Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (36 page)

They made no more sound than they needed to, for they were racing to a point where the tracks were nearest, inasmuch as the locomotive was still far away from this point where the pass cut through the mountains and gave out onto flat yellow-brown land where nothing seemed to grow.

Carefully they rode, with Timur Khan in the lead, General Chinua only a few paces behind, his bright sword in one hand and reins in the other, leading back to the pony on which Johnny Littlejohn and the perforated wooden box bounced along.

Tearing out into the open, they spread out, rolling toward the tracks like army ants over the carcass of a grasshopper.

REACHING the gleaming rails, Timur and his general dismounted in haste. They fell to examining these rails, Chinua with an engineer’s eye, for he knew he needed to uproot them, his Khan studying them so as best to understand them.

Soon, it became apparent that nothing they carried—no sword, no knife, no dagger, nor any tool—was stout or sturdy enough to uproot the heavy steel rails.

“We must halt this juggernaut,” Timur told Chinua, employing a word he had learned five centuries before during his sack of Delhi.

“It will be done,” the other returned. Rapping out orders, he brought scores of Mongols leaping from their saddles to seize rocks and boulders, as well as brush and other debris. This they began piling along this stretch of railroad track until it was choked with untidy debris.

Not satisfied with that, they struck primitive tinder boxes and set the driest of the brush ablaze.

As the sun rose, crackling flames leapt madly and smoke billowed in the wind. Timur, back astride his pony, watched the locomotive’s approach with great interest in his burning yellow eyes.

“What makes it run?” he demanded of Chinua.

“Steam.”

Timur grunted, as if in understanding. But it was doubtful if the wily old warlord understood at all. Still, the great iron boiler with its belching smokestack and its jutting cowcatcher thundered on. By now there was sufficient dawn light that the locomotive’s powerful headlight had been doused.

The engineer had his head stuck out the side in the manner of Casey Jones. His moon face went slack when he spied the bonfire obstructing the way.

Frantically, he blew the whistle while applying the air brakes. The din thus created drew Timur Khan up in his throne-like saddle. He had taken out his recurved composite bow, and nocked a birchwood arrow on the string, using only his thumb.

As the great iron wheels of the engine struggled to bite and grind in a desperate attempt to stop, Timur let fly with the single arrow. The air vibrated to the bowstring’s sinewy twang. Eagle-feather fletchings made it fly true.

The iron point struck the face of the boiler, bounced off harmlessly, and, falling, was swallowed by the spidery cowcatcher.

Undaunted, Timur fitted another bolt and let fly once more. This one struck the headlight, smashing it.

A low growl of satisfaction, almost like a dog’s bark, came from the immobile mouth of the ogre-masked warlord.

By now the cacophony of the tortured engine was assaulting their ears, and it was all they could do to keep their ponies rooted in place.

Seeing that he could not stop in time, and observing the horsemen on either side of the tracks, the Chinese engineer changed his mind abruptly. He released the brakes, simultaneously advancing the throttle.

Chinua warned Timur, “He is going to try to bully his way through.”

“He will fail,” Timur predicted.

But General Chinua was not so certain. The rocks they had placed on the tracks were not exactly boulders. They did not possess a great deal of mass.

Whistling shrilly, the train grew in size, and suddenly it went plowing toward them, throwing off sparks and cinders.

There was a terrible sound of rock and dirt and splintering debris being swallowed up by the mighty steel wheels—what debris the cowcatcher did not toss to either side.

The mighty locomotive careened ahead, its stride unbroken, causing the horsetail atop Timur Khan’s steel battle helmet to flip about in the slipstream.

To the Khan’s stern-eyed amazement, the convulsive engine clicked by, its heavy wheels spitting out brush and flaming debris. Cinders given off by the smokestack stung his eyes.

Angrily, Timur Khan pulled back. His Iron Horde did likewise. They could not halt the juggernaut of a thing. Passenger and other cars hurtled by, Chinese faces staring out in horror.

Very soon, the forlorn red caboose rattled past and the Iron Horde got busy getting their skittish mounts organized.

While this was taking place, sporadic gunfire commenced erupting from the caboose.

ONE bullet struck Timur’s ebony stallion in the neck and the horse promptly fell over, spilling his rider.

Timur Khan was no stranger to being thrown from his saddle. He managed to fling himself to one side so the horse did not fall upon his legs. With difficulty, owing to old battle injuries, he struggled to his feet, lifted his curved sabre from the dirt, and cast blazing yellow eyes in the direction of the retreating train.

Around him, Mongols were falling from their saddles under sniping fire.

Seizing one riderless pony, Timur threw himself into the saddle and, lifting his voice, cried out, “
Allah Akbar!”

To which
Tarkhan
Chinua added a single ripping word,
“Surun!”
Charge!

In very short order, the Iron Horde got itself organized and started after the fleeing train. They made no outcry, for that was the way of the Mongol cavalry charge going back to the era of Genghis Khan.

It was an unlikely race, and even Timur knew that his horse would surely tire before catching up to the snorting metal beast escaping him.

As it happened, some amount of debris—flaming and otherwise—which the locomotive had sucked up in its headlong attempt to escape became entangled with the wheels of the passenger cars.

These lighter cars were not as heavy as the massive locomotive with its driving wheels, so they started to drag. The immediate result was that the rattling train swiftly lost headway. The entire procession of cars slowed and swayed in an alarming fashion.

To General Chinua’s eyes, it looked as if a train wreck was imminent.

Abruptly, the caboose broke away and commenced rolling backward.

The Mongol could see that a man had scrambled out to uncouple it. This was a deliberate act.

Emboldened by the sight, Chinua exhorted his horsemen to fall upon the vulnerable caboose.

They pounded in, silent as apparitions out of history, swords and shields held high. Archers hoisted up in their saddles, drawing back on their bowstrings in preparation for raining arrows upon the wood-sided car.

A man stepped out the back of the caboose, and seized the braking wheel. He gave it two strenuous turns, and the caboose jarred to a stop.

This wrung involuntary cries of anticipated victory from the throats of the charging Mongols.

One cry died suddenly. It was the harsh voice of General Chinua. For he got a clear look at the person who stood at the brake wheel.

He was a giant, his brazenness that of a hammered brass gong. From behind him, poured out others—none of them Chinese.

Chinua’s jaw dropped open, and his tongue attempted to form words that would give voice to what he had seen.

The Iron Khan beat him to it.

“The bronze devil!”

Redoubling his effort, Timur Khan spurred his pony ahead. He gripped his sabre more tightly, his feral yellow eyes fixed upon the metallic head of Doc Savage. It was a head he fully intended to harvest.

Chapter LII

THE MIGHTIEST SWORD

DOC SAVAGE FINISHED turning the creaky braking wheel and called over his shoulder, “Here they come!”

Out ambled homely Monk, grinning, “Boy, oh, boy, are the breaks with us this time! Ol’ Rip Van Terror had better watch out!”

“Do not be overconfident,” cautioned Doc.

Renny and Ham shoved out next, and a rain of arrows came slipping through the air. Some of them whistled in a frightening manner.

Monk stared up at the weird sounds, jaw sagging.

Doc lunged, hauled him back ahead of a descending bolt.

“Huh!” grunted the hairy chemist.

“Old Mongol hunting trick,” rapped Doc. “Bone arrowheads carved to produce a noise calculated to capture the attention of prey, making it easier to bring them down with a second arrow.”

“Doggone! And I almost fell for it!”

Ham snarled, “Not the first time you’ve needed rescuing from your anthropoid instincts!”

Everyone, including Doc Savage, retreated into the caboose and closed the door while the fleet missiles noisily embedded themselves in the wooden skin of the car.

Side windows were hastily raised, and supermachine pistols aimed out the apertures. Immediately a deafening howling commenced. The distinctive bullfiddle roar of the supermachine pistols drowned out the sound of the whistling signal arrows.

Only Doc Savage did not wield one of the compact rapid-firers. Even in this difficult predicament, he eschewed the use of firearms.

In between riveting-gun bursts, Renny rumbled, “It was sheer luck we happened upon this rattler, and that it was going in the right direction.”

Doc Savage admitted, “I did not anticipate Timur and his Mongols attempting to rob the train.”

Monk chortled, “Well, he did—and now he’s in for it!”

“Do not count your chickens just yet,” Long Tom cautioned. He was emptying his drum as rapidly as he could while not wasting precious ammunition.

Charging Mongols began dropping from their saddles; horses, stumbling and shrieking, collided with one another.

In the forefront of this wild charge rode Tamerlane. It was on this forge-faced figure that the greater portion of their firepower concentrated itself.

Unfortunately, Timur was armored from toes to pointed crown. The mercy bullets splashed harmlessly against his complicated lamellar armor, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Switching tactics, Ham Brooks aimed for the charging pony. Timur’s steed was also armored but with leather interspersed with thin plates. There were chinks in this. But hitting one exactly right on a moving target was proving difficult.

In this confusion, suddenly the caboose was surrounded. Mongols rolled around in a perpetual circle, launching arrows, attempting to work close enough to bring their flashing swords into play.

“I feel like an old-time wagon master who ran smack into a war party of Comanches!” howled Monk.

“Yeah!” seconded Long Tom. “Except these birds don’t want our scalps, but our whole heads!”

“Well,” thumped Renny, reloading, “they’re going to have to work mighty hard for the privilege.”

Moving fast, Doc Savage was already tossing out grenades of various types. These detonated here and there, creating complications for the Mongol attackers.

There was tear gas, black smoke, as well as a few grenades that erupted in eye-searing flashes.

Between superfirer lead and Doc Savage’s pitched pyrotechnics, the Mongols were forced back in spite of their Khan’s bitter imprecations.

In an amazing reversal, it became very quiet.

In this early morning silence, smoke and tear gas gradually thinned out and soon shredded to rags as morning winds plucked at and dispersed it.

Doc Savage’s men slammed the windows shut to keep out the more noxious stuff.

A great deal of time passed, as sometimes happens in pitched battles when the momentum of attack is broken.

When the worst of the fumes was dispersed, Doc Savage stepped out onto the back platform of the caboose and cupped his hands over his mouth.

“TIMUR IL-LENK!” the bronze man called out in the Mongolian tongue.

“Speak, brazen one!” Timur flung back.

“Your army is broken. I have broken it.”

Tamerlane said nothing. It was more true than not true, but not so true that he was willing to admit it. He looked to his general.

Chinua stared back, saying, “Your army is less than before, but it is still your Iron Horde. And will do your bidding to the last man.”

“Well spoken,” grunted Timur.

“We can surround them, starve them out,” suggested Chinua.

Timur shook his iron head ponderously. “No,” he said. “There is a superior way.” Stepping down off his mount, he advanced on the mobile fort, his curved sabre in one mailed fist.

“Bronze infidel,” he called out.

“What is it?” Doc Savage returned.

“My Iron Horde, although diminished, is still greater than your band of mercenaries. For I have bent them to my will, and they remain subject to it.”

“My warriors are better equipped than your army.”

“Agreed. But let us set our armies aside for the moment. Step out and face me, warlord to warlord.”

Doc Savage did not immediately answer.

Timur Khan continued to advance toward the immobile caboose. Its sides were quilled with feathered shafts. Otherwise, it stood intact on steel rails.

Timur appeared unafraid of being cut down by mercy bullets. He had already learned that his plated armor turned them easily.

Inside the caboose, Doc Savage eyed Ham Brooks and said, “Give me your watch.”

Ham sputtered, “My watch?”

“And your sword cane,” added Doc.

Frowning, the dapper attorney handed over his stick, then removed his watch, which Doc Savage accepted.

Methodically, the bronze man unsheathed the flexible sword, examined the tip, and tucked it under one elbow. Taking the expensive timepiece in both hands, he caused it to pop open, revealing a flat reservoir brimming with a brown sticky substance. This was the fast-acting anesthetic with which Ham often coated the formidable blade.

Doc held the reservoir to the sword tip briefly. A gob resembling molasses adhered to the metal. The bronze man then handed the watch back to Ham, who closed it and replaced it on his wrist.

“Await me here,” directed Doc, swinging out onto the platform.

The bronze giant stepped off into the clay of the Chinese countryside, carrying the slim rapier in one metallic fist. He strode confidently toward Tamerlane.