Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (35 page)

DOC’S WORRIED MEN exhausted the last of their supply of flares attempting to follow the progress of Johnny Littlejohn as the elongated archeologist landed hard, shucked off his parachute harness and plunged into the swirling cyclone of Mongol horsemen.

His supermachine pistol emitted tiny flashes as he fought his way up the mountain pass.

“Lookit!” Monk exploded, leveling a hairy arm downward. “He’s tryin’ to bust his way through.”

“It’s suicide!” Ham gritted. “Nothing less.”

“Foolhardy for sure,” added Long Tom.

Doc Savage made swooping pass after pass, employing the landing lights of the
Brazen Devil
to illuminate the swirling sea of figures.

A Mongol horseman, curved sword raised high, charged the bony beanpole, evidently intent upon separating him from his head. Johnny’s long neck no doubt presented a tempting target.

Yet the wild maneuver did not come off as planned.

Johnny dropped the Mongol with a single well-placed shot and, reaching up, hauled him off his stunted pony. Mounting the riderless equine, he leapt into the vacant saddle and, lashing his new-found steed, charged up the mountain pass, fighting his way through the swell of cavalry seeking escape.

Evidently, the maddened geologist wasn’t recognized at first, for his scarecrow form managed to disappear into the panic.

Soon, Johnny was lost from sight.

Crisscrossing the pass, Doc Savage failed to pick up any sign of him again.

Dousing the landing lights, the bronze man banked sharply, his flake-gold eyes intent in a brittle way. The bomb bay doors had been raised, but the interior remained bitterly cold.

Monk groaned, “How are we gonna find that wordy old bone bag if we can’t see ’im?”

“Wait,” cautioned Doc. “Johnny has not exhausted his ammunition.”

A jittering series of flashes lit up the mountain pass. It was the unmistakable sign of a supermachine pistol discharging with blinding rapidity.

Booting rudder, Doc arrowed toward those brief detonations. The bomber lurched sickeningly, dropping off one brazen wing.

Heeling, they overflew the spot. Doc tripped the landing lights. They blazed forth, scalding the fantastically rugged terrain below. This time, the bronze man spotted the long-limbed figure he sought.

Johnny was being hauled off his frantic pony by hooked poles designed to unseat enemy riders. Long arms flailing, he was attempting to brain his tormentors with his empty superfirer, knocking one worthy off his booted feet. But there were too many of them. He was surrounded.

Finally, a horseman surged up and laid the flat of his blade against Johnny’s angular skull. Longish hair flying, the skeletal archeologist went down, angular limbs folding awkwardly.

As they flew on by, the lights picked up the face of a Mongol looking up and shaking his fist at them. They all recognized his wild, windy countenance.

“Chinua!” yelled Monk. “Chinua got Johnny!”

“But where’s Timur?” asked Ham.

No one knew. There was no sign of the metal-masked warlord in the milling sea of horsemen below.

“What the blazes do we do now?” howled Monk.

“We cannot very well land in the mountains,” Doc pointed out.

“So we leave Johnny to the wolves!”

Ham offered gallantly, “I, for one, am willing to parachute down after him.”

“Count me in, too,” rumbled Renny.

To which Long Tom added, “That too-tall drink of water can’t last long by his lonesome.”

Doc shook his head gravely. “We will lay plans for his rescue.”

“What if they lop off his fool head first?” Monk demanded.

“Timur is too wise for that,” insisted Doc. “He will value Johnny as a hostage.”

“Mebbe,” muttered Monk. “But I ain’t so sure about that Chinua.”

But that was the only consolation the bronze man offered as he lifted the brazen bomber over jagged peaks in search of a suitable landing field.

Chapter L

THE ORACLE

TIMUR KHAN WATCHED the moon-burnished airplane disappear over the mountains. Behind his mask of meteoric iron, his canine yellow eyes blazed with naked hatred.

He did not know what manner of soldiers had descended upon him in the winged wagon of metal, but he had his suspicions.

Those suspicions were confirmed when General Chinua rode up and presented him with the prisoner who had fallen from the sky.

Timur had only a rudimentary understanding of aircraft and parachutes, for these things did not exist in his own time. But he did not doubt this evidence of his senses. He had flown in a Japanese transport plane, and while it was a wondrous if not miraculous experience, the novelty of airplanes had since worn off. Being a man who lived in the saddle, he did not like them.

“My Khan,” boomed out Chinua. “I bring you a trophy of battle.”

“A trophy of defeat, you mean,” chattered Timur.

Undaunted, the wolfish Mongol threw the limp-limbed figure of Johnny Littlejohn from his saddle, sprawling him out at his Khan’s booted feet.

The skeleton-thin archeologist rolled on the steep mountain road. Moonlight shone on his exposed face, which was etched with skull-like lunar shadows, hollowing out his sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes.

“I know this long one,” snapped Timur. “He rides with the brazen giant.”

Chinua said, “The bronze devil is the one who attacked us. Therefore, he is going back on your warning, and his mercenary must pay the penalty.”

With those words, Chinua drew his
kilij
sabre. It flashed in the moonlight.

Timur looked down at the unconscious archaeologist, then twisted his armored head around and cocked one ear to listen for the motors of the bronze-winged aircraft. Their moan continued to dwindle in the night.

“The foreign devil is not returning,” Timur Khan said stiffly.

“He has exhausted his fight,” spat Chinua.

Stepping down from his saddle, Chinua marched over to Johnny Littlejohn, seized his long hair in one hand, and lifted the throat while he knelt in preparation to remove the head.

“No,” commanded Timur.

“You would spare him?” Chinua asked in surprise.

“For a time. He will be our hostage. For the bronze barbarian will return.”

A twinge of surprise on his face, Chinua released Johnny’s head, which fell and struck a flat stone. The bony archaeologist was oblivious to the fresh injury. Chinua stood up, sheathing his sword.

Timur looked around him. The greater portion of his newly raised army had been scattered by the brazen bird that laid eggs so terrible that strong men fell from their saddles, or were driven mad by pestilences which ranged from an uncontrollable itching to crying and wailing.

“Behead those who wail like women,” Timur commanded his general.

“They cannot help it,” Chinua retorted. “It is a potion that makes them carry on so.”

“Then behead only one quarter of them, as a lesson to the others. Timur Khan does not lead crying women into battle.”

Turning, Chinua remounted and rode off to do his Khan’s bidding.

GUIDING his horse over to the pony on which was balanced a tied-down carven casket, Timur Khan gave the perforated teak container a rap with his curved sword.

“Oracle!” he barked out. “You know the bronze one. What will he do next?”

A miserable voice coughed out, “He will return. He will not abandon his man. He will hunt you down.”

Timur laughed creakily. “You would like that, would you not, little worm?”

“I would like to die,” said the deep voice from the box.

“If I ever awaken with mercy in my heart, I will grant you that boon. Until then, you are my plaything.”

A low groan escaped the box. That was all.

Calling out to a Mongol infantryman who was catching up, Timur barked instructions to place the lanky body of Johnny Littlejohn astride the pony which carried the oracle in the box.

Two Mongols were needed to accomplish this task, owing to the shortness of the average Mongol and the great height and prodigiously long limbs of Johnny Littlejohn. The bony archaeologist was soon tied down. He did not reawaken.

Out of the night, the swish and chunk of keen-edged blades removing heads came with alarming regularity. This went on for some time. There were cries, screams, and abrupt silences that choked off unfinished pleas for mercy. But there was no mercy. Many of those cut down were the unfortunates whose exposed faces and hands had been turned white by chemical action, their ghostly faces marking them for death by the superstitious Mongols.

In time, Chinua returned with the remustered cavalry. Twelve dozen strong.

“My lord, these men are with us to the death,” he reported.

“Our numbers have decreased greatly,” Timur Khan said in his rusty creaking voice.

Chinua laughed cruelly. “We will replenish them! For there are many Chinese who would rather ride with us, their heads held high, than go to their ancestors without skulls between their shoulders.”

Timur Khan nodded, and wheeled around, leading his Iron Horde up the mountain pass in search of what lay beyond it. Moonlight shining on his iron countenance made him resemble a cold-faced, sulfur-eyed demon of destruction.

Chapter LI

THE IRON DRAGON

IT TOOK THE greater portion of the night to cross the winding mountain pass.

Timur Khan rode along in silence, his head swiveling this way and that, his feral eyes looking out from his moon-silvered battle mask.

General Chinua studied him carefully. He had not known his Khan very long, but already he could read the man’s moods by his words and his silences.

Although Timur’s face was concealed by a cunningly wrought mask of metal, which rendered his features unreadable, General Chinua watched the armored limbs of his Khan as he rode along. They did not tremble so much as before. That meant Timur was angry. The fury burning his heart had spread out to his limbs, stilling them. Chinua had seen this phenomenon before. So he knew the signs.

The bronze American known as Doc Savage had been spared his life by the generosity of Timur Khan. He had gone back on that assurance of safe passage and rained destruction upon the Iron Horde. Chinua knew that this was an unforgivable offense. Timur rode along silently because his cunning brain was seizing upon ways in which to get back at the bronze devil.

There was no doubt in Chinua’s mind that Doc Savage and his men faced a cruel and implacable justice should they dare to place themselves at Timur’s mercy. Their fate would be terrible. Their heads would be forfeit. Well did General Chinua know the details of Timur’s retribution back in the days when he was the most powerful emir ever to storm across Asia.

Truly, the fate of Doc Savage and his warriors would be awful. Memorably so.

The sullen remnants of the Iron Horde were still wending their way through the mountain pass when the red sun started peeping resentfully up in the east, presaged by a deep purple sky. It shed a blazing light that made the flattened tops of mountains—which had been terraced in order to plant rice and other Chinese vegetables—glow like furnaces.

Far in the distance, Timur spied a smoky smudge. It appeared to be moving along the ground. He stared at this for a long time.

Finally, he turned to Chinua riding beside him and demanded, “What makes that smoke?”

From his saddle, the Mongol general took out his antique telescope. Unfolding it, he trained the glass upon the distant blot. He worked the lens around, studying the ground as well.

“It is a locomotive,” he told Timur.

“I do not know that word. What is a locomotive?”

Passing the spyglass over to his Khan, Chinua grunted, “It is like a dragon forged of iron which belches fire and smoke as it moves along its tracks.”

Lifting the spyglass, Timur studied it intensely. “It walks in its own tracks?”

Chinua shook his head. “Behold the rails of steel that run along the ground.”

Timur shifted the telescope, and saw something he failed to comprehend. Bars of steel running parallel along the hard ground, resting atop wooden cross-pieces. They swept along the undulating countryside, having no discernible purpose.

Soon, Timur was able to perceive the locomotive more clearly. It was a monstrous thing, incredible to behold, which raced along the tracks, throwing a broad beam of light ahead of it. Even in the early dawn, this headlight made the tracks stark against the rugged terrain.

“What manner of war machine is this?” demanded Timur, reaching for the hilt of his sheathed
kilij
sabre.

“It is not a weapon of war,” returned Chinua.

Timur grunted. “What does it do?”

“It is like the metal birds that fly, only it does not fly. It runs along the tracks like a caravan of wagons, but cannot travel anywhere but where the tracks guide it to go.”

Timur growled, “You told me what it is. I asked you what it does.”

“The locomotive is an engine that pulls great wheeled wagons behind it.”

Something stirred deep in shadowed yellow orbs. “What is in these wagons?”

“Men, women, children. Mail. And goods for market.”

“How does one stop it?” asked Timur, a thread of interest in his rusty tone.

“The one who runs the locomotive can stop it.”

“By my words I meant, how can
we
stop it?” returned Timur.

“The locomotive must follow the tracks,” explained Chinua. “If we get ahead of the tracks to tear them up and block the way, the locomotive must stop, otherwise it will destroy itself in its headlong charge.”

Raising his voice, Timur commanded, “Give the order. Tear up the tracks and stop the smoking dragon of iron and fire, for I wish to defeat it.”

“At once, my lord,” returned Chinua. Wheeling about on his pony, he gave voice to the order. Mongols carried the directive down the line into the mountain pass through which they were steadily working.

Chinua did not wait for the orders to reach the back of the Iron Horde. He sent his pony galloping forward; the others charged after him.