The last samurai's sword was still poised above his head as Steve's blade punched deep into his stomach. It was only when he toppled forwards that Steve saw why the j.a.p's reactions had been so slow. A shower of arrows had turned his back into a pincushion.

,Well done, ladies...

Steve turned back to make sure the other two were out for the count and was just in time to see the woman whose life he had saved plunge the first j.a.p's sword into the throat of the second.

n.o.buro Naka-Jima, leading the forty-six survivors from his band of ronin through the secret door to his camp, was alarmed to find the bodies of two of Lord Se-Iko's samurai lying in the pa.s.sageway beyond.

Urging his horse into a gallop, he raced up the entrance ramp into the arena just in time to see a tall Mute plunge what looked like a spear into the belly of yet another of Se-Iko's samurai. Smoke poured from five of the ground-floor caves and By the blessed kami, there were bodies everywhere,t His men, following in single file with their three prisoners, spread out on either side of him and cried out in horror as they caught sight of the dead women and children, liyyyehhh! And alongside them, their comrades who had been left to guard the camp!

Old Ishido, who had slipped from the upper terrace after drinking too much sake and had broken his leg; Narita, who had been thrown from his horse and had split his head open. But they had given a good account of themselves. Twelve of Se-Iko's samurai had also fallen.

The ronin cantered forward and hurriedly dismounted as their womenfolk and the surviving children rushed towards them uttering heartrending cries. The tearful lamentations and the mournful howls of women beating the limp bodies of their young offspring alternated with shouts of joyous relief as the unharmed found their kinfolk. Fathers gathered up their precious sons and hugged them fiercely as they listened to shrill accounts of the dreadful slaughter that had taken place - and the courage of the mysterious intruder who singlehandedly had killed five of the blood-crazed attackers.

And the two in the secret pa.s.sageway?

Ah, in that case, seven,t And who was this base individual who dared to court the wrath of the Iron Masters by bearing arms?

No one knew. He had appeared, as if by magic, when Ishido and Narita and the other men had been killed and the terrible wrath of Se-Iko's samurai had been turned against young and old. And despite his base origins, the outlander had conducted himself like a true warrior, with the martial skills and courage that only samurai were thought to possess.

And there was more! He had saved Kiri, n.o.buro's wife, and their son, Itada as they lay helpless under a samurai's blade! Was that not so?

Kiri Naka-Jima agreed it was so. The crowd parted to make way for her as she carried Itada towards his father. One hand supported her child, the other gripped the hilt of the samurai's sword, red with the blood of the Se-Iko. n.o.buro took charge of the boy and embraced him. Their tears mingled as he showered kisses on his tiny face. Placing the point of the sword on the ground, Kiri folded her hands together over the hilt and inclined her head respectfully. n.o.buro reached out and gripped her shoulder. Normally samurai did not embrace women or display any signs of affection in public. It was deemed unseemly but, on this occasion, he found himself overcome by emotion.

As Steve stood there, in the midst of the carnage, he realised that he had won a hollow victory. There was little cause for celebration and he was unlikely to be given a hero's welcome. If anything, his intervention had placed him in an even worse predicament than before.

Not only was he an armed alien intruder, he was now an uninvited guest at a wake, who would soon be called to account for his presence.

The unkempt warriors - who must have belonged to a different group from the one he had seen trapped in the valley - were clearly aghast at what had taken place in their absence, and those whose kin had been killed soon gave vent to their grief. And there were many women who were visibly distressed when they failed to find their menfolk among the hors.e.m.e.n. Questions were asked and answers were given. Mainly about him. In between bouts of grief-stricken gobbledegook, the women kept pointing in Steve's direction, and when the men had got over the initial shock of the devastating attack on their camp he was quickly surrounded.

With so much sharp iron pointed in his direction, the only thing Steve could do was to keep absolutely still and hope that he'd done enough to earn himself a fair shake.

From the fierce glares he was getting he had the feeling he was supposed to be on his knees. Screw 'em... He had done nothing he needed to apologise for. He stayed right where he was, feet apart, body nice and loose, and with the quarterstaff cradled against his chest.

Since he was almost a foot taller than the group around him, Steve was able to look over their heads and thus avoid direct eye contact. Three of the group hadn't dismounted. Two were small dark-haired, olive-skinned d.i.n.ks, the other was a taller, cowled figure whose face was covered by an oval chalk-white mask. All three were blindfolded.

Their wrists were bound to a rounded post.

at the front of their saddles and their ankles had been fastened together by a rope pa.s.sed under the horse's belly. Something drew his eyes back to the figure in the white mask. The quarterstaff vibrated in his hands, causing a shiver to run down his spine. Not of fear, but of excitement.

No - surely - it couldn't be. It just wasn't possible,t The ring of sweat-stained warriors around Steve parted to let through the man who had led them into the arena. He was bigger than the rest and was followed by the woman and the small boy. The child was now back in her arms, his face buried shyly against her neck. Now and then his small, slanted black-b.u.t.ton eyes would dart towards Steve. His guard-mother's gaze was more steady, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking.

Her dark eyes reflected neither grat.i.tude not hostility. Now she had recovered her composure, her face was completely devoid of expression.

They were all the same. Side-Winder had told him Iron Masters had amazing self-control. They prided themselves on their ability to suppress all outward signs of emotion. And, apparently, they were pretty cool characters on the inside as well. As a.result, it was virtually impossible to tell from their faces what they were thinking or what their next move might be.

Steve realised he must present a weird sight. Apart from his patterned skin, he had dark, tangled hair, and a golden four-week growth of beard. Plus hair on his forearms and the exposed parts of his legs.

Whereas these d.i.n.ks had, as far as he could see, absolutely no hair of their own at all. The straggling pieces the wild bunch wore must have come from Mutes. And Steve remembered that several sackfuls of hair had been among the items that the M'Calls had carried on their trucking poles to the trading post by the 'great river'.

The big man circled Steve slowly, then came back and stood in front of him. He was about six inches shorter than Steve, but his stock frame was all muscle and bone and his dark eyes didn't waver. 'You understand my words, gra.s.s-monkey?"

'Yes, I do'

'You kill these samurai?"

'Some of them."

n.o.buro Naka-Jima held out his hand for the quarterstaff. Steve gave it to him. He pa.s.sed it on to one of the men standing near by, then took hold of Steve's left arm and ran his eyes over the dirt-stained bandage.

Steve let his arm hang loose. This was no time for last-ditch heroics.

n.o.buro slid the combat knife out of the hidden scabbard, pulled the strip of rag from around the hilt and inspected the finish and sharpness of the blade.

Without waiting to be asked, Steve unwrapped the scabbard and removed it from his arm.

n.o.buro handed both items to another of his sidekicks.

'How did you find way in here?"

Steve was ready for that one. The whole story had started to come together in his mind. 'I was on the mountain. I saw a horse with no rider go into a split in the rocks. The twelve samurai were following it." He shrugged. 'So I followed them."

'Why?"

Steve shot a quick glance at the white-masked figure sitting astride the horse about ten yards from where he stood. The strange sixth sense that had helped him from time to time in the past put the words on his tongue.

'You were someone I had to meet."

n.o.buro nodded, but his face gave no indication as to whether or not he accepted Steve's explanation.

Reverting to his own language, he delivered a staccato string of nonsense-words to his gang.

Four of the men surrounding Steve grabbed him and hustled him across the arena towards one of the ground-floor caves. Steve looked over his shoulder towards the three bound riders. They were being pulled down from their horses.

The cave mouth towards which they were heading was wider than it was high. The interior was screened off from floor to ceiling by a wall made of slatted timbers, with two split doors constructed in the same manner.

Judging from their height, they were designed for diminutive d.i.n.ks.

One of the guys unbolted the lower half of the right-hand door and gestured to Steve to enter. Steve toyed with the idea of asking them to open the top half as well, then swallowed his pride and crawled in on his hands and knees.

The accommodation was spartan, but not as bad as he expected. At least the walls and floor were dry and the place wasn't crawling with bug-uglies. The only items of furniture were a woven straw mat and a box with a hinged lid. Inside it was a plank seat with a cutout beneath which was a two-handled pot. It looked like a primitive type of john, but Steve decided not to use it in case it turned out to be something the d.i.n.ks served soup in. The fact that he had ended up in the slammer was proof they weren't about to hand out medals but Steve who, despite the snake, had a huge backlog of hunger to a.s.suage - was persuaded that, at the very least, his efforts on behalf of the camp-women deserved to be rewarded by a square meal. Christo! Back home, even guys in the condemned cells got a bite to eat before they got the bullet.

Steve sat cross-legged on the mat with his back against the slatted part.i.tion that separated the two cells, and recalled some of the delicious odours he smelt wafting on the night air when he'd been prowling around the d.i.n.ks' dwelling places in search of some sc.r.a.ps to eat.

His reverie was broken by the sound of bolts being withdrawn. Peeping through the finger-wide gap between two planks, Steve saw both sections of the door to the next cell being opened. The two small dark-haired women walked in carrying bedding rolls followed by the taller cloaked figure in the white mask. She held a bedding roll too.

All three were still blindfolded but, as the door slammed shut, one of their gaolers shouted something in j.a.panese. The two women dropped their bedding rolls and quickly removed the cloth covering their eyes, then removed Whitey's blindfold. The cells were in semidarkness, but now that she was closer Steve could see the details on the mask - the tiny, pouting mouth, the two thin strokes representing the eyebrows, raised in perpetual surprise, the red blush on the cheekbones, and the angled eye slits. And behind them, a tell-tale flash of blue.