Now they had a party crasher who—from what was audible outside—could really crash a party when it wanted to. The screams outside were frantic, terrified, some of them cut off sharply, like a chicken's squawking severed by a hatchet blade. And over all, the snarling bass tones of Nagaq provided background music for a waking nightmare, echoing inside the amphitheater as the creature from hell drew ever closer to the open doors.
Professor Stockwell gaped at Remo, evidently stunned to see him. "Dr. Ward! Where did you come from?"
"No time for a recap," Remo told him. "Do your legs work?"
"Pardon me?"
He reached down and snapped the ropes that shackled Stockwell. "Can you run like hell?"
"I think so. Yes."
"Be ready, then. We haven't got much time."
"I understand."
He moved on to the next in line, freed Sibu Sandakan. Pike Chalmers glared at Remo, stubborn pride at war with the survival instinct, but he didn't pull away when Remo stepped around behind him, pulled the ropes apart as if they were flimsy threads.
And he saved Audrey for the last, unfastening the rope around her ankles, hesitating for a beat before he freed her hands and helped her to her feet. She wore a dazed expression, no defiance visible as he took her by the arm and steered her toward the trapdoor in the stage.
"This way," he urged the others.
"Sod that!" Chalmers snapped. "Those bloody wogs have got a thing or two to answer for. They have my rifle and my trophy, Dr. Ward, and I'm not leaving here without the lot!"
That said, he leaped down from the stage and sprinted toward the exit, bowling over several of the pygmy types who blocked his path. He made it halfway there before a giant, looming shadow fell across the threshold, blotting out the night.
"My God, what's that?" asked Audrey.
Down below, the natives were yammering, "Nagaq! Nagaq!" Some of them knelt and pressed their foreheads to the floor, while others scattered for their lives.
"It can't be!" Dr. Stockwell said. "What's that… ?"
"I don't know," Remo said, "but something tells me we're about to meet the big kid on the block. And from the sound of it, he's pissed right now."
Chiun was still a half mile from the hidden city when he heard the drums, a muffled, throbbing beat that seemed to give the very jungle life. His huge mount hesitated, grumbling, but plowed ahead when he dug his heels in, snapping orders in his most authoritative tone. It made no difference what he said; he could have shouted, "Dog shit! Saxophone!" for all the pachyderm would know. It was the tenor of his voice, the aura of command, that left the Master of Sinanju in control.
It had been simple to follow his quarry once he steered the elephant back to the trail and got it headed eastward. Even in the darkness, he could easily keep up with twenty men who took no pains to hide their tracks. They may as well have blazed the trees or planted signs along the way to guide him.
Chiun had been concerned at first, in case their seeming negligence turned out to be a ruse, some crafty scheme to undermine his vigilance, prepare an ambush, but he quickly put his mind at ease.
The men he stalked were clumsy idiots.
The drumbeats told him that, if nothing else. Chiun could only marvel that the tribe hadn't been hunted down much sooner, since they were so careless with security. Of course, they dealt primarily with whites and Malays, which would make a difference. If a Korean had come looking for them, all the world would know their secrets now.
A quarter mile before they reached their destination, Chiun's mount was distracted by a new scent on the trail. It was a gamy, pungent odor that reminded Chiun a little of the snake farm he had visited in Bangkok years ago.
The elephant was trembling, scuffing at the ground with giant feet, but there was less fear than anger in its attitude. Chiun urged it forward, and the beast responded with the barest hesitation, trotting faster as the unidentified reptilian scent intensified. Its trunk was raised as if to trumpet out a challenge, but the only sound that emanated from its throat was the warm huffing of its breath.
Chiun wasn't surprised at the appearance of the ancient city. It made perfect sense, considering the circumstances, and he knew now where the rhythmic sound of drums was coming from. At first glance, he was worried that the looming outer wall might be a problem—not for him, of course, but for the elephant—until he saw the wooden gates, wide open in the moonlight.
Human figures milled about the open gates, as if they couldn't make their minds up whether to remain or flee. Chiun urged his elephant to greater speed, bent forward, with his hands braced on the giant's leather scalp until the gap had closed to fifty yards. Then something roared inside the city walls, a primal sound of rage and hunger from a set of massive vocal cords.
The dragon? What else could it be?
Chiun's elephant stopped short on hearing that, and actually backed up several yards before he could assert control. He thumped a fist on the behemoth's skull, not hard enough to damage anything, and dug in with his heels once more. The elephant resisted for another fleeting moment, but its will posed no real challenge for the Master of Sinanju. Finally, reluctantly at first, but then with greater energy, it moved ahead.
The natives clustered at the gate were unaware of Doom advancing on flank, until the elephant raised up its trunk and blared a challenge to the night. The tribesmen turned at that, and Chiun confirmed what he had surmised already from a number of their tracks. They were deformed, most of them, with a solitary normal-looking man who stood back and deferred to the grotesques. There was no time to speculate on how they got that way, no pity in Chiun's heart when three of them stood fast instead of taking to their heels as any sane man would have when confronted with a charging elephant.
The beast crushed two of them beneath its tree-stump feet before they had a chance to launch their spears in self-defense. The tallest of the three screamed once as he was lifted with the trunk coiled tight around his rib cage, emptying his lungs. Instead of goring him, the elephant released him with a quick toss of its head that flung him headfirst toward the wall. There was a crunch on impact, and his lifeless body tumbled ten or twelve feet to the ground, where it lay twitching in the mud.
The gates were tall enough that Chiun wasn't required to duck as they passed through. Where he had expected sentries on the wall, it was deserted. Something had distracted them before the Master of Sinanju put in his appearance, and the sound of human screams, with loud snarls overriding them, led him in the direction of the battle.
Maybe not a dragon, thought Chiun, but it was something he had never seen before, and that alone could make the trip worthwhile.
The Master of Sinanju spurred his mount to greater speed, his lips turned upward in a beatific smile.
Kuching Kangar hadn't been with his brothers in the Hall of Ceremony when Nagaq arrived. It was forbidden lor the normal ones to take direct part in a sacrifice, since they weren't considered pure. It galled him sometimes when he thought of the humiliation he endured to serve Nagaq, but it wasn't his place to argue with tradition.
Not when it could get him killed.
Still, none of them had counted on Nagaq appearing in the flesh. Nagaq always waited for the sacrificial offerings to be prepared and taken outside, to a clearing where the stakes were planted. You could hear it from the City, growling as it fed, bill there were few among the tribe who claimed that they had actually seen the dragon god. The chief, of course, and several of his close advisers, but no one else.