held him back.
‘Leave her to me, Mr Q.’
‘If you insist,’ said Quaint, once again in complete agreement. ‘Butter, Yin – find some distance from this place. Into the mine, quickly!’
As Prometheus and Ruby began the fierce dance of combat with their foes, Quaint led the acrobat and the Inuit out of harm’s way, climbing up onto the raised platform at the entrance to the mine. Quaint stood up and surveyed the carnage of the battle around him. He could only guess which one of the outlaws in the battle was Makoi, if any of them. There were golden-masked faces in all directions. ‘I can’t just sit here as a spectator! Butter, stay here and look after Yin.’
‘Certainly, boss… but where do you go?’ the Inuit asked.
‘Where else?’ said Quaint. ‘To find the real Makoi.’
‘Where is brother Yang?’ Butter asked Yin. ‘He was not prisoner also?’
‘No, he was the lucky one. He always was,’ answered Yin. ‘Yang and I arrived further down the coast and made our way here, just as we had planned, but we were attacked by soldiers. I was captured, but Yang managed to flee. I’ve been waiting for him to show his face for days, but I’ve heard nothing.’
‘Not even inside here?’ Butter rapped upon Yin’s head with his knuckles, and the acrobat winced. ‘You have his voice in head, no?’
‘Usually… but he could be anywhere, perhaps too far away for me to hear.’
Rousing cheers rose up all around the clearing, and Yin and Butter shuddered as pandemonium erupted. Soldiers were slashing and hacking with swords, Makoi’s army was striking out with maces and axes, and the air was filled with screams and curses.
‘Here is not safe, I think,’ said Butter. Illustrating his point, a stray arrow thudded into the wooden platform. ‘We must go.’
‘Without Ruby and Prom?’ said Yin. ‘We can’t just run away, Butter!’
‘Miss Ruby and Prometheus bit busy.’
Not far from the platform, two fierce battles were being fought – Prometheus versus the bear-like jailer of the mine, and Ruby versus Cho-zen Li’s ferocious bodyguard.
‘Those two are maniacs!’ gasped Yin. ‘Our friends will be killed!
’
‘Very probably,’ agreed Butter. ‘And us too if we stay here.’
Wuan tensed his iron chain, sizing up his opponent. The circus strongman easily matched him in the height department, and both were built like battleships, the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.
Prometheus smashed his fist into Wuan’s face and the jailer’s head snapped back, nearly wrenched free of his neck – but amazingly, he was still standing. With a great bellowing roar, Prometheus lunged. He and Wuan collided violently, with Prometheus coming off worse. He crashed down onto the ground, stunned. Wuan swung his metal chain above his head and snapped it like a bullwhip. It coiled itself around the strongman’s neck. Wuan yanked on the chain, dragging Prometheus within striking range. Wuan hammered blow after blow as Prometheus tried to defend himself, striking out with his fists wildly. He got lucky, landing a punch to Wuan’s shoulder. Instantly, the jailer’s arm went dead and his grip on the chain loosened. Prometheus snatched it up and whirled it around with the wind screaming about him, and then let it fly. The iron links struck Wuan right between the eyes and the jailer was blinded. Prometheus lashed out with his heel into Wuan’s leg, and there was a crack of bone as the jailer’s tibia snapped. As Wuan wailed in pain, Prometheus smashed his fist into his mouth to shut him up. Wuan stopped wailing and started flailing, eventually crashing hard onto the ground face first.
‘A word of advice about picking a fight with me, laddie,’ Prometheus said, stood over Wuan’s unconscious body. ‘Don’t.’
Across the battlefield, Ruby and Li-Dao stared at one another, as if attempting to invade the other’s mind. They were both of a similar build, and similar age; the fight was far from a foregone conclusion.
The two young women prowled around each other. Each step was carefully considered, placing one foot over the other, always retaining their balance. The hostilities began, and for every one of Ruby’s quick punches, Li-Dao matched them with an equally swift attack. Li-Dao thrust her straightened fingers into Ruby’s throat. Ruby fell to her knees, gasping for breath. As Li-Dao towered over her, Ruby found her moment and stood up quickly, cracking the back of her head into the bodyguard’s jaw.
The Lazarus Curse Page 12