"The Necklace of Shrunken Heads"
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dochermes"The Necklace of Shrunken Heads"
6/20-6/21/2003
I.
Along the banks of the great sluggish brown river Nyatowa, dozens of Indians stopped their chores and stared at the strange black craft that lowered silently from the sky. The stealthcopter CORBY had pontoons fitted for this trip, and it settled onto the surface of the water near the shore as lightly as a leaf falling from a tree. These were dark gold-skinned people of medium height, with coarse straight black hair tied up on their heads with cord. A few were completely naked, but most wore a cloth of some sort tied around their middles. Both men and women had ritual scars on their faces.
As the CORBY came to a landing and the rotors slowed, the tribes-people came to the banks and stared. Some of them had seen airplanes fly overhead before, they were not completely isolated, but the black helicopter had an ominous look to it than would make anyone stare. Somehow, the CORBY drifted in closer even without the rotors stilled, until it butted up against the muddy bank.
A hatch on the side of the helicopter slid open with a hiss as the pressurized air in the cabin was released, and a young woman in a tight black outfit hopped nimbly out to land on the bank. Her platinum hair shone in the hazy tropical sunlight in a way that made the natives gasp. Ashley Whitaker grinned in a confident way, adjusted the three-foot tapering cylinder strapped across her back, and raised both open hands in a placating gesture.
"I come in peace," she announced in Prilyrdyn, the primal tongue instilled in every conscious mind but which only a few realize can be used. "Unicorn is here to help."
"Young woman with hair of old woman!" shouted a man. "She is a dreamwalker."
"If you say so," Unicorn agreed pleasantly. Two more people had emerged from the helicopter, both also dressed in the black field suits of heavy boots, pants and waist-length jackets. One was a tall thin man with a Y-shaped leather quiver fashioned across his back and carrying an unstrung longbow in his other hand. The other was a woman of average height, with glossy black hair brushed straight back that reached past her shoulders.
At twenty-six, Lauren Sable Reilly was so serious and so unselfconscious that she had never realized how attractive she was. Her snub nose, wide mouth and huge dark eyes gave her a face that was distinctive and instantly likable. Sable's powers of enhanced perception were invaluable, of course, but it was her conscientious personality that had led to her being the captain of the KDF team. She placed a friendly hand on Ashley's shoulder and glanced over to see that Josef had strung his bow and was keeping watch before addressing the tribe.
"Humble greetings," she called out in Prilyrdyn. "We are not from the government to the south. Nor do we want anything from you good people. Our purpose is to find King Kuviko and the Mountain of Iron and to end their reign."
The uproar that followed this announcement was ferocious, went on for ten minutes and only settled down when one of the older natives raised his hands and stamped a foot for silence. "Hear the strangers out! Keep your tongues behind your teeth!"
Sable bowed her head politely. "Will you tell us what you know of these men?"
"They are taken by bad spirits," the older native answered. He wore a necklace of shells that had been elaborately carved and a quill through his nose, marking him as a chief. "As cruel as the Acerimos tribe have always been, they were never so bloodthirsty. With the Mountain of Iron as leader, they take more heads between each moon than they used to claim in a generation. They have poisoned streams for some unexplained reason. And many of our young women have been dragged from their huts and never seen again."
"The Mountain of Iron," grumbled Josef angrily. "Akizuki."
"I know," Sable whispered to him. "It has to be Stuart Duffy. Now we know where he's been hiding." Turning to the chief, the KDF leader pressed a thumb to her chest and said, "We have come to destroy the Mountain of Iron. He is exiled from a distant country he may not return to, and wherever he goes he brings death."
The old man turned and discussed this with his people, who still seemed on the edge of rioting. When he seemed to reach a consensus, he bent toward Sable and lowered his voice. "The giant man has an evil heart. It would be well if he left this life. He rules the Acerimos and their King Kuviko has been put under his thumb. Go upstream, against the flow of the river. If you walk along the bank, it will take two days but Acerimo sentries will see you before you reach the Acerimos city."
"City?"
"Stone buildings tall as trees," said the chief. "The Acerimos are the many-times grandchildren of a great people who are no more."
Sable bowed from the waist and smiled. "We thank you for the knowledge, wise one. When next we meet, I swear it will be with news that the Mountain-" Her sentence broke off as Josef Jubliec blurred into action. A body fell from a tree forty yards away with a thud as it hit the hard dirt. Sticking up from its chest was a three-foot arrow. Josef was lowering his bow already, but no one there, even the Indians who had been staring at him, had followed his motions as he had fitted a shaft to the string and left fly.
The Blind Archer exhaled slowly and fixed his dark blue eyes on Sable. His weathered face made him look older than he really was. "That man had a blowpipe and he had raised it, captain."
"Good work, Josef," Sable said. "Anyone else?"
"Not that I can spot."
She paused to expand her perceptions. Lauren Sable Reilly had the ability to focus gralic energy into her various senses, giving her enhanced vision or hearing or smell. Concentrating, she scanned the jungle around them but caught not a glimpse of any humans other than the tribespeople right in front of her. She withdrew her perception and came back to normal, annoyed with herself that she had not detected a threat before Josef had.
"Keep alert," she whispered unnecessarily.
The Blind Archer did not reply. His life had left him always suspicious and on guard. Meanwhile, some of the tribe had gone over to examine the body and among them was Unicorn. The little blonde squatted over the corpse and didn't even bother taking a pulse. "He's a goner," she said. "Arrow right in the heart and a fifteen foot fall head down." Picking up the blowpipe made of bamboo, she also found a pouch that she handled very carefully. "Five wooden darts dipped in some resin. Poison, of course."
"We must leave now," Sable told the chief. "I don't think there was another Acerimo with this one but we don't want the Mountain of Iron to be warned of our approach. I think we will take the body and dump it a few miles away..."
"No. Leave it here. We will not waste it," the chief said blandly.
Her best effort at a poker face kept Sable from reacting. "That's up to you, of course."
"Meat is meat and hard to find here," the chief smiled happily.
II.
Half an hour later, the CORBY moved upstream smoothly at about forty miles per hour. In the pilot seat, the fourth member of the team moved the control sticks in a relaxed, confident manner. Sheng Mo-Yuan, called Argent, was not more than five feet six but wide and muscular in one of the black field suits with the built-in weapons and gadgets. He looked Asian, Northern Chinese perhaps, but something in the hawklike nose and high cheekbones contradicted that.
"Trom impulse engines at ten per cent," he told Sable, who was in the co-pilot seat. "Are you sure you don't want to survey the area from the air?"
"Not yet," she said thoughtfully. "There's something about this situation that worries me. Duffy was last seen working as a bodyguard in Hawaii. How did he end up here on the Venezuela border? What's here that he would want?"
From the bench behind them, Josef Jubilec put in, "Duffy is a hedonist. He loves good restaurants, wine, women, concerts. It does seem out of character for him to go to the rain forest."
"He's after something," Sable said. "I can't imagine what."
Sitting crosslegged on the bench in the compartment right behind the cabin, Unicorn chewed on a granola bar and shrugged. "You know what I think? You wanna know? It's the stone city. The geezer back there said these Acerimos live in a stone city that their ancestors built. There's the answer."
"Could be," Sable agreed. "Treasure perhaps, gold or jewels. Or maybe something worse, something sorcerous."
"Something Midnight War!" snapped Josef. "The Mountain of Iron has played with dangerous toys before." The Blind Archer took a bottle of water from the cooler on the floor. "My bet is that there is some potent talisman in that city that Duffy wants."
Unicorn snorted derisively. "It's so crazy! A Sumo wrestler named Stuart Duffy! What next, a rabbi named Sean O'Flaherty?"
From the front, Sable explained, "His parents were Japanese but he was raised by foster family in Oklahama. They gave him that name. Duffy competed as Sumo under the name Akizuki.. the Mountain of Iron."
"It still sounds goofy to me," Ashley said. "So, captain, what is the plan anyway?"
Sable was still frowning. "It should be getting dark soon. No moon. I think we will circle this lost city from maybe 12,000 feet. Take readings with the Trom scanners and my powers. Then we'll have a better idea what we're tackling." She pointed ahead. "Josef, can you pick up on anyone who might be watching us?"
Oddly, the bowman covered his eyes with his hand before answering. The Blind Archers enhanced their perception of lifeforce by shutting off their vision, so that their arrows never missed a living target. "No people. A couple of wild pigs, some giant snake I don't recognize. Smaller animals."
"Good. Sheng, pull over by that bank there with the grassy patch. We might as well have a meal and take five."
Steering the CORBY so it bumped up against the bank, Argent secured it and popped open his hatch. The young Asian hopped out and up onto the grass with a casual ease that suggested he could have leaped much higher if he had wanted to. His gift was that he could use gralic force to enhance his strength or speed or durability... but only one aspect at a time. Sheng stretched luxuriantly and yawned so hard his jaw cracked.
"I could use a nap," he volunteered. "We left New York in a hurry."
"I'll get the food!" Unicorn yelled as she hauled a plastic cooler from the back compartment and wrestled it up on to the bank. Sable had stepped out next to her, but said nothing as she studied the area with her powers.
Sable shifted her perception from one sense to another. Human perspiration? Breathing? Heartbeats? She could detect nothing in the area. The thought that the one Acerimo had gotten that close to them still rankled her. Sable took everything seriously. "All right," she said at last. "Area seems secure."
"Starting a fire is gonna be rough," Ashley grumbled as she poked around in the lush undergrowth. "Everything is damp. The humidity here is well, you know... tropical. It's a jungle."
Sable finally smiled, and her face changed to look like a teenager's. "Cold lunch. We have sandwiches, egg salad, diced watermelon, all that. Depending on what happens later, we'll cook a bigger meal."
"I claim the Fritos," Ashley said. She unbuckled the leather strap which held the Unicorn horn across her shoulders and put to one side as she sat crosslegged on the ground. Just over five feet tall and just under one hundred pounds, she was naturally gorgeous and took it for granted. Sable's initial resentment of the little blonde's cockiness had faded as she had gotten to known her. Unicorn was so oblivious and good-hearted that it was hard to dislike her.
As they sat in a rough circle and devoured everything, the KDF team chatted casually. "How do you think Megan is doing back at the HCE?" Unicorn asked through a mouthful of meatball sub.
"Beats me," Sable answered. "She reports to the Trom every now and then. So far, she's always come back with permission to give us access to new tech, so I guess she goes there to plead we need help."
"I'd like to see a Trom meeting. Those guys are so dry and dull and calm that it must be like sitting around with a bunch of department store mannequins. It's a wonder our Trom Girl didn't turn out more messed up, being raised by them." Ashley crumbled the wrapper and tossed it back in the cooler. "Hey, what happened to the cold chicken?"
"Too late," laughed Argent. "I think there's a wing left."
Sable jumped to her feet unexpectedly. She sniffed. "Everyone in the CORBY right now!" she yelled. From upriver, boiling red mist rushed toward them faster than a train. It looked like a solid wall of crimson vapor being blown by hurricane winds. All four KDF members were up and moving, but in only a few seconds the red fog rushed over them. Argent had shifted to speed and he dove headlong far out over the water. Behind him, the other three dropped where they stood.
For only a few seconds, the red fog swirled over the limp bodies. It dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, until only a few strands of mist still rose in the muggy air. No one moved.
Marching along the bank toward them were a dozen Indians, but they looked nothing like the tribe the KDF had already met. These newcomers had glossy skin with a distinct coppery red tint, they were tall and gangly, with long arms and legs. Their heads were mostly shaven, with caps made of jaguar fur. And they carried spears and short swords and clubs with pieces of sharp stone embedded in the heads.
Among them towered a huge bulk, a man six inches over six feet in height, weighing perhaps four hundred pounds. Aside from the pendulous belly, much of that weight was solid muscle. The biceps and thighs looked hard. A round head was topped by black hair pulled up into an oiled topknot. The giant wore incongruous khaki cargo pants and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt of bright red and green and yellow.
Stuart Duffy, the Mountain of Iron, clapped his massive palms together in delight. "Better than I expected! No wonder your ancestors ruled this land for hundreds of years. Hear me, dogs! Strip the clothes off these strangers and carry everything with care back to the city. Tie the strangers with catgut so tightly that the circulation is cut off. These people are more dangerous than they look." He gestured at the CORBY. "And throw ropes to tie that thing to a tree so it doesn't drift away. Some of you will pull it to the city."
Although the Acerimos yanked the jackets and boots and pants off the unconscious prisoners, they could not find a way to unfasten the Trom armor. This looked like a dark wet silk bodysuit that left only heads, hands, and feet exposed. The armor seemed somehow to be a single unbroken piece of material. Several of the natives had been fondling Sable and Unicorn and expressed bitter disappointment that they could not get the women completely naked. One man started kicking Josef in the ribs and crotch, but only hurt his bare foot against the armor.
"Never mind that now!" roared the giant sumo. "Get moving! I want the prisoners and their gear in the city before dark. Move it, before I start breaking a few fingers again!"
This was not an idle figure of speech, apparently, because the Acerimos picked up everything and took off at a run. The Mountain of Iron chuckled and trudged after them.
On the side of the CORBY away from the bank, near the middle of the river, Sheng Mo-Yuan clung desperately to a half-sunken tree with only his face above water. He had breathed in enough of that red fog to feel weak and nauseous but he held on tenaciously. The dark brown eyes under the double eyelid fold were furious with a cold anger he had never felt before. Argent watched his friends and teammates being carried roughly away and he swore to the gods of Chujir that men would die for this.
III.
Sable came back to awareness with a throbbing headache and burning nausea. Four years on a tagra tea diet at Tel Shai and Kumundu training enabled her body to recover quickly from all sorts of trauma, but that strange red fog had left effects that lingered. Breathing deeply and slowly, she forced her eyes open and took in her surroundings. She was tied against something that held her up on her feet, tied tightly by her arms and around her chest. Sable looked down and saw her field suit had been removed, leaving her just in the flexible Trom armor. That was a relief in some ways, the armor had left her with some protection.
Night had fallen, and a roaring bonfire nearby gave flickering illumination. Sable twisted her head and saw Unicorn to her left and Josef to her right, both still unconscious and both tied as she was to one of a series of thick stone pillars. Her friends did not seem to have been beaten.
Looming up in the unsteady light were buildings made of dark greenish stone, long low structures with arched doorways and squat towers. The surface of each building was covered with ornate carvings of abstract shapes that could not be identified, and several life-sized statues of jaguars reared up on ledges that protruded out over the doorways. Arrayed along the walls were stakes stuck in the hard ground with yellowed human skulls at their upper points. In the light from the bonfire, the skulls seemed to have expressions change on their bony faces.
When she saw no sign of Argent, her spirits lifted a little. She had gotten a split-second glimpse of him heading for the river as the red fog had attacked. If Sheng was still at large....
A smaller fire was burning on the ground in front of her. Two of the Acerimos squatted before it, tending a wooden frame on which dangled two round objects the size of oranges over the smoke. Shrunken heads, being prepared. One of the warriors noticed her coming back to awareness and leered viciously at her, obviously enjoying her dismay. He drew a finger across his throat in a symbol that needed no interpretation. A few more of the tribesmen came over to watch and chatted gleefully.
Unicorn and Blind Archer grunted and stirred almost simultaneously. Josef's experience showed as he played unconscious a few minutes longer, peering about without moving his head as he took in the scene. But Ashley muttered to herself, shook her head and cursed, and then bluntly said in a normal tone, "Hey, Sable? What was that all about?"
"We've been taken prisoner by the Acerimos," the team leader admitted. "Whatever that red fog was, it acted fast. Even if we had a lookout posted as I should have, there wasn't time to escape."
"Hey, those are shrunken heads they're making," Unicorn said casually. "I saw some in Okali. Nasty custom."
A giant form moved around the bonfire and came toward them. Despite his huge bulk, the killer sumo walked as lightly as a dancer. He was wearing the khaki shorts and loose Hawaiian shirt and was gnawing on what looked like a roasted leg of lamb. "Ah, my Tel Shai friends!" he boomed genially. "How good to see you again."
"Looking good there," Unicorn replied lightly. "Down to half a ton, huh?"
"And you in particular I remember. The Unicorn. Oh, the chief will lust to have your head on his necklace. Here he comes now."
Approaching from the darkness was a gaunt, muscular man taller than most of his tribesmen. Where the Acerimos wore caps of jaguar fur, King Kuviko had the entire head of a jaguar as headgear, with only its lower jaw removed. Gold armbands and a kilt of red cloth made him stand out further. King Kuviko glowered at them with outright hatred. There was nothing half-hearted about his savagery, he had the face of a man capable of any cruelty for its own sake.
"These are the outsiders I told you about," Duffy said to the chief. "What do you think?"
"Three white faces for the Necklace of Kings," grumbled Kuviko. "The young woman with white hair is special, her head will make the magic strong."
"In your dreams," Unicorn scoffed.
Duffy lifted a hand bigger than the chief's hand. "Not just yet. The man's head may be taken now. But I have grown tired of the Acerimo women. I crave a little variety in my diet, and the prisoners can serve me well before they donate their heads."
"You forget who is King here," the savage chief growled, one hand on his sword. "It is for me to say when these prisoners die."
"Grant me this at least, oh chief. I have led your men to claim many prisoners, yes? I have killed the wild peccaries with my hands to make the feast." Duffy lowered his voice as he stood near the brutal man. "And remember you have seen me fight. Your sword can not cut my flesh. Your curare darts do not sting me. Let us not end up fighting against each other."
Kuviko held his silence with obvious effort, scowling so ferociously it looked as if he were going to have a stroke, and finally replied, "Very well. For a while."
As the chief stomped off in a foul temper, Stuart Duffy towered up over his prisoners. "There. I have gotten at least a week more life for you. You should be grateful. Even if you will not enjoy your final days, I sure will." He laughed sharply and watched the fuming King Kuviko leave.
"What is this place?" Sable asked. "These people didn't put up buildings like those. The stones are neatly dressed. It took generations to build this city."
"True enough, my girl," answered the sumo. "Well, I'm no expert. I can't tell Aztec from Inca from Maya. You could tell me that this place was created by the freaking Druids and I'd be okay with that. My guess is the Acerimos aren't even descendants of the original inhabitant, they just moved in long after the city was deserted."
Sable wriggled a little, trying to get her bonds loosened. "Stuart Duffy. Weren't you in prison the last I heard? In Hawaii?"
"Sure," he replied, examining her thoughtfully. "But you know my gralic gift of density. I can break handcuffs and ignore bullets. It's hard to keep someone like me locked up. Now, how I ended up in South America, that was an arms deal that went bad..."
Unicorn broke into the conversation. "Smells like they're cooking something over there. Smells pretty good, unless it's...."
"It is NOT human flesh!" Duffy laughed. "I'd tell you if it was. Just wild pig and fish. Yams. Beans. Don't worry, I'll see that you all get something to eat. Even the bowman for his last meal."
Sable smiled in what she hoped was a seductive way. "Keeping us alive will be rewarding for you, Duffy. I can promise you that."
"SABLE!?" squeaked Unicorn in horror, her eyes bugging out.
"Come on Ashley, it's life or death for us." Sable shrugged. "I went to NYU. I had a few boyfriends. Sex'll be no big deal, especially if it means staying alive."
The Mountain of Iron regarded her with a satisfied grin. "That's pragmatic. I like that. You, the archer, though... you're going to have to die. You have blond hair and that's rare here. The chief wants your head for the Necklace of Kings."
Josef Jubilec had not spoken since Duffy had appeared and he did not comment now. He had been studying the pillar he was tied to. It was a simple stone cylinder without any crossbars or obstructions, roughly nine feet high. The Blind Archer found he had been tied by simply having rope wound tightly around the pillar. A slight smile appeared on his face, barely noticeable in the poor light. As Duffy told him his head would be taken soon, Josef did not react. He merely stared evenly at the giant man with cold appraisal, as if judging what he would do when he got free.
III.
Forty of the Acerimos bent their backs and strained, hauling on ropes they had fastened to the CORBY. Bowed almost parallel to the ground, digging their naked toes in the dirt, the warriors struggled as the stealthcopter barely moved under their best efforts. They had sent divers into the river to determine that nothing anchored the CORBY and they could not understand what made it resist their pulling.
It was beyond their understanding. The Trom impulse engines had been set to keep the CORBY in place against the motions of the river, which was a setting low enough that the craft could be moved by outside force. So hours passed and the night wore on as the Acerimos tugged on those ropes until exhausted.
Not far from them, stealing through the dense undergrowth in complete silence, Sheng Mo-Yuan decided not to stay with them. It was going to take to them forever to haul the CORBY even a few miles and he wanted to rescue his friends. He had thought he would follow these fools to where their stronghold was located, but he could not wait.
He was annoyed that he could not get into the CORBY to snatch up some weaponry. His field suit carried a couple of smoke bombs, three resonance grenades and an irritant spray, and he had his anesthetic dart gun holstered at his belt. Not much to take on a city full of headhunters. Even with his powers, he had to be realistic enough to not tackle forty savages at once. Deeply vexed, Argent took off through the brush. Years of Kumundu training enabled him to race through the night without making noise. He paused now and then to be sure he was not going astray, and once he almost stepped on an anaconda that slid sluggishly over the bank into the river with a splash.
Something smacked softly into the material of his jacket and stuck there. A carved wooden dart. Shifting his focus to speed, Sheng leaped forward quicker than a snake striking and tackled an Acerimo, bringing them both to the damp dirt in a tangle. Even as they hit the ground, he smashed one elbow into the man's chest with a brutal impact that drove all the air from the warrior's lungs. Straddling the man, Sheng froze and listened for any other movement but heard nothing. He must be getting close to the city if he was encountering sentries.
The headhunter began to struggle and Argent shifted his gift to strength so he could hold the man motionless, keeping his captive's jaw closed with one hand. The Acerimo was getting frantic and was shout an alarm as soon as he could get loose. Sheng had wanted to ask some questions but the native was too slippery and too frantic to restrain much longer. Turning the man's head almost completely around, Sheng lowered the corpse to the ground and threw it into the undergrowth. That was annoying. Getting some information would have been helpful.
Straightening up, Sheng carefully plucked the dart from his jacket and threw it in the bushes. It suddenly registered with him that, if he had been wearing just a plain T-shirt, he would have taken a hit from that curare. That shook his nerves for a second, but he started moving again.
The drumming was audible as he approached the city just ahead, a distinctive rapid melody that repeated itself over and over. Voices cried out joyfully at intervals. Well, thanks for making it easier to find you guys, Sheng thought. He became more stealthy as he crept closer, pausing to listen and sniff the air for the scent of human sweat. Another sentry was squatting at the base of a tree, chewing on something pungent, the long blowpipe across his knees. From twenty yards away, Argent drew his air-powered pistol and took aim. There was a faint noise like a suppressed cough, and the Acerimo slapped at his shoulder as if he had been stung by an insect. Before he could realize he had a metal dart stuck in his skin, the drug had already dazed him enough that he dropped into unconsciousness silently.
Sheng found this all greatly amusing. Handcarved wooden darts dipped in crude poison being challenged by sophisticated Trom darts injecting a complicated chemical formula. The more things change, he thought...
Finding one of the stone buildings that was a story higher than the others, Sheng scrambled up its irregular surface and stretched out on the roof. Crawling forward an inch at a time, he looked down at the barbaric sight of a hundred nearly-naked warriors dancing and leaping around a great fire in which a whole pig on a spit was cooking. To one side, three old women beat the tom-tom sized drums in a monotonous rhythm and one occasionally blew a conch as a horn. It was a scene that had come down unchanged for thousands of years.
Argent spotted his three friends, bound to thick posts in a row, not far from a smaller fire where heads were being prepared. They seemed unharmed, so far. Two wooden thrones had been carried over to flank the bonfire and on them sat Stuart Duffy and the King of the Acerimos. Both were being offered wine in goatskins and carved wooden platters piled with fruit. The two men seemed to be arguing.
Watching the scene, Sheng felt an uncharacteristic twinge of doubt. He estimated a little over a hundred warriors on the scene, along with a good number of women, children and elderly who kept in the background but who could pitch in if it came to a battle. This was going to be difficult. The feasting was getting way in earnest now as the dancing settled down. Everyone's attention seemed to be on making sure they got the best pieces of meat and the biggest handfuls of vegetables, while the wine was being guzzled as if there would never be any more.
Sliding down on off the roof toward the rear of the building, Sheng Mo-Yuan began prowling slowly from one structure to another. In his black field suit, he was almost invisible in the gloom away from the bonfires and he moved as noiselessly as his own shadow. For a while, he found nothing of interest. But then, he spotted a small stand-alone hut the natives had made themselves of branches lashed together and daubed with mud, with a vigilant Acerimo standing in front of the doorway. That looked promising. Drawing the air-pistol again, Argent got close and shot the native in the leg. The anesthetic darts burned as they broke the skin and the Acerimo thought he had been bitten by some insect. He slapped at his leg and discovered the dart, but he was already passing out as Sheng caught him and flung him over in the shadows.
Creeping inside, pulling the woven mat behind him, Argent decided to risk using his pencil flashlight. Its beam tightened to no more than a thread of white light, he found a gruesome sight. A wooden frame held a necklace of fine gold links, on which were hung six shrunken heads. Two were native men, one a woman. One was that of a primate of some kind, and even though Sheng knew there were no apes native to the New World, he would swear it looked like a gorilla. Two were the heads of white men, one with reddish hair and the other with a bushy black mustache.
On either side of the framework, two short heavy swords were stuck point down in the dirt. Argent examined the necklace of shrunken heads, the notches broken into the blade of one of the swords, and his skin crawled. This was something ceremonial, something that smacked of gralic magick.
Something to bargain with! Sheng yanked the grisly necklace off the rack, slid back outside in the darkness and saw the feasting and dancing were still going on full blast. He hurried back the way he had come without seeing anyone.
IV.
By this point, most of the Acerimos were feeling the effects of the beer. Their shouts were getting boisterous, several were leaping about wildly and laughing at crude japes about the prisoners. Stuart Duffy had brought out a thick length of rope and was engaging single-handed in a tug-of-war with eight of the warriors. They could not budge him. The sumo increased his density until his feet began to sink into the hard-packed earth, and he slowly began pulling all eight of his opponents toward him as the watching crowd howled in delight.
Sable saw King Kivuku watching the tug of war with sour disapproval. She caught the man's eye and beckoned with a toss of her head for him to come over. As the savage dark eyes glowered at her, Sable fought not to show distaste.
"Your life at least is spared for now," Kivuku told her in a low voice. "The Mountain of Iron claims you and the other woman to share his sleeping mat. For now, at least. The Necklace of Kings must be completed and your heads will soon add to the great magic."
"The Mountain of Iron does not respect you, oh chief," Sable said. "He mocks you and challenges your rule."
The king did not answer and began to turn away, but she stopped him by saying, "I know how to take away his power. To make him normal flesh and blood, like any man. Then he can be killed."
Kivuku came back to her. "How can this be done, woman?"
"With the horn that the white-haired girl had with her," Sable. "Bring it here. It has the power to cancel magic. With the Mountain of Iron dead, your rule over your people will be restored again."
The chief thought for a second. "But he is keeping you alive. Without his protection, the witch doctor will begin to add your heads to the Necklace of Kings. You must know that."
Sable grunted. "Better that fate than to lie under that fat monster! I would rather be dead."
"Very well. We shall see." As the brutal ruler of a brutal people strode off to one side, the three prisoners watched him. King Kivuku waved aside a sentry and entered a thatched hut not far away, emerging with a leather tube three feet long. He pulled out a slim tapering white horn, capped with silver at its flat end, and walked back toward the prisoners.
Several of the Acerimos were staring at their chief, wondering what he was doing. King Kivuku raised the ensorcelled Unicorn horn in front of Sable and grunted, "Well?"
Seeing this, Stuart Duffy let go of the rope and bellowed, "NO! Get that away from them! You fool!" The giant sumo lumbered hurriedly toward where the king stood by the prisoners. "Don't let them near that thing!"
"Hold it overhead," Sable told the chief and, as he did so, Ashley Whitaker cried out in a high clear voice, "With this horn I remove thy power!"
Duffy screamed and fell onto his face as if something had tripped him. When he struggled back to his feet again, it was without the effortless spring he had shown before. He got up with an effort. The chief strode grimly over to the huge man, whipped a knife from his loincloth, and slashed Duffy along one arm.
Bright red blood dripped down that meaty arm, shocking everyone watching.
"He is mortal!" roared the chief. "He can be cut, he can be slain! My people, take him! Bring him down!"
A dozen of the Acerimos tackled the sumo but had their hands full. Even without his gralic enhancement, Stuart Duffy was four hundred pounds of hard muscle backed with years of fighting experience. He batted the warriors away, got knocked down and forced his way back up again. One of the Acerimos raised a long spear but the chief yelled, "I want him alive! He must suffer before we take his head!"
In less than a minute, hundreds of the tribes people had formed a mob encircling the fight. As one Acerimo went crawling away with an arm broken at the elbow and others had to be carried out dead or dying, the cheers were deafening. Duffy had gone berserk. Every dirty trick he knew, every martial arts move not taught to the general public, he used now and his drunken laughter was infectious.
"That'll teach him to make sexual threats to me," Unicorn yelled at Sable. "Serves him right."
Sable turned just in time to see Josef Jubilec drop from the top of the stone pillar. He had gotten enough slack in the ropes looped around him to force his way upward, with his legs drawn up and pushing with his feet, and now he fell heavily to the ground, free. None of the natives even noticed. The huge Mountain of Iron had picked one Acerimo up by the legs and swung him like a club to knock down three others. The crowd was pressing in closer and closer. In a strange way, the Acerimos were enjoying this like a sport.
The Blind Archer hurtled toward the hut where the chief had gone to fetch the Unicorn horn. Like everyone else in the tribe, the sentry had gone over to watch the brawl. In a few seconds, Josef emerged with the strung longbow in one hand and the Y-shaped quiver on his back. In his other hand, he held both Unicorn's and Sable's field jackets with their dart gun jammed in a pocket. While waiting for his opportunity, he had planned every move.
Still, no one had noticed him. Duffy was down under a writhing mass of copper arms and legs. Coming up behind the pillars, Josef drew a survival knife from Sable's jacket and hacked through the ropes holding her. As she got loose and tugged the jacket on, he went to free Unicorn as well.
"Thanks a bunch," Ashley said as she yanked the heavy jacket on. "I don't know what was scaring me more, having my head cut off and shrunk to the size of an orange or having that tub of lard trying to get on top of me." She turned to Sable. "Now we run like rabbits, right?"
"No." Sable's voice was colder and sharper than usual. "They'd chase us through this jungle and hunt us down like those rabbits. No, we have to take charge. Josef, stand by to dispatch our friend."
As the Blind Archer notched a shaft to the string, Sable reached into one of the many pockets of her jacket and came out with two resonance grenades. Slightly smaller than hen's eggs, they had dials she had to twist to arm them. "Here we go," she said as she flung them both high over the crowd.
The detonations echoed like thunder at point-blank range and the shock waves flung down everyone for yards around. Dead silence followed as the natives' ears rang and more than a few had nosebleeds. Getting clumsily up on his feet again, Stuart Duffy seemed completely confused. He stared stupidly before recognizing the three KDF members who were somehow free and facing him. As he saw the Blind Archer draw back on the longbow, a terrible fear swept over the round moonface.
Then the steel point of a three-foot arrow punched home in his heart.
V.
"Ashley, get the rest of our gear from that hut," ordered Sable as she covered the stunned mob with her dart gun. The little blonde ran over and came back with their crewneck shirts,boots and pants. With the Blind Archer standing by, the two woman tugged on the pants, boots and shirts, finally feeling back to normal. None of them had been wearing their helmets when they had debarked from the CORBY. When they were ready, Josef got his outfit on and drew a red silk band around his eyes; with his natural vision cut off, his gralic perception stepped up. Now, his arrows would never miss.
In those few seconds, some of the Acerimos had gotten their bearings again but most were dazed by the two explosions directly overhead. Not only did they have no idea what had happened, the concussion had left most of them confused and in serious pain. Maybe twenty of the natives were still lying senseless in the dirt.
The chief showed great determination as he got to his feet, legs braced well apart, and glared at the three KDF members. When he spoke, his voice was unsteady. "The fat man warned that you were filled with tricks..."
"You notice he is dead, don't you?" yelled Sable. "He is not going to challenge you for leadership now."
"True," Kivuku finally reply. "And I must admit that puts me somewhat in your debt." Reaching down, he tugged his short sword from the sash around his waist. The leopard-head cap had been knocked from his head and his nose was bleeding, but he was far from intimidated. "Still. The Necklace of Kings needs shrunken heads for its magic. I say that you three will be treated well for the next five days before the ritual-"
With a clang, the sword was smacked from his grasp and sent spinning far away as an arrow hit against its handle. His hand stung and went numb from the impact, and he had not even seen the Blind Archer loose.
"The next one will go in your heart," Josef said in a deadly calm voice.
"We will leave now," Sable added. "If you or any of your men follow us, we will kill them with more thunder." Keeping a suspicious eye on the chief, she led her two partners away from the stone columns and toward the banks of the brown river. Kivuku watched with barely restrained fury but dared not move. By now, many of the Acerimos had gotten back on their feet and had started to gather behind their chief. Two of the had picked up their spears and begun to brandish them menacingly. Without hesitation, Sable plucked a third resonance grenade from her jacket and whipped it directly overhead of the crowd. The explosion detonated closer than the previous ones, slamming the natives face down into the dirt and its echoes rolled up and down the river and off the stone ruins.
"You don't mess around, Sable," said a familiar voice from behind them.
The three Tel Shai knights gave a start and whirled to see Agent standing almost within reach of them. "Sheng, you're okay!" said Unicorn. "I was worried these guys had killed you."
"These losers? Never happen." The Asian fighter stepped closer. "The CORBY should be almost here by now. The Acerimos were hauling it here slowly but steadily."
"Let's go then," Sable snapped a bit sharply. "Sheng, lead the way."
They set out at a brisk walk along the bank, keeping an eye on the motionless crowd behind them. "I imagine some of them are dead from that final blast," Sable told her team. "The rest won't feel like shrinking any heads today."
"This is pretty funny," Sheng Mo-Yuan said as they marched. "I snuck in through that city and was thinking up ways to distract the natives so I could creep up and free you guys. And I find you're already loose and dictating terms. I might as well have just followed the savages with the CORBY."
Sable's stern manner broke at that, and she chuckled. "Ah, it was best that you came to help us. If we had been guarded better, if Duffy hadn't been showing off, things might have been much tougher." She took the lead, using her enhanced senses and warned them when the forty Acerimos were almost within sight.
It was almost dawn, already steamy and muggy without a breeze. Birds were beginning their repetitious calls to each other and they heard a troop of monkeys scrabble through the branches overhead. "I'm starved," Argent muttered. "We should have grabbed some of that feast back there."
"We'll be meeting the group with our ship in a second," was Sable's answer. "Weapons up, everyone. I don't want to risk a resonance cap near the CORBY."
Unicorn placed a hand on her captain's sleeve. "Hang on there a second, boss. I want to try something." She had taken the Link from her jacket and was adjusting its settings. "We don't get to use the remote control too often."
"All right, Ashley," Sable agreed without enthusiasm. "When your ideas work, they're great but..."
A second later, they rounded a curve in the river and saw forty exhausted Acerimos squatting on the mud. Hours of pulling against the stealthcopter's resistance had worn them down. They were half awake and half asleep, holding onto the ropes that were tied to the craft and they had not even spotted the four strangers yet.
Pressing buttons on her Link, grinning with pure mischief, Unicorn sent signals to the CORBY. The overhead rotors started to turn, then picked up speed. That stirred the Acerimos, who drew back in alarm. In a second, the four blades atop the copter were whirring so fast that they looked like a solid spinning disc of deadly steel. Then the spotlight on its mount under the nose blazed into blinding radiance and a voice boomed louder than any thunder they had ever heard, "Get away from me!"
That was more than enough. All the exhausted Acerimos found the energy to scramble off in all directions, disappearing into the underbrush as if it sucked them in.
Unable to keep from laughing, ducking low under the spinning rotors, Sable began casting off the ropes from the CORBY. "Josef, stand by."
"Understood, captain." The Blind Archer had a shaft notched and ready, he surveyed the area warily. "Some might try a poison dart or two."
In another minute, the craft was free and all four of them climbed in. Sable took the pilot seat, with Sheng beside her, while Unicorn and Josef dropped down onto the rear bench. As the hatches slid shut, Sable hit the environmental controls and the interior filled with cool dry air that was an immense relief.
Sable pulled back on the collective stick and the CORBY rose smoothly up to treetop level. Getting her helmet from its latch on the back of her seat, she lowered it over her head. Now she got readings directly on the inside of the visor. "Good work, all of you. Despite getting captured, we achieved our goal to getting rid of Stuart Duffy."
"What are we going to do about those headhunters?" asked Unicorn. "They were going to make us into ornaments for that necklace!"
Sable began to send the CORBY slowly forward, upriver. "Without Duffy, they'll go back to normal. Headhunting is their way of life, lots of tribes around here practice it. I don't like it any more than you do."
"We can make them stop it," the blonde grumbled.
"How? Stay here the rest of our lives and police them? Sorry, Ashley. Midnight War is our crusade and it's more than enough for us to handle." Sable hesitated, "But I would like to destroy their gralic capacity. The chief said the Necklace of Kings had some powers. That would be how they generated the red fog that knocked us out."
"Oh, I have good news there," Sheng put in. "While I was scouting the city, I found a gold necklace of shrunken heads. I figured, ah this could be a valuable bargaining chip if we had to negotiate."
"Really? Where is it now?"
He smiled. "When I saw you guys where on top of things, I stuck it deep inside the big fire. Not much left of it now."
On the back bench, Josef Jubilec had moistened a washcloth from his canteen and was wiped sweat and grim from his face. "Very neat. I guess that will keep them harmless for a while."
"Look, there's the city," Sable said quietly. "It's huge. I would like to learn who built it. And when. But now is not the time."
Fifty feet below, as his people painfully stirred and got to their feet, King Kivuku stared up at the black stealthcopter slowly passing overhead. Dropping his bloody sword, he held up the severed head of Stuart Duffy, the Mountain of Iron, by its long black hair and displayed it as a trophy. It would be the first shrunken head on a new Necklace of Kings.
3/19/2015
6/20-6/21/2003
I.
Along the banks of the great sluggish brown river Nyatowa, dozens of Indians stopped their chores and stared at the strange black craft that lowered silently from the sky. The stealthcopter CORBY had pontoons fitted for this trip, and it settled onto the surface of the water near the shore as lightly as a leaf falling from a tree. These were dark gold-skinned people of medium height, with coarse straight black hair tied up on their heads with cord. A few were completely naked, but most wore a cloth of some sort tied around their middles. Both men and women had ritual scars on their faces.
As the CORBY came to a landing and the rotors slowed, the tribes-people came to the banks and stared. Some of them had seen airplanes fly overhead before, they were not completely isolated, but the black helicopter had an ominous look to it than would make anyone stare. Somehow, the CORBY drifted in closer even without the rotors stilled, until it butted up against the muddy bank.
A hatch on the side of the helicopter slid open with a hiss as the pressurized air in the cabin was released, and a young woman in a tight black outfit hopped nimbly out to land on the bank. Her platinum hair shone in the hazy tropical sunlight in a way that made the natives gasp. Ashley Whitaker grinned in a confident way, adjusted the three-foot tapering cylinder strapped across her back, and raised both open hands in a placating gesture.
"I come in peace," she announced in Prilyrdyn, the primal tongue instilled in every conscious mind but which only a few realize can be used. "Unicorn is here to help."
"Young woman with hair of old woman!" shouted a man. "She is a dreamwalker."
"If you say so," Unicorn agreed pleasantly. Two more people had emerged from the helicopter, both also dressed in the black field suits of heavy boots, pants and waist-length jackets. One was a tall thin man with a Y-shaped leather quiver fashioned across his back and carrying an unstrung longbow in his other hand. The other was a woman of average height, with glossy black hair brushed straight back that reached past her shoulders.
At twenty-six, Lauren Sable Reilly was so serious and so unselfconscious that she had never realized how attractive she was. Her snub nose, wide mouth and huge dark eyes gave her a face that was distinctive and instantly likable. Sable's powers of enhanced perception were invaluable, of course, but it was her conscientious personality that had led to her being the captain of the KDF team. She placed a friendly hand on Ashley's shoulder and glanced over to see that Josef had strung his bow and was keeping watch before addressing the tribe.
"Humble greetings," she called out in Prilyrdyn. "We are not from the government to the south. Nor do we want anything from you good people. Our purpose is to find King Kuviko and the Mountain of Iron and to end their reign."
The uproar that followed this announcement was ferocious, went on for ten minutes and only settled down when one of the older natives raised his hands and stamped a foot for silence. "Hear the strangers out! Keep your tongues behind your teeth!"
Sable bowed her head politely. "Will you tell us what you know of these men?"
"They are taken by bad spirits," the older native answered. He wore a necklace of shells that had been elaborately carved and a quill through his nose, marking him as a chief. "As cruel as the Acerimos tribe have always been, they were never so bloodthirsty. With the Mountain of Iron as leader, they take more heads between each moon than they used to claim in a generation. They have poisoned streams for some unexplained reason. And many of our young women have been dragged from their huts and never seen again."
"The Mountain of Iron," grumbled Josef angrily. "Akizuki."
"I know," Sable whispered to him. "It has to be Stuart Duffy. Now we know where he's been hiding." Turning to the chief, the KDF leader pressed a thumb to her chest and said, "We have come to destroy the Mountain of Iron. He is exiled from a distant country he may not return to, and wherever he goes he brings death."
The old man turned and discussed this with his people, who still seemed on the edge of rioting. When he seemed to reach a consensus, he bent toward Sable and lowered his voice. "The giant man has an evil heart. It would be well if he left this life. He rules the Acerimos and their King Kuviko has been put under his thumb. Go upstream, against the flow of the river. If you walk along the bank, it will take two days but Acerimo sentries will see you before you reach the Acerimos city."
"City?"
"Stone buildings tall as trees," said the chief. "The Acerimos are the many-times grandchildren of a great people who are no more."
Sable bowed from the waist and smiled. "We thank you for the knowledge, wise one. When next we meet, I swear it will be with news that the Mountain-" Her sentence broke off as Josef Jubliec blurred into action. A body fell from a tree forty yards away with a thud as it hit the hard dirt. Sticking up from its chest was a three-foot arrow. Josef was lowering his bow already, but no one there, even the Indians who had been staring at him, had followed his motions as he had fitted a shaft to the string and left fly.
The Blind Archer exhaled slowly and fixed his dark blue eyes on Sable. His weathered face made him look older than he really was. "That man had a blowpipe and he had raised it, captain."
"Good work, Josef," Sable said. "Anyone else?"
"Not that I can spot."
She paused to expand her perceptions. Lauren Sable Reilly had the ability to focus gralic energy into her various senses, giving her enhanced vision or hearing or smell. Concentrating, she scanned the jungle around them but caught not a glimpse of any humans other than the tribespeople right in front of her. She withdrew her perception and came back to normal, annoyed with herself that she had not detected a threat before Josef had.
"Keep alert," she whispered unnecessarily.
The Blind Archer did not reply. His life had left him always suspicious and on guard. Meanwhile, some of the tribe had gone over to examine the body and among them was Unicorn. The little blonde squatted over the corpse and didn't even bother taking a pulse. "He's a goner," she said. "Arrow right in the heart and a fifteen foot fall head down." Picking up the blowpipe made of bamboo, she also found a pouch that she handled very carefully. "Five wooden darts dipped in some resin. Poison, of course."
"We must leave now," Sable told the chief. "I don't think there was another Acerimo with this one but we don't want the Mountain of Iron to be warned of our approach. I think we will take the body and dump it a few miles away..."
"No. Leave it here. We will not waste it," the chief said blandly.
Her best effort at a poker face kept Sable from reacting. "That's up to you, of course."
"Meat is meat and hard to find here," the chief smiled happily.
II.
Half an hour later, the CORBY moved upstream smoothly at about forty miles per hour. In the pilot seat, the fourth member of the team moved the control sticks in a relaxed, confident manner. Sheng Mo-Yuan, called Argent, was not more than five feet six but wide and muscular in one of the black field suits with the built-in weapons and gadgets. He looked Asian, Northern Chinese perhaps, but something in the hawklike nose and high cheekbones contradicted that.
"Trom impulse engines at ten per cent," he told Sable, who was in the co-pilot seat. "Are you sure you don't want to survey the area from the air?"
"Not yet," she said thoughtfully. "There's something about this situation that worries me. Duffy was last seen working as a bodyguard in Hawaii. How did he end up here on the Venezuela border? What's here that he would want?"
From the bench behind them, Josef Jubilec put in, "Duffy is a hedonist. He loves good restaurants, wine, women, concerts. It does seem out of character for him to go to the rain forest."
"He's after something," Sable said. "I can't imagine what."
Sitting crosslegged on the bench in the compartment right behind the cabin, Unicorn chewed on a granola bar and shrugged. "You know what I think? You wanna know? It's the stone city. The geezer back there said these Acerimos live in a stone city that their ancestors built. There's the answer."
"Could be," Sable agreed. "Treasure perhaps, gold or jewels. Or maybe something worse, something sorcerous."
"Something Midnight War!" snapped Josef. "The Mountain of Iron has played with dangerous toys before." The Blind Archer took a bottle of water from the cooler on the floor. "My bet is that there is some potent talisman in that city that Duffy wants."
Unicorn snorted derisively. "It's so crazy! A Sumo wrestler named Stuart Duffy! What next, a rabbi named Sean O'Flaherty?"
From the front, Sable explained, "His parents were Japanese but he was raised by foster family in Oklahama. They gave him that name. Duffy competed as Sumo under the name Akizuki.. the Mountain of Iron."
"It still sounds goofy to me," Ashley said. "So, captain, what is the plan anyway?"
Sable was still frowning. "It should be getting dark soon. No moon. I think we will circle this lost city from maybe 12,000 feet. Take readings with the Trom scanners and my powers. Then we'll have a better idea what we're tackling." She pointed ahead. "Josef, can you pick up on anyone who might be watching us?"
Oddly, the bowman covered his eyes with his hand before answering. The Blind Archers enhanced their perception of lifeforce by shutting off their vision, so that their arrows never missed a living target. "No people. A couple of wild pigs, some giant snake I don't recognize. Smaller animals."
"Good. Sheng, pull over by that bank there with the grassy patch. We might as well have a meal and take five."
Steering the CORBY so it bumped up against the bank, Argent secured it and popped open his hatch. The young Asian hopped out and up onto the grass with a casual ease that suggested he could have leaped much higher if he had wanted to. His gift was that he could use gralic force to enhance his strength or speed or durability... but only one aspect at a time. Sheng stretched luxuriantly and yawned so hard his jaw cracked.
"I could use a nap," he volunteered. "We left New York in a hurry."
"I'll get the food!" Unicorn yelled as she hauled a plastic cooler from the back compartment and wrestled it up on to the bank. Sable had stepped out next to her, but said nothing as she studied the area with her powers.
Sable shifted her perception from one sense to another. Human perspiration? Breathing? Heartbeats? She could detect nothing in the area. The thought that the one Acerimo had gotten that close to them still rankled her. Sable took everything seriously. "All right," she said at last. "Area seems secure."
"Starting a fire is gonna be rough," Ashley grumbled as she poked around in the lush undergrowth. "Everything is damp. The humidity here is well, you know... tropical. It's a jungle."
Sable finally smiled, and her face changed to look like a teenager's. "Cold lunch. We have sandwiches, egg salad, diced watermelon, all that. Depending on what happens later, we'll cook a bigger meal."
"I claim the Fritos," Ashley said. She unbuckled the leather strap which held the Unicorn horn across her shoulders and put to one side as she sat crosslegged on the ground. Just over five feet tall and just under one hundred pounds, she was naturally gorgeous and took it for granted. Sable's initial resentment of the little blonde's cockiness had faded as she had gotten to known her. Unicorn was so oblivious and good-hearted that it was hard to dislike her.
As they sat in a rough circle and devoured everything, the KDF team chatted casually. "How do you think Megan is doing back at the HCE?" Unicorn asked through a mouthful of meatball sub.
"Beats me," Sable answered. "She reports to the Trom every now and then. So far, she's always come back with permission to give us access to new tech, so I guess she goes there to plead we need help."
"I'd like to see a Trom meeting. Those guys are so dry and dull and calm that it must be like sitting around with a bunch of department store mannequins. It's a wonder our Trom Girl didn't turn out more messed up, being raised by them." Ashley crumbled the wrapper and tossed it back in the cooler. "Hey, what happened to the cold chicken?"
"Too late," laughed Argent. "I think there's a wing left."
Sable jumped to her feet unexpectedly. She sniffed. "Everyone in the CORBY right now!" she yelled. From upriver, boiling red mist rushed toward them faster than a train. It looked like a solid wall of crimson vapor being blown by hurricane winds. All four KDF members were up and moving, but in only a few seconds the red fog rushed over them. Argent had shifted to speed and he dove headlong far out over the water. Behind him, the other three dropped where they stood.
For only a few seconds, the red fog swirled over the limp bodies. It dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, until only a few strands of mist still rose in the muggy air. No one moved.
Marching along the bank toward them were a dozen Indians, but they looked nothing like the tribe the KDF had already met. These newcomers had glossy skin with a distinct coppery red tint, they were tall and gangly, with long arms and legs. Their heads were mostly shaven, with caps made of jaguar fur. And they carried spears and short swords and clubs with pieces of sharp stone embedded in the heads.
Among them towered a huge bulk, a man six inches over six feet in height, weighing perhaps four hundred pounds. Aside from the pendulous belly, much of that weight was solid muscle. The biceps and thighs looked hard. A round head was topped by black hair pulled up into an oiled topknot. The giant wore incongruous khaki cargo pants and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt of bright red and green and yellow.
Stuart Duffy, the Mountain of Iron, clapped his massive palms together in delight. "Better than I expected! No wonder your ancestors ruled this land for hundreds of years. Hear me, dogs! Strip the clothes off these strangers and carry everything with care back to the city. Tie the strangers with catgut so tightly that the circulation is cut off. These people are more dangerous than they look." He gestured at the CORBY. "And throw ropes to tie that thing to a tree so it doesn't drift away. Some of you will pull it to the city."
Although the Acerimos yanked the jackets and boots and pants off the unconscious prisoners, they could not find a way to unfasten the Trom armor. This looked like a dark wet silk bodysuit that left only heads, hands, and feet exposed. The armor seemed somehow to be a single unbroken piece of material. Several of the natives had been fondling Sable and Unicorn and expressed bitter disappointment that they could not get the women completely naked. One man started kicking Josef in the ribs and crotch, but only hurt his bare foot against the armor.
"Never mind that now!" roared the giant sumo. "Get moving! I want the prisoners and their gear in the city before dark. Move it, before I start breaking a few fingers again!"
This was not an idle figure of speech, apparently, because the Acerimos picked up everything and took off at a run. The Mountain of Iron chuckled and trudged after them.
On the side of the CORBY away from the bank, near the middle of the river, Sheng Mo-Yuan clung desperately to a half-sunken tree with only his face above water. He had breathed in enough of that red fog to feel weak and nauseous but he held on tenaciously. The dark brown eyes under the double eyelid fold were furious with a cold anger he had never felt before. Argent watched his friends and teammates being carried roughly away and he swore to the gods of Chujir that men would die for this.
III.
Sable came back to awareness with a throbbing headache and burning nausea. Four years on a tagra tea diet at Tel Shai and Kumundu training enabled her body to recover quickly from all sorts of trauma, but that strange red fog had left effects that lingered. Breathing deeply and slowly, she forced her eyes open and took in her surroundings. She was tied against something that held her up on her feet, tied tightly by her arms and around her chest. Sable looked down and saw her field suit had been removed, leaving her just in the flexible Trom armor. That was a relief in some ways, the armor had left her with some protection.
Night had fallen, and a roaring bonfire nearby gave flickering illumination. Sable twisted her head and saw Unicorn to her left and Josef to her right, both still unconscious and both tied as she was to one of a series of thick stone pillars. Her friends did not seem to have been beaten.
Looming up in the unsteady light were buildings made of dark greenish stone, long low structures with arched doorways and squat towers. The surface of each building was covered with ornate carvings of abstract shapes that could not be identified, and several life-sized statues of jaguars reared up on ledges that protruded out over the doorways. Arrayed along the walls were stakes stuck in the hard ground with yellowed human skulls at their upper points. In the light from the bonfire, the skulls seemed to have expressions change on their bony faces.
When she saw no sign of Argent, her spirits lifted a little. She had gotten a split-second glimpse of him heading for the river as the red fog had attacked. If Sheng was still at large....
A smaller fire was burning on the ground in front of her. Two of the Acerimos squatted before it, tending a wooden frame on which dangled two round objects the size of oranges over the smoke. Shrunken heads, being prepared. One of the warriors noticed her coming back to awareness and leered viciously at her, obviously enjoying her dismay. He drew a finger across his throat in a symbol that needed no interpretation. A few more of the tribesmen came over to watch and chatted gleefully.
Unicorn and Blind Archer grunted and stirred almost simultaneously. Josef's experience showed as he played unconscious a few minutes longer, peering about without moving his head as he took in the scene. But Ashley muttered to herself, shook her head and cursed, and then bluntly said in a normal tone, "Hey, Sable? What was that all about?"
"We've been taken prisoner by the Acerimos," the team leader admitted. "Whatever that red fog was, it acted fast. Even if we had a lookout posted as I should have, there wasn't time to escape."
"Hey, those are shrunken heads they're making," Unicorn said casually. "I saw some in Okali. Nasty custom."
A giant form moved around the bonfire and came toward them. Despite his huge bulk, the killer sumo walked as lightly as a dancer. He was wearing the khaki shorts and loose Hawaiian shirt and was gnawing on what looked like a roasted leg of lamb. "Ah, my Tel Shai friends!" he boomed genially. "How good to see you again."
"Looking good there," Unicorn replied lightly. "Down to half a ton, huh?"
"And you in particular I remember. The Unicorn. Oh, the chief will lust to have your head on his necklace. Here he comes now."
Approaching from the darkness was a gaunt, muscular man taller than most of his tribesmen. Where the Acerimos wore caps of jaguar fur, King Kuviko had the entire head of a jaguar as headgear, with only its lower jaw removed. Gold armbands and a kilt of red cloth made him stand out further. King Kuviko glowered at them with outright hatred. There was nothing half-hearted about his savagery, he had the face of a man capable of any cruelty for its own sake.
"These are the outsiders I told you about," Duffy said to the chief. "What do you think?"
"Three white faces for the Necklace of Kings," grumbled Kuviko. "The young woman with white hair is special, her head will make the magic strong."
"In your dreams," Unicorn scoffed.
Duffy lifted a hand bigger than the chief's hand. "Not just yet. The man's head may be taken now. But I have grown tired of the Acerimo women. I crave a little variety in my diet, and the prisoners can serve me well before they donate their heads."
"You forget who is King here," the savage chief growled, one hand on his sword. "It is for me to say when these prisoners die."
"Grant me this at least, oh chief. I have led your men to claim many prisoners, yes? I have killed the wild peccaries with my hands to make the feast." Duffy lowered his voice as he stood near the brutal man. "And remember you have seen me fight. Your sword can not cut my flesh. Your curare darts do not sting me. Let us not end up fighting against each other."
Kuviko held his silence with obvious effort, scowling so ferociously it looked as if he were going to have a stroke, and finally replied, "Very well. For a while."
As the chief stomped off in a foul temper, Stuart Duffy towered up over his prisoners. "There. I have gotten at least a week more life for you. You should be grateful. Even if you will not enjoy your final days, I sure will." He laughed sharply and watched the fuming King Kuviko leave.
"What is this place?" Sable asked. "These people didn't put up buildings like those. The stones are neatly dressed. It took generations to build this city."
"True enough, my girl," answered the sumo. "Well, I'm no expert. I can't tell Aztec from Inca from Maya. You could tell me that this place was created by the freaking Druids and I'd be okay with that. My guess is the Acerimos aren't even descendants of the original inhabitant, they just moved in long after the city was deserted."
Sable wriggled a little, trying to get her bonds loosened. "Stuart Duffy. Weren't you in prison the last I heard? In Hawaii?"
"Sure," he replied, examining her thoughtfully. "But you know my gralic gift of density. I can break handcuffs and ignore bullets. It's hard to keep someone like me locked up. Now, how I ended up in South America, that was an arms deal that went bad..."
Unicorn broke into the conversation. "Smells like they're cooking something over there. Smells pretty good, unless it's...."
"It is NOT human flesh!" Duffy laughed. "I'd tell you if it was. Just wild pig and fish. Yams. Beans. Don't worry, I'll see that you all get something to eat. Even the bowman for his last meal."
Sable smiled in what she hoped was a seductive way. "Keeping us alive will be rewarding for you, Duffy. I can promise you that."
"SABLE!?" squeaked Unicorn in horror, her eyes bugging out.
"Come on Ashley, it's life or death for us." Sable shrugged. "I went to NYU. I had a few boyfriends. Sex'll be no big deal, especially if it means staying alive."
The Mountain of Iron regarded her with a satisfied grin. "That's pragmatic. I like that. You, the archer, though... you're going to have to die. You have blond hair and that's rare here. The chief wants your head for the Necklace of Kings."
Josef Jubilec had not spoken since Duffy had appeared and he did not comment now. He had been studying the pillar he was tied to. It was a simple stone cylinder without any crossbars or obstructions, roughly nine feet high. The Blind Archer found he had been tied by simply having rope wound tightly around the pillar. A slight smile appeared on his face, barely noticeable in the poor light. As Duffy told him his head would be taken soon, Josef did not react. He merely stared evenly at the giant man with cold appraisal, as if judging what he would do when he got free.
III.
Forty of the Acerimos bent their backs and strained, hauling on ropes they had fastened to the CORBY. Bowed almost parallel to the ground, digging their naked toes in the dirt, the warriors struggled as the stealthcopter barely moved under their best efforts. They had sent divers into the river to determine that nothing anchored the CORBY and they could not understand what made it resist their pulling.
It was beyond their understanding. The Trom impulse engines had been set to keep the CORBY in place against the motions of the river, which was a setting low enough that the craft could be moved by outside force. So hours passed and the night wore on as the Acerimos tugged on those ropes until exhausted.
Not far from them, stealing through the dense undergrowth in complete silence, Sheng Mo-Yuan decided not to stay with them. It was going to take to them forever to haul the CORBY even a few miles and he wanted to rescue his friends. He had thought he would follow these fools to where their stronghold was located, but he could not wait.
He was annoyed that he could not get into the CORBY to snatch up some weaponry. His field suit carried a couple of smoke bombs, three resonance grenades and an irritant spray, and he had his anesthetic dart gun holstered at his belt. Not much to take on a city full of headhunters. Even with his powers, he had to be realistic enough to not tackle forty savages at once. Deeply vexed, Argent took off through the brush. Years of Kumundu training enabled him to race through the night without making noise. He paused now and then to be sure he was not going astray, and once he almost stepped on an anaconda that slid sluggishly over the bank into the river with a splash.
Something smacked softly into the material of his jacket and stuck there. A carved wooden dart. Shifting his focus to speed, Sheng leaped forward quicker than a snake striking and tackled an Acerimo, bringing them both to the damp dirt in a tangle. Even as they hit the ground, he smashed one elbow into the man's chest with a brutal impact that drove all the air from the warrior's lungs. Straddling the man, Sheng froze and listened for any other movement but heard nothing. He must be getting close to the city if he was encountering sentries.
The headhunter began to struggle and Argent shifted his gift to strength so he could hold the man motionless, keeping his captive's jaw closed with one hand. The Acerimo was getting frantic and was shout an alarm as soon as he could get loose. Sheng had wanted to ask some questions but the native was too slippery and too frantic to restrain much longer. Turning the man's head almost completely around, Sheng lowered the corpse to the ground and threw it into the undergrowth. That was annoying. Getting some information would have been helpful.
Straightening up, Sheng carefully plucked the dart from his jacket and threw it in the bushes. It suddenly registered with him that, if he had been wearing just a plain T-shirt, he would have taken a hit from that curare. That shook his nerves for a second, but he started moving again.
The drumming was audible as he approached the city just ahead, a distinctive rapid melody that repeated itself over and over. Voices cried out joyfully at intervals. Well, thanks for making it easier to find you guys, Sheng thought. He became more stealthy as he crept closer, pausing to listen and sniff the air for the scent of human sweat. Another sentry was squatting at the base of a tree, chewing on something pungent, the long blowpipe across his knees. From twenty yards away, Argent drew his air-powered pistol and took aim. There was a faint noise like a suppressed cough, and the Acerimo slapped at his shoulder as if he had been stung by an insect. Before he could realize he had a metal dart stuck in his skin, the drug had already dazed him enough that he dropped into unconsciousness silently.
Sheng found this all greatly amusing. Handcarved wooden darts dipped in crude poison being challenged by sophisticated Trom darts injecting a complicated chemical formula. The more things change, he thought...
Finding one of the stone buildings that was a story higher than the others, Sheng scrambled up its irregular surface and stretched out on the roof. Crawling forward an inch at a time, he looked down at the barbaric sight of a hundred nearly-naked warriors dancing and leaping around a great fire in which a whole pig on a spit was cooking. To one side, three old women beat the tom-tom sized drums in a monotonous rhythm and one occasionally blew a conch as a horn. It was a scene that had come down unchanged for thousands of years.
Argent spotted his three friends, bound to thick posts in a row, not far from a smaller fire where heads were being prepared. They seemed unharmed, so far. Two wooden thrones had been carried over to flank the bonfire and on them sat Stuart Duffy and the King of the Acerimos. Both were being offered wine in goatskins and carved wooden platters piled with fruit. The two men seemed to be arguing.
Watching the scene, Sheng felt an uncharacteristic twinge of doubt. He estimated a little over a hundred warriors on the scene, along with a good number of women, children and elderly who kept in the background but who could pitch in if it came to a battle. This was going to be difficult. The feasting was getting way in earnest now as the dancing settled down. Everyone's attention seemed to be on making sure they got the best pieces of meat and the biggest handfuls of vegetables, while the wine was being guzzled as if there would never be any more.
Sliding down on off the roof toward the rear of the building, Sheng Mo-Yuan began prowling slowly from one structure to another. In his black field suit, he was almost invisible in the gloom away from the bonfires and he moved as noiselessly as his own shadow. For a while, he found nothing of interest. But then, he spotted a small stand-alone hut the natives had made themselves of branches lashed together and daubed with mud, with a vigilant Acerimo standing in front of the doorway. That looked promising. Drawing the air-pistol again, Argent got close and shot the native in the leg. The anesthetic darts burned as they broke the skin and the Acerimo thought he had been bitten by some insect. He slapped at his leg and discovered the dart, but he was already passing out as Sheng caught him and flung him over in the shadows.
Creeping inside, pulling the woven mat behind him, Argent decided to risk using his pencil flashlight. Its beam tightened to no more than a thread of white light, he found a gruesome sight. A wooden frame held a necklace of fine gold links, on which were hung six shrunken heads. Two were native men, one a woman. One was that of a primate of some kind, and even though Sheng knew there were no apes native to the New World, he would swear it looked like a gorilla. Two were the heads of white men, one with reddish hair and the other with a bushy black mustache.
On either side of the framework, two short heavy swords were stuck point down in the dirt. Argent examined the necklace of shrunken heads, the notches broken into the blade of one of the swords, and his skin crawled. This was something ceremonial, something that smacked of gralic magick.
Something to bargain with! Sheng yanked the grisly necklace off the rack, slid back outside in the darkness and saw the feasting and dancing were still going on full blast. He hurried back the way he had come without seeing anyone.
IV.
By this point, most of the Acerimos were feeling the effects of the beer. Their shouts were getting boisterous, several were leaping about wildly and laughing at crude japes about the prisoners. Stuart Duffy had brought out a thick length of rope and was engaging single-handed in a tug-of-war with eight of the warriors. They could not budge him. The sumo increased his density until his feet began to sink into the hard-packed earth, and he slowly began pulling all eight of his opponents toward him as the watching crowd howled in delight.
Sable saw King Kivuku watching the tug of war with sour disapproval. She caught the man's eye and beckoned with a toss of her head for him to come over. As the savage dark eyes glowered at her, Sable fought not to show distaste.
"Your life at least is spared for now," Kivuku told her in a low voice. "The Mountain of Iron claims you and the other woman to share his sleeping mat. For now, at least. The Necklace of Kings must be completed and your heads will soon add to the great magic."
"The Mountain of Iron does not respect you, oh chief," Sable said. "He mocks you and challenges your rule."
The king did not answer and began to turn away, but she stopped him by saying, "I know how to take away his power. To make him normal flesh and blood, like any man. Then he can be killed."
Kivuku came back to her. "How can this be done, woman?"
"With the horn that the white-haired girl had with her," Sable. "Bring it here. It has the power to cancel magic. With the Mountain of Iron dead, your rule over your people will be restored again."
The chief thought for a second. "But he is keeping you alive. Without his protection, the witch doctor will begin to add your heads to the Necklace of Kings. You must know that."
Sable grunted. "Better that fate than to lie under that fat monster! I would rather be dead."
"Very well. We shall see." As the brutal ruler of a brutal people strode off to one side, the three prisoners watched him. King Kivuku waved aside a sentry and entered a thatched hut not far away, emerging with a leather tube three feet long. He pulled out a slim tapering white horn, capped with silver at its flat end, and walked back toward the prisoners.
Several of the Acerimos were staring at their chief, wondering what he was doing. King Kivuku raised the ensorcelled Unicorn horn in front of Sable and grunted, "Well?"
Seeing this, Stuart Duffy let go of the rope and bellowed, "NO! Get that away from them! You fool!" The giant sumo lumbered hurriedly toward where the king stood by the prisoners. "Don't let them near that thing!"
"Hold it overhead," Sable told the chief and, as he did so, Ashley Whitaker cried out in a high clear voice, "With this horn I remove thy power!"
Duffy screamed and fell onto his face as if something had tripped him. When he struggled back to his feet again, it was without the effortless spring he had shown before. He got up with an effort. The chief strode grimly over to the huge man, whipped a knife from his loincloth, and slashed Duffy along one arm.
Bright red blood dripped down that meaty arm, shocking everyone watching.
"He is mortal!" roared the chief. "He can be cut, he can be slain! My people, take him! Bring him down!"
A dozen of the Acerimos tackled the sumo but had their hands full. Even without his gralic enhancement, Stuart Duffy was four hundred pounds of hard muscle backed with years of fighting experience. He batted the warriors away, got knocked down and forced his way back up again. One of the Acerimos raised a long spear but the chief yelled, "I want him alive! He must suffer before we take his head!"
In less than a minute, hundreds of the tribes people had formed a mob encircling the fight. As one Acerimo went crawling away with an arm broken at the elbow and others had to be carried out dead or dying, the cheers were deafening. Duffy had gone berserk. Every dirty trick he knew, every martial arts move not taught to the general public, he used now and his drunken laughter was infectious.
"That'll teach him to make sexual threats to me," Unicorn yelled at Sable. "Serves him right."
Sable turned just in time to see Josef Jubilec drop from the top of the stone pillar. He had gotten enough slack in the ropes looped around him to force his way upward, with his legs drawn up and pushing with his feet, and now he fell heavily to the ground, free. None of the natives even noticed. The huge Mountain of Iron had picked one Acerimo up by the legs and swung him like a club to knock down three others. The crowd was pressing in closer and closer. In a strange way, the Acerimos were enjoying this like a sport.
The Blind Archer hurtled toward the hut where the chief had gone to fetch the Unicorn horn. Like everyone else in the tribe, the sentry had gone over to watch the brawl. In a few seconds, Josef emerged with the strung longbow in one hand and the Y-shaped quiver on his back. In his other hand, he held both Unicorn's and Sable's field jackets with their dart gun jammed in a pocket. While waiting for his opportunity, he had planned every move.
Still, no one had noticed him. Duffy was down under a writhing mass of copper arms and legs. Coming up behind the pillars, Josef drew a survival knife from Sable's jacket and hacked through the ropes holding her. As she got loose and tugged the jacket on, he went to free Unicorn as well.
"Thanks a bunch," Ashley said as she yanked the heavy jacket on. "I don't know what was scaring me more, having my head cut off and shrunk to the size of an orange or having that tub of lard trying to get on top of me." She turned to Sable. "Now we run like rabbits, right?"
"No." Sable's voice was colder and sharper than usual. "They'd chase us through this jungle and hunt us down like those rabbits. No, we have to take charge. Josef, stand by to dispatch our friend."
As the Blind Archer notched a shaft to the string, Sable reached into one of the many pockets of her jacket and came out with two resonance grenades. Slightly smaller than hen's eggs, they had dials she had to twist to arm them. "Here we go," she said as she flung them both high over the crowd.
The detonations echoed like thunder at point-blank range and the shock waves flung down everyone for yards around. Dead silence followed as the natives' ears rang and more than a few had nosebleeds. Getting clumsily up on his feet again, Stuart Duffy seemed completely confused. He stared stupidly before recognizing the three KDF members who were somehow free and facing him. As he saw the Blind Archer draw back on the longbow, a terrible fear swept over the round moonface.
Then the steel point of a three-foot arrow punched home in his heart.
V.
"Ashley, get the rest of our gear from that hut," ordered Sable as she covered the stunned mob with her dart gun. The little blonde ran over and came back with their crewneck shirts,boots and pants. With the Blind Archer standing by, the two woman tugged on the pants, boots and shirts, finally feeling back to normal. None of them had been wearing their helmets when they had debarked from the CORBY. When they were ready, Josef got his outfit on and drew a red silk band around his eyes; with his natural vision cut off, his gralic perception stepped up. Now, his arrows would never miss.
In those few seconds, some of the Acerimos had gotten their bearings again but most were dazed by the two explosions directly overhead. Not only did they have no idea what had happened, the concussion had left most of them confused and in serious pain. Maybe twenty of the natives were still lying senseless in the dirt.
The chief showed great determination as he got to his feet, legs braced well apart, and glared at the three KDF members. When he spoke, his voice was unsteady. "The fat man warned that you were filled with tricks..."
"You notice he is dead, don't you?" yelled Sable. "He is not going to challenge you for leadership now."
"True," Kivuku finally reply. "And I must admit that puts me somewhat in your debt." Reaching down, he tugged his short sword from the sash around his waist. The leopard-head cap had been knocked from his head and his nose was bleeding, but he was far from intimidated. "Still. The Necklace of Kings needs shrunken heads for its magic. I say that you three will be treated well for the next five days before the ritual-"
With a clang, the sword was smacked from his grasp and sent spinning far away as an arrow hit against its handle. His hand stung and went numb from the impact, and he had not even seen the Blind Archer loose.
"The next one will go in your heart," Josef said in a deadly calm voice.
"We will leave now," Sable added. "If you or any of your men follow us, we will kill them with more thunder." Keeping a suspicious eye on the chief, she led her two partners away from the stone columns and toward the banks of the brown river. Kivuku watched with barely restrained fury but dared not move. By now, many of the Acerimos had gotten back on their feet and had started to gather behind their chief. Two of the had picked up their spears and begun to brandish them menacingly. Without hesitation, Sable plucked a third resonance grenade from her jacket and whipped it directly overhead of the crowd. The explosion detonated closer than the previous ones, slamming the natives face down into the dirt and its echoes rolled up and down the river and off the stone ruins.
"You don't mess around, Sable," said a familiar voice from behind them.
The three Tel Shai knights gave a start and whirled to see Agent standing almost within reach of them. "Sheng, you're okay!" said Unicorn. "I was worried these guys had killed you."
"These losers? Never happen." The Asian fighter stepped closer. "The CORBY should be almost here by now. The Acerimos were hauling it here slowly but steadily."
"Let's go then," Sable snapped a bit sharply. "Sheng, lead the way."
They set out at a brisk walk along the bank, keeping an eye on the motionless crowd behind them. "I imagine some of them are dead from that final blast," Sable told her team. "The rest won't feel like shrinking any heads today."
"This is pretty funny," Sheng Mo-Yuan said as they marched. "I snuck in through that city and was thinking up ways to distract the natives so I could creep up and free you guys. And I find you're already loose and dictating terms. I might as well have just followed the savages with the CORBY."
Sable's stern manner broke at that, and she chuckled. "Ah, it was best that you came to help us. If we had been guarded better, if Duffy hadn't been showing off, things might have been much tougher." She took the lead, using her enhanced senses and warned them when the forty Acerimos were almost within sight.
It was almost dawn, already steamy and muggy without a breeze. Birds were beginning their repetitious calls to each other and they heard a troop of monkeys scrabble through the branches overhead. "I'm starved," Argent muttered. "We should have grabbed some of that feast back there."
"We'll be meeting the group with our ship in a second," was Sable's answer. "Weapons up, everyone. I don't want to risk a resonance cap near the CORBY."
Unicorn placed a hand on her captain's sleeve. "Hang on there a second, boss. I want to try something." She had taken the Link from her jacket and was adjusting its settings. "We don't get to use the remote control too often."
"All right, Ashley," Sable agreed without enthusiasm. "When your ideas work, they're great but..."
A second later, they rounded a curve in the river and saw forty exhausted Acerimos squatting on the mud. Hours of pulling against the stealthcopter's resistance had worn them down. They were half awake and half asleep, holding onto the ropes that were tied to the craft and they had not even spotted the four strangers yet.
Pressing buttons on her Link, grinning with pure mischief, Unicorn sent signals to the CORBY. The overhead rotors started to turn, then picked up speed. That stirred the Acerimos, who drew back in alarm. In a second, the four blades atop the copter were whirring so fast that they looked like a solid spinning disc of deadly steel. Then the spotlight on its mount under the nose blazed into blinding radiance and a voice boomed louder than any thunder they had ever heard, "Get away from me!"
That was more than enough. All the exhausted Acerimos found the energy to scramble off in all directions, disappearing into the underbrush as if it sucked them in.
Unable to keep from laughing, ducking low under the spinning rotors, Sable began casting off the ropes from the CORBY. "Josef, stand by."
"Understood, captain." The Blind Archer had a shaft notched and ready, he surveyed the area warily. "Some might try a poison dart or two."
In another minute, the craft was free and all four of them climbed in. Sable took the pilot seat, with Sheng beside her, while Unicorn and Josef dropped down onto the rear bench. As the hatches slid shut, Sable hit the environmental controls and the interior filled with cool dry air that was an immense relief.
Sable pulled back on the collective stick and the CORBY rose smoothly up to treetop level. Getting her helmet from its latch on the back of her seat, she lowered it over her head. Now she got readings directly on the inside of the visor. "Good work, all of you. Despite getting captured, we achieved our goal to getting rid of Stuart Duffy."
"What are we going to do about those headhunters?" asked Unicorn. "They were going to make us into ornaments for that necklace!"
Sable began to send the CORBY slowly forward, upriver. "Without Duffy, they'll go back to normal. Headhunting is their way of life, lots of tribes around here practice it. I don't like it any more than you do."
"We can make them stop it," the blonde grumbled.
"How? Stay here the rest of our lives and police them? Sorry, Ashley. Midnight War is our crusade and it's more than enough for us to handle." Sable hesitated, "But I would like to destroy their gralic capacity. The chief said the Necklace of Kings had some powers. That would be how they generated the red fog that knocked us out."
"Oh, I have good news there," Sheng put in. "While I was scouting the city, I found a gold necklace of shrunken heads. I figured, ah this could be a valuable bargaining chip if we had to negotiate."
"Really? Where is it now?"
He smiled. "When I saw you guys where on top of things, I stuck it deep inside the big fire. Not much left of it now."
On the back bench, Josef Jubilec had moistened a washcloth from his canteen and was wiped sweat and grim from his face. "Very neat. I guess that will keep them harmless for a while."
"Look, there's the city," Sable said quietly. "It's huge. I would like to learn who built it. And when. But now is not the time."
Fifty feet below, as his people painfully stirred and got to their feet, King Kivuku stared up at the black stealthcopter slowly passing overhead. Dropping his bloody sword, he held up the severed head of Stuart Duffy, the Mountain of Iron, by its long black hair and displayed it as a trophy. It would be the first shrunken head on a new Necklace of Kings.
3/19/2015
