"The Mountain of Iron"
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dochermes"The Mountain of Iron"
7/4-7/5/1977
I.
Shiro Mitsuru was, if anything, even more ready for trouble than usual. Xiao-sing's narrow waterfront streets were still and shadowy in that hour before dawn when he left the docks. The widely spaced street lamps gave insufficient light. There was a clatter of feet on the cobblestones down an alley to his right. Then came the sounds of a heavy fall, scuffling, a choked-off scream for help.
Clearly, no one with any prudence would have not hurried away. But Shiro quickened his pace and raced around the corner to nearly fall over a writhing, struggling mass on the cobblestones. The dim light of a street lamp showed what was going on. Two men fought there in grim silence. One was a slim young Chinese in European clothes, pinned down on his back in the wet muck. Kneeling on his chest was an assailant in tradional knee-length robe over loose trousers. He was much bigger than his victim, with a grinning face like a demonic mask. One talon-like hand clutched the throat of the smaller man and a wavy-bladed knife flashed in his other hand.
Shiro had seen his type hundreds of times before. Since birth, he had been the target for assassins of the White Web. This was one of the bloody hatchet-men the Tongs and secret societies use for their deadly work. Without hesitation, the Tiger Fury plunged closer and knocked the man senseless with a front snap kick under the chin. The hatchet-man remained stretched out without a twitch and the young Chinese sprang up, gasping and wild eyed.
"Thank you, my friend," he gurgled in English. "I owe his life to you. Here, take this..." And he tried to stuff a wad of green banknotes into Shiro's hand.
"You owe me nothing," Shiro scoffed, stepping back. "I'm glad to fight scum like that."
"Then at least please accept my humble and sincere thanks," the victim persisted, seizing his hand to shake it. "I know you, do I not? You're the new Tiger Fury?"
"Not yet," Shiro answered. "I've just begun studying Kumundu. If Teacher Chael does give me that title, it's at least a year away." Despite his pretense of humility, Shiro had complete confidence he would succeed and he had already begun to think of himself as a Tiger Fury.
"I will not forget," he said. "I will repay you some day. My name is Fong Yung-Tao, of the prosperous family Fong. Be wary, the society will not forget you either. But now I must not linger. This is my one chance of escape. If I can get aboard the British ship that is anchored in the bay,I will be safe. But I must go before this animal revives. Better that you go too. May good fortune reward you. But now beware of STIGMA."
The next instant he was racing down the street at full speed. Watching in amazement, Shiro saw him sprint onto the docks and dive off, without the slightest pause. Surprised, the Tiger Fury heard the splash as the man hit the water and a little later he saw, in the brightening pale dawn, a widening ripple aiming toward the British S.S. RESOLUTE, which lay out in the bay. Shiro was wondering what it all meant, when the hatchet-man moaned scrambled uncertainly to his feet.
"Ashamed of yourself, aren't you?" demanded the Tiger Fury. "Any good assassin would have finished a mere office worker off before I showed up."
The only answer was a glare of such venomous hatred that even Shiro felt alarmed. The killer limped painfully away into the shadows. Watching him hobble out of sight, Shiro was tempted to grab the man and administer a thorough beating to make him harmless for a few weeks. But really, the whole business was not his concern. Shiro dismissed the affair from his mind and continued down the street.
He was so innured to danger that he took it for granted.
His father and mother had stolen a fortune from the treasury of the White Web, an act of either incredible daring or utter foolishness. That centuries-old network of assassins had immediately launched a hunt for the couple that lasted fourteen years. Their newborn son grew up hiding in motel rooms, rented apartments and in cars on the road, never knowing a real home. As soon as he could walk, the parents had spent their wealth on having Shiro train under every available martial arts master in every style possible. He never knew if this had been their goal for him all along or if they just thought it was the only way he could survive the unending attacks from everything from ninja to brumal to Dacoits to snipers.
Just before his fifteenth birthday, Shiro returned to a secluded cottage in the New Territories of Hong Kong to find the White Web had caught up with his parents at last. He had only been able to mourn them briefly because he still had to stay on the move. Then he had met an elderly sifu who had sponsored him to apply at the Order of Tel Shai. Shiro had been accepted as a student by the legendary Teacher Chael and broke all odds by successfully qualifying as the new Tiger Fury.
For the moment, he decided he would get a little sleep in preparation for the day. He had come to like the turmoil of this disputed island, and felt determined to explore it. He entered into a seedy boarding house kept by a Portuguese man named Pasqual, went into his rented room and flung himself down on the ancient single bed for a few hours slumber.
He was awakened by the faintest whisper of sound. Instantly ready for an attack, he glared at the locked door and saw something protruding under it. A piece of stiff paper the size of a playing card. Shiro used a washcloth to pick it up, not touching it with his bare skin. No message was written on it, either English or Chinese, just an inked drawing of a bright yellow human skull with an X through it. That was all.
Irritated at not getting a full sleep, Shiro rose, still dressed, and shouted for Pasqual. When the manager hurried up, the Tiger Fury said, "Look, Pasqual. Someone stuck this under the door. Do you know what the meaning of it is?"
He took a single look. Then he leaped back with a gasped, "It means Death. it's the murder notice of STIGMA."
"What do you mean?" Shiro demanded. "Who is this STiGMA?"
"A new secret society," gasped Pasqual, shaking visibly. "International criminals, murderers. They are tied to Winter Snow and the Black Mantis. Once I saw a men receive the sign of the yellow skull. He was dead before the sun rose again. Get aboard any ship you can, Mr Mitsuru. Hide aboard it, stay out of sight until she sails. Maybe you can escape."
"Slink away and hide myself like a kicked dog?" Shiro growled. "You still don't know me at all. I'm feared myself wherever fighting arts are practiced. I've never run from any man yet. Tell me where I can find STIGMA and I'll smash it flat."
But Pasqual was obviously gripped by intense fear. "I'll tell you no such thing," he gasped. "I'm risking my life talking to you at all. Get out, quick. You mustn't stay here. I can't have another murder in this house. Go, please, sir."
"All right," the Tiger Fury snapped. "Don't give yourself a heart attack, Pasqual. I'm going."
Shiro traveled light, with only a canvas knapsack holding some clothes and toilet items. Sewn into his loose trousers were various bank cards and bundles of money. He normally carried no weapons at all. Annoyed at the situation, Shiro stalked stiffly out into crowded streets to get some food. While he ate roasted meat on skewers from a street vendor, the Tiger Fury reviewed the situation and realized that he had somehow blundered into the sights of still another mysterious gang of shadowy cut-throats. As if being marked for death by both the White Web and Winter Snow wasn't bad enough!
Grabbing two oranges and an unbroken bottle of water, Shiro strolled out into the streets again, with their filth and glamor, sordidness and allure going hand in hand; throngs of people buying and selling, bargaining in a half-dozen languages, sailors and merchants and outcasts of all nations rolling through the crowds...
He began to have a familiar sensation that he was being followed. Again and again Shiro wheeled quickly and scanned the crowd, but in that boiling swarm, it was impossible to tell whether anyone was trailing him or not. Yet the sensation persisted. A life spent on the run had taught Shiro to trust his instincts. Where any normal civilian would have been frightened or at least uneasy, he was used to the sensation of being followed. Let killers do their worst, he thought. They would meet more than their match.
II.
As the day of sightseeing and wandering wound down, Shiro found himself in Dutch Margen's American Bar at the edge of the waterfront district. There he spied someone he knew from years ago, a tall middle-aged Englishman named Saul Breakstone, who had a vague sort of Intelligence job he never explained. The Tiger Fury sat down at his table. "Breakstone," he said without prelimiaries, "did you ever hear of a man named Fong Yung-Tao?"
"That I have," he answered. "But I fear the poor sod's been blotted off. He was working with the government trying to get evidence against a certain gang of dangerous criminals and last night he disappeared."
"He's all right," Shiro replied. "I saw him swim out to an English ship which weighed anchor shortly after sun-up. But what particular criminals was he after?"
"Bad ones," said Breakstone, taking a long swig of ale. "Unusual lot among organized crime societies. STIGMA doesn't run any rackets itself. They're a sort of liaison service between different mobs. The White Web, Winter Snow, the Black Mantis, even Those Who Remember and Red Sect. STIGMA provides messengers, arranges meetings on neutral territory, smooths over disputes. They prevent a loss of unnecessary friction."
Shiro gave a short barking laugh. "Oh, that's rich. The conspiracies and gangs have gotten so established that they have treaties between them. Your Ministry of Defence has been letting things slide, Breakstone."
"Here now! I never said what office I work for. I might be involved in budgets and scheduling for all you know. Of late, STIGMA has been tampering with bigger things such as military secrets. Naturally, Her Majesty's government would well love to lay hands on them. But you've no idea what snaky customers they are. They're here, there and everywhere but nowhere. We know they exist, but we can't collar the beggars. If the locals would talk... but they won't, and that's the dead end for us. Even victims of the society won't spill. So what can we do?"
"Glad I'm a lone wolf," Shiro observed.
"But the government has gotten a promise of assistance from the most Honorable Wang-wing Yen. You've heard of him?"
"Sure," the Tiger Fury nodded. "Sort of a wealthy recluse and philanthropist, isn't he? I see his name in the papers sometimes."
"That and more. The public looks on him as a sort of god. He has almost unbelievable power in Xiao-sing, though he's never bothered to wield it very much. He's a philosopher and too busy considering abstract ideals and principles to bother with material things. He seldom ever appears in public. It was the very deuce to get him interested enough in sordid reality to promise to help the government smash a gang of thugs. Beneath his notice. That shows, too, how helpless the government really is in this matter, when it has to call on private individuals. The only argument that moved him was the assurance that the STIGMA are swiftly assuming a political importance, and were likely to start a border war between China and a certain very populous neighbor."
"Is it that important?" the Tiger Fury asked with obvious skepticism.
"Believe me, it is. These things grow fast. The the nameless man directing the activities of these thugs is ruthless and clever as the devil, quite capable of raising starting brush fires if he gets a little more power. East Asia is a powder keg right now, ready for some unscrupulous rogue to set it off. No resonsible Chinese official wants that to happen. That's why Wang-wing Yen agreed to help. And with his power over the natives, I believe the government will lay STIGMA by the heels."
"What sort of a man is this mandarin, Wang-wing Yen?" Shiro scoffed. "I'm picturing venerable, white bearded patriarch, with ten-inch finger nails encased in gold and spouting a lot of Harry Hung quotes?"
"Not by a long shot," answered Breakstone. "He doesn't look the type of a mystic at all. A clean-cut chap in middle life, he is, with a firm jaw and intense eyes—a graduate from Oxford too. He looks like he hould have been a scientist or a soldier."
A commotion burst out in the bar. Margen was having some kind of a row with a big sailor. Suddenly the sailor hauled off and hit Dutch between the eyes. Margen crashed down on a table, with beer mugs and seltzer water bottles spilling all over him, and began yelling for his friend the Mountain of Iron. Hearing this, the sailor took to his heels. But Margen, floundering around in the ruins of the table with his eyes still out of focus, didn't see that. The Mountain of Iron came barging in and Dutch yelled: "Throw him out! Beat him up! Give him the bum's rush! Out with him, Duffy!"
Despite his name, Stuart Duffy was ethnically Japanese on both sides. Following the deaths of his parents when he was six, Duffy had been adopted by an American familY in Hawaii. Due to a variant form of acromegaly, at twenty-seven he stood nine inches over six feet tall and weighed over four hundred pounds. Most of that was solid muscle. The round belly under the yellow T-shirt looked hard as a big cannon ball and his thick arms were gnarled as oak tree trunks. Duffy had enjoyed a sensational but short career as a tournament Sumo before a dozen moral scandals had disgraced him.
"Out with who?" roared Duffy, glaring around and doubling up his huge fists.
"That troublemaker," bawled Dutch. Duffy then made a natural mistake. As it bad luck would have it happened, Shiro was the only one in the bar not a regular. He had just turned back to speak to Breakstone, when to his outraged amazement, he felt his shirt collar gripped by what felt like a gorilla.
"Let's go, ya little runt," growled Mountain of Iron, hauling Shiro out of his chair and trying to twist him around to get a hammerlock on his right arm.
A Western civilian might have tried to talk through the situation, but Shiro Mitsuru was a gladiator in the borders between Midnight War and the criminal underworld. Direct physical fighting was a daily fact of life for him. Reacting without conscious thought, the Tiger Fury jolted his opponent back with a left hook under the heart that would have killed an ordinary man. Punching Duffy felt like striking a slab of frozen beef. He gave a deafening roar and plunged headlong, locking both of his mighty arms around Shiro. They went to the floor together, smashing a few chairs in their fall. For a second, the Sumo's superior weight enabled him to get on top of Shiro.
But the Tiger Fury could not be pinned down so easily. He wriggled free instantly and jumped up and away from Duffy, who was bellowing like an ox in pain.
"You're not a real Sumo," Shiro teased. "You couldn't even make a living wrestling on American television."
Taking that as a mortal insult, Duffty sputtered incoherently and made no move to attack, seemingly too infuriated to move.
"Wait a minute, please, Mountain of Iron," screamed Margen, pushing against Duffy's broad chest with both hands. "This man is Shiro Mitsuru, the new Tiger Fury of Tel Shai."
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" roared Duffy. "Git outta the way!"
"You can't fight in here," Dutch howled desperately. "If you two tangle here, you'll tear the joint down. I can't afford it. Anyway, he ain't the man that hit me."
"Well, he's the swine that hit ME," rumbled Mountain of Iron.
"Better step aside, Dutch," Shiro snapped. "Let us slug it out. It's the only way."
"No, no!" shrieked Margen. "It cost me five hundred dollars to repair the place after you threw that Shaolin out a month ago and I saw Shiro tackle all three Dawson brothers in a saloon in Hong Kong. They had to rebuild the joint. Come down on the beach, back of the Trader Jim warehouses and fight it out where you can't bust nothin' but each others' noses."
"Ripping idea," put in Breakstone. "You fellows don't want to make a spectacle of yourselves here in a respectable district, and then have to deal withthe police. If you must fight, why don't you do as Margen says?"
Mountain of Iron folded his massive arms and glared sullenly. "Fair enough. I ain't a man to do pointless damage. I'm going at the beach right now. Grab some of your friends, Mitsuru, so as to have fair play all around. And get there as soon as you can."
"Good enough," the Tiger Fury snapped. Turning on his heel, he left the bar. Such a potentially lethal brawl over a misunderstanding did not seem foolish or juvenile to him. But saving 'face' was even more important to Duffy and himself than it was to most East Asians. They were Midnight War fighters. Their reputations had been built the hard way and were valuable. Like gunfighters of the Old West, their pride constantly forced them into fights to maintain status.
III.
III.
Hoping to find someone to serve as a second, the Tiger Fury strode down the narrow ocean-misted streets, meeting with no success. It wasn't the first time that Shiro realized his life of mocking traditional martial arts as over-rated hadn't made him any friends. Being cocky and even arrogant had worked against him so much, but it was too late now to undo the damage. As a last resort, he headed for a curio shop down a little side street in the native quarter, run by a Chinese named Ping, who sold mostly junk trinkets such as sailors bought in foreign ports to mail to their wives and or sweethearts.
With the thought that he might find someone willing there, even a casual acquaintance, Shiro turned into the obscure side street. He noticed that there were even fewer people traversing it than usual. An old man with a cage full of canary birds, a laborer pulling a cart, a dried fish peddler or so, that was all. From an open second story window, an overripe woman with layers of make-up crooked a beckoning finger, but he acted as if he hadn't noticed her.
Shiro paused as he saw the shop just ahead. Then, with a vicious buzz, something hissed by his neck as he instinctively ducked with peak reflexes. It thudded into the wooden wall near his shoulder. A long, thin-bladed throwing knife had penetrated a good three inches into the hard boards and still quivered from the force of the throw.
Dropping into a crouch with his fingertips touching the street, Shiro glared across the street, but all that met his eyes were the blank fronts of a row of vacant shops. The windows all seemed to be boarded up, but obviously that knife had come from one of them. The few passers-by on the street paid no attention to the incident at all. Useless to even try go get any information from them.
And the threat of STIGMA was annoying him. That piece of paper with the yellow skull had been no idle threat. This time, they had struck and missed, but they would surely strike again and again. Typically, Shiro was not afraid or unsettled, he was annoyed at the nuisance.
He entered Ping's shop, with its shelves holding green jade idols, coral jewelry, kimonos and fans and tiny ivory elephants. A bronze Buddha squatted on a raised dais, its blissful face veiled by the smoke of burning joss sticks. Only the proprietor himself, the tall and reserved Ping, stood in the shop.
Shiro had turned to leave, when the proprietor came quickly out from behind his counter.
"You are Shiro Mitsuru, the new Tiger Fury?" said he in good English. Shiro nodded, and he continued in a lowered voice. "You are in danger. Do not ask me how I know. These things have a way of getting about among the Chinese community. Listen to me. I would lead you to a friend. Without his aid, you will be dead before dawn."
"Oh, I don't know," Shiro shrugged. "I'm not too bad in a fight."
"Your skills will not help you." He shook his head. "Your speed and strength cannot aid you. Your enemies will strike secretly and subtly. Their way is that of the cobra. And, like the cobra, they kill swiftly, silently, giving their victim no chance to defend himself."
"It'd be easier if those rats came into the open," Shiro grumbled, knotting his fists until the knuckles showed white. "Get them in front of me and I'll flatten the whole gang. But I can't smoke them out of their hives."
"You must listen to me," said Ping. "I will save you. I have no cause to love the STIGMA."
"They haven't exactly won me over," Shiro grumbled.
"You prevented their chief hatchet-man from slaying Fong Yung-Tao," said Ping. "Fong was doomed. He had tried and sentenced by their most dread tribunal. Fong had intrigued his way into their secret meeting places and councils, to get evidence to use against them in the court. For he was a spy of the government. His life was forfeit and neither the police nor the Secret Service could protect him from the vengeance of the STIGMA. Last night he sought to escape and was trapped by the hatchet-man who hunted him down and caught him almost on the wharves. Fong would have died if you had not intervened. I've received word he is far at sea and safe. But the vengeance of STIGMA is turned upon you. And you are doomed. They will slay you."
"They can try," Shiro scoffed.
"But see, I am your friend," continued Ping. "And I hate STIGMA. I am more than I seem."
"Are you a government spy too?" the Tiger Fury asked. "This island is packed with secret agents..."
"Shh!" He laid his long finger to his lips and glanced around quickly and warily. "The very walls have ears in Xiao-sing. But I will tell you this. There is but one man in Xiao-sing who can save you, who will, if I ask him, speak the word that will make even STIGMA stay their hands."
"Wang-wing Yen, you mean?"
Ping started and peered at him intensely for an instant. Then he seemed to nod, almost imperceptibly. "Tonight I will take you to this man. Let him remain nameless, for the present. You must come alone, hinting your errand to no one. Trust me!"
"It's not many hours till sundown," Shiro muttered. "When and where shall I meet you?"
"Come to me alone, in the Alley of Remorse, as soon as it is well dark. And go now, quickly. We must not be seen too much together. And be wary, lest STIGMA strike again before we meet."
As he left the shop, Shirio had a distinct feeling of relief. Not that he was inclined to trust Ping's mere word, but his evident connection with the famous philosopher Wang-wing Yen, together with what Breakstone had said of that modern mandarin, was slightly reassuring. If he could evade the attacks of the unknown murderers until dark...
Suddenly, with a low curse, Shiro remembered that at this very moment he was supposed to be on his way to the beach to fight Mountain of Iron with his naked fists. Well, it must be done. Even if he died that night, he had to keep that appointment. His career could not go on with men thinking he dared not meet Mountain of Iron in open fight. Besides, the thought came to him, that was the safest place in Xiao-sing. On the open beach, surrounded by peers, with plenty of witnesses, he was actually safer fighting a giant Sumo than he would be walking on the street. The problem lay in getting there alive. He made no further attempts to find a second, but set off at a rapid walk, keeping alert and passing alleyways very warily.
IV.
IV.
Shiro arrived without incident at the strip of open beach behind the big warehouses. The Mountain of Iron was already there, stripped to the waist, growling his impatience and flexing his mighty arms. Dutch was there with a dozen others, all fans and admirers of Duffy. Breakstone was not present, though. Shiro couldn't help wondering about that.
"I couldn't find anyone to man my corner, Duffy," the Tiger Fury admitted. "But I'm not afraid of not getting fair play. I've always heard of you as someone with some basic honor.
"You've kept me waiting long enough," growled the Mountain of Iron. "I was going to take it easy on you but now I'm annoyed."
Everyone present formed a semi-circle well back from where the two combatants would meet at the water's edge. Shiro yanked off his plain T-shirt and tossed it behind him. Stripped, he was a dramatic living sculpture where every sinew and bundle of muscles stood out in vivid relief. He did not look so much like a body-builder as he did a runner. In comparison, Duffy's rounded muscles and sloping shoulders seemed crude and unfinished, and the huge gut did not help that impression.
Nothing needed to be said. Rules were never explicitly laid out in Midnight War duels like these, and although death was not required to end the fights, it was common enough that both men had it in mind.
There on the hot sand beach they circled each other, both of them stripped to the waist with no weapons but their fiercely trained bodies. Tall for an Asian of his time, Shiro Mitsuru stood just under six feet tall and weighed a taut one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Looming up nine inches higher, Steward Duffy weighed well over four hundred pounds but there was nothing soft or unimpressive about him. The mismatch was so overstated that every witness present expected to see Shiro crushed within seconds.
The Tiger Fury weighed his strategies as he approached this giant who had never known defeat. In sheer strength and bulk Duffy obviously had the edge. But Shiro's confidence was unbreakable. When he had been eleven, his parents had started him sparring grown men, then multiple men at the same time. In Shiro's mind, no human was too big for him to beat.
Fists raised, Duffy rushed forward like a charging bull and Shiro met him half-way. The Tiger Fury whirled on his left heel and whipped up a reverse spinning kick that crashed his heel directly to the center of Duffy's face. That stopped the Sumo dead in his tracks. He wasn't hurt, though, he roared and came on again, shaking his head in anger and throwing left and right roundhouses. Shiro crouched under those too-wide swings to pound both hands to the Mountain of Iron's body. The Tiger Fury was nimble enough and skilled enough to avoid his opponent's blows for a time, but that was no way to win a fight like this one.
Duffy towered over his more agile foe. He was neither clumsy nor slow, it was only Shiro's extreme agility that made him seem so in contrast. The Tiger Fury danced out of reach of each terrible swing, lunging back in to land his own blows. Again and again Shiro had him floundering, but always the Sumo recovered with a bone-crushing attack that could not be altogether avoided. Getting in close, ducking inside the wide looping blows, Shiro drummed both fists to Duffy's body and head. It was a reliable Wing Chun tactic. Even staggering under a machine-gun fire of short hooks and uppercuts, the Mountain of Iron suddenly ripped up an uppercut of his own. Shiro's head sung back as if his neck was broken. Only blind instinct made kept him from falling into Mountain of Iron's clinch. Grappling would be a final mistake even against a normal Sumo, and with Duffy it would be fatal.
The onlookers had formed a tense ring that drew back as they saw how powerful these fighters really were. Getting too close suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. No one spoke. There was no other sound save the scuffling of feet on the beach, the thud and smash of savagely driven blows, an occasional grunt or growl. Duffy's rock-hard fist banged against Shiro's eye, half blinding it. In instant retaliation, the Tiger Fury threw a left backfist and right hook full into his opponent's mouth. The Sumo spit out a shattered tooth.
Within the first few seconds, Duffy gave away his weak aspects. The Mountain of Iron was too fond of using his right and didn't feint. He drew each punch back too far before he let it go. Again and again, Shiro intercepted him with his left hand, and this made raw beef out of the right side of Duffy's face.
Through a hazy red mist, Shiro saw the Mountain of Iron's face blurred before him, with the lips smashed and pulped, one eye closed and blood streaming from his nose. Despite a lifetime of conditioning, Shiro's arms were growing heavy and his feet slow. He stumbled as he side-stepped, with the familiar salty taste of blood in his mouth. The Tiger Fury launched kicks and punches as each opening presented itself but every time he connected, it jarred him as if he were striking an oak tree. From his peripheral vision as he moved about, he saw the strained, tense faces of the onlookers.
From seemingly nowhere smashed Mountain of Iron's thundering right hand square on the point of Shiro's chin. The Tiger Fury felt himself teetering over an abyss of blackness filled with a million gleams of light. His back hit the beach hard, and the jolt of the fall jarred him back into full awareness. He looked up, blinking both blood and sweat out of his eyes, and saw the Mountain of Iron overhead. The Sumo was swaying, wide-braced on his elephantine legs but he had been badlyb weakened. The great chest was heaving uncontrollably as his breath came in rapid shallow gasps. Hyperventilating, always a bad sign. With sheer will, the Tiger Fury managed to get up on his feet. The knowledge that Duffy was having a hard time was all the encouragement that Shiro needed.
"You're... pretty good," the Mountain of Iron croaked, lurching toward his unyielding foe. Shiro took a deep stance and braced himself to meet that right. The blow made only a glancing contact and Shiro blasted both fists directly under Duffy's heart. He reeled drunkenly, but came back with a left swing that grazed the Tiger Fury's jawline and broke the skin. Again he swung his right fist but stiffly like a club. Shiro swayed away and lunged back in with a left hook that cracked on the side of the Sumo's head. Contact was too high and he felt his already swollen knuckles crack against that hard skull.
But taking that damage was worth it. Stuart Duffy bent forward, head drooping, his broad chest heaving ferociously. For a second, all his defenses were down. Shiro seized the back of the Sumo's head with both hands and yanked down hard while raising his own right knee. The mushy thump was immensely satisfying. The giant brute swayed to one side and crashed to the sand without any pretense of trying to catch himself. Shiro staggered back and barely kept his balance by windmilling his arms. But the outcome of the fight was undeniable. He was still on his feet, still standing, while the Mountain of Iron stretched out senseless at his feet.
Dazed by pain and exhaustion, Shiro only vaguely felt men about him and heard their awed congratulations. Sure, he thought, NOW they're on my side! Dutch was staring down at the snoring bulk of Mountain of Iron with a sort of unbelieving horror.
Then came memory returned of the threat of STIGMA. Shiro shook the blood and sweat from his eyes, pulling away from the men who were fawning over him. The sun was setting. If he expected to see that sun rise again, he knew he must meet Ping and go with him to find Wang-wing Yen and deal with STIGMA. This duel had not been the most important crisis on his agenda.
Snatching up his T-shirt, Shiro staggered away from the amazed men and reeled drunkenly up the beach. Out of sight of the group, he dropped from sheer exhaustion. It was long minutes before he could rise and go on. That had been way too close a victory to allow him any satisfaction.
His mind cleared as he walked, and his head ceased to sing from Mountain of Iron's smashes. Shiro was thoroughly weary and bruised. It seemed to be taking forever to get his wind back. His left hand was swollen and sore enough that he thought it might be broken, and the skin was torn off his right knuckles. One of his eyes was partly closed, his lips were smashed and cut, his ribs battered black and blue. But he had endured worse beatings many times in his violent life. Even though he had only been on the Tagra tea regimen of Tel Shai for a short time, its effects were beginning to boost his recuperative power beyond what medical science could explain. Shiro regained his breath and shook off some of his weariness. If not back to normal, he felt at least able to function as he neared the Alley of Remorse, in the growing darkness.
V.
Shiro began to wonder why STIGMA had not struck again. There was something inexplicable about the whole business. Since that knife had been flung at him earlier in the day, he had had no sign at all of any threat from them. Maybe the knife toss had been unrelated? God knew he had managed to make plenty of enemies with bitter grudges against him.
The Tiger Fury made it without incident to the narrow, stinking opening between buildings which the locals called for some unknown reason the Alley of Remorse. It was pitch-dark there. Suddenly a figure loomed up beside him. In an automatic response, he struck out at the figure and barely pulled his backhand in time when Ping's voice sounded. He was like a ghost in the deep shadows.
"Come with me," whispered the man. And Shiro groped after him. Down that alley he led, then across another even darker and nastier. Through a wide shadowy courtyard. Down a narrow side street, deep in the heart of what Shiro knew must be a foreboding native quarter seldom seen by outsiders. Down another alley and into a dimly lighted courtyard. They stopped before a heavy arched doorway.
As he rapped upon the wood, the eeriness and brooding himstery of the place weighed down on Shiro. In all his travels, he had seldom felt more keenly being in the very heart of ancient and enigmatic otherness. The very shadows seemed lurking perils. The Tiger Fury tried to remain loose and untensed, ready to instantly move in any direction.
Three times Ping rapped, then twice more. The door swung silently inward to disclose a veritable well of darkness. Shiro could not even see who had opened the door. Ping entered first, motioning him to follow. Shiro stepped in and the door slammed behind him with the click of a heavy lock. And then the lights came on. While Shirp blinked like a blinded owl, he heard a low throaty chuckle in the second before his eyes became accustomed to the light. He was in a vast, high-ceilinged room furnished in classic style. The walls were covered with velvet and silken hangings, ornamented with silver dragons worked into the fabric. A faint scent of some Eastern incense or perfume pervaded the atmosphere.
Ranged about he were ten big, dark, wicked-faced men, naked except for loin-cloths. Malays! Tougher and stronger than normal men. On a kind of tiger-skin covered dais across the room an unmistakable Chinaman sat on a lacquer-worked chair. He was clad in robes worked in dragons like those on the hangings, and his keen piercing eyes gleamed through holes in the yellow skull mask which hid his features. But it was the figure which stood image-like beside the lacquered chair which drew and held Shiro's gaze. It was the hatchet-man from whom he had rescued Fong Yung-Tao on the wharfs only that morning.
As he had expected, Shiro knew he was trapped. It showed supreme self-assurance to walk into a snare just to get things over with. The yellow silk mask with the black skull logo was conclusive. This crimelord was part of STIGMA, even a leader. And Ping had not brought me to the Honorable Wang-wing Yen. He had brought me before the nameless and mysterious chief of STIGMA, to be cruelly killed.
And there Ping stood right at hand, leering in unbearable smugness. Shiro acted instinctively. Square into the man's mouth the Tiger Fury crashed a short straight right before Ping could react. Teeth caved in and he dropped straight down as if shot.
The masked man on the dais laughed. And in his laughter sounded all the ancient and heartless cruelty of a madman.
"You mixed-breed animal! You may be strong and fierce," he mocked. "But this night, you savage mutt, you shall learn what it is to interfere with the plans of Grandmaster of STIGMA. You are a fool to pit your feeble powers against mine. I hate your arrogant civilization.
"Know before you die, that the ancient dragon that is China is breaking slowly from the corruption of Western influences, and their doom is not far off. Soon I, the Grandmaster of the STIGMA, will emerge from the shadows, raise the dragon banner of revolution and mount again the ancient throne of m ancestors. Your fate will be the fate of all your impure race who oppose me. I laugh at you. Do you deem yourself important because the future emperor of all Asia lowers himself to see personally to your removal? Bah! I merely crush you as I crush the gnat that annoys me."
Then the crimelord barked shortly to the Malays, "Kill him!"
They closed in on Shiro silently from all directions, drawing knives, strangling cords and loaded cudgels. It looked hopeless for a fighter with two black and swollen eyes, his ribs pounded black and blue, one hand broken, pitted against these trained killers. They approached warily. Shiro tensed himself for one last rush. The thought flashed through him that at least few of the attackers would escape him fate. He prayed that it might be so.
The Tiger Fury drew back into a ready stance, tensed and watchful as a hawk. The ring was closing in on him. The nearest Malay edged within reach. He raised his knife for the death leap. Shiro smashed a downward heel to his closer knee and distinctly heard the bone snap. He went down. Shiro leaped across him and crashed into that closing encirclement as a plunging fullback hits a line.
Cudgels swished past his weaving head. The Tiger Fury felt a knife slice along his ribs but then he was through the attackers, bounding across the room and up onto the dais.
The Grandmaster screamed. He jerked a pistol from his robes. How he missed at that range can only be attributed to panic. The powder flash burned Shiro's face, but before the crimelord could fire again, the Tiger Fury sent him wheeling head over heels with a side kick that broke bones. The pistol flew out of reach.
The hatchet-man was on Shiro like a clawing cat. He drove a long knife deep into the Tiger Fury's upper chest muscle. Then the Tiger Fury got in a solid ram's head punch . The killer's jaw was brittle and slewed off its attachment. Shiro hoisted the limp form up bodily above his head and hurled the man into the clump of Malays who were leaping up on the dais, bowling over the front line in a tangle. The rest still came at him.
Carried beyond himself on a red wave of desperate battle fury, Shiro caught up the lacquered chair and swung it with all his strength. Squarely it landed and he felt his victim's shoulder bone give way. But the chair flew into splinters. Then a whistling cudgel stroke laid his scalp open and drove him to his knees. The whole pack piled on, hacking and slashing, but their very numbers hindered them. Somehow, he managed to shake them off momentarily and stagger up.
A big Chinese that Shiro had not seen before bobbed up from nowhere and got a bone-breaking wrestling hold on his right arm. A giant Malay was thrusting for him life. he could not wrench right free. So, setting his teeth, Shiro smashed him with his broken left hand. The Tiger Fury went sick and dizzy from the pain of it, but the Malay dropped like a sack.
But they downed him again, as seemed inevitable. They swarmed over Shiro and forced him down by sheer weight of man-power. Everyone heard Grandmaster screaming with the rage of a fiend in his voice. A wiry, dark-robbed killer raised his icepick knife and drove it down toward Shiro's heart. Somehow, he managed to throw up his left arm and deflect the blow at the price of a deep gouge. That forearm felt asw if it had been lit on fire.
The door crashed and splintered. A deep voice roared like an enraged grizzly. And something irresistable exploded into the clump of natives on top of Shiro.
The press slackened as the group flew apart. The Tiger Fury reeled up, sick, dizzy and weak from loss of the blood that was spurting freely in half a dozen places. Half-dead, Shiro gawked at a bronzed giant plowing through the assassins with irresistable force.
The Mountain of Iron!
VI.
Shiro saw him seize a Malay in each hand by the neck, crack their heads together and throw them aside into a corner. A dusky brute ran in, lunging upward with a stroke meant to disembowel, only to be stretched senseless by one backhand blow of Mountain of Iron's mighty fist. A big Chinese wrestler got a headlock on Duffy from behind. But Mountain of Iron easily broke the hold, wheeled and threw the wrestler clear over his shoulders to hit the floor with his head. He wouldn't be getting up by himself.
That was enough for the STIGMA men. They scattered like a flock of birds startled with a gunshot. All except the masked Grandmaster. He sprang for the fallen pistol. Before he could reach it, Shiro intercepted him. A short knife-edge chop with the edge of his hand snapped the crimelord's neck audibly but then the Tiger Fury himself dropped to his hands and knees.
Mountain of Iron came quickly toward him. "Damn, Mitsuru," he rumbled, "you look like you were stampeded by wild horses. Here, lemme tie up some of them stabs before you bleed to death. You've lost a gallon of blood already. We got to git you where you can git these wounds dressed right by a proper doctor. But for the time bein' we'll see can we stop the bleedin'."
He ripped strips from his own shirt and began to bandage the wounds. Allowing this ministration meekly for a change, Shiro gazed at Duffy in amazement. He had known the man's vitality was unusual, but Mountain of Iron's endurance was beyond belief. He looked as if he'd been dragged behind a train. Shiro was astounded to realize the extent to which Duffy had absorbed punishment and yet seemed almost as fresh and fit as ever. The impacts which had broken his nose, smashed his lips, ripped his ears, shattered some of his teeth and left his jaw swollen had not sapped the vast reservoir of his vitality. The fight had merely weakened him momentarily and knocked him out, that was all. And accomplishing that feat had seemingly taken a bigger toll on Shiro than it had on Duffy.
Shiro had a flash of insight that very likely the Sumo had developed a gralic power of some sort. The huge body had been so difficult to hurt and had shown strength greater than even its size could explain. Maybe Duffy would become invulnerable in time, maybe he would grow even bigger and stronger. Such changes had happened.
"I supposed you'd be laid up for a week after our fight," the Tiger Fury said lamely.
He snorted. "Do you think I'm a sissy? I wasn't out more than a few minutes. As soon as I'd got back my breath, I was ready to get on with the fight. Of course I'm kinda stiff and tired right now, but that's normal.
"When I'd got my bearin's I looked around for you. Dutch and his boys had a hard time convincin' me that I'd been beaten for the first time in my life. I still don't see how it could have happened. Anyway, I started right out to find you and take you apart, because my self-respect was hurt. A tourisy had seen you go into the Alley of Remorse and I followed not far behind you. I know Xiao-sing better'n most outsiders, but I got clean tangled up in all them alley-ways and courtyards. I heard the noise inside. So knowin' you must be in some kind of a jam, I simply busted in. Who was these thugs, anyhow?"
Shiro told him quickly about Fong Yung-Tao and STIGMA. He growled,"I mighta known it. I've heard stories about them. But after what we did just now, I bet they won't put any more death threats on outsiders very soon. Come on, let's get outa here."
"I don't know how to thank you, Duffy," Shiro said. "You certainly saved my hide..."
"Aw, save your breath," he grunted. "I couldn't see them clowns bump off a good man. And you'd sure give 'em a tussle by yourself. Naw, don't thank me. After all, I was lookin' for you to finish the fight. Maybe I still am."
"Well," said the Tiger Fury, "I hate to beat up a man who saved my life, but if you're set on it..."
Duffy laughed gustily and slapped his sparring partner on the back. "Hell and damnation, Shiro, I wouldn't hit a man who has just stopped as many knives as you have. Anyway, I'm beginning to like your attitude. Hey, who's this?"
A tall man in European clothes stepped suddenly into the doorway, with a revolver in one hand.
"Breakstone? Shiro asked. "Hell. What are you doing here?"
"Following a tip-off I got earlier in the evening," he said crisply. "I got wind of a secret session of the STIGMA to be held here."
"So you are a Secret Service agent after all," Shiro said slowly. "If I'd known that, I might not have all these knife-stabs in my hide. If you've got a license to kill, you might have used it and saved some time."
"I've been gathering evidence on STIGMA for some time," he answered. "Working with special powers invested in me by British and Chinese authorities. Who's this dead fellow?"
"He called himself Grandmaster and boasted that he was the high lord of STIGMA and the next emperor of all Asia," Shiro answered, with an involuntary shudder from loss of blood. He stepped forward and tore away the silk mask, revealing the smooth-skinned face and clean-cut aristocratic features of a middle-aged Northern Chinese.
Breakstone recoiled with an exclamation."My word! Can it be possible! No wonder he delayed the aid he promised the government, and he only promised it to divert suspicion. And no wonder he was able to keep his true identity a secret. Duffy, Shiro, this man is the Honorable Wang-wing Yen."
"What, the philosopher and do-gooder?" Duffy was even more amazed than Shiro.
Breakstone nodded slowly. "What strange quirk in his nature led him along this path?" he said half to himself. "With that great mind he had, he might have risen to great heights in government or academia. But some strange twist in his soul misled him. Who can explain it?"
Duffy seemed to be groping for words. "I used to think I had people figured out. But the more I see, the less I understand why people act the way they do."
"Heh," Shiro managed to chuckle despite his pain and weakness. "After all, look at us."
4/26/2023
7/4-7/5/1977
I.
Shiro Mitsuru was, if anything, even more ready for trouble than usual. Xiao-sing's narrow waterfront streets were still and shadowy in that hour before dawn when he left the docks. The widely spaced street lamps gave insufficient light. There was a clatter of feet on the cobblestones down an alley to his right. Then came the sounds of a heavy fall, scuffling, a choked-off scream for help.
Clearly, no one with any prudence would have not hurried away. But Shiro quickened his pace and raced around the corner to nearly fall over a writhing, struggling mass on the cobblestones. The dim light of a street lamp showed what was going on. Two men fought there in grim silence. One was a slim young Chinese in European clothes, pinned down on his back in the wet muck. Kneeling on his chest was an assailant in tradional knee-length robe over loose trousers. He was much bigger than his victim, with a grinning face like a demonic mask. One talon-like hand clutched the throat of the smaller man and a wavy-bladed knife flashed in his other hand.
Shiro had seen his type hundreds of times before. Since birth, he had been the target for assassins of the White Web. This was one of the bloody hatchet-men the Tongs and secret societies use for their deadly work. Without hesitation, the Tiger Fury plunged closer and knocked the man senseless with a front snap kick under the chin. The hatchet-man remained stretched out without a twitch and the young Chinese sprang up, gasping and wild eyed.
"Thank you, my friend," he gurgled in English. "I owe his life to you. Here, take this..." And he tried to stuff a wad of green banknotes into Shiro's hand.
"You owe me nothing," Shiro scoffed, stepping back. "I'm glad to fight scum like that."
"Then at least please accept my humble and sincere thanks," the victim persisted, seizing his hand to shake it. "I know you, do I not? You're the new Tiger Fury?"
"Not yet," Shiro answered. "I've just begun studying Kumundu. If Teacher Chael does give me that title, it's at least a year away." Despite his pretense of humility, Shiro had complete confidence he would succeed and he had already begun to think of himself as a Tiger Fury.
"I will not forget," he said. "I will repay you some day. My name is Fong Yung-Tao, of the prosperous family Fong. Be wary, the society will not forget you either. But now I must not linger. This is my one chance of escape. If I can get aboard the British ship that is anchored in the bay,I will be safe. But I must go before this animal revives. Better that you go too. May good fortune reward you. But now beware of STIGMA."
The next instant he was racing down the street at full speed. Watching in amazement, Shiro saw him sprint onto the docks and dive off, without the slightest pause. Surprised, the Tiger Fury heard the splash as the man hit the water and a little later he saw, in the brightening pale dawn, a widening ripple aiming toward the British S.S. RESOLUTE, which lay out in the bay. Shiro was wondering what it all meant, when the hatchet-man moaned scrambled uncertainly to his feet.
"Ashamed of yourself, aren't you?" demanded the Tiger Fury. "Any good assassin would have finished a mere office worker off before I showed up."
The only answer was a glare of such venomous hatred that even Shiro felt alarmed. The killer limped painfully away into the shadows. Watching him hobble out of sight, Shiro was tempted to grab the man and administer a thorough beating to make him harmless for a few weeks. But really, the whole business was not his concern. Shiro dismissed the affair from his mind and continued down the street.
He was so innured to danger that he took it for granted.
His father and mother had stolen a fortune from the treasury of the White Web, an act of either incredible daring or utter foolishness. That centuries-old network of assassins had immediately launched a hunt for the couple that lasted fourteen years. Their newborn son grew up hiding in motel rooms, rented apartments and in cars on the road, never knowing a real home. As soon as he could walk, the parents had spent their wealth on having Shiro train under every available martial arts master in every style possible. He never knew if this had been their goal for him all along or if they just thought it was the only way he could survive the unending attacks from everything from ninja to brumal to Dacoits to snipers.
Just before his fifteenth birthday, Shiro returned to a secluded cottage in the New Territories of Hong Kong to find the White Web had caught up with his parents at last. He had only been able to mourn them briefly because he still had to stay on the move. Then he had met an elderly sifu who had sponsored him to apply at the Order of Tel Shai. Shiro had been accepted as a student by the legendary Teacher Chael and broke all odds by successfully qualifying as the new Tiger Fury.
For the moment, he decided he would get a little sleep in preparation for the day. He had come to like the turmoil of this disputed island, and felt determined to explore it. He entered into a seedy boarding house kept by a Portuguese man named Pasqual, went into his rented room and flung himself down on the ancient single bed for a few hours slumber.
He was awakened by the faintest whisper of sound. Instantly ready for an attack, he glared at the locked door and saw something protruding under it. A piece of stiff paper the size of a playing card. Shiro used a washcloth to pick it up, not touching it with his bare skin. No message was written on it, either English or Chinese, just an inked drawing of a bright yellow human skull with an X through it. That was all.
Irritated at not getting a full sleep, Shiro rose, still dressed, and shouted for Pasqual. When the manager hurried up, the Tiger Fury said, "Look, Pasqual. Someone stuck this under the door. Do you know what the meaning of it is?"
He took a single look. Then he leaped back with a gasped, "It means Death. it's the murder notice of STIGMA."
"What do you mean?" Shiro demanded. "Who is this STiGMA?"
"A new secret society," gasped Pasqual, shaking visibly. "International criminals, murderers. They are tied to Winter Snow and the Black Mantis. Once I saw a men receive the sign of the yellow skull. He was dead before the sun rose again. Get aboard any ship you can, Mr Mitsuru. Hide aboard it, stay out of sight until she sails. Maybe you can escape."
"Slink away and hide myself like a kicked dog?" Shiro growled. "You still don't know me at all. I'm feared myself wherever fighting arts are practiced. I've never run from any man yet. Tell me where I can find STIGMA and I'll smash it flat."
But Pasqual was obviously gripped by intense fear. "I'll tell you no such thing," he gasped. "I'm risking my life talking to you at all. Get out, quick. You mustn't stay here. I can't have another murder in this house. Go, please, sir."
"All right," the Tiger Fury snapped. "Don't give yourself a heart attack, Pasqual. I'm going."
Shiro traveled light, with only a canvas knapsack holding some clothes and toilet items. Sewn into his loose trousers were various bank cards and bundles of money. He normally carried no weapons at all. Annoyed at the situation, Shiro stalked stiffly out into crowded streets to get some food. While he ate roasted meat on skewers from a street vendor, the Tiger Fury reviewed the situation and realized that he had somehow blundered into the sights of still another mysterious gang of shadowy cut-throats. As if being marked for death by both the White Web and Winter Snow wasn't bad enough!
Grabbing two oranges and an unbroken bottle of water, Shiro strolled out into the streets again, with their filth and glamor, sordidness and allure going hand in hand; throngs of people buying and selling, bargaining in a half-dozen languages, sailors and merchants and outcasts of all nations rolling through the crowds...
He began to have a familiar sensation that he was being followed. Again and again Shiro wheeled quickly and scanned the crowd, but in that boiling swarm, it was impossible to tell whether anyone was trailing him or not. Yet the sensation persisted. A life spent on the run had taught Shiro to trust his instincts. Where any normal civilian would have been frightened or at least uneasy, he was used to the sensation of being followed. Let killers do their worst, he thought. They would meet more than their match.
II.
As the day of sightseeing and wandering wound down, Shiro found himself in Dutch Margen's American Bar at the edge of the waterfront district. There he spied someone he knew from years ago, a tall middle-aged Englishman named Saul Breakstone, who had a vague sort of Intelligence job he never explained. The Tiger Fury sat down at his table. "Breakstone," he said without prelimiaries, "did you ever hear of a man named Fong Yung-Tao?"
"That I have," he answered. "But I fear the poor sod's been blotted off. He was working with the government trying to get evidence against a certain gang of dangerous criminals and last night he disappeared."
"He's all right," Shiro replied. "I saw him swim out to an English ship which weighed anchor shortly after sun-up. But what particular criminals was he after?"
"Bad ones," said Breakstone, taking a long swig of ale. "Unusual lot among organized crime societies. STIGMA doesn't run any rackets itself. They're a sort of liaison service between different mobs. The White Web, Winter Snow, the Black Mantis, even Those Who Remember and Red Sect. STIGMA provides messengers, arranges meetings on neutral territory, smooths over disputes. They prevent a loss of unnecessary friction."
Shiro gave a short barking laugh. "Oh, that's rich. The conspiracies and gangs have gotten so established that they have treaties between them. Your Ministry of Defence has been letting things slide, Breakstone."
"Here now! I never said what office I work for. I might be involved in budgets and scheduling for all you know. Of late, STIGMA has been tampering with bigger things such as military secrets. Naturally, Her Majesty's government would well love to lay hands on them. But you've no idea what snaky customers they are. They're here, there and everywhere but nowhere. We know they exist, but we can't collar the beggars. If the locals would talk... but they won't, and that's the dead end for us. Even victims of the society won't spill. So what can we do?"
"Glad I'm a lone wolf," Shiro observed.
"But the government has gotten a promise of assistance from the most Honorable Wang-wing Yen. You've heard of him?"
"Sure," the Tiger Fury nodded. "Sort of a wealthy recluse and philanthropist, isn't he? I see his name in the papers sometimes."
"That and more. The public looks on him as a sort of god. He has almost unbelievable power in Xiao-sing, though he's never bothered to wield it very much. He's a philosopher and too busy considering abstract ideals and principles to bother with material things. He seldom ever appears in public. It was the very deuce to get him interested enough in sordid reality to promise to help the government smash a gang of thugs. Beneath his notice. That shows, too, how helpless the government really is in this matter, when it has to call on private individuals. The only argument that moved him was the assurance that the STIGMA are swiftly assuming a political importance, and were likely to start a border war between China and a certain very populous neighbor."
"Is it that important?" the Tiger Fury asked with obvious skepticism.
"Believe me, it is. These things grow fast. The the nameless man directing the activities of these thugs is ruthless and clever as the devil, quite capable of raising starting brush fires if he gets a little more power. East Asia is a powder keg right now, ready for some unscrupulous rogue to set it off. No resonsible Chinese official wants that to happen. That's why Wang-wing Yen agreed to help. And with his power over the natives, I believe the government will lay STIGMA by the heels."
"What sort of a man is this mandarin, Wang-wing Yen?" Shiro scoffed. "I'm picturing venerable, white bearded patriarch, with ten-inch finger nails encased in gold and spouting a lot of Harry Hung quotes?"
"Not by a long shot," answered Breakstone. "He doesn't look the type of a mystic at all. A clean-cut chap in middle life, he is, with a firm jaw and intense eyes—a graduate from Oxford too. He looks like he hould have been a scientist or a soldier."
A commotion burst out in the bar. Margen was having some kind of a row with a big sailor. Suddenly the sailor hauled off and hit Dutch between the eyes. Margen crashed down on a table, with beer mugs and seltzer water bottles spilling all over him, and began yelling for his friend the Mountain of Iron. Hearing this, the sailor took to his heels. But Margen, floundering around in the ruins of the table with his eyes still out of focus, didn't see that. The Mountain of Iron came barging in and Dutch yelled: "Throw him out! Beat him up! Give him the bum's rush! Out with him, Duffy!"
Despite his name, Stuart Duffy was ethnically Japanese on both sides. Following the deaths of his parents when he was six, Duffy had been adopted by an American familY in Hawaii. Due to a variant form of acromegaly, at twenty-seven he stood nine inches over six feet tall and weighed over four hundred pounds. Most of that was solid muscle. The round belly under the yellow T-shirt looked hard as a big cannon ball and his thick arms were gnarled as oak tree trunks. Duffy had enjoyed a sensational but short career as a tournament Sumo before a dozen moral scandals had disgraced him.
"Out with who?" roared Duffy, glaring around and doubling up his huge fists.
"That troublemaker," bawled Dutch. Duffy then made a natural mistake. As it bad luck would have it happened, Shiro was the only one in the bar not a regular. He had just turned back to speak to Breakstone, when to his outraged amazement, he felt his shirt collar gripped by what felt like a gorilla.
"Let's go, ya little runt," growled Mountain of Iron, hauling Shiro out of his chair and trying to twist him around to get a hammerlock on his right arm.
A Western civilian might have tried to talk through the situation, but Shiro Mitsuru was a gladiator in the borders between Midnight War and the criminal underworld. Direct physical fighting was a daily fact of life for him. Reacting without conscious thought, the Tiger Fury jolted his opponent back with a left hook under the heart that would have killed an ordinary man. Punching Duffy felt like striking a slab of frozen beef. He gave a deafening roar and plunged headlong, locking both of his mighty arms around Shiro. They went to the floor together, smashing a few chairs in their fall. For a second, the Sumo's superior weight enabled him to get on top of Shiro.
But the Tiger Fury could not be pinned down so easily. He wriggled free instantly and jumped up and away from Duffy, who was bellowing like an ox in pain.
"You're not a real Sumo," Shiro teased. "You couldn't even make a living wrestling on American television."
Taking that as a mortal insult, Duffty sputtered incoherently and made no move to attack, seemingly too infuriated to move.
"Wait a minute, please, Mountain of Iron," screamed Margen, pushing against Duffy's broad chest with both hands. "This man is Shiro Mitsuru, the new Tiger Fury of Tel Shai."
"Am I supposed to be impressed?" roared Duffy. "Git outta the way!"
"You can't fight in here," Dutch howled desperately. "If you two tangle here, you'll tear the joint down. I can't afford it. Anyway, he ain't the man that hit me."
"Well, he's the swine that hit ME," rumbled Mountain of Iron.
"Better step aside, Dutch," Shiro snapped. "Let us slug it out. It's the only way."
"No, no!" shrieked Margen. "It cost me five hundred dollars to repair the place after you threw that Shaolin out a month ago and I saw Shiro tackle all three Dawson brothers in a saloon in Hong Kong. They had to rebuild the joint. Come down on the beach, back of the Trader Jim warehouses and fight it out where you can't bust nothin' but each others' noses."
"Ripping idea," put in Breakstone. "You fellows don't want to make a spectacle of yourselves here in a respectable district, and then have to deal withthe police. If you must fight, why don't you do as Margen says?"
Mountain of Iron folded his massive arms and glared sullenly. "Fair enough. I ain't a man to do pointless damage. I'm going at the beach right now. Grab some of your friends, Mitsuru, so as to have fair play all around. And get there as soon as you can."
"Good enough," the Tiger Fury snapped. Turning on his heel, he left the bar. Such a potentially lethal brawl over a misunderstanding did not seem foolish or juvenile to him. But saving 'face' was even more important to Duffy and himself than it was to most East Asians. They were Midnight War fighters. Their reputations had been built the hard way and were valuable. Like gunfighters of the Old West, their pride constantly forced them into fights to maintain status.
III.
III.
Hoping to find someone to serve as a second, the Tiger Fury strode down the narrow ocean-misted streets, meeting with no success. It wasn't the first time that Shiro realized his life of mocking traditional martial arts as over-rated hadn't made him any friends. Being cocky and even arrogant had worked against him so much, but it was too late now to undo the damage. As a last resort, he headed for a curio shop down a little side street in the native quarter, run by a Chinese named Ping, who sold mostly junk trinkets such as sailors bought in foreign ports to mail to their wives and or sweethearts.
With the thought that he might find someone willing there, even a casual acquaintance, Shiro turned into the obscure side street. He noticed that there were even fewer people traversing it than usual. An old man with a cage full of canary birds, a laborer pulling a cart, a dried fish peddler or so, that was all. From an open second story window, an overripe woman with layers of make-up crooked a beckoning finger, but he acted as if he hadn't noticed her.
Shiro paused as he saw the shop just ahead. Then, with a vicious buzz, something hissed by his neck as he instinctively ducked with peak reflexes. It thudded into the wooden wall near his shoulder. A long, thin-bladed throwing knife had penetrated a good three inches into the hard boards and still quivered from the force of the throw.
Dropping into a crouch with his fingertips touching the street, Shiro glared across the street, but all that met his eyes were the blank fronts of a row of vacant shops. The windows all seemed to be boarded up, but obviously that knife had come from one of them. The few passers-by on the street paid no attention to the incident at all. Useless to even try go get any information from them.
And the threat of STIGMA was annoying him. That piece of paper with the yellow skull had been no idle threat. This time, they had struck and missed, but they would surely strike again and again. Typically, Shiro was not afraid or unsettled, he was annoyed at the nuisance.
He entered Ping's shop, with its shelves holding green jade idols, coral jewelry, kimonos and fans and tiny ivory elephants. A bronze Buddha squatted on a raised dais, its blissful face veiled by the smoke of burning joss sticks. Only the proprietor himself, the tall and reserved Ping, stood in the shop.
Shiro had turned to leave, when the proprietor came quickly out from behind his counter.
"You are Shiro Mitsuru, the new Tiger Fury?" said he in good English. Shiro nodded, and he continued in a lowered voice. "You are in danger. Do not ask me how I know. These things have a way of getting about among the Chinese community. Listen to me. I would lead you to a friend. Without his aid, you will be dead before dawn."
"Oh, I don't know," Shiro shrugged. "I'm not too bad in a fight."
"Your skills will not help you." He shook his head. "Your speed and strength cannot aid you. Your enemies will strike secretly and subtly. Their way is that of the cobra. And, like the cobra, they kill swiftly, silently, giving their victim no chance to defend himself."
"It'd be easier if those rats came into the open," Shiro grumbled, knotting his fists until the knuckles showed white. "Get them in front of me and I'll flatten the whole gang. But I can't smoke them out of their hives."
"You must listen to me," said Ping. "I will save you. I have no cause to love the STIGMA."
"They haven't exactly won me over," Shiro grumbled.
"You prevented their chief hatchet-man from slaying Fong Yung-Tao," said Ping. "Fong was doomed. He had tried and sentenced by their most dread tribunal. Fong had intrigued his way into their secret meeting places and councils, to get evidence to use against them in the court. For he was a spy of the government. His life was forfeit and neither the police nor the Secret Service could protect him from the vengeance of the STIGMA. Last night he sought to escape and was trapped by the hatchet-man who hunted him down and caught him almost on the wharves. Fong would have died if you had not intervened. I've received word he is far at sea and safe. But the vengeance of STIGMA is turned upon you. And you are doomed. They will slay you."
"They can try," Shiro scoffed.
"But see, I am your friend," continued Ping. "And I hate STIGMA. I am more than I seem."
"Are you a government spy too?" the Tiger Fury asked. "This island is packed with secret agents..."
"Shh!" He laid his long finger to his lips and glanced around quickly and warily. "The very walls have ears in Xiao-sing. But I will tell you this. There is but one man in Xiao-sing who can save you, who will, if I ask him, speak the word that will make even STIGMA stay their hands."
"Wang-wing Yen, you mean?"
Ping started and peered at him intensely for an instant. Then he seemed to nod, almost imperceptibly. "Tonight I will take you to this man. Let him remain nameless, for the present. You must come alone, hinting your errand to no one. Trust me!"
"It's not many hours till sundown," Shiro muttered. "When and where shall I meet you?"
"Come to me alone, in the Alley of Remorse, as soon as it is well dark. And go now, quickly. We must not be seen too much together. And be wary, lest STIGMA strike again before we meet."
As he left the shop, Shirio had a distinct feeling of relief. Not that he was inclined to trust Ping's mere word, but his evident connection with the famous philosopher Wang-wing Yen, together with what Breakstone had said of that modern mandarin, was slightly reassuring. If he could evade the attacks of the unknown murderers until dark...
Suddenly, with a low curse, Shiro remembered that at this very moment he was supposed to be on his way to the beach to fight Mountain of Iron with his naked fists. Well, it must be done. Even if he died that night, he had to keep that appointment. His career could not go on with men thinking he dared not meet Mountain of Iron in open fight. Besides, the thought came to him, that was the safest place in Xiao-sing. On the open beach, surrounded by peers, with plenty of witnesses, he was actually safer fighting a giant Sumo than he would be walking on the street. The problem lay in getting there alive. He made no further attempts to find a second, but set off at a rapid walk, keeping alert and passing alleyways very warily.
IV.
IV.
Shiro arrived without incident at the strip of open beach behind the big warehouses. The Mountain of Iron was already there, stripped to the waist, growling his impatience and flexing his mighty arms. Dutch was there with a dozen others, all fans and admirers of Duffy. Breakstone was not present, though. Shiro couldn't help wondering about that.
"I couldn't find anyone to man my corner, Duffy," the Tiger Fury admitted. "But I'm not afraid of not getting fair play. I've always heard of you as someone with some basic honor.
"You've kept me waiting long enough," growled the Mountain of Iron. "I was going to take it easy on you but now I'm annoyed."
Everyone present formed a semi-circle well back from where the two combatants would meet at the water's edge. Shiro yanked off his plain T-shirt and tossed it behind him. Stripped, he was a dramatic living sculpture where every sinew and bundle of muscles stood out in vivid relief. He did not look so much like a body-builder as he did a runner. In comparison, Duffy's rounded muscles and sloping shoulders seemed crude and unfinished, and the huge gut did not help that impression.
Nothing needed to be said. Rules were never explicitly laid out in Midnight War duels like these, and although death was not required to end the fights, it was common enough that both men had it in mind.
There on the hot sand beach they circled each other, both of them stripped to the waist with no weapons but their fiercely trained bodies. Tall for an Asian of his time, Shiro Mitsuru stood just under six feet tall and weighed a taut one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Looming up nine inches higher, Steward Duffy weighed well over four hundred pounds but there was nothing soft or unimpressive about him. The mismatch was so overstated that every witness present expected to see Shiro crushed within seconds.
The Tiger Fury weighed his strategies as he approached this giant who had never known defeat. In sheer strength and bulk Duffy obviously had the edge. But Shiro's confidence was unbreakable. When he had been eleven, his parents had started him sparring grown men, then multiple men at the same time. In Shiro's mind, no human was too big for him to beat.
Fists raised, Duffy rushed forward like a charging bull and Shiro met him half-way. The Tiger Fury whirled on his left heel and whipped up a reverse spinning kick that crashed his heel directly to the center of Duffy's face. That stopped the Sumo dead in his tracks. He wasn't hurt, though, he roared and came on again, shaking his head in anger and throwing left and right roundhouses. Shiro crouched under those too-wide swings to pound both hands to the Mountain of Iron's body. The Tiger Fury was nimble enough and skilled enough to avoid his opponent's blows for a time, but that was no way to win a fight like this one.
Duffy towered over his more agile foe. He was neither clumsy nor slow, it was only Shiro's extreme agility that made him seem so in contrast. The Tiger Fury danced out of reach of each terrible swing, lunging back in to land his own blows. Again and again Shiro had him floundering, but always the Sumo recovered with a bone-crushing attack that could not be altogether avoided. Getting in close, ducking inside the wide looping blows, Shiro drummed both fists to Duffy's body and head. It was a reliable Wing Chun tactic. Even staggering under a machine-gun fire of short hooks and uppercuts, the Mountain of Iron suddenly ripped up an uppercut of his own. Shiro's head sung back as if his neck was broken. Only blind instinct made kept him from falling into Mountain of Iron's clinch. Grappling would be a final mistake even against a normal Sumo, and with Duffy it would be fatal.
The onlookers had formed a tense ring that drew back as they saw how powerful these fighters really were. Getting too close suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. No one spoke. There was no other sound save the scuffling of feet on the beach, the thud and smash of savagely driven blows, an occasional grunt or growl. Duffy's rock-hard fist banged against Shiro's eye, half blinding it. In instant retaliation, the Tiger Fury threw a left backfist and right hook full into his opponent's mouth. The Sumo spit out a shattered tooth.
Within the first few seconds, Duffy gave away his weak aspects. The Mountain of Iron was too fond of using his right and didn't feint. He drew each punch back too far before he let it go. Again and again, Shiro intercepted him with his left hand, and this made raw beef out of the right side of Duffy's face.
Through a hazy red mist, Shiro saw the Mountain of Iron's face blurred before him, with the lips smashed and pulped, one eye closed and blood streaming from his nose. Despite a lifetime of conditioning, Shiro's arms were growing heavy and his feet slow. He stumbled as he side-stepped, with the familiar salty taste of blood in his mouth. The Tiger Fury launched kicks and punches as each opening presented itself but every time he connected, it jarred him as if he were striking an oak tree. From his peripheral vision as he moved about, he saw the strained, tense faces of the onlookers.
From seemingly nowhere smashed Mountain of Iron's thundering right hand square on the point of Shiro's chin. The Tiger Fury felt himself teetering over an abyss of blackness filled with a million gleams of light. His back hit the beach hard, and the jolt of the fall jarred him back into full awareness. He looked up, blinking both blood and sweat out of his eyes, and saw the Mountain of Iron overhead. The Sumo was swaying, wide-braced on his elephantine legs but he had been badlyb weakened. The great chest was heaving uncontrollably as his breath came in rapid shallow gasps. Hyperventilating, always a bad sign. With sheer will, the Tiger Fury managed to get up on his feet. The knowledge that Duffy was having a hard time was all the encouragement that Shiro needed.
"You're... pretty good," the Mountain of Iron croaked, lurching toward his unyielding foe. Shiro took a deep stance and braced himself to meet that right. The blow made only a glancing contact and Shiro blasted both fists directly under Duffy's heart. He reeled drunkenly, but came back with a left swing that grazed the Tiger Fury's jawline and broke the skin. Again he swung his right fist but stiffly like a club. Shiro swayed away and lunged back in with a left hook that cracked on the side of the Sumo's head. Contact was too high and he felt his already swollen knuckles crack against that hard skull.
But taking that damage was worth it. Stuart Duffy bent forward, head drooping, his broad chest heaving ferociously. For a second, all his defenses were down. Shiro seized the back of the Sumo's head with both hands and yanked down hard while raising his own right knee. The mushy thump was immensely satisfying. The giant brute swayed to one side and crashed to the sand without any pretense of trying to catch himself. Shiro staggered back and barely kept his balance by windmilling his arms. But the outcome of the fight was undeniable. He was still on his feet, still standing, while the Mountain of Iron stretched out senseless at his feet.
Dazed by pain and exhaustion, Shiro only vaguely felt men about him and heard their awed congratulations. Sure, he thought, NOW they're on my side! Dutch was staring down at the snoring bulk of Mountain of Iron with a sort of unbelieving horror.
Then came memory returned of the threat of STIGMA. Shiro shook the blood and sweat from his eyes, pulling away from the men who were fawning over him. The sun was setting. If he expected to see that sun rise again, he knew he must meet Ping and go with him to find Wang-wing Yen and deal with STIGMA. This duel had not been the most important crisis on his agenda.
Snatching up his T-shirt, Shiro staggered away from the amazed men and reeled drunkenly up the beach. Out of sight of the group, he dropped from sheer exhaustion. It was long minutes before he could rise and go on. That had been way too close a victory to allow him any satisfaction.
His mind cleared as he walked, and his head ceased to sing from Mountain of Iron's smashes. Shiro was thoroughly weary and bruised. It seemed to be taking forever to get his wind back. His left hand was swollen and sore enough that he thought it might be broken, and the skin was torn off his right knuckles. One of his eyes was partly closed, his lips were smashed and cut, his ribs battered black and blue. But he had endured worse beatings many times in his violent life. Even though he had only been on the Tagra tea regimen of Tel Shai for a short time, its effects were beginning to boost his recuperative power beyond what medical science could explain. Shiro regained his breath and shook off some of his weariness. If not back to normal, he felt at least able to function as he neared the Alley of Remorse, in the growing darkness.
V.
Shiro began to wonder why STIGMA had not struck again. There was something inexplicable about the whole business. Since that knife had been flung at him earlier in the day, he had had no sign at all of any threat from them. Maybe the knife toss had been unrelated? God knew he had managed to make plenty of enemies with bitter grudges against him.
The Tiger Fury made it without incident to the narrow, stinking opening between buildings which the locals called for some unknown reason the Alley of Remorse. It was pitch-dark there. Suddenly a figure loomed up beside him. In an automatic response, he struck out at the figure and barely pulled his backhand in time when Ping's voice sounded. He was like a ghost in the deep shadows.
"Come with me," whispered the man. And Shiro groped after him. Down that alley he led, then across another even darker and nastier. Through a wide shadowy courtyard. Down a narrow side street, deep in the heart of what Shiro knew must be a foreboding native quarter seldom seen by outsiders. Down another alley and into a dimly lighted courtyard. They stopped before a heavy arched doorway.
As he rapped upon the wood, the eeriness and brooding himstery of the place weighed down on Shiro. In all his travels, he had seldom felt more keenly being in the very heart of ancient and enigmatic otherness. The very shadows seemed lurking perils. The Tiger Fury tried to remain loose and untensed, ready to instantly move in any direction.
Three times Ping rapped, then twice more. The door swung silently inward to disclose a veritable well of darkness. Shiro could not even see who had opened the door. Ping entered first, motioning him to follow. Shiro stepped in and the door slammed behind him with the click of a heavy lock. And then the lights came on. While Shirp blinked like a blinded owl, he heard a low throaty chuckle in the second before his eyes became accustomed to the light. He was in a vast, high-ceilinged room furnished in classic style. The walls were covered with velvet and silken hangings, ornamented with silver dragons worked into the fabric. A faint scent of some Eastern incense or perfume pervaded the atmosphere.
Ranged about he were ten big, dark, wicked-faced men, naked except for loin-cloths. Malays! Tougher and stronger than normal men. On a kind of tiger-skin covered dais across the room an unmistakable Chinaman sat on a lacquer-worked chair. He was clad in robes worked in dragons like those on the hangings, and his keen piercing eyes gleamed through holes in the yellow skull mask which hid his features. But it was the figure which stood image-like beside the lacquered chair which drew and held Shiro's gaze. It was the hatchet-man from whom he had rescued Fong Yung-Tao on the wharfs only that morning.
As he had expected, Shiro knew he was trapped. It showed supreme self-assurance to walk into a snare just to get things over with. The yellow silk mask with the black skull logo was conclusive. This crimelord was part of STIGMA, even a leader. And Ping had not brought me to the Honorable Wang-wing Yen. He had brought me before the nameless and mysterious chief of STIGMA, to be cruelly killed.
And there Ping stood right at hand, leering in unbearable smugness. Shiro acted instinctively. Square into the man's mouth the Tiger Fury crashed a short straight right before Ping could react. Teeth caved in and he dropped straight down as if shot.
The masked man on the dais laughed. And in his laughter sounded all the ancient and heartless cruelty of a madman.
"You mixed-breed animal! You may be strong and fierce," he mocked. "But this night, you savage mutt, you shall learn what it is to interfere with the plans of Grandmaster of STIGMA. You are a fool to pit your feeble powers against mine. I hate your arrogant civilization.
"Know before you die, that the ancient dragon that is China is breaking slowly from the corruption of Western influences, and their doom is not far off. Soon I, the Grandmaster of the STIGMA, will emerge from the shadows, raise the dragon banner of revolution and mount again the ancient throne of m ancestors. Your fate will be the fate of all your impure race who oppose me. I laugh at you. Do you deem yourself important because the future emperor of all Asia lowers himself to see personally to your removal? Bah! I merely crush you as I crush the gnat that annoys me."
Then the crimelord barked shortly to the Malays, "Kill him!"
They closed in on Shiro silently from all directions, drawing knives, strangling cords and loaded cudgels. It looked hopeless for a fighter with two black and swollen eyes, his ribs pounded black and blue, one hand broken, pitted against these trained killers. They approached warily. Shiro tensed himself for one last rush. The thought flashed through him that at least few of the attackers would escape him fate. He prayed that it might be so.
The Tiger Fury drew back into a ready stance, tensed and watchful as a hawk. The ring was closing in on him. The nearest Malay edged within reach. He raised his knife for the death leap. Shiro smashed a downward heel to his closer knee and distinctly heard the bone snap. He went down. Shiro leaped across him and crashed into that closing encirclement as a plunging fullback hits a line.
Cudgels swished past his weaving head. The Tiger Fury felt a knife slice along his ribs but then he was through the attackers, bounding across the room and up onto the dais.
The Grandmaster screamed. He jerked a pistol from his robes. How he missed at that range can only be attributed to panic. The powder flash burned Shiro's face, but before the crimelord could fire again, the Tiger Fury sent him wheeling head over heels with a side kick that broke bones. The pistol flew out of reach.
The hatchet-man was on Shiro like a clawing cat. He drove a long knife deep into the Tiger Fury's upper chest muscle. Then the Tiger Fury got in a solid ram's head punch . The killer's jaw was brittle and slewed off its attachment. Shiro hoisted the limp form up bodily above his head and hurled the man into the clump of Malays who were leaping up on the dais, bowling over the front line in a tangle. The rest still came at him.
Carried beyond himself on a red wave of desperate battle fury, Shiro caught up the lacquered chair and swung it with all his strength. Squarely it landed and he felt his victim's shoulder bone give way. But the chair flew into splinters. Then a whistling cudgel stroke laid his scalp open and drove him to his knees. The whole pack piled on, hacking and slashing, but their very numbers hindered them. Somehow, he managed to shake them off momentarily and stagger up.
A big Chinese that Shiro had not seen before bobbed up from nowhere and got a bone-breaking wrestling hold on his right arm. A giant Malay was thrusting for him life. he could not wrench right free. So, setting his teeth, Shiro smashed him with his broken left hand. The Tiger Fury went sick and dizzy from the pain of it, but the Malay dropped like a sack.
But they downed him again, as seemed inevitable. They swarmed over Shiro and forced him down by sheer weight of man-power. Everyone heard Grandmaster screaming with the rage of a fiend in his voice. A wiry, dark-robbed killer raised his icepick knife and drove it down toward Shiro's heart. Somehow, he managed to throw up his left arm and deflect the blow at the price of a deep gouge. That forearm felt asw if it had been lit on fire.
The door crashed and splintered. A deep voice roared like an enraged grizzly. And something irresistable exploded into the clump of natives on top of Shiro.
The press slackened as the group flew apart. The Tiger Fury reeled up, sick, dizzy and weak from loss of the blood that was spurting freely in half a dozen places. Half-dead, Shiro gawked at a bronzed giant plowing through the assassins with irresistable force.
The Mountain of Iron!
VI.
Shiro saw him seize a Malay in each hand by the neck, crack their heads together and throw them aside into a corner. A dusky brute ran in, lunging upward with a stroke meant to disembowel, only to be stretched senseless by one backhand blow of Mountain of Iron's mighty fist. A big Chinese wrestler got a headlock on Duffy from behind. But Mountain of Iron easily broke the hold, wheeled and threw the wrestler clear over his shoulders to hit the floor with his head. He wouldn't be getting up by himself.
That was enough for the STIGMA men. They scattered like a flock of birds startled with a gunshot. All except the masked Grandmaster. He sprang for the fallen pistol. Before he could reach it, Shiro intercepted him. A short knife-edge chop with the edge of his hand snapped the crimelord's neck audibly but then the Tiger Fury himself dropped to his hands and knees.
Mountain of Iron came quickly toward him. "Damn, Mitsuru," he rumbled, "you look like you were stampeded by wild horses. Here, lemme tie up some of them stabs before you bleed to death. You've lost a gallon of blood already. We got to git you where you can git these wounds dressed right by a proper doctor. But for the time bein' we'll see can we stop the bleedin'."
He ripped strips from his own shirt and began to bandage the wounds. Allowing this ministration meekly for a change, Shiro gazed at Duffy in amazement. He had known the man's vitality was unusual, but Mountain of Iron's endurance was beyond belief. He looked as if he'd been dragged behind a train. Shiro was astounded to realize the extent to which Duffy had absorbed punishment and yet seemed almost as fresh and fit as ever. The impacts which had broken his nose, smashed his lips, ripped his ears, shattered some of his teeth and left his jaw swollen had not sapped the vast reservoir of his vitality. The fight had merely weakened him momentarily and knocked him out, that was all. And accomplishing that feat had seemingly taken a bigger toll on Shiro than it had on Duffy.
Shiro had a flash of insight that very likely the Sumo had developed a gralic power of some sort. The huge body had been so difficult to hurt and had shown strength greater than even its size could explain. Maybe Duffy would become invulnerable in time, maybe he would grow even bigger and stronger. Such changes had happened.
"I supposed you'd be laid up for a week after our fight," the Tiger Fury said lamely.
He snorted. "Do you think I'm a sissy? I wasn't out more than a few minutes. As soon as I'd got back my breath, I was ready to get on with the fight. Of course I'm kinda stiff and tired right now, but that's normal.
"When I'd got my bearin's I looked around for you. Dutch and his boys had a hard time convincin' me that I'd been beaten for the first time in my life. I still don't see how it could have happened. Anyway, I started right out to find you and take you apart, because my self-respect was hurt. A tourisy had seen you go into the Alley of Remorse and I followed not far behind you. I know Xiao-sing better'n most outsiders, but I got clean tangled up in all them alley-ways and courtyards. I heard the noise inside. So knowin' you must be in some kind of a jam, I simply busted in. Who was these thugs, anyhow?"
Shiro told him quickly about Fong Yung-Tao and STIGMA. He growled,"I mighta known it. I've heard stories about them. But after what we did just now, I bet they won't put any more death threats on outsiders very soon. Come on, let's get outa here."
"I don't know how to thank you, Duffy," Shiro said. "You certainly saved my hide..."
"Aw, save your breath," he grunted. "I couldn't see them clowns bump off a good man. And you'd sure give 'em a tussle by yourself. Naw, don't thank me. After all, I was lookin' for you to finish the fight. Maybe I still am."
"Well," said the Tiger Fury, "I hate to beat up a man who saved my life, but if you're set on it..."
Duffy laughed gustily and slapped his sparring partner on the back. "Hell and damnation, Shiro, I wouldn't hit a man who has just stopped as many knives as you have. Anyway, I'm beginning to like your attitude. Hey, who's this?"
A tall man in European clothes stepped suddenly into the doorway, with a revolver in one hand.
"Breakstone? Shiro asked. "Hell. What are you doing here?"
"Following a tip-off I got earlier in the evening," he said crisply. "I got wind of a secret session of the STIGMA to be held here."
"So you are a Secret Service agent after all," Shiro said slowly. "If I'd known that, I might not have all these knife-stabs in my hide. If you've got a license to kill, you might have used it and saved some time."
"I've been gathering evidence on STIGMA for some time," he answered. "Working with special powers invested in me by British and Chinese authorities. Who's this dead fellow?"
"He called himself Grandmaster and boasted that he was the high lord of STIGMA and the next emperor of all Asia," Shiro answered, with an involuntary shudder from loss of blood. He stepped forward and tore away the silk mask, revealing the smooth-skinned face and clean-cut aristocratic features of a middle-aged Northern Chinese.
Breakstone recoiled with an exclamation."My word! Can it be possible! No wonder he delayed the aid he promised the government, and he only promised it to divert suspicion. And no wonder he was able to keep his true identity a secret. Duffy, Shiro, this man is the Honorable Wang-wing Yen."
"What, the philosopher and do-gooder?" Duffy was even more amazed than Shiro.
Breakstone nodded slowly. "What strange quirk in his nature led him along this path?" he said half to himself. "With that great mind he had, he might have risen to great heights in government or academia. But some strange twist in his soul misled him. Who can explain it?"
Duffy seemed to be groping for words. "I used to think I had people figured out. But the more I see, the less I understand why people act the way they do."
"Heh," Shiro managed to chuckle despite his pain and weakness. "After all, look at us."
4/26/2023
