by Ryder Stacy
Masdouri surveyed the curved walls of the klut, looking at the numerous masks, costumes, rattles, and other sacred items which only he knew and understood the significance of. The main question was just what he would wear today. It had been bothering him for weeks. There were no real rules about intertribal marriages, because there hadn’t been one in his time—or even that of his father, who had taught him all that he knew about the magic ways. He had put off the decision about what to wear. Now the morning of the Day was here, and he still wasn’t sure at all.
Hmmm! Let’s see. The lion mask for sure, with its actual lion’s face, a big male with thick golden mane and jaws that looked like they could swallow a man whole. It was a creature he himself had killed many years before. It was a little tattered by now, slightly diminished in the luster of its fur, but not in its fierce pride.
Yes, the lion’s mask, that was for sure. It was the only headpiece that he felt was strong enough to ward off supernatural attacks. And for his body, why not the serpent outfit, with its overlaid black-bark scales so that it looked almost snakelike, sinuous when he moved. Yes, that would contrast frighteningly with the lion’s head. The snake and the lion were compatible as well in divine tradition. For it was not just the guests he wished to impress—but the animal gods and the plains weather gods as well. There were many, many things to consider.
But like a crack of lightning on the savannah horizon, it all seemed so clear on this burning morning. He smiled as he reached up onto the mud wall to take down what he would wear today. In his chest it felt right. And that was where he always looked for the final decision. To the heart.
Once he was fully outfitted, he headed outside. But Masdouri reeled as he stepped into the rays of the fully risen sun. He would have to wear the heavy and hot costume all day! He could not be seen even for one instant as Masdouri by the others, not on this day. He was now the Lion Man, maker and breaker of souls—let all fear the Lion Man. And even though they knew who he was, all of the tribe—the children running naked through the village between the scores of kluts, the bare-breasted women adorning themselves with their beads, shells, ostrich feathers, and precious stones—they would all fear to look toward Masdouri. Today, he was of the gods, not of men.
Masdouri spent the day preparing for the ceremonies. There were the twin fires to build—one to ward off demons, the other to welcome, to warm the lion gods when they came to witness the marriage in the cool evening. As well, Masdouri had to plant stakes in the ground all around the ritual fires in a circle nearly a hundred feet in diameter. Within this circle the dancing and the wedding would take place. He couldn’t have possibly done it all on his own, but he had three apprentice-boys, one of whom would someday be his heir.
Tradition had it that the witch doctor passed his position to his firstborn son, but Masdouri had been cursed by the plains gods in that respect. Though he had tried with over a dozen wives over the years, he had never produced offspring. Thus he would choose one of the three teens to take his place; he still wasn’t sure which one. All were intelligent, quick to do his bidding. He kept his eye on all of them, particularly on such a day as this.
At last it was all done, and the sun began sinking again, the evening breezes slinking along the savannah which surrounded the grove of cooling trees within which the village had been built. The log and zebra-skin drums began pounding. The men danced wildly around the fires in their own elaborate outfits of bones, feathers, and lion and cheetah hides. Many of them were already somewhat drunk from the Dsaka leaves which they had buried in large gourds the month before. Now the juices within the leaves had fermented and were potent. The leaves burned the tongue, made the body loose and the mind festive.
The sun had disappeared completely, like a snake back into its hole for the night, when they all heard a commotion coming across the black-shadowed savannah.
The Triori. They were here.
Instantly, all the men in the tribe tensed up, and Masdouri could see they were nervous. Weapons, spears, battle swords had all been put away, but were close at hand just in case there was trouble. It was up to him to see that there wasn’t. He shook his hummingbird-bones rattle and jumped around wildly, catching their attention as the king of the Triori was carried in on a leopard sedan by ten warriors, lions’ teeth covering his round chest and stomach. Behind him came the princess, carried along as well. She was beautiful, and the women stared jealously, the men lustfully, as she was brought in and set down within the magic circle alongside her father.
The chief of his tribe greeted the chief of the Triori with all the friendliness of a brother. Both men wanted this peace, this marriage. They had met twice, secretly, over the last year to make it happen. And a genuine warmth had somehow sprung up between the two. He greeted the Triori wearing his own crocodile costume, the Triori in water-buffalo garb, with huge horns fitted on top of the elaborate headdress he carried. The two men embraced, and the crowds of both tribes cheered.
The chief’s son stood by his side and looked fixedly at his bride-to-be, who returned his glances with coy, quick looks of her own. They had not met before. All had been arranged by their fathers. But when they saw each other, they were not unhappy. There was, Masdouri felt, an instant attraction between them.
“Come, let us drink like elephants, eat like lions, and dance like ostriches in heat,” Masdouri’s chief said, leading the Triori chief to an honored seat by his throne. A second throne had been constructed just for his visit. The other chief’s chair was a bit smaller than his own, but nonetheless it was festooned with skins and teeth quite worthy of any chieftain.
The two groups of warriors didn’t mingle, but stood on opposite sides of the circle of magic that Masdouri had built and looked at each other nervously. There had been too much fighting and death over the years for them to relax so easily. But they tried. Their kings, after all, had decreed that the time for peace was here. One did not argue with the chief.
With log drums pounding out steady and nearly deafening beats, the two tribes began dancing wildly as they consumed the leaf-liquor. Now that they weren’t fighting, the men of the tribes tried to compete in dance—their leaps, the speed of their turns, the believability of the animals they imitated. The dancing grew frenzied as the women performed their own steps just outside the magic circle.
At last the wedding was at hand, and they all gathered together in the center of the circle as Masdouri, with the other tribe’s witch man by his side, began performing the sacred rituals. First, the sacrifice of two cattle, one from each tribe, their throats slit, so the blood of both ran together in a puddle. Then, taking the blood from the still-pulsing wounds and filling cups with it. Then the actual uniting of the man and his bride. The two stood side by side as Masdouri mouthed the sacred words of union: “Be proud before the gods, for blood and rank are thine, and—” He was halfway through the ceremony when suddenly there was a tremendous thunder from the north. All motion ceased as he stopped speaking. His hand froze as it held the rattle.
For a moment all suspected treachery, and he could see the warriors of both tribes were wondering whether to reach for their hidden weapons.
Suddenly the sounds came again and they were much louder this time. It was as if the light-waterfalls of the storms that swept over the village during the rainy season had descended to the very earth. For they could all feel the earth trembling beneath their feet, shaking their sweaty bodies. Some of the women began screaming, and suddenly Masdouri saw it, whatever it was, coming toward them. It was large, impossibly large, a mountain dropping from the sky. He thought for a moment that he had gone mad or had consumed too much of the burning leaf-liquor. Mountains did not drop from the clouds!
And yet—it was a mountain. A solid object that was larger than their whole village. It was rising up perhaps a hundred feet into the air, and then slamming down again, sending up great clouds of dust. And it was coming right toward them. An impossible, village-sized, bouncing ball of death!
Pandemonium broke out as warriors and women began running in all directions, not even sure which way to go. Suddenly Masdouri realized he was standing stupidly in the center of the magic circle by himself. The ball-mountain was coming straight for their village, only a half mile or so off, and even as he watched he could see it fall, rise up again, and move forward another hundred yards. And where it rose, all that had been beneath it was crushed, squashed. Trees, bushes, animals, nothing was spared, all ground down to a bloody pulp of dust and powdered bone.
Not knowing where to run himself, Masdouri headed toward his klut. Making his old bones push him forward at a run, he dove through the gazelle-hide door flap and collapsed onto his knees breathing hard.
He had failed. The gods were not pleased with what he had done. Or was it the gods? He had never seen them angry like this. But he knew one thing—he was about to die. Sighing, he rose and walked over to his meditation chair, a zebra-skin stool. Masdouri sat cross-legged on it. He did not really mind dying, for he was old. But he minded very much that he might have done something wrong. He sat there, uttering chants, yelling out as fast as he knew how every demon-destroyer chant in his repertoire. But it seemed to do nothing as the thunder-explosions grew closer by the second, making the earth shake as if in the throes of a full-scale earthquake.
He didn’t see the rest of the villagers get crushed like so many ants as the mountain-ball came down just fifty feet short of his klut. But he knew they were dead. He could feel the souls depart en masse. He heard a whooshing sound as though a vacuum had suddenly been created and was filling with a snap of air as the mountain rose up again overhead.
Masdouri knew it was overhead, right overhead. He could sense its immense crushing weight. And he sent out a final burst of prayer to the gods, all the gods, and hoped they would take him in. He had been a good man. He had tried. Tried to bring peace. And suddenly it occurred to him: Perhaps the gods didn’t want peace.
Then the mountain came down and he was no more. Masdouri was turned into a red gruel which mixed with his lifetime of costumes and masks, the mud walls of his klut, and the very earth itself. All was mixed into a swamp of death.
Eight thousand miles away in Moscow, in a Kremlin bedroom overlooking Red Square, Rahallah, Son of the Plains Lion, a witch doctor in his own right, tossed and turned. The black aide to Vassily, Ruler of all the Russias, the most powerful ruler on earth, awoke, his body drenched in sweat. He had seen it happen.
And Rahallah knew it wasn’t just a dream. Masdouri, the man he had not seen since he, Rahallah, had been snatched up by slave traders, was dead. His uncle, the nearest thing he had had to a father in his youth, was dead. There was a mental connection between them, something in the blood. And he had seen through the old man’s eyes in his terrible dream, seen it all. He had felt the terror, the fleeting pain, and then the darkness. Rahallah had seen as well the face of the man who had done it: Colonel Killov.
“The Skull” was alive, and the world was in mortal danger!
Three
The two men stood frozen, facing each other six feet apart. Their eyes were focused on one another like those of two panthers, locked in a hard cool gaze, the gaze of the predator, the stalker, the killer. Both were stopped in time, every muscle locked. They were coiled tightly as springs ready to move, to give motion to their potential energy at any moment. They saw without looking, heard without listening for the slightest sound of bone creaking, or sudden intake of breath. Both took in all the information that the other man was sending out, without words. For both were perfect fighting machines and had no need to posture or make threatening gestures. They were beyond that, far beyond that. They were Zen practitioners of the art of hand-to-hand combat. Warriors beyond the ken of most men.
Suddenly one of them, the smaller one, an Oriental man with almond eyes and dark mustache, moved with the blinding speed of a cobra striking. Only the slightest flap of his neck-to-ankles black ninja suit, loosely gathered around him, betrayed motion. But it was enough for the taller and stockier man, dressed in combat fatigues and sweatshirt, to sense the attack. He turned his hips just slightly to meet the blurred attack of the Oriental. Barely. For even as he turned, he felt the rising foot of the attacker slam into his chest and spin him sideways. Only the fact that he had already shifted enabled him to take the brunt of the attack without going down. Even as the Oriental’s fists came flying in toward his face, like hawks diving for prey, he was able to grab hold of the leg that had just kicked him. Turning his hips a notch more, he sent the man flying over on his side.
The motion knocked both of them backwards, yet even as they hit the wooden floor both came up on a roll quicker than the eye could see. A thin smile crossed the Asian’s face and the word “good” seemed to float across his mouth, as if he were pleased to have such an opponent. The bigger man grinned as well, but only for an instant. For even as he did, he saw that the Oriental was coming at him with what seemed like an impossible speed from just a few feet off. Even as he raised both hands preparing to meet the attack, the Oriental leaped right off the ground like a Harrier jet fighter—which can take off vertically. High jump kicks, it has always been said by martial-arts devotees, are dangerous—because they take both of the jumper’s legs off the ground and he’s most vulnerable at that moment. But that warning applied to normal men’s kicks. This man was not normal.
But the larger man knew that, and even as he saw the double kick coming in, his mismatched aqua and violet eyes twinkled with a gleam. For he had known, had sensed that that was what the Oriental was about to try. He ducked down. Simple as that. The kicker flew right overhead and as he passed by, the larger man reached up and grabbed hold of one of the slightly flapping black ankle pants, pulling hard. The Oriental slammed down to the floor, yet somehow he hit in a ball shape and merely rolled over twice. Then he was on his feet again even as his adversary came charging in with his own attack.
He came in fast, punching out a series of snapping fists that would have made a cobra blink in amazement at the sheer speed of the punches. One of them made contact, barely, with the chest of the smaller man, but the rest were blocked, knocked away with what seemed like the lightest of slaps, as if the Oriental’s hands were small windmills and he was swatting out at flies. Suddenly—and the larger man had no idea how really, for he saw nothing move on the Oriental—he was being tripped. His ankles were all locked up, as if there were ropes around him. And even as he toppled over like an old tree, he glanced down to see that somehow the Oriental had unwrapped the black silk belt from around his waist and thrown it down around the knees of his opponent.
“You son of a bitch, that’s cheating,” Ted Rockson bellowed, even as he threw out both hands to soften his fall onto the hard wooden floor.
“All’s fair in love and combat,” Chen chortled, as he jumped right over the falling man and landed with both legs spread on each side of the sprawled Freefighter’s back. He raised one foot as if preparing to bring it down onto the spinal cord and take his opponent out once and for all.
Suddenly a scream rent the air that made both men stop in their tracks and their eyes dart over to the side. A buxom red headed woman clad in skintight pink leotards was holding her hands half over her eyes.
“Stop! Stop! You’ll kill him with a blow like that,” Rona wailed, starting forward ready to dive into the fray.
“You mean a blow like this?” Chen laughed, bringing the leg down hard so that his foot slammed into the floor about six inches from Ted Rockson’s right ear. “I think it might only hurt the floor.” He laughed as he reached down and gripped his sash, pulling it free from the entangling knot it had formed around Rockson’s knees.
“You sly devil,” Rock said as he rose to his feet, Chen helping him up with one hand. “I gotta keep my eye on you every second when we spar, I’ll damn well tell you that.”
“That’s the whole idea, isn’t it, Rock?” Chen grinned back, wrapping the sash back around his waist. “You and I spa
r to teach each other new things. Otherwise, what would be the point? Both of us can take out most men. This is a chance to really test each other. I’ve been toying with this bolo idea for a while. See, it has little weights at each end of the sash. I’ve taken down deer and elk on hunting trips recently. Just wanted to see if it would work on someone like you. It does.”
“Oh, Rock, are you all right?” Rona Wallender said as she rushed over to the Doomsday Warrior, running her hands around his bare muscular shoulders and chest like a cop frisking a suspect. “You might . . . have gotten hurt.” She looked horrified by the thought of anything happening to the only man she had ever been able to really feel something for. Which was a little absurd, as he had faced mutants, Red search-and-destroy squads, and far worse for most of his life. “Rock” had managed to survive for the last twenty-five years since he had wandered into Century City as a teenager after his family had been killed by a roving band of KGB’ers.
“I think perhaps the opposite might have been the case,” Chen muttered with a twinkle in his brown eyes. “I think perhaps you didn’t see Rock’s foot ready to drive up into my—um—private areas—had I continued any closer with my kick. But Rock, let’s try it again. Now that you know what I’ll be doing—see if you can counter it, okay? I’m not giving any clues—but there is a simple enough way.”
“Oh, you men,” Rona huffed as she stepped back. Rockson was inside the subterranean walls of Century City rarely enough these days, and she could hardly stand the thought that he would not spend it all with her. And yet his very stubbornness was one of the things that drew her to him. That and the fact that she could kick the butt of just about every other man in C.C.—except for the two in front of her! Well, perhaps a few others of Rock’s inner elite team of wasteland commandos could give her a hard time.