The Tiger Warrior (43 page)

Howard caught Wauchope’s eye. They both grinned, and then began to shake, laughing uncontrollably.
They had made it
. Howard suddenly coughed, and spat blood over the rocks.

“Good God, man,” Wauchope said, pushing himself upright and leaning over him. “You’re wounded!”

“I took a sword thrust.” Howard swallowed hard, tasting the tang of blood on his lips. “The horseman who came behind us on the trail. The one with the gauntlet sword. Just as we were scrambling up that rock on the way in here. In my back. Left side.”

Howard felt Wauchope untie his sheepskin coat. He eased the bamboo tube out of Howard’s left hand, placing it carefully on the rocks, and took his arm out of the sleeve. “Gently does it.” He lifted the coat up, and felt the dampness down Howard’s side. He let the coat back, tucking it carefully under him, and put his arm back in the sleeve, gently lying it on the rocks in its original position. He put his hand on Howard’s right shoulder. Howard could feel the tenseness in the other man’s fingers.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” he said quietly.

“It missed the liver, that’s for certain. It may have gone into the pleural cavity, beneath the lung. I’ve seen men bounce back from a wound like that, up and about in no time.”

“It’s gone into the lung, Robert. The blood’s frothy. My breathing’s getting shorter.”

Howard saw Wauchope kneel up, stare hard at the entrance to the cave, take a deep breath then untie his waistband and shrug off his sheepskin. He adjusted his Sam Browne belt, slid his holster into the correct position and brushed off the front of his tunic. Howard shut his eyes.
So this was it
.

“We know it’s in here somewhere. What we’re after.” Wauchope jerked his head toward the darkness behind them.

“They know too.”

“They don’t know which mine entrance we hid inside. When I emptied my revolver at them, they fell back. That bought us some time. And when they do find us, they won’t know this is the one. They won’t know that we happened to stumble into precisely the shaft we were looking for. The place where Licinius hid the jewel two thousand years ago.”

“They’ll search every one. They’ll find us, then they’ll find the jewel.”

The jewel
. Howard felt the blood well up in his throat. He felt as if he were slowly drowning.
He would show no fear
. He looked at the ancient bamboo cylinder that Wauchope had laid on the rock beside him. The
velpú
, the sacred relic they had taken from the jungle shrine nearly thirty years before, their guarantee of safe passage out of hell that dark night, so etched in Howard’s consciousness it could have been yesterday. Howard had kept it, along with the tiger-headed gauntlet, the shape that had so terrifyingly reappeared on the arm of their pursuer only a few hours ago. They had guessed that they were being followed, but their enemy had only struck on the valley floor below, once they had reached the fabled lapis lazuli mines of Sar-e-Sang. Howard had seen the mounted warrior who had led the phalanx of armed men up the valley toward them, masked like a tiger dragon, had glimpsed the flash of gold at his wrist as the warrior drew out his great gauntlet sword, the shape of the tiger head just like the one Howard had taken from the jungle tomb.

That gauntlet was not with him now, but they had brought the
velpú
for what it contained. Ten years after their jungle escape their paths had crossed again at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, and one night they had locked themselves in the library and opened up the bamboo tube. What they had found was no idol, no god, but a roll of ancient papyrus, paper made from pressed reeds that Howard had recognized from his visits as a boy to the British Museum.
Egyptian papyrus, in the jungle of southern India
. That had been incredible enough. But it had writing on it, letters that Wauchope recognized as identical in style to the words he had glimpsed carved on the tomb in the jungle shrine.
Hic iacet Licinius, optio XV Apollinaris, sacra iulium sacularia
. Here lies Licinius, optio of the 15
^th
Apollinaris, guardian of the celestial jewel. But the inscription on the papyrus was longer. And what it said was astonishing, words that had been etched in Howard’s mind ever since. They had used their knowledge of Latin to decipher the message, hunched together over candlelight. They were words that had taken Howard back to his boyhood dreams, dreams of high adventure. They seemed to draw him from the darkness that had embraced his soul since that day in the jungle, given him something to strive for other than redemption for a deed he did not even know if he had committed, but which had lurked just beneath his consciousness every moment of his life since he had pulled that trigger on the river steamer.
The little Kóya boy, the weeping boy he could not allow to suffer, when his own son was crying out for him in his final hours
. Now, in this mineshaft, at the end of his journey, he looked up at Wauchope, and whispered the final words of the passage they had first read that night:
Cave tigris bellator Beware the tiger warrior
.

Howard felt light-headed. He swallowed again, and felt the blood go down. He had seen the tattoo on the horseman’s arm, the snarling dragon-tiger, as the rider had thundered toward them in the valley below. Somehow, those who had driven Licinius to his jungle hideout two thousand years before were still in existence, still stalking any who had chanced upon the trail, seeking what Licinius had found and hidden away. Howard had racked his brains as they scrambled up the mountainside, wondering how they could have been discovered. In Quetta, during their preparations, they had planned to let others know, who might ask, that they were intent on retracing Wood’s expedition to find the source of the river Oxus, up the Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan. They had sought advice from the explorer Aurel Stein, but had not divulged their true intent. Stein thought they were suicidal going into the Hindu Kush without bearers or guides, but he had wished them godspeed. They were a pair of eccentric old colonels intent on a final adventure, in the best British tradition.

Then Howard had remembered. Years before, when he had returned to England after his service with the Madras Sappers. When he had tried to take his wife Helen away from their grief for little Edward, tried to give them a new life. He had been a newly promoted captain, teaching survey at the School of Military Engineering. He had given a lecture at the Royal United Service Institution in London on the Roman antiquities of southern India, a passion of his since boyhood when he had collected silver and gold Roman coins bought for him by his father and uncles in the bazaars of Madras and Bangalore. He had mentioned a rumor, nothing more, of a cave temple, one that contained carvings that appeared Roman. He had postulated scenes of battle. He had wanted to show that there could have been Roman soldiers as well as traders in southern India. It was an extraordinary possibility. It had been an extraordinary discovery.

He had let his enthusiasm get the better of him. He realized, now, that he had wanted something good to come of that experience in the jungle that so haunted him, and he had let his guard down. He had said nothing more than that, had intimated nothing about a location, about any truth behind the story. He and Wauchope had made a pact never to reveal what they had found inside the shrine, yet in the lecture there may have been something in his enthusiasm, a glint in his eye, the suppressed part of him that wanted to tell the world of their discovery, that revealed something to the careful observer.

Afterward, an official from the Imperial Chinese Embassy had come up to congratulate him, and to inquire about his sources. Howard had politely declined, repeating that it was merely a rumor. That was more than twenty years ago. Could it be that he had been followed, watched, for anything unusual, anything that might reveal what he knew? The bamboo
vélpu
had been concealed in a locked room in the School of Engineering at Chatham, among a clutter of exotic artifacts brought back by officers over the decades. Howard had been the curator, and only he had the key. It was impossible that anyone else should have known about it. Then he thought about those who had served him over the years. Only one had been with him throughout, his faithful Huang-li, great-nephew of his beloved childhood
ayah
from Tibet. Huang-li had been with him from Bangalore to Chatham and then back again through his final postings in India. Huang-li had always had his oriental friends, coolies, sailors, men he met in the opium dens at night, but Howard had turned a blind eye, knowing it was better to tolerate the secret societies and rituals than to ban them. Huang-li had been there at the end, packing food into their rucksacks in Quetta, waving them off as they tramped up toward Afghanistan. He had been enthusiastic, perhaps strangely so for a man who might be seeing his master for the last time. He had packed their bags with more than they needed, Chinese medicines, herbal remedies, packages they had quickly discarded. He had been doing all he could to ensure that they stayed alive until they reached their destination. That had seemed only right for a faithful servant, and Howard had been touched. But now he thought again. Keeping them alive until they reached their destination, so they could lead others to it.
Could it be?

Howard coughed. None of that was of any consequence now. He tried to move his head, and suddenly retched, bringing up a mouthful of frothy blood he tried to swallow. He felt excruciating pain. Huang-li had packed some laudanum, and he wished they had it now. Wauchope leaned over him, holding his head. Howard eyed him. “I’m not giving up the ghost just yet,” he whispered hoarsely. “We still have to find that jewel.”

Wauchope jerked his head back toward the darkness of the shaft. “It’s in here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”

“And then the other jewel. The jewel taken by the other Roman mentioned in the inscription, Fabius.”

“One thing at a time, old boy.”

Howard grimaced. “Immortality. That’s what the celestial jewel is all about, isn’t it? We could do with a dose of that now.”

Wauchope looked at the entrance, scanning anxiously, then back down at Howard. “Maybe in the end, in the jungle, Licinius felt that too. I’ve wondered what manner of man he was. Whether we can see ourselves in him. Sometimes, that has seemed the only way of fathoming out this mysterious path we’re on.”

Howard gave a weak smile. He coughed and swallowed, breathed for a moment to calm himself, then carried on talking, his voice little more than a murmur. “You remember that carving we saw on the shrine wall, the woman and the child? For Licinius to seek immortality would have been to seek an immortality where loss and grief are also there forever. What is the point if all those you have loved have gone before, and if you have expended your reservoir of love? I think he took his chance with mortality. Maybe Elysium was a better bet after all.”

“So what are we doing here? You and I? In this place?”

“The same thing that drove Licinius and Fabius. Maybe they really were seeking Elysium, seeking death with glory, not immortality. Maybe the lure of immortality only came upon them by chance, along the way. Maybe Licinius only learned of it after Fabius had departed, when Licinius had struck off south. Maybe he had the man with him who had brought the two jewels from the east, maybe a trader they had robbed and enslaved, used as a guide. If the Romans had known about it earlier, it’s hard to see why Licinius and Fabius would have parted company, and separated the jewels.”

“Maybe the gods didn’t want mankind to find the secret of immortality.”

“Maybe the gods have our best interests at heart.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. What we’re doing here.” Wauchope was gazing intently at him, his eyes full of concern. Howard knew Wauchope was trying to keep him going, keep him conscious, squeeze every last drop from their friendship, relish all he could in these moments. Howard returned the gaze. “We’re here for the same reason those Romans took their last great journey. Remember the inscription we saw all those years ago in the jungle shrine?
Fifteenth Apollinaris
. For the glory of the legion. They were marching alongside the dead of their legion, shadowing them, seeking the trick of fate that would propel them to the other side, death with glory. They were doing what they were trained to do. They were soldiers. Maybe that’s why we’re here. The glory of our legion. The Corps of Royal Engineers. For all who have gone before, for all who have fallen.
Ubique.”

“Ubique,”
Wauchope repeated softly. “Spoken like a true sapper.”

Howard’s vision had become a tunnel, the edges dark and blurred. All he could see was Wauchope’s bearded, turbaned head, as if it were framed in an old sepia portrait. Howard seemed to be levitating, and to be pricked by a thousand pins and needles, a not unpleasant feeling. He felt he should try to move, but wondered if he were caught in a dream, one where movement would break the spell. If he stayed still, at any moment he might lift himself up, and walk down that tunnel toward the light. “Robert,” he murmured. “I can’t see so well anymore.”

Wauchope clutched his hand and held it tight. There was a sudden commotion at the entrance. A sound of neighing, of pawing hooves. They both peered up the rocky slope. Warm exhalation, crystallized, blew inward, sucked from the mountain air outside and drawn toward them, like a lick of dragon’s breath against the radiance of the rock. They heard more snorting, pawing, and then their eyes grew accustomed to the light, and they saw it. The silhouette of a horse framed against the red sun, a glow that seemed to make the sweat glisten like blood as it shook its mane, spraying flecks of crimson into the air. And riding it, the figure in the terrifying tiger mask, loins girt with plates of armor, the great sword with the gauntlet flashing against the sky, streaked red with freshly congealed blood.
My blood
. Howard’s heart began to pound, pumping froth out of his mouth. A drumbeat started up, a slow, insistent beat that became louder, coming up the valley slope toward them.