Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (39 page)

Deadly cargo deployed, the bomber turned around and disappeared over the jagged mountains, its mission completed.

Doc emerged once again from shelter, and made his way out into the open. It was now a very changed landscape. There was a great upflung crater, and an extremely dry dust, yellowish-brown in color, hung in the afternoon air.

Doc Savage moved among the dead and wounded, and the sights and sounds and smells that greeted his senses were horrific.

The Chinese bomb had landed with devastating results. Where before, there had been many wounded, now there were only a few. Doc Savage went to those unfortunates first, and discovered that none of them would live very long.

Out of an abundance of mercy, the bronze man manipulated the spinal centers on the necks of the dying, causing them to fall into the oblivion of sleep, in this way shortening their suffering. Nothing more could be done for them.

Doc ranged the battlefield, seeking any sign of his men, but found none. Nor was there any trace of Tamerlane, who had been entirely helpless when the attack commenced.

The only item of interest the bronze man found was Ham Brooks’ half-buried sword cane. He harvested this and carried it back to where Habeas patiently waited.

CASTING his gaze to the north, Doc saw that the Chinese train had disappeared into the undulating north. It was now too far away to overhaul, had the bronze man contemplated any such action.

The Mongol horde of Tamerlane had melted into the surrounding foothills, and of them there was no sign. Upflung clods of yellow loess had eradicated all tracks and traces, much to the bronze man’s frustration. It was as if the horses and men had melted into the rocks in some uncanny way.

Even his acute sense of smell provided no direction, for the air was rank with noisome smells ranging from gunpowder to freshly spilled blood.

Normally, there was no spoor Doc Savage could not trace, but he had no way of knowing of the abandoned railroad tunnel cutting through one mountain.

Nor did he suspect that the detonation had sealed it with rocky debris at this near terminus.

Habeas at his side, the bronze giant scanned the surroundings in all directions, picking through his phenomenal memory in an effort to ascertain his exact location. The nearest town lay to the southwest. He considered whether to make his way in that direction, or return and reclaim his plane.

With the big plane, Doc could cover more territory but he would be hamstrung by the need to put the aircraft down should he discover anything of interest.

On the other hand, the surrounding valleys stretched out in rolling waves. To cover them all on foot constituted a colossal task.

What ultimately decided the bronze man was the unexpected sight of the twin-motored transport plane coming down from the north.

Doc took out his monocular, unfolded it, and scrutinized the aircraft through the slim but powerful tube.

The ship was unmarked, but the aeronautical lines were unmistakable. It was a product of a factory in Yokohama, Japan. A Mitsubishi Ki-57—the civilian version of a Japanese Army heavy bomber.

As the bronze giant watched, the aircraft rolled into a rapid descent. Doc saw that it was heading in the direction of the nearest town, over in the next valley beyond the mountains.

Picking up Habeas Corpus, the bronze man began walking in that direction. He did not know whether this new arrival would lead him to his quarry, but the mere fact that a Japanese transport plane dared to land this deep into the interior of Free China was a matter that greatly intrigued him.

For Doc Savage did not think it any coincidence.

Chapter LVII

HORROR IN A TEAK BOX

JOHNNY LITTLEJOHN AWOKE with a start.

His dazed eyes snapped open, falling into focus. The skeleton-thin archaeologist looked about him, watery gaze lancing in all directions.

A favorite word escaped his bloody lips.

“Supermalagorgeous!”

This meant that Johnny was immensely pleased to find himself among the living. He had not expected to last long once he fell under the power of Tamerlane the Terrible.

Johnny attempted to stand up, but failed immediately. His wrists and ankles were lashed by rawhide, which had been soaked in brine or something like it. This caused them to shrink, cutting off circulation. Johnny looked at his hands. He could see the thready pulsing of the veins on his wrists, and beyond the constricting hide, the long, thin fingers were turning purple from congested blood.

Johnny attempted to bring his wrists up to his mouth so his strong teeth could get at the rawhide.

That was when he discovered to his horror that the rawhide bindings at his broomstick wrists and ankles were connected by another strip of soaked hide. This, too, was shrinking. Try as he might, the elongated archaeologist could not bring his wrists to his face.

Undaunted, Johnny next squirmed about, trying to bend his body double so that his teeth could find the wrist lashings.

No sooner had he attempted it, than Johnny began choking. That was when he realized that a loop of rawhide had been wound around his scrawny throat and tied to the back of his belt, where he could not reach the knot.

Johnny attempted to swallow, but he found the action difficult. This suggested that the drying rawhide wrapped about his throat was essentially a constricting noose.

The long-worded archeologist rarely swore. He did so now.

“Well, Hell’s bells!” he gritted out. “A fine fix this is!”

An agonizing death lay in the offing, Johnny knew. Thrashing about, he slowly became aware that he was lying on an earthen floor.

THERE was not much light, but in the unknown structure where the hogtied archeologist had been consigned, there were breaks in the walls and roof and these chinks let in threads of sunlight, rather like illuminated spider webs.

Johnny’s urgent contortions produced an unexpected result.

“Who’s there?” demanded an agony-filled voice.

“Who are you?” retorted Johnny, eyes questing about the dim confines.

“I asked you first,” hissed the other.

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, and Johnny finally realized that it was coming from a wooden container that sat on a taboret of Chinese workmanship. He could not tell what it was, but the box had the look of a reliquary—a casket designed to protect a religious relic, such as a Buddha’s tooth, or some such arcane thing.

Struggling mightily, creeping as a serpent moves along the ground, the skeletal archaeologist inch-wormed his way to the taboret.

It was possible to sit up, although this took some effort and Johnny asked again, “Who is it?”

“Who do you
think
it is?” snapped the voice that was coming from the small box. It was muffled, but its qualities brought to mind a morose hound.

“Olden?” husked Johnny.

The deep voice in the box released a resigned sigh. “What is left of him,” admitted Cadwiller Olden.

“What happened to you?” Johnny wanted to know. He studied the box, remembered that it had been tied to the saddle before him, and was amazed at how small it was, given that a human voice was emanating from it.

Johnny suspected a ruse. Perhaps there was a radio apparatus concealed within the box, and Cadwiller Olden was communicating with him at a distance, in an effort to engineer some duplicitous trick.

“One way to find out,” Johnny murmured to himself.

“What is that?” asked the muffled voice.

By getting up on his knees, Johnny was able to maneuver himself so that he could lift the lid of the box. He used the sharp tip of his nose to do so.

The heavy lid came up easily, and Johnny, by twisting his head around, managed to peer inside with a single expectant eye.

That orb went very wide. Johnny’s fleshless features were well tanned by recent weeks working out of doors. Now they paled as if all the blood rushed from his head to his extremities.

“I’ll be superamalgamated!” he bleated out in horror.

Unwilling to accept what his eyes transmitted to his brain, Johnny recoiled. The lid fell back into place with a woody clap.

“Now you know…” moaned the miserable voice of Cadwiller Olden, muffled once more. “Aren’t I a sight?”

Chapter LVIII

PRINCE SATSU

THE JAPANESE TRANSPORT plane circled the Chinese town three times before daring to descend.

When it was not fired upon, the pilot selected a serviceable stretch of hard ground, overshot it once due to nervousness, and came around, making a perfect three-point landing.

The fuselage hatch door opened. Out spilled a contingent of Japanese Marines. They ranged the area around the Mitsubishi transport and, encountering no challenge or resistance, returned to the hatch, where they formed an honor guard of two rigid green lines.

The object of their concern emerged into the dying afternoon light.

Readers of international newspapers would have recognized him at once. In the Western press he had been dubbed Prince Satsu. He was a member of the Royal Japanese family, several steps down in succession to the Imperial throne.

One would not know that from the way he comported himself. Head held high, one white-gloved hand on the ceremonial
katana
sword swinging in a scabbard at his side, the Prince emerged wearing a formal swallowtail coat and striped trousers set off by a gray silk tie in which a pearl stickpin gleamed, as if arriving for an ambassadorial dinner and not stepping forth upon enemy territory.

His retinue filing behind him in a formal entourage, Prince Satsu walked along the wheel-rutted cart road as if he was the viceroy of this section of China. It could not be said that he lacked nerve. For had Satsu encountered any Chinese troopers, he would have been summarily shot as a spy.

The dignitary did not see himself as a spy. Instead, he considered himself the future military ruler of this province. Just because the territory had not yet fallen before his revered Emperor, did not mean that Satsu could not make an advance inspection of his future protectorate.

So Prince Satsu marched boldly into the town known as Fragrant Flower. He went hatless, so that his pinched ears stood out and his huge shock of coarse black hair stood up stiff and straight as a wire. His skin resembled parchment drawn taut over projecting facial bones.

The town was girded by a low adobe wall—a holdover from the days when successive waves of Mongol, Manchu and other conquerors came down from the north to pillage at will. No guards stood at the open gate. There was an unpleasant odor, but this was common in these rural hamlets where sanitation was rudimentary.

When no resistance was encountered, Prince Satsu and his green-helmeted Marines ranged about the town, seeking someone in authority. But the place showed every sign of having been hastily evacuated.

The reason became clear when they came to the town square, an unlovely spot overrun with pigs and chickens. Wild dogs slunk along the deserted streets, their ribs showing through mangy coats. Dogs were sometimes roasted for food in China, but these specimens had managed to evade that cruel fate, possibly because they were not worth the trouble.

There, General Chinua and the remnants of his ragtag Mongols were setting up makeshift headquarters. Ponies stood hobbled. Houses were being ransacked and piles of clothing and other goods had accumulated in the square.

Someone had roasted a sheep on a makeshift spit and all that remained of the animal were some raw bones the dogs were fighting over, a pile of soiled-looking gray wool, and a big bamboo bowl of cold, greasy mutton.

At sight of these Mongols, Prince Satsu wrenched to a halt. Purposefully, he lifted his voice. His command of the Mongolian tongue was adequate, but not exceptional.

“Who is in charge of this army?” he asked in the hissing inflections of his island race.

General Chinua turned at the sound of the arrogant inquiry. Wishing to protect his Khan, who had been laid in a house to sleep off the spell that had robbed him of his consciousness, the former Mongol bandit barked back, “I am
Tarkhan
Chinua. General, to you.”

“And I am Prince Satsu Hiroyasu, of the Royal House of Japan. I demand an audience with you.”

General Chinua was tempted to produce his sabre and rush over to skewer the demanding man, but the Japanese prince’s unflinching fearlessness stayed his eager hand.

Striding over, General Chinua said coldly, “Speak your mind.”

“I will come to the point. I understand that you ride under a new Khan.”

“You understand perfectly.”

“You have done very well up to this point—in vanquishing the small towns in this province. But you have yet to sack a city.”

Chinua said nothing.

“Furthermore,” continued the Prince, “you would have cut through the heart of rural China had you not encountered unfortunate resistance in the person of the American known as Doc Savage.”

“You must have many spies.”

Prince Satsu smile thinly. “Many, many spies.”

“What do you want?”

“What I wish, is what my Emperor desires,” he hissed. “The conquest of China. You were brought to Manchukuo to ensure that. Yet you broke away from Imperial control. Why?”

“No one controls the Iron Horde of Timur Khan, except the great Khan of Iron himself,” professed Chinua.

“Where is he then?”

“Marshaling his strength for the next campaign.”

The Prince looked around, eyes growing thin. “With what army? You have been decimated.”

With restrained anger, General Chinua asked, “Did you fly all the way from Tokyo to recite the obvious?”

“No,” returned the Prince. “I am here to convey respects of my illustrious Emperor, and to offer you reinforcements and additional arms, with which you may prosecute your conquest of the Chinese interior.”

Suspicion darkened Chinua’s windy features. “And what do you expect in return?”

“Even if you subjugate all of China,” the Prince returned smoothly, “you cannot undo your present lamentable circumstances. You could not hope to administer its provinces with uneducated nomads you pick up along the way. We will do that for you. With you. My Emperor proposes an alliance of equals.”