Hickok shoved through the glass doors, forgetting his sore shoulders and paying for his neglect with a painful twinge. The air was refreshing on his face. He halted and surveyed the street and the nearest buildings.
No one.
Where was everybody?
Hickok went down the steps to the sidewalk, debating which way to go.
Faint yelling seemed to be coming from behind the edifice he’d just vacated. He heard a voice and glanced to the left.
Three men and a woman, all on the grubby side, unexpectedly appeared on the left side of the steps. They were in a heated discussion and they hadn’t seen him.
Yet.
Hickok darted to the right, his moccasins pounding, wanting to temporarily evade them until he regained better use of his arms. His accuracy was undoubtedly diminished, while theirs wasn’t. And two of the men carried rifles.
“Hey! There goes one!” a man bellowed.
“Stop!” shouted another.
Not on your life! Hickok mentally vowed. He weaved to the left as a shot rang out, into the street, the move saving his life, causing the rifleman to miss. He bounded across the street as a second shot cracked and missed.
What a bunch of cow chips!
Hickok ran behind a row of trees lining the opposite sidewalk, interposing the trees as a screen.
Two more shots blasted.
Something tugged at Hickok’s right sleeve as he raced to the south. He passed building after building, some damaged, some untouched.
The rifles weren’t firing.
Had the yahoos given up?
Hickok came to an intersection and jogged to the left, looking over his left shoulder as he made the turn, discovering the quartet a block behind him in hot pursuit. He grinned, confident he could elude them, facing forward, his eyes expanding in stark astonishment as he abruptly stopped, nearly tripping over his own feet.
No!
Not another one!
But it was.
Another gigantic crab was blocking the sidewalk not eight feet away, its eyes on him!
Chapter Eight
Rikki watched the mob drawing ever closer to the brick building. They were searching every structure they came to, and they would inevitably find Yama and himself. He might be able to escape, but Yama was not in any condition for a fight. They had to depart before they were found. He darted along the hallway to his friend. “Yama?”
There was no answer.
“Yama?”
The silver-haired Warrior was sitting with his back to the wall, hunched forward, his chin on his chest.
Rikki knelt, unable to see Yama’s face clearly in the dark. “Yama? Can you hear me?”
Yama didn’t budge.
Fearing the worst, Rikki groped for Yama’s left wrist and felt for a pulse. It was there, but weak. With Yama unconscious their predicament was compounded. He could not possibly escape the crowd while bearing Yama’s big bulk. Which left him one of two options. Either he made a stand right where he was to protect Yama, knowing he would eventually be overcome by sheer force of numbers, or—
There was shouting outside.
Rikki rose and ran to the front door. The forefront of the mob was twenty feet off, and they were still looking in each building. They would be at the brick one in less than a minute, and they would enter unless they were diverted. Rikki stared in the direction of his helpless companion.
“May the Spirit be with you,” he whispered, then bolted out the front door.
The crowd saw him immediately.
Rikki leaped to the sidewalk, raking his foes with the HK-93 while in midair, landing on his feet and sprinting to the south.
The mob howled and gave chase.
“I want him alive!” someone yelled.
You must catch me first, Rikki thought to himself. He jogged daily and was in superb physical condition. Pouring on the speed, he pulled ahead of those after him. He glanced back once to insure none of them had gone into the brick building harboring Yama.
They were all after him.
Rikki grinned and ran even faster. His scabbard was flapping against his left leg, and he steadied his katana with his left hand.
“Don’t lose him!” a man commanded.
Rikki was pleased with his strategy. If he drew them away from Yama, he could circle back undetected. His friend required medical attention, and the sooner the better. In another block or two he would attempt to shake his pursuers.
But fate intervened in a bizarre manner.
Rikki was abreast of a brownstone when the unforeseen occurred. To his left was the rusted hulk of an automobile, and on the pavement next to the wreckage was the partially devoured carcass of a black cat. Rats were doing the devouring, and a half dozen of them were nibbling at the cat’s putrid meat when Rikki suddenly came upon them. He saw the rodents at the same instant they saw him, and the rats automatically scattered for cover. A pair of the 18-inch long scavengers bounded directly into Rikki’s path.
The Warrior’s reaction was instinctive. He endeavored to vault over the rodents, but he was already in midstride, running at full speed, and his left leg came down short. His black slipper-like shoe, constructed for him by the Family Weavers according to photographs in the library depicting the apparel worn by prewar martial artists, stepped on the back of one of the rats.
The rodent squealed and kept moving.
Rikki felt his left leg slip out from under him. Unable to retain his balance, he sprawled forward onto the side-walk, onto his hands and knees. The HK-93 went flying from his grasp. His palms stung and his kneecaps were racked by unbelievable torture. He tried to regain his footing, but his legs momentarily wouldn’t support him. Stumbling, he tottered forward.
Footsteps pounded to his rear.
Rikki attempted to turn as the fleetest of his pursuers caught up with him. Strong arms encircled his waist and drove him onto his back.
A black-haired man with a jagged scar on his right cheek straddled the Warrior’s chest. “Got you!” he shouted, elated.
Not quite.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi formed his right hand into a leopard paw and thrust his calloused foreknuckles into the man’s throat.
The man with the scar clutched at his crushed larynx, gurgling and sputtering, and toppled to the right.
Rikki scrambled to his feet, his disciplined mind shutting out the ache in his knees, knowing his foes would be on him like a pack of hungry wolves on an injured bull elk. But like the elk, with its pointed antlers, he possessed a tapered, glistening weapon of his own. He whipped his katana from its scabbard and faced the mob.
Just as they reached him.
The first three never slowed. They expected to bowl the wiry man in black over.
Rikki taught them the error of their ways. His katana flashed once, twice, three times, each stroke a veritable blur, and the three men were dead before their bodies struck the sidewalk. Two were nearly decapitated, and the third’s neck was slit wide open.
A fourth antagonist reached the Warrior, a brown-headed woman with a machete. Apparently she’d forgotten the order to take the Warrior alive because she aimed a vicious swipe at his head.
Rikki ducked under the blow and retaliated, gutting her, her abdominal cavity splitting and her intestines pouring out over her ragged clothing.
She screamed and dropped.
Two men charged the Warrior, one with an axe, the other with a baseball bat, Rikki danced to the right, slicing his katana through the left leg of the man with the axe. As the man started to fall, Rikki rent his face from his forehead to his chin. Blubbering, the man collapsed.
The one with the baseball bat delivered a wicked swing at the Warrior’s head.
Rikki stepped backwards to avoid the bat, then drove the point of his katana into the man’s chest, straight through the heart. As the man stiffened and expired, Rikki yanked the katana free.