and bloody; clearly they had been forced to march thus for long
distances across the harsh stony earth. Their dark eyes, huge with
horror, were fastened on the spectacle that was being enacted on the
open stage of bare earth in the limelight of the fires.
Vicky recognized the woman as one of Ras Kullah's favourites whom she
had last seen that night at the rest house of Sardi. Now she knelt,
heavy-breasted and intent on her work. The round madonna face was
alight with an almost religious ecstasy, the full lips parted and the
dark sloe eyes glowing like those of a priestess at some mystic tire.
However, more prosaically the sleeves of her sham ma were drawn up in
businesslike fashion above the elbows like those of a butcher, and her
hands were bloody to the wrists. She held the thin curved dagger like
a surgeon, and its silver blade was dull and red in the firelight.
The thing over which -she worked still wriggled and moved convulsively
against its bonds, still breathed and sobbed, but it was no longer
recognizable as a man. The knife had stripped away all resemblance and
now as the waiting crowd growled and swayed and sighed, the woman
worked doggedly at the base of the disembowelled belly, cutting and
tugging, so that the victim screamed again, but feebly and the woman
leapt to her feet and held aloft the mutilated handful she had cut
free.
She did a triumphant circuit of the arena, holding her prize high,
laughing, dancing on shuffling swaying feet, and the blood trickled
down her raised forearm and dripped from the crook of her elbow.
"Stay close," Jake said softly, but Vicky had never heard that tone in
his voice before. She tore her horrified gaze from the spectacle, and
saw that his face was stern and drawn, his jaw clenched hard and his
eyes terrible.
He drew the pistol from his pocket, and held it against his thigh,
his arm hanging loosely at his side, and he moved swiftly, thrusting
his way through the press of bodies with such strength that he cleared
a path for her to follow him.
Every single Galla was concentrating with all his attention on the
dancing woman, and Jake reached Ras Kullah before any of them realized
his presence.
Jake took the soft thick upper arm in his left hand, his fingers
digging deeply into the putty-soft flesh, and he jerked him to his feet
and held him dangling off-balance, swinging him face to face, and he
pressed the muzzle of the Beretta into his upper lip, just under the
wide nostrils.
They stared at each other, Ras Kullah cringing away from Jake's blazing
eyes, and then whimpering at the pain of the fingers cutting into his
flesh and fear of the steel muzzle bruising his upper lip.
Jake assembled the few words of Amharic he had learned from
Gregorius.
"The Italians," he said softly. "For me." Ras Kullah stared at him,
seeming not to hear then he said one word and the men nearest them
swayed forward, as though to intervene.
Jake screwed the muzzle of the pistol into Ras Kullah's lip,
twisting and smearing the soft flesh against his teeth so that the skin
tore and blood sprang swiftly.
"You die," said Jake, and the man shrilled a denial to his warriors.
They drew back reluctantly, fingering their knives and watching with
smouldering eyes for their opportunity.
The woman with the bloody hands sank to her haunches and a great
waiting silence gripped the assembly. They squatted in complete
stillness, all their faces turned towards Jake and Ras Kullah. In the
silence, the broken bleeding thing beside the fire cried out again, a
long-drawn-out breathy sound that tore at jake's nerves and made his
expression ferocious.
"Tell your men," he said, his voice thick and grating with his anger.
Ras Kullah's voice quavered, high as a young girl, and the warriors who
guarded the three half-naked prisoners shuffled uncertainly and
exchanged glances.
Jake ground the steel fiercely into Ras Kullah's face, and his voice
squeaked urgently as he repeated the order.
Reluctantly, the guards prodded the prisoners forward in a forlorn
terrified group.
"Take his dagger," Jake said quietly to Vicky, without removing his
gaze from Ras Kullah's eyes. Vicky stepped close beside the Ras and
gripped the hilt of the weapon on the embroidered belt around his
sagging paunch. It was worked in beaten gold and set with crudely cut
amethysts, but the blade was brilliant and the edge keen.
"Cut them loose," said Jake, and in the dangerous moments while she was
away from his side, he increased the brutal pressure on the pistol
barrel. Ras Kullah stood with his head cocked at an impossible angle,
the lips drawn back from his teeth in a fixed snarl and his eyes
rolling in their sockets until the whites showed, and the tears of pain
poured freely down his cheeks, glinting in the firelight like dew on
the yellow petals of a rose.
Vicky cut the rawhide bindings at the Italians" wrists and elbows,
and they massaged the circulation back into their arms, huddling
together, their pale faces still smeared with dirt and dried blood and
their eyes terrified and ... uncomprehending.
