Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (37 page)

The two men advanced on one another, Timur striding with jack-legged difficulty, while the bronze giant moved with a flowing ease. They stopped only a few paces apart.

Doc Savage towered over the other. Both gleamed in the sun, the Mongol leader in full iron armor, the bronze man resembling a burnished idol.

“I challenge you,” said Doc Savage quietly.

The ironclad skull of Timur Khan dipped in acknowledgment, causing the horsetail decorating the helmet’s pointed top to twitch.

Timur lifted his curved sabre and asked, “Where is your sword?”

Doc lifted the rapier saying, “Here.”

Canine yellow eyes fixed on the slim blade, suddenly the Khan started shaking from head to toe. It looked at first as if the palsy that plagued him since his excavation from the cavern of ice was returning in full force. Not so. From deep in his belly, rumbled a ghastly laughter, as if a long-rusty robot were attempting speech.

“You would fight the Iron Khan of Samarkand with that pitiful blade?” he challenged.

Doc nodded firmly. “I would.”

More laughter pealed out, issuing forth from the furnace-like vent in the forged iron mask.

Tamerlane could barely contain himself. Laughter rolled and rolled out of him. Until finally it exhausted itself. The Mongol’s eyes had squeezed shut. Now they popped wide in the eyeholes of his grotesque mask.

“Then let us get to it,” he said in his rough and rusty voice.

RAISING his sabre high, Timur rushed forward, charging. Due to his bad leg, he hopped every other step.

Behind him stood at parade his Iron Horde. Their almond eyes were fixed on the duel.

Tamerlane attempted a hacking charge, one designed to sever Doc Savage’s head at the root.

The bronze man did not bring up his guard, merely awaited the headlong attack, a calm patience written on his metallic features.

A screaming fury ripped forth from Tamerlane’s armored mouth. At the last possible second, Doc Savage sidestepped the mad, limping charge and pivoted, and so stood in a twinkling behind the bewildered Mongol warlord.

Tamerlane had to catch himself before he fell flat on his mask. Riveting yellow eyes quested about, lancing hate.

His golden eyes whirling only a little more briskly than normal, Doc Savage stood impassive, awaiting the Iron Khan’s next move.

Again, Timur charged, yelling bloody murder. Doc Savage sidestepped once more.

Three times Tamerlane came on, each flailing rush more furious than the one before. Every time the big bronze man stepped aside, not even bothering to parry the heavy blade.

“Why do you not fight me?” demanded Timur hotly. “Are you a coward?”

Doc Savage said without emotion, “I am a young man. You are an old one. Moreover, you have been crippled in many wars. My limbs are sound despite all of my battles.”

Hearing this, Tamerlane screamed as if insulted, and charged anew.

This time, Doc Savage lifted his lean blade and used it to spank back the descending sabre.

The lighter rapier of course could not stand up to the heavy war sword, which was designed for a slashing attack. But the straight blade possessed a greater reach, which, combined with the bronze giant’s longer arms, gave him a distinct advantage. Doc displayed this by a series of rapid clanging parries, countering each hacking thrust, then disengaging and stepping away so rapidly that Tamerlane stalked about, switching his head around as if his big bronze opponent had evaporated.

The fact that Timur Khan wore a heavy iron mask, which defeated his peripheral vision, added to his confusion. Stepping stealthily, Doc Savage continued moving with a liquid grace that defeated ordinary eyes.

“You are a coward!” croaked Timur.

Doc Savage returned without rancor, “Before, you boasted that iron beat bronze.”

“My sword is mightier than yours!” raged the Iron Khan.

Without responding, Doc Savage took three steps forward, flipped his blade once, and sank the point between two loose plates of lamellar armor, piercing the red leather jerkin beneath.

Doc stepped back, mere inches ahead of the sweeping, slashing counter thrust.

The slash was never fully executed. Timur lurched ahead, but seemed to lose his footing. To all observers, it appeared that his bad leg had failed, folding under him.

But the truth soon became apparent. For Tamerlane suddenly pitched forward upon his immobile mask of a face, and the sounds coming from him were the struggles of irregular breathing. Muffled by the battle mask, they sounded strange, until it became clear that some of the noises resembled rude snoring.

Turning to the wide-eyed Mongol horde, Doc Savage scooped up the fallen sabre and lifted it on high, along with his rapier, proclaiming, “Bronze beats iron!”

A stricken wail lifted from the Mongols’ anguished throats.

“Lay down your weapons,” Doc Savage commanded in their tongue. “Your cause is lost. For I have defeated your Khan.”

It took fully a minute for that pronouncement to sink into their bewildered brains. What the assembled Mongols might have done at that point could not be read on their startled faces.

It did not matter. What did matter were the words coming from the open mouth of General Chinua.

“The foreign devil has desecrated the mighty Timur!” he bellowed. “He has defeated him through trickery! For that, he deserves death. Smite him!
Slay the bronze one!”

Hearing those ringing words, the Iron Horde vaulted into their saddles and, screaming vengeance, charged Doc Savage.

Chapter LIII

BATTLE

IT WAS RARE that Doc Savage miscalculated.

Facing a difficult situation, the bronze man had reasoned that the diminished Iron Horde could be further demoralized by witnessing the certain defeat of their ancestral warlord at the hands of the masterful bronze giant.

Possibly that might have been the ultimate outcome, but for the deep loyalty of the former bandit chief turned general,
Tarkhan
Chinua.

Doc Savage had little time to reflect upon this unexpected change in his fortunes. For the enraged Mongol bowmen were charging, unloosing arrows, waving bright swords over their helmeted skulls, preparatory to shucking his head from his body.

A few fired revolvers, but shooting from the backs of pounding ponies did not promote accuracy.

Behind, Monk Mayfair could be heard bellowing, “Doc! Get back in here!”

But it was too late for an easy retreat. Bolts fletched with crane feathers slipped through the air. Doc handily sidestepped one, then another, but a third one scored the top of his shoulder. Only his alloy mesh undershirt saved him from a serious laceration.

Another feathered shaft flashed in his direction. There was no time to avoid this one. Doc bent forward just in time for the iron tip to strike the top of his skull, dead-center.

The arrow bounced off with a distinctly metallic note. Doc was staggered backward slightly, but quickly recovered. No blood seeped from his close-lying metallic hair.

The iron arrowhead had been defeated by the steel foundation of his protective skullcap. His powerful neck muscles, strengthened by a lifetime of physical training, had also helped absorb the impact.

No sooner had the bronze giant recovered, than the first wave of charging cavalry landed all around him.

Doc employed the mismatched blades in his hands. He banged skulls with Timur’s curved sabre in one hand, while pinking horses and riders with Ham’s supple rapier.

In this fashion, the bronze giant swiftly defeated the first wave of attackers. Numerous unhorsed Mongols melted before his controlled fury, or reeled away, staggering.

Behind him, Monk, Ham and the rest cut loose with their formidable superfirers. These remarkably efficient weapons quickly whittled down many of the still-active Mongols.

Very quickly, however, Doc Savage was overrun. Not wishing to inflict fatalities, he did an astounding thing under the circumstances. He dropped both blades, made his fists into metallic blocks, and began laying out attackers with powerful blows that staggered man and horse alike.

It might have been a scene out of some Biblical fable—a brawny bronze Samson standing his ground as fierce horsemen wheeled and charged around him. Doc did not even have to pick his targets very carefully. Steel-hard knuckles lashed out, knocking horses off their hooves, and men out of their wood saddles.

Two Mongols bore in, carrying long poles. One ended in a rope noose, the other a steel barb. These tools were used to capture wild horses to be broken or hook an enemy out of his saddle. Closing hard, one attempted to loop his lariat over Doc Savage’s imposing form, while the other employed his curved hook to harry his formidable opponent.

Massive bronze hands reached out, seized the hooking rod, and yanked the owner from his saddle, swiftly knocking him out with his own device.

The other was spurring his whinnying horse close, trying to maneuver his noose into position to snare the bronze-haired head. Doc snagged the loop, wrenched, and took possession of the pole. With his other hand, he found his foe’s kicking boot, grasped the ankle firmly, and hauled the Mongol off his mount, stunning him.

One wily horseman, driving in from another direction, did succeed in dropping a conventional lariat—called an
uurga
—over the bronze man’s shoulders. Doc simply set his feet, turned about several times, winding the rawhide rope around his massive muscular form, inexorably yanking both the stubborn rider and his snorting steed in his direction.

When this worthy was pulled into striking range, Doc Savage reached out with both hands, and seized him. Off from his saddle he came. The bronze giant lifted his flailing foe over his head and flung him bodily into another clutch of milling riders.

Doc was giving an incredible account of himself. Using only his mighty muscles, he winnowed down his immediate attackers. But the sea of cavalry prevented him from seeing much of what else transpired on the battlefield.

OBSERVING how the tide of battle was going, General Chinua led a detachment of archers around the busy knot of combat in which Doc Savage was the active center, sweeping around toward the stalled caboose.

Special shafts were taken from quivers, set ablaze, and fitted into taut horsehide strings. Bowstrings twanged loudly.

Fire arrows riddled the caboose, which promptly began to smoke and smolder at various spots.

By the time Monk and the others transferred their attention to this new menace, the caboose was burning merrily.

“Blazes!” howled Monk. “We gotta get out here!”

“You ain’t woofing,” bellowed Renny.

Having no choice in the matter, they piled out of the fiery caboose, supermachine pistol muzzles detonating in all directions.

A new array of bolts were produced and set to launch. These were fitted with blunt heads. When they were released, they travelled close to the ground, and whomever they struck, that man was summarily knocked over.

Concentrated supermachine pistol fire accounted for some of the attackers. But waves of arrows kept flying. Many, encountering bursts of slugs, were knocked off course.

Amid this concentrated hell, General Chinua rode up, leading a second pony by its reins. He did not know much English, but the wolfish Mongol had picked up a few words. He used one of them now.

“Surrender!” he ripped out.

To make his point, Chinua roughly prodded Johnny Littlejohn, who was strapped to a saddle. Johnny had been slowly coming around, but had not quite regained full consciousness. When the tip of the sabre pierced him along his reedy arms and legs, the bony archaeologist found his voice and his strength.

He produced howling words of ungodly length and incomprehension.

“A supersanguinary ultra-catastrophe!” was one choice example.

Johnny possessed quite a pair of tonsils, the result of giving long lectures in the classroom during his college professor days. His voice carried. There was no mistaking it.

His bleats of anger diverted all the attention toward him.

“Surrender!” repeated Chinua in a louder voice.

As it happened, Monk, Ham, Renny, and Long Tom were running low on ammunition.

Growling like a grizzly bear, Monk released a last spiteful burst or two. His weapon ran empty.

“I’m out!” he complained.

“Me, too,” groused Long Tom.

“That means we’re sunk!” Renny said gloomily.

So it appeared. They looked for their bronze chief, but he could hardly be seen amid the cyclone of combat in which he was inextricably embroiled.

Then they saw something utterly amazing.

A PONY—and not a very small one at that—suddenly lifted skyward, his wide-eyed rider struggling to stay in the saddle. The horse appeared to have jumped straight up into the air.

But that was an illusion. All saw the pony being lifted by a pair of muscular bronze arms that appeared to possess more strength than human thews could conceivably contain.

For Doc Savage had ducked under an attacking horseman and, setting himself, lifted equine and rider straight up, toppling them in the direction of a knot of fresh attackers.

Almost everyone witnessed this prodigious feat of prowess. And for a moment it stunned them, making jaws drop and eyes bug out, stilling tongues and dazing brains with disbelief.

Then Doc Savage snatched up a dropped bow and some loose arrows scattered about, ones he selected for their blunt heads, intended to unhorse riders.

He fitted one into the string and prepared to drop the first man who approached. At first, no one dared.

Then a crafty Mongol attempted to slip up from behind. Others, standing in plain sight, shifted about to distract the bronze titan.

Doc Savage was not fooled. A footfall behind him reached keen ears.

Doc whirled and let fly in one liquid motion, as if possessing eyes back of his head.

The blunt head struck the creeping man full in the chest and no tree ever fell more swiftly before a woodman’s axe than he.

There followed a momentarily lull in the fight. Such a thing sometimes happens in wartime. It is as if all combatants had been spiritually drained of their energy. For a few heartbeats, there was no will to fight on.