Liu entered the enclosure and faced Bolan. With a gesture of the head he bid him enter. Bolan rose and entered the ring. For a while the two men faced each other in silence, Liu looking at Bolan as if he were studying him. Then Liu drew his sword. Bolan followed. Both threw their empty scabbards in the sand.
Holding the swords with two hands in front of them at an angle of forty-five degrees, the men faced each other, standing stock-still. Both had their eyes on the line from the tips of their weapons to the opponent's throat. Both were projecting their life forces, their ki, as it is called in the East.
It was an exercise that required tremendous concentration, possible only if the mind was completely empty. The slightest thought would detract from the ki pressure. Feeling the slack the other would take advantage and move in. It was an exercise in willpower as much as physics.
The long swords gleamed in the sunlight. The crowd was completely silent. Seconds turned to minutes, the sun beat down, the heat grew, the tension became unbearable. For how long could they keep it up?
"Eee-yiii!" Liu charged, his feet raising sand, his sword going up for a sky-to-earth cut.
Bolan watched him come without moving a muscle.
He stood completely unprotected. In a moment the impending blow would cleave him in two. The fight was practically over. Liu was going to kill Bolan with his first blow.
Then something happened that brought a gasp from the crowd. As Liu's sword began its descent, Bolan stepped sideways. By then Liu's attack was fully committed with no possibility of his changing the angle of the cut. The sword swished through thin air.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Who was this man? The way Bolan had reacted was the act of a swordsman who fought in the spirit of munen muso: no conception, no design. The phrase meant the ability to act calmly and naturally even in the face of danger. It was the highest accord with existence, when a man's words and actions were spontaneously the same. Rare indeed were the men capable of it.
Bolan's horror at the executions, which had appalled his imprisoned eyes, turned to pure power as their avenging became his task.
Now that they had gone into motion, Bolan and Liu continued to move, circling each other, Liu changing his stance to a hasso, his sword raised above his head to the right. Bolan continued with his sword in the jodan position, held straight out at a forty-five-degree angle.
To the spectators the change in Liu's position indicated he intended to end the contest. The death, of the long nose would not be preceded by a display of sword fighting. The Lord of Life and Death was going for a quick kill.
Step by step they walked the thousand-mile road, Bolan keeping Liu company every inch of the way, moving sideways, backward, forward, his ki always flowing, his whole being concentrating on the task at hand, his mind empty of thought.
The righteousness of Bolan's cause, the readiness to accept death in the cause of mankind, gave him tremendous powers of concentration. No thought entered his mind because there was nothing to worry about. There was only one way on this earth for him and he was on it: do good for mankind and fight evil.
But Liu was worrying.
The unsuccessful charge had rattled him. It was like charging a phantom. Liu asked himself if the American was one of those who could sense an attack in advance. It was said that some men could do this. They were able to register the intent, that spurt of radiant energy emitted a moment before it is converted into action.
If so, Liu knew he was in trouble. Instead of killing the American, the American might kill him. Unlike Bolan, Liu had not entered the fight to die; he had entered the fight to win. The thought that he might not win forced him to consider a number of techniques to kill Bolan quickly.
"Eee-yiii!"
Liu's charge was premature. Everyone could see it. Just what made him do it no one could tell, not even Bolan. Liu may have realized he was losing his ki and decided to move before Bolan could take advantage. Or perhaps with his concentration wavering he was unable to feel Bolan's ki any longer you cannot feel the other man's ki if yours is not out and he mistakenly thought it was time to move in.
Either way, Liu thought, and that was what cost him his life. In kenjutsu one had to feel a move.
Once more Bolan watched Liu come. Once again he waited until Liu's attack was committed before moving out, and this time as Liu passed him he brought his sword down on Liu's neck. A red gash appeared in the pale flesh. Liu's legs buckled and he fell to his knees, rocking, blood spurting from his neck.
Bolan stepped back and raised his sword.
The crowd rose to its feet.
The sword in Bolan's hand flew down, and in a silent ending to the day's butchery, the Lord of Life and Death, heroin king of Asia, was executed.
The exorcism was over. The most hideous experience of his incarnation as Colonel Phoenix was over for Mack Bolan.
He had been trapped in a purposeless knot, the struggle between life and death, when the real struggle, the war between good and evil, had been put aside by the maddening and miasmic pull of the Far East, a murderous place on a bad day....
He was purged now, and he would never allow such executions again. He had submitted to the ritual of death long enough. Now he prepared to face the future alone, to fight the good fight by fighting for the good, free of the corruption of others, of ancient societies and modern agencies.
Oh God, give me April, and home.
Chapter 14
In a flash Bolan was out of the ring and running, the crowd on his heels. It was an undignified exit, but this was no time to stand on ceremony. All the right spirit in the world will not stop a bullet, and many in the audience were armed.
Bolan headed for the mansion. It was his only hope. In the mansion were his clothes as well as his radio and gun. Without them he was lost. He knew where gun and radio were, having spotted them that morning.
He streaked through the palms, sword in hand, outdistancing his pursuers. The fear of a man pursued by a mob ready to tear him apart lent him wings. In their eyes Bolan had read the righteous rage of men deprived of a livelihood. By killing Liu he had put an end to Tiger Enterprises, and a lot of people would be out of work.
Paradoxically, it was the mob's hate that probably saved him. So intent were they on catching him alive, to make him suffer, that no one thought of shooting at him.
He ran into the mansion through the front entrance, sword ready to slash his way through. But the house was empty, as the guards and servants had been at the executions. He bounded up the main staircase.
On the second landing he turned into a corridor and ran past the changing room to the room with the radio and gun. The door was locked! He lunged at it, but it was useless. There was not enough space in the corridor to give him momentum. He tried kicking it down, but he only hurt his foot. A boot might have done it, but not a raffia sandal.
From the staircase came shouting as the mob poured into the house.
"This way!" said a woman's voice.
Bolan spun around. In an open doorway stood Liu's daughter. He ran inside, and she closed the door after him. It was a study full of medical books. She pulled him through it into a bedroom and opened a closet.
"In here!"
The door shut, plunging him into darkness. The only light came from the keyhole, and he noticed that there was no key. He crouched among clothes scented with her perfume, listening at the keyhole.
From the corridor came the sound of boots. Doors banged.
A knuckle rapped on the front door of her apartment, boots crossed the floor of the study, and a man's voice spoke apologetically. The monologue lasted for a minute, the boots retreated, the front door closed.