With the same unhurried knife strokes, the sheer silk of Vicky's
underwear was cut away and discarded, and she hung there naked and
vulnerable, unable to cover her pale smooth body, with the long finely
sculptured limbs spread and pinioned.
She dropped her head forward so that the golden hair fell forward and
covered her face.
One of the Galla women moved around until she faced Vicky directly. She
reached out with the little silver knife and touched the point to the
white skin just below the base of her throat where a pulse beat visibly
like a tiny trapped animal, and slowly, achingly slowly,
she drew the blade downwards.
Vicky's whole body convulsed, every limb stiffened and her back arched
rigidly so that the shape of the muscle stood out clearly beneath the
smooth unblemished skin.
Her head flew back, her eyes wide and staring, her mouth gaping open
and she screamed.
The woman drew the knife on downwards, between the tense straining
breasts. The white skin opened to the shallow carefully controlled
razor point, and a vivid scarlet line marked the slow track of the
blade as it moved on inexorably downwards.
The voice of the crowd rose, a gathering roar like the sound of a storm
wind coming from afar, and Ras Kullah leaned forward on his cushions.
His eyes shone and the wet pink lips were parted.
Two things happened simultaneously. From the darkness beyond the
station buildings, Priscilla the Pig burst out into the torch-lit
area.
Up until that moment when Jake Barton thrust down fully on the
throttle, the gentle hum of the engine had been drowned by the animal
roar of the crowd.
The heavy steel hull, driven by the full thrust of the old Bentley
engine, ploughed into the crowd and went through it like a combine
harvester through a field of standing wheat. Without any slackening of
speed, it tore a pathway through the dense pack, directly towards the
clearing where Vicky hung on the tripod of lances.
At the same moment, Gareth Swales stepped out of the black oblong of
the warehouse door, directly behind where Ras Kullah sat.
He had the Italian rifle over the crook of his injured arm, and he
fired without lifting the butt to his shoulder.
The bullet smashed into the elbow of the Galla woman's knife arm,
and the arm snapped like a twig, the knife flew from the nerveless
fingers and the woman shrieked and collapsed into the mud at Vicky's
feet.
The second woman swirled, her right hand drew back like the head of a
striking adder, and she aimed the knife blade at Vicky's soft white
stomach; as she began the stroke that would plunge it hilt-deep,
Gareth moved the rifle muzzle fractionally and fired again.
The heavy bullet caught the woman in the exact centre of her golden
forehead. The black hole -appeared there like a third empty eye
socket, and her head snapped backwards as though from a heavy blow.
As she went down, Gareth worked the bolt of the rifle and dropped the
muzzle, again only fractionally, but as Ras Kullah twisted around
desperately on his cushions, his mouth wide open and a gurgling cry
keening from the thick wet lips, the muzzle of the rifle was aimed
directly into the pink pit of his throat and Gareth fired the third
shot. It shattered the front teeth in Ras Kullah's upper jaw, before
plunging on into his throat and then exiting through the back of the
neck. The Ras went over backwards, and flapped and jumped like a
maimed frog.
Garet stepped over him, and jumped down lightly into the yard. A
Galla rushed at him with a broadsword held high above his head. Gareth
fired again without lifting the rifle, stepped over the body and
reached Vicky's side just as Jake Barton swung the car to a skidding
halt next to them and tumbled out of the driver's hatch with a Harari
dagger in his hand.
In the turret above them, Sara fired the Vickers in a long continuous
blast, swinging it back and forth in its limited traverse and the Galla
crowd scattered panic-stricken into the night.
Jake slashed the thongs that held Vicky suspended and she fell forward
into his arms.
Gareth stooped and gathered Vicky's torn clothing out of the mud and
bundled it under his injured armpit.
"Shall we move on now, old son?" he asked Jake genially.
"I think the fun is over," and between them they lifted Vicky up the
side of the hull.
The drums brought Count Aldo Belli out of a troubled dream-plagued
sleep and he sat bolt upright from his hard couch on the floorboards of
the hull, with his eyes wide and staring, and -fumbled frantically for
his pistol.
"Gino!" he shouted. "Gino!" and there was no reply. Only that
terrible rhythm in the night, pounding against his head so that he
thought it might drive him mad. He tried to close his ears, pressing
the palms of his hands to them, but the sound came through, like a
gigantic pulse, the heartbeat of this cruel and savage land.
He could bear it no longer, and he crawled up inside the hull until he
reached the rear hatch of the tank, and thrust his head out.
"Gino!" He was answered instantly. The little sergeant's head popped
