Path of the Tiger, стр. 459
William crept into the hall, his senses on full alert, with fear chattering its driving beat through his temples and ears.
‘There he is!’
His heart skipped a beat and his stomach lurched with sudden terror. He looked up – for above was where the voice had come from – and he saw in the high boughs of the tree, right where it pushed through the hole in the roof, a woman. She was crouched among the thick masses of leaves and twigs, and William would not have noticed her had she not spoken. He had no idea how she could have gotten up there, for the lowest branch of the tree was too tall for even a seven-footer to reach, yet there she was, way up in the heights. All he could see of her was her face; long, straight black hair cascaded around her shoulders, and intense phoenix eyes, nestled beneath strong eyebrows, that burned with contempt – or was it malice – in her oval face. Below her broad nose, her dark, pronounced lips were curled into a snarl of unmistakable aggression. She looked similar, in ethnicity at least, to the Chinese traders William had seen in Calcutta, but there was something vastly different about her when compared to his recollections of those studious and seemingly emotionless businesspeople.
‘Who … who are you?’ he managed to stammer.
‘Ve are zhe ones who vill be asking zhe kvestions!’ boomed the deep voice William had heard earlier.
This voice had come from behind William, so he spun around to see who had been speaking. Standing behind a pile of stones was a hulking powerhouse of a fellow, with a shock of thick platinum hair that was virtually the same hue as his nearly translucent skin. With his wide face, ogre-like jaw and his coarse features, not to mention his tree-trunk limbs and barrel chest, the man radiated a sense of power and dominance that was undeniable in its intensity.
‘Now you vill tell me, vhy you did come here?!’ the man rasped in the tone of an inquisitor demanding a confession of a heretic. ‘You are a Huntsman?’
His accent was similar to that of many natives William had spoken to in the Crimea, so he guessed that the man was Russian.
‘No, I, I, was just w-, working, h-, hired as a horseman, to ac-, ac-, accompany the mission,’ he stammered in reply.
He hoped that these people couldn’t see how badly his limbs were trembling. Perhaps, though, like their wild beast pets they were able to smell the fear oozing from his every pore.
‘Oh, you vere just “doing your job”, vhere you?’ the man sneered. ‘Vell zhen, zhat makes it acceptable, does it not?! Vhat do you ssink, my friends? Do you ssink zhis little man vass just innocently “doing his job”?’
The woman perched in the treetop shook her head gravely.
‘I think he came here to hunt, to kill, to destroy, Nikolai … just like the rest of them,’ she declared flatly, her accent unique and non-specifically foreign, it seemed. ‘Yes, I think he’s just like the rest of them. No different from his friends, I’d say.’
‘Zhat judgment does not bode vell for you, little man,’ the man named Nikolai growled.
‘Listen, listen,’ William spluttered almost hysterically, his voice rising in pitch as panic took hold of him, ‘I was just, I had tae go along with them, I had no other choice! I’ve a girl back home, who I love wi’ all my heart an’ soul, I had tae—’
Nikolai folded his gorilla arms over his bulging midsection and chuckled mockingly.
‘Oh, you’ve got a girl back home?’ he snarled, the words dripping like caustic acid from his crimson lips. ‘Vell vhy didn’t you say so in zhe first place? Zhat makes everyssing completely different!’
‘Aye, aye, you see, I’ve, I’ve—’ William stammered, clutching desperately at whatever fragments of hope he could cling to.
‘SILENCE!’ Nikolai bellowed abruptly, cutting William off. ‘Zhis girl of yours is immaterial, I’m afraid. Inconsekvential!’
‘But, but, you dunnae understand, you dunnae … Listen, listen, please, please, I’m beggin’ you, fir the love ay all tha’s good an’ beautiful on this earth, please—’
‘Save your begging for someone else,’ the woman hissed. ‘That one isn’t your judge. He is. And you’ve already been convicted, and the sentence decided.’
William turned around slowly, looking in the direction in which the woman was pointing, terrified of what would be revealed. And when he saw what she was pointing at, he wilted in horror, for there, just a few paces behind him, was the great lion himself.
William froze, utterly paralysed with unadulterated, nerve-shearing fright. The monstrousness of the beast was even more awe-striking in the light of the temple hall than it had been when he had caught a glimpse of it in the forest earlier, or when it had passed him in the shadows of the tunnels below. It glared at him with its preternaturally green eyes, and then it opened its enormous mouth, releasing a roar that tore with apocalyptic fury through the chamber, rattling the stones to their very foundations. The sound made William’s knees gelatinous beneath him, and he could not help but whimper with terror. He felt a warm wash of liquid trickling down the inside of his thighs; he had just wet himself.
At that moment, from a dark alcove just behind the gargantuan lion, stepped out an impossibly thin Indian man with a gaunt yet kindly face, almost perfectly oblong in shape, with big, almost bug-like eyes that seemed to protrude from their shallow sockets. Between them was a pronouncedly hooked nose, and topping his head was long, flowing hair, black