Dragon Dance Read Online Free Page B

Simon could see two writhing pairs of legs. He got hold of aleg wearing long baggy trousers and pulled violently. The second Chinese hit the deck with a heavy thump. Brad gathered a dagger from him, too, and handed it to Simon as the cook came out. He obviously didn’t suspect anything: he wasn’t even carrying a kitchen knife. Seeing the daggers in their hands, he backed away, muttering.
    â€œSo far, so good,” Simon said happily.
    â€œDon’t say that,” Brad warned. “Can you bring up one of those coils of rope?”
    Simon tied up the two they had ambushed. The first was flat out, the second conscious but not offering opposition. The cook stood by the open galley door.
    â€œHim, too?”
    Brad said: “I thought we might talk him into serving supper first.”
    Simon waggled the dagger, and the cook backed into the galley. On the stove there was a large dish of rice and several smaller dishes. Another gesture with the dagger got the right results. The cook ladled food into bowls and handed them to them.
    They ate hungrily, cramming food in with their fingers. There were chopsticks on the table, but Simon didn’t think this was the time to start usingthem. He emptied his bowl and was about to hand it back for a refill when he saw the cook looking past them, towards the open door. Not that old trick, he thought, but his own eyes followed automatically. Another Chinese stood there, holding a stick.
    Brad had seen him, too. “Looks like we missed one.”
    â€œBut only one.”
    Brad put his bowl down. “I thought it was going too well.”
    â€œWhen I give the signal,” Simon said, “we go for him.”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œWhen you give the signal, then. What are we waiting for?”
    The Chinese raised the stick and said something which sounded like an order.
    â€œI think he wants us to drop the daggers,” Brad said.
    â€œAre you saying we should?” Simon stared at him incredulously. “Give in to one man, with a stick?”
    â€œIt’s not a stick,” Brad said.
    He reached out and took the dagger from Simon and tossed it, along with his own, to the floor.
    â€œIt’s a gun.”

3
    S IMON AWOKE CRAMPED AND STIFF . He tried to turn over and found that although the upper part of his body responded, something was holding his feet. He took in noises: creaking timbers, sounds of wind and sea, a nearer clanking sound. The clanking began when he tried to move and stopped when he did.
    Brad said: “You awake, Si?”
    He reached down and touched the chains which hobbled his ankles, and remembered the previous night.
    â€œI’m awake.”
    Early morning light through a square porthole showed him his surroundings. It was a cabin about six feet by twelve, bare except for the heap of charcoal which took up half the floor area and reached almost to the deck above. Fuel for the galley, presumably.
    Brad said: “The door’s bolted on the other side. Not that we’d be likely to get far with these leg irons.”
    Simon examined his ankles. The fetters were steel, of better quality than he had seen this side of the fireball. One was clamped round each ankle, and a very short chain connected them. He now remembered one of the Chinese snapping them shut and locking them with an impressive-looking key.
    He asked: “Where did that other one come from? I thought we’d checked out.”
    â€œHe must have been lying low in one of the cabins.”
    â€œAnd that gun . . . I know the Chinese invented gunpowder, but I thought they only used it for fireworks.”
    â€œNo. The Chinese armies that fought Genghiz Khan in the thirteenth century had quiteadvanced weapons—grenades, bombs, rocket-powered arrows, even flamethrowers. And what they called the fire-spurting lance. In other words, guns.”
    Simon was not too interested in Genghiz Khan. “What happens