Destroyer 83 - Skull Duggery by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Boldbator the Mongol galloped across the barren steppe.

He bounced in his padded trousers on the high wooden saddle, feeling the magnificent muscles of his short-legged horse surge and release with every lunging step and the wind flapping his long brown del caught at the waist with an orange sash.

The blazing sky overheard was like a brilliant blue dome protecting the world. The steppes were an endless plate of dun and old snow extending to every point on the compass.

"Ai yah!" cried Boldbator, the cold air hot in his lungs. He loved the steppe, its vastness and wild freedom. To ride from horizon to horizon was to live.

The trouble was, there were no adventures beyond either horizon for Boldbator the horse Mongol, descended from a long line of free-riding nomads. Once, his kind had ranged from south China to the far lands of Europe, conqueror-kings in the saddle.

No more. Not even Mongolia lay united under the Mongols. Here, in Inner Mongolia, Boldbator was a Chinese serf. And his brothers to the north in Outer Mongolia held firm in an oval of land, allied to Russia, but warily friendly with China, like a lump of cold mutton caught in the mouths of two ravening wolves.

The thought made Boldbator whip his fine cream horse harder. The steed responded, as is the way with a good Mongol horse. Nostrils flaring, he pounded the steppe like the drumming beats of a thousand demons.

Boldbator rode with ghosts this day-the spirits of his mighty ancestors. He wished they were with him now. They would be khans of both Mongolias, as well as the Russias and the soulless Chinese to the south.

One day, he thought, huddled in his bouncing saddle. One day the Next Khan will come . . .

The red dreams of Boldbator the horse Mongol were cast from his active mind by the sight of a long object against the horizon.

His keen eyes, sitting sharp in the crinkles that wind and sun had cut around them, grew steely with interest.

Here was the Great Mongol Road. No vehicle would attempt to pass it in the dead of winter, for there were few villages and no sanctuary to be found on the way.

Boldbator lashed his responsive pony around and veered toward that dim shape.

As he galloped toward it, his eyes saw it for what it was. A bus.

He trotted up to it slowly, for the windows were shattered and its painted sides were riddled with the shiny pits of bullet strikes.

The north wind carried the metallic taste of blood to Boldbator's broad nose.

Boldbator came to a halt only a few yards from the bus. It lay askew the road. There were bodies around it. Green bodies. Soldiers of Beijing.

Boldbator dismounted, and reassured his snorting pony with a firm slap.

Clutching his reins tightly, ready at an instant to remount or, if the worst happened, to slap his pony to safety, he padded forward.

The soldiers were all dead, but one. They lay in sprawled positions. No visible wounds on them.

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