Cry Wolf

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.

Quickly, Vicky crossed back to Jake and stood close beside him.

Somehow there was safety and security when she was near to him. She

stayed beside him as Jake forced Ras Kullah, step by step, across the

open ground to where the maimed, half-destroyed thing still moved

weakly and drew each agonized breath of air with a bubbling sigh.

Jake stooped slightly away from Ras Kullah, but still holding him,

and Vicky saw the compassion alter the fierce expression in his eyes

for a moment, She did not realize what he was going to do until he

dropped the pistol from Ras Kullah's face, and extended his arm at full

stretch.

The crack of the pistol was sharp and cutting in the stillness,

and the bullet hit the mutilated Italian in the centre of his

forehead,

leavin a dark blue hole in the gleaming "9 white skin of the brow. His

eyelids fluttered like the wings of a dying dove, and the arched

straining body sagged and relaxed. A long gusty sigh came up the

tortured throat, the sigh a man might make at the very edge of sleep

and then he was still.

Without another look at the man to whom he had given peace, Jake lifted

the pistol to Ras Kullah's face again, and with fresh pressure on his

arm he forced him to turn and walk slowly back.

With a curt inclination of the head, he signalled the three

Italians to move. They went first, moving slowly, still shrinking

together, then Vicky followed them, one hand for comfort reaching back

to touch Jake's shoulder. Jake held Ras Kullah twisted off balance,

and forced him step by step onwards. He knew they must not hurry, must

not Show weakness, for the flimsy bonds which held the Gallas frozen

would snap at the least strain, and they would be upon them down under

them in a pack, bearing the press of bodies, and hacking and tearing

them to pieces.

Pace after slow steady pace, they moved forward. Time and again their

way was blocked by sullen groups of tall dark Gallas, who stood

shoulder to shoulder fingering their weapons, then Jake twisted the

muzzle of the pistol into Ras Kullah's soft skin. The man cried out

and reluctantly the way opened, the dark warriors moving aside just

sufficiently to let them pass, and then falling in behind them and

following closely, so closely the leaders were always within arm's

length.

Once they were clear of the pack, Jake could increase the pace and he

moved steadily up the path through the camel-thorn, shepherding the

terrified Italians ahead of him and dragging Ras Kullah bodily along.

"What are we going to do with them?" Vicky asked breathlessly.

"We can't keep Kullah at gun point much longer." Jake did not

answer;

he did not want the closely following Gallas to hear the uncertainty in

his voice, yet he didn't want the girl to show signs of fear.