The Tiger Warrior

18

Afghanistan, 22 September 1908

The two men bounced and tumbled down the pile of rock chippings that half filled the entrance to the mine, desperately scrabbling for handholds and kicking against the scree to find some kind of purchase. They came to a halt side-by-side, lying near the bottom of the pile. They could still see the mine entrance, the gray sky outside, a slit of light at the top of the mound about a pistol shot away. Beyond them the shaft continued into pitch darkness. At more than twelve thousand feet of altitude the air was thin, and they panted and coughed in the pall of dust they had raised as they slid down the slope. John Howard turned his head toward the figure beside him, then blinked hard and peered at the wall of the mineshaft. He could see pick marks, all over the rock. A shaft of light from the entrance lit up the ceiling. There was no doubting it. Streaks of blue, speckled with gold. He began to laugh, or cry, he hardly knew which, then coughed painfully. “Robert,” he whispered. “Have you seen? It’s lazurite.”

“I’ve just collected a specimen.” Howard felt relief to hear Wauchope’s voice, the Irish accent with its American twang still strong despite all his years in British service. In the desperate fight outside, Howard had wondered whether he would ever hear it again. He blinked hard, and tried to take stock. He was lying on his front, limbs splayed out, hands forward, his right hand still holding the old Colt revolver, a wisp of smoke coming from the chamber he had fired a few moments before. His left hand was clasped tight around the ancient tube of bamboo, ten inches long, blackened and shiny with age. They had taken it out to read the papyrus inside just before they were attacked, after they had stowed their bags on the valley floor, and he had clutched it close to him through the desperate climb to this place, seeking paths that the horse of their pursuer could not negotiate.

Wauchope rolled onto his back beside him. Howard watched him break open his Webley revolver, eject the spent cartridges and reload from a pouch on his belt, glancing up at the tunnel entrance as he did so. He put down the revolver and picked up something in his left hand. It was a fragment of blue rock. He fumbled with his other hand for a little leather pouch hanging from his neck, raising himself on one elbow, wincing as it bit into the rock. He took out a scratched old monocle from the bag, placed it over his left eye and then craned his neck forward, inspecting the fragment closely. “When Lieutenant Wood came to this place seventy years ago, he said there were three grades.” Wauchope peered again. “This is the superior grade. That sparkle of gold is iron pyrites. It’s the nielo, just as Licinius described it.” He took off the monocle and slumped back. For a moment all Howard could hear was the sound of his own breathing, sharp, rasping. He watched his exhalation crystallize in the cold mountain air. Wauchope rolled his head over and looked at him. “You know what this means.”

“It means,” Howard said, “that by some act of divine providence those ghouls chased us into the right mine-shaft. Wood said there was only one shaft that produced the superior grade. And look at those pick marks on the rock above us-and the soot from fires used to crack the rock. This shaft has been mined for thousands of years.”

Howard closed his eyes. The rock chips he was lying on were jagged and unforgiving, but he seemed hardly to feel them at all. It was strange. He opened his eyes and peered at Wauchope. The two men were scarcely recognizable from three months before, when they had left Quetta one night and made their way toward the border, disappearing into the wilds of Afghanistan. And now here they were, thirty years after their escape from the jungle shrine, their faces sun-scorched and craggy like the mountain valleys, weather-beaten old men with matted gray beards. They both wore turbans, impregnated with dust, and heavy Afghan sheepskin overcoats tied around the middle, the matted wool turned inward as protection against the bitter cold that had begun to course through the mountains in their final treacherous approach to the mines. Beneath Wauchope’s upturned collar, Howard could see the leather Sam Browne belt and khaki of his uniform, the colonel’s pips and crown visible on one shoulder. They were both officially retired, but they knew they would be treated as spies by the Afghans if they went without uniform and would suffer a fate worse than death. It had been their profession for thirty-five years, as officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, and it seemed the most natural thing to wear the uniforms they had worn all their adult lives, on their last and greatest adventure together.

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 velpu, 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 velpu 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 Koya 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 velpu 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.

“That horse won’t come in here,” Wauchope said. “But the others will be on us soon, those following on foot. We have a few minutes left.”

Howard uncurled his left hand and clutched Wauchope’s hand hard, then stared up toward him. “Did I do any good, Robert? I built canals and bridges and roads. I showed them how to map the land. Did I do any good?”

“You brought up a family. You were a loving father. There is no better good a man can do.”

Howard’s face collapsed. “My son Edward. My boy. I should never have left him in Bangalore. I should have been with him at the end.”

“You were a sapper officer, and you were doing the Queen’s duty.”

“Duty? In the jungle? What were we doing there?”

Wauchope gripped Howard’s hand. “Do you remember our friend Dr. Walker? He reported the terrible jungle fever that decimated our men back to Surgeon-Major Ross, and Ross came to the jungle to see for himself If you hadn’t told Walker your theory about mosquitoes and the fever, it might never have happened. Sir Ronald Ross, winner of the new Nobel Prize for medicine. Putting down that rebellion was a thankless task, but something came out of it for the common good.”

“The common good.” Howard coughed, and swallowed hard. “The Koya were already immune to the fever. We killed scores of them. We burned their villages. The roads I traced with my sappers are still there, unfinished, grown over. The few we did finish only brought moneylenders, opium dealers, disease. We were there because our government tried to squeeze a few more rupees out of the Koya, and we failed because our government couldn’t be bothered with a place that was unprofitable. We do great deeds with high ideals, Robert, but this was not one of them, and it has shaped my life.” Howard suddenly convulsed, wracked with coughing. Blood poured down his chin, and he clutched the wet patch on his side, the blood bubbling out of his lung. He looked Wauchope in the eyes, his face gray. His voice was a whisper. “I can’t feel my legs anymore, Robert.”

The drumbeat became louder. Wauchope put his hand on Howard’s shoulder, and leaned close to him, wiping the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. “Steady on there, old boy.”

Howard gripped Wauchope’s hand. “Find the jewel, would you? Take it to the jungle, to Licinius. And return the sacred velpu to the Koya. We owe them.” His voice was trailing off He coughed again, then whispered, “Go back to the shrine, and put it in his tomb.”

Wauchope squeezed his hand. “One thing at a time, old boy. And I’ll need you to help me move the lid.”

“Look underneath, at the base of the sarcophagus,” Howard murmured. “There will be a hole, about the right size for that tube. Licinius was a stonemason, remember? Roman sarcophagi always had a hole in them, to let the decay out. To let the soul fly free.”

“I always said you should have been an archaeologist,” Wauchope replied.

Howard forced a grin, his teeth glistening with blood. “We’ve had a great adventure, haven’t we?”

“Indeed we have.” Wauchope picked up the bamboo tube with his left hand, curling his fingers around it until they nearly touched, then reached down with his right hand and picked up his Webley. “And it’s not over yet.” He gestured at the pistol in Howard’s hand, where it had remained after he fell. “Any chambers left?”

“Two.”

“I can’t believe you still use that old thing. Cap and ball. In this day and age. You really ought to get a cartridge revolver.”

“That’s what you said thirty years ago in the jungle. I’ve managed to avoid firing a shot in anger since then. It has served me well.”

“Just as long as you keep your powder dry.”

“A soldier always looks after his weapon, Robert.”

“You are still a soldier. The best.”

“But not always,” Howard murmured, “a knight in shining armor.”

“Did it feel good? Shooting again in anger, I mean? Just now?”

“I always enjoyed the smell of gunpowder.”

“Well then. Let’s see if we can make up for lost time, shall we?”

“Hann til Ragnaroks.”

“What did you say?”

Howard raised his left hand. His fingers were curled as if he were still holding the bamboo tube, but he could not feel them. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Look at the signet ring. The family crest, with the anchor. It’s made of Viking silver, brought to England by my Norse ancestors. Hann til Ragnaroks was their motto. It means ‘until we meet in Ragnaroks’ in Valhalla.”

“How on earth do you know that?” Wauchope said.

Howard managed a weak smile. “Family history. Always been a passion. Don’t expect it will pass on though. Nobody else interested. But at least I know what to say when I get there. To those who have gone before.”

“Well, I’m deuced if I’m going to Valhalla without a fight,” Wauchope said. “Come on.”

“My hand, Robert,” Howard whispered. “Have you seen? It’s stopped shaking. It’s had a tremor all those years, since the jungle. Since I pulled that trigger. Now I can’t feel it at all.”

Wauchope reached over and cocked Howard’s Colt, wrapping his limp hand around the grip. “I’m going for a recce. Your job is to shoot anything that appears at that entranceway.”

“Right-oh.” Howard’s voice was barely audible. “Soldier first, engineer second.”

“Quo fas et Gloria ducunt. We are soldiers.” “Warriors,” Howard whispered. “Knights.” “What was it you said? Hann til Ragnaroks.” “Hann til Ragnaroks.” Howard whispered the words, then took a rasping breath, bringing up blood again, and clutched Wauchope’s arm. He was shaking again, and his breathing was shallow. “Did I do it?” he whispered. “In the jungle? Did I do it? Did I shoot that little boy?” He looked up imploringly, but he could no longer see Wauchope. All he saw now was the imprint of the light at the end of the cave, and the aura of blue from the rock surrounding it. Wauchope held his hand and squeezed it, then reached into Howard’s tunic to where he knew it was, and pulled out a faded photograph of a young woman holding a baby. He placed it in Howard’s blood-soaked hand, and put his own hand around it. Howard was crying, tears streaming from sightless eyes, crying for the first time. “I can see him,” he whispered. “Darling Edward.” He watched them coming down the tunnel toward him, coming from the light, the woman and the boy. The boy ran ahead, stumbled into his arms, and he held him high, laughing, crying with joy. Wauchope leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, then pushed himself to his knees, staggering up on his feet, the Webley dangling from one hand and the bamboo tube from the other. The silhouette was gone, and all Howard could see was a blinding light, as the rising sun obliterated everything else in its beam. The blue on the walls lit up and channeled the light back out again, a beam of energy that seemed to lift him to his feet and carry him forward. Then he heard the drums again, closer now, reverberating through the cave, and he felt the wind from outside, sharp jabs of cold that seemed to pierce him like arrows, and he was gone.