第38节

the

battle-marshals with a wave and ran to their allotted positions without

breaking their stride.

Swinging to the right, to the western side of the lagoon, Mr Snow could

see the C'Natti 'army' advancing along the route taken by the She-Kargo

faction's worldly goods. Having stolen away two hours after midnight,

the baggage train and its escort of San'Paul warriors were now safely

across the narrow point of the river estuary.

Half their number had reached the top of the bluffs, but a long

jostling line of porters trailed back down the path onto the shore

below.

Come on, come on, come on! Move! Move. Move!

It was a nail-biting moment. The C'Natti were closing the gap at an

alarming speed, but because of the initial confusion surrounding their

departure and the circuitous route they were obliged to follow, the

leading groups were still some way behind-the She-Kargo column on the

upper safid-bar. Mr Snow prayed they would not succeed in drawing

level. If his plan was to succeed the She-Kargo faction had to reach

the shore and scale the bluffs before the C'Natti crossed the river

estuary and turned to cut the She-Kargo line of retreat - a danger

Mack-Truck had already foreseen.

O, Talisman, our Saviour on high, give wings to the feet of our

warriors, and give us the power to defeat our enemies.

y this time, the four remaining boats in the flotilla had run the

square-cut bows of their vessels onto the gently shelving beach below

the trading post. The joint D'Troit and C'Natti war council led by

Prime-Cut, Judas-Priest, Screaming-Tree, Flesh-Eater, Corpse-Grinder

and WarMachine had kept back some ten thousand delegates to provide an

impressive welcoming committee. Taking their cue from Prime-Cut, all

of them cheered wildly as the masked, richly-dressed samurai came

hurrying ashore in their curious bandy-legged fashion as soon as the

wide gangways had been lowered into place.

Cutting short the usual formalities, Samurai-General Shinoda dispensed

with the services of an interpreter-spokesman and demanded a direct

explanation of what was happening.

His boat-captain, Kato Yukinagi, stood nearby, flanked by the worried

commanders of the Ko-Nikka and Se-Iko vessels. Neither had expected to

find themselves in the middle of a war-zone.

Prime-Cut had already worked out the crucial elements of his reply with

one of the Yama-Shita's forward agents.

After delivering a brief, highly-coloured and totally biased account of

what had happened the day before, he formally requested the assistance

of the Iron Masters in punishing the treacherous She-Kargo. Had it not

been for the vigilance of the D'Troit, he declared, these hired lackeys

of the sand-burrowers would have attempted to seize the wheel-boats and

murder their crews!

Hawwwwhh! The leading samurai from the YamaShita family crowded behind

Shinoda and the wheel-boat captains reacted with a convincing degree of

shock and horror, striding to and fro, and posturing in a warlike

manner to express their outrage.

If the noble Iron Masters were willing to come to the aid of their

loyal friends, cried Judas-Priest, they must do so quickly!

Oshio Shinoda went through the motions of consulting the Se-Iko and

Ko-Nikka captains, but while they were formulating their answer, the

first of the YamaShita's mounted samurai came clattering down the

gangways of their two beached vessels.

As strangers in a strange land, the Se-Iko and Ko-Nikka could do little

else but agree. They had not come prepared for trouble but having come

this far - at great expense - they did not want to return

empty-handed.

By the time they had conferred and given their reluctant agreement to

the proposed military action, the first two squadrons of samurai

cavalry had already departed at the gallop; the first along the

sand-bar, the second around the western side of the lagoon. And

seconds after the SeIko and Ko-Nikka had penned their assent to the

bottom of a document that Shinoda had thoughtfully prepared to cover