She did a triumphant circuit of the arena, holding her prize high, laughing, dancing on shuffling swaying feet, and the blood trickled down her raised forearm and dripped from the crook of her elbow.
"Stay close," Jake said softly, but Vicky had never heard that tone in his voice before. She tore her horrified gaze from the spectacle, and saw that his face was stern and drawn, his jaw clenched hard and his eyes terrible.
He drew the pistol from his pocket, and held it against his thigh, his arm hanging loosely at his side, and he moved swiftly, thrusting his way through the press of bodies with such strength that he cleared a path for her to follow him.
Every single Galla was concentrating with all his attention on the dancing woman, and Jake reached Ras Kullah before any of them realized his presence.
Jake took the soft thick upper arm in his left hand, his fingers digging deeply into the putty-soft flesh, and he jerked him to his feet and held him dangling off-balance, swinging him face to face, and he pressed the muzzle of the Beretta into his upper lip, just under the wide nostrils.
They stared at each other, Ras Kullah cringing away from Jake's blazing eyes, and then whimpering at the pain of the fingers cutting into his flesh and fear of the steel muzzle bruising his upper lip.
Jake assembled the few words of Amharic he had learned from Gregorius.
"The Italians," he said softly. "For me." Ras Kullah stared at him, seeming not to hear then he said one word and the men nearest them swayed forward, as though to intervene.
Jake screwed the muzzle of the pistol into Ras Kullah's lip, twisting and smearing the soft flesh against his teeth so that the skin tore and blood sprang swiftly.
"You die," said Jake, and the man shrilled a denial to his warriors.
They drew back reluctantly, fingering their knives and watching with smouldering eyes for their opportunity.
The woman with the bloody hands sank to her haunches and a great waiting silence gripped the assembly. They squatted in complete stillness, all their faces turned towards Jake and Ras Kullah. In the silence, the broken bleeding thing beside the fire cried out again, a long-drawn-out breathy sound that tore at jake's nerves and made his expression ferocious.
"Tell your men," he said, his voice thick and grating with his anger.
Ras Kullah's voice quavered, high as a young girl, and the warriors who guarded the three half-naked prisoners shuffled uncertainly and exchanged glances.
Jake ground the steel fiercely into Ras Kullah's face, and his voice squeaked urgently as he repeated the order.
Reluctantly, the guards prodded the prisoners forward in a forlorn terrified group.
"Take his dagger," Jake said quietly to Vicky, without removing his gaze from Ras Kullah's eyes. Vicky stepped close beside the Ras and gripped the hilt of the weapon on the embroidered belt around his sagging paunch. It was worked in beaten gold and set with crudely cut amethysts, but the blade was brilliant and the edge keen.
"Cut them loose," said Jake, and in the dangerous moments while she was away from his side, he increased the brutal pressure on the pistol barrel. Ras Kullah stood with his head cocked at an impossible angle, the lips drawn back from his teeth in a fixed snarl and his eyes rolling in their sockets until the whites showed, and the tears of pain poured freely down his cheeks, glinting in the firelight like dew on the yellow petals of a rose.
Vicky cut the rawhide bindings at the Italians" wrists and elbows, and they massaged the circulation back into their arms, huddling together, their pale faces still smeared with dirt and dried blood and their eyes terrified and ... uncomprehending.
Quickly, Vicky crossed back to Jake and stood close beside him.
Somehow there was safety and security when she was near to him. She stayed beside him as Jake forced Ras Kullah, step by step, across the open ground to where the maimed, half-destroyed thing still moved weakly and drew each agonized breath of air with a bubbling sigh.
Jake stooped slightly away from Ras Kullah, but still holding him, and Vicky saw the compassion alter the fierce expression in his eyes for a moment, She did not realize what he was going to do until he dropped the pistol from Ras Kullah's face, and extended his arm at full stretch.
The crack of the pistol was sharp and cutting in the stillness, and the bullet hit the mutilated Italian in the centre of his forehead, leavin a dark blue hole in the gleaming "9 white skin of the brow. His eyelids fluttered like the wings of a dying dove, and the arched straining body sagged and relaxed. A long gusty sigh came up the tortured throat, the sigh a man might make at the very edge of sleep and then he was still.
Without another look at the man to whom he had given peace, Jake lifted the pistol to Ras Kullah's face again, and with fresh pressure on his arm he forced him to turn and walk slowly back.
With a curt inclination of the head, he signalled the three Italians to move. They went first, moving slowly, still shrinking together, then Vicky followed them, one hand for comfort reaching back to touch Jake's shoulder. Jake held Ras Kullah twisted off balance, and forced him step by step onwards. He knew they must not hurry, must not Show weakness, for the flimsy bonds which held the Gallas frozen would snap at the least strain, and they would be upon them down under them in a pack, bearing the press of bodies, and hacking and tearing them to pieces.
Pace after slow steady pace, they moved forward. Time and again their way was blocked by sullen groups of tall dark Gallas, who stood shoulder to shoulder fingering their weapons, then Jake twisted the muzzle of the pistol into Ras Kullah's soft skin. The man cried out and reluctantly the way opened, the dark warriors moving aside just sufficiently to let them pass, and then falling in behind them and following closely, so closely the leaders were always within arm's length.
Once they were clear of the pack, Jake could increase the pace and he moved steadily up the path through the camel-thorn, shepherding the terrified Italians ahead of him and dragging Ras Kullah bodily along.
"What are we going to do with them?" Vicky asked breathlessly.
"We can't keep Kullah at gun point much longer." Jake did not answer; he did not want the closely following Gallas to hear the uncertainty in his voice, yet he didn't want the girl to show signs of fear.
She was right, of course, the Gallas followed them now with an implacable malevolence, pressing closely in an avenging throng that filled the darkness.
the cars-" said Jake, as inspiration came to him. "Get them into one of the cars."
"And then?"
"One thing at a time," growled Jake.
"Let's get them into the car first." And they moved steadily up the path, the Gallas pressing them more closely. One of the tall cloaked figures jostled Jake roughly, trying him, beginning to push harder, and Jake moved smoothly, swinging his weight across and swivelling a quarter of a turn. It was so swift that the Galla could not avoid the blow; even if he had seen it, he was hemmed in and constrained by the press of his comrades" bodies.
Jake hit him with a forearm chop, and the barrel of the pistol caught him in the mouth, snapping off his front teeth cleanly from the upper gum, and the shock of the blow was transferred directly through the frontal sinuses to the brain.
The man dropped without a sound and was immediately hidden from view by the men who stumbled over him as they followed. But they did not press so hard now, and Jake switched the pistol back to Ras Kullah's head. The entire incident was over before Kullah could cry out or squirm in the punishing grip that had bruised and twisted his upper arm.