Blade delivered a devastating right uppercut on Tiger’s jaw.
Tiger felt his feet leave the balance beam. The entire world appeared to be moving in slow motion. He glimpsed the shocked faces of the Sharks, then the ceiling overhead, and then he was crashing to the floor and he felt like his body was being torn apart. The last sight he beheld was the giant on the balance beam, gazing down at him with an oddly sad countenance.
Why was the giant sad?
Blade’s mouth curled downward as he saw the spikes tearing into Tiger and spearing out his body. Blood gushed everywhere. One of the spikes tore through Tiger’s heart.
Tiger’s eyes glazed over and he died with a puzzled expression on his face.
The chamber was deathly still.
Blade forced himself to look away, to see how the Sharks were reacting to the death of their leader.
They were paralyzed. Some were gaping at Tiger’s body in manifest horror, while others were gawking at the giant on the balance beam in awe, astounded speechless.
Blade perceived he was still in danger, still on the balance beam with the spikes all around, unarmed in a chamber full of enemies. He decided to get off the beam and retrieve his Bowies.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was standing calmly, his bound wrists in front of him.
The twins exchanged nervous glances.
“He killed Tiger!” a woman abruptly wailed.
“The son of a bitch killed Tiger!” chimed in a male Shark.
There was a rustling among the crowd and audible mumbling. Several of the men moved toward the balance beam.
“Hold it!” Gar shouted, raising his right hand for silence. “Listen to me!”
The Sharks shifted their attention to the man with the white hair.
“Listen to me!” Gar reiterated. “We must think before we act!”
“What’s there to think about?” a man asked. “We should waste the scumbag!”
“No!” Gar yelled. “Think about this! Tiger took him on in a fair fight!
You all saw it! The giant should be allowed to live!”
“Live? Are you crazy?” someone rejoined.
“He won fair and square!” Gar declared. “He has earned his life!”
“The son of a bitch has earned a bullet in the brain!” a Shark responded angrily.
Arguments broke out. Some of the Sharks wanted to spare the giant; others wanted him dead.
Blade reached the far end of the balance beam. He stared at the spikes, pondering how best to dismount without being impaled.
Over a dozen Sharks, led by the burly man who had been in charge of the escort for Blade and Rikki, started to converge on the middle of the chamber, fingering their weapons.
“Wait!” Gar called out. “We must talk about this!”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Gar!” the burly man retorted. “We want his hide!”
“He should live!” Gar insisted. “He came here in peace!”
“Then he can leave here in pieces!” the burly Shark countered.
Blade glanced at the Sharks. Violence was on the verge of erupting and he was stranded on the end of the beam! He was about to try and drop between two of the spikes when tempers flared and bloodshed ensued.
Perched on the beam, he was compelled to witness everything from his vantage point.
The burly Shark and his companions suddenly roared and surged forward.
Gar blasted the burly Shark in the chest, the shotgun blowing the man’s torso apart.
Blade’s eyes narrowed. Rikki had told him a little about the twins, but nothing which would explain why they should side with him against their own kind.
Half a dozen Sharks closed on the twins and Rikki. One of them snapped off a shot from a revolver.
“Rikki!” Blade yelled in alarm, knowing his friend would be unable to fully use his martial arts skills because of the rope binding his wrists.
Or so Blade thought.
Rikki’s hands came up to his chest, the rope sliding to the floor, even as the woman, Fabiana, drew his katana.
Fab tossed the sword, hilt first.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi caught the katana with his right hand and spun, a black streak as he slashed into the charging Sharks, his sword a gleaming blur. Two men and a woman fell in the blink of an eye.
Fabiana opened up with her shotgun, her shot striking a Shark in the forehead and exploding his cranium in a spray of brains and crimson.
Gar moved to his sister’s side, his shotgun booming.
For a moment the outcome was in doubt. Many of the Sharks were frantically endeavoring to remove themselves from the line of fire. Others wavered, uncertain which side to take.
Rikki decapitated a skinny man wielding an axe.
Fabiana fired into the face of a woman with a revolver at point-blank range.
Gar took down two Sharks with a single shattering shot.
More Sharks, though, were joining the fray against the trio. Close to two dozen were pouring toward the center of the chamber.
Rikki, Fabiana, and Gar were on the verge of being overwhelmed.
Blade prepared to jump, to go to their assistance.
But aid came from another quarter.
A woman near the entrance abruptly screamed, an ear-piercing shriek of deafening intensity. Her screech carried over the general din and was punctuated by an explosion from the corridor outside the chamber, bringing all conflict to an unceremonious halt as all eyes focused on the entrance. The Sharks nearest the doorway scurried to put as much space as they could between themselves and the source of the explosion.
The double doors were wide open, and whitish-gray smoke swirled into the chamber.
A man materialized out of the smoke, standing in the entrance, a big man in a dark-blue uniform, a man with silver hair and a silver mustache and blazing blue eyes. His uniform was covered with soot and splotched with blood. For a moment he was framed in the doorway as the smoke billowed about him, rearing grand and terrible in the flickering light of flames in the hallway to his left.
Somewhere, another woman screamed.
He raked the chamber with his gaze and spied his companions.
A second detonation rocked the building as he stalked into the chamber.
Stupidly, four of the Sharks endeavored to stop him.
He shot them with his Wilkinson, with a speed and accuracy uncanny in its lethal efficiency.
The rest of the Sharks wanted nothing to do with this dispenser of death and destruction. They hugged the walls, afraid to intimidate the man with the silhouette of a skull on his broad back.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was wiping his katana clean on the shirt of a dead Shark when Yama reached him. Rikki looked up, grinning. “About time you got here. What have you been doing, goofing off again?”
“Sorry. I had a hard time getting directions to this place,” Yama quipped.
Rikki smiled and placed his right hand on Yama’s left shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Never been better,” Yama stated. He nodded his head toward Blade, who was still poised on top of the balance beam. “What’s he doing?”
Blade mustered a sheepish grin.
Rikki smiled. “Blade is teaching us a new fighting art.”
Yama appeared perplexed. “A new fighting art? Is it related to karate or kung fu or jujitsu?”
“No,” Rikki answered.
“What is this art called?” Yama asked.
Rikki’s eyes twinkled as he solemnly responded. “It’s called the how-to-survive-a-battle-while-standing-on-a-beam-with-a-stupid-expressi on-on-your-face art.”
“Ahh. I see.” Yama nodded. “I hope he’ll teach it to me someday.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You wanted to see me, Fish Breath?” Hickok asked.
Manta stared at the Warrior with obvious disdain. “Yes.” He looked at the overseer who had brought the human from the kelp factory. “That will be all. Return to your station.”