第30节

is sword and rushed towards Steve with a fearsome yell. A

bad move. Just as in the fight with the back-up squad, Steve's blade

moved faster than the eye could register. The first forward thrust

severed the samurai's sword hand at the wrist, the ?second drove the

curved end of the blade sideways through his throat, cutting his neck

clean through to the spine.

Two down, ten to go...

Ordinarily, such odds would have given him pause for thought, but

Steve's killer instinct was now well and truly roused. He dragged the

blood-drenched body of the samurai out of the way, shut the door firmly

and headed back up towards the arena past the second casualty. The

Jap lay on his back, choking on his own blood as he clawed feebly at

the arrow in his throat. Steve eyed him without compassion.

Boy... what a fluke shot that had been.

An image of Clearwater came into his mind and a voice told him it was

she who had used her gifts as a summoner to give the bladed

quarterstaff its power. But was it a finite charge? If so, how long

would it last? Was that the gist of the message her clan sister,

Night-Fever, had been unable to remember when she had presented the

staff to him on his return to the clan? Jeeezz! Steve ran on, hoping

like hell that the Mute magic was not about to fade out on him like the

power in a battery pack. With the kind of odds he was facing he needed

all the help he could get.

Racing back into the centre of the arena, Steve saw that the odds had

dropped to seven to one. A considerable number of arrows, fired by

unseen defenders, were now flying in all directions without finding a

target. An intermittent series of loud bangs followed by puffs of

smoke told him that somebody was using one of the primitive

drum-magazine rifles that the Iron Masters had supplied to the

M'Calls.

The smoke issued from the mouth of a cave on the third her but the

rifleman's aim was bad and his ineffectual shots only served to

increase the samurai's anger and bloodlust.

Only the leader now remained on horseback, directing operations. Two

archers covered him, firing at anything that moved on the terraces.

Armed with burning brands, the other four were now systematically

attacking the ground-floor caves on the right of the arena. Smoke

billowed from the interiors of those that were already alight. As the

panic-stricken women and children ran out in a vain effort to escape

the flames, they were struck down.

This, thought Steve, has gone on long enough.

Running towards the centre of the arena, he planted his feet firmly on

the rocky ground and yelled defiantly at the mounted samurai. There

was no more than fifty yards between them. To judge from the shrill

reaction, the sight of an armed Mute seemed to give the rider'

apoplexy. Wheeling his horse round to face Steve, the samurai ordered

the two archers to cut the insolent lumphead down.

Once again, Steve made two incredible deflections, catching the

converging arrows on either side of the blade and sending them winging

past him with an adroit flick of the wrist. And again. And again!

Zzzikk -zzzokk!

Pow-Pow.t ,Away they went. His reaction time and his perception seemed

to have speeded up by several thousand per cent. The arrows appeared

to float slowly towards him, giving him plenty of time to bat them out

of the way.

Hhhhawwww! The head samurai practically fell out of the saddle. His

startled archers had another cause for worry. With all the previous

mayhem they were now out of arrows. And Steve was closing in the gap

between them, moving in for the kill. Out came the swords, but neither

man was keen to make the first move against what was clearly a serious

contender. The rider, however, figured he had a clear advantage, and

spurred his horse forward, psyching himself up with a tongue-twisting

battlecry.

Steve waited until he got up some speed, heaved a rock at him, then

sprinted rapidly off to the left towards the terrace of boulders that

formed the edge of the arena. His path was angled past the oncoming

samurai, forcing him into a choice between making a wide galloping

turn, or hauling back on the reins in order to hang a sharp right.