Path of the Tiger

bright jewels, were refracting focused light within the shadowy cavern of her hood. And, what was more, those shining eyes did not look any longer like those of a human being. Rather, they had taken on the ominous radiance of the eyes of a wild beast.
‘The Old Gods…’ Ao murmured to himself, his eyes widening with awe … and fear, as an epiphany hit him with abruptly brutal force. ‘They’re … they’re real! The legends are true! The stories are true, they’re real!’
He had never been this close to the ancient shrine; to get so near to it was strictly forbidden to anyone but medicine men and women, and while the elders of his band knew of the location of this place, on the rare occasions on which their migrations through the taiga took them this far north, they would usually skirt it by miles.
The glow of the prisoner’s eyes in the darkness grew even brighter, and in a moment of inexplicable yet near-dazzling clarity, Ao Maliya understood precisely why the elders forbade anyone to approach this sacred site. It was a feeling that he could not put into words, that he could not comprehend in any sort of linear, logical fashion, but the potency of its message gushed at once through every cell of his being.
Skipping the interlocutory link of the interpreter, he rushed over to Higgins and grabbed at the officer’s arm.
‘You cannot go there! I made a mistake, we shouldn’t have come here, we, we have to go, we have to turn around and, and leave!’ he babbled, flecks of spittle flying haphazardly from his flapping crimson lips, his eyes wild in the eerie gloom.
Higgins jerked his arm out of the Ewenki’s grasp.
‘Unhand me, blast you!’ he snapped in English, his usually unflappable composure rattled by Ao’s near-rabid outburst.
‘Turn around, turn around!’ Ao yelled hysterically, lunging again for Higgins’ greatcoat. ‘We have to leave, we have to, we have to go!’
This time, however, the officer was ready for him, and moving with agile speed, he swivelled his hips and twisted his torso, deftly dodging the young man’s clumsy flailing, and with a perfectly executed judo throw he hurled Ao to the ground. The impact drove all of the air out of the young man’s lungs, and he lay gasping futilely for breath, like a fish pulled from water, drowning in air. Higgins, meanwhile, kept him pinned down while the interpreter hurried over.
‘What’s gotten into this damned fool?!’ Higgins demanded. ‘What’s he blabbering on about?!’
‘He was saying,’ the interpreter answered, his own features contorted with unease, ‘that we have to leave. We have to turn around and go. We should not have come here.’
‘What?! After leading us here, all this way, to the very doorstep of this place … he now wants us to now abandon the mission and turn around?! The fool has gone insane, he’s lost his bloody mind, he has! Well, you can inform him that we’re proceeding as planned, and that we no longer require his services, not until we come out of the place at least.’ Higgins then looked up, his fury-filled eyes seeking out a particular soldier. ‘Boreyev!’ he barked as soon as his gaze settled on the big man. ‘Come over here and truss this madman up! Stuff a gag in his damned mouth as well, I’d say! Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere until we come back!’
‘Yes sir!’ Boreyev growled as he jogged over with a length of rope.
Boreyev tied Ao up and stuffed a rag into his mouth, and there the expedition left him, lying tied up on the ground.
‘Fix bayonets!’ Vasilevsky ordered.
The soldiers all complied, attaching their cutlass bayonets to their rifles, while the two officers loosened their sabres in their scabbards and drew their revolvers from their holsters. Vasilevsky glanced at the assembled soldiers, who were all now in formation, and he then looked at Higgins, who gave him a nod of affirmation.
‘The company will advance!’ Vasilevsky barked.
He and Higgins led the soldiers from the front, weapons at the ready, while the scientists followed a short distance behind, marvelling at the otherworldly readings they were observing on their equipment. Two people brought up the very rear of the group: the chained-up prisoner and a burly Japanese soldier, whose job it was to keep a close eye on her.
As they neared the top of the ridge, Higgins held up a hand to call a halt to the advance, not wanting to silhouette himself and his men against the sky. He beckoned to one of the lead troopers, a bow-legged, bald-headed Malay, and the man hurried over.
‘Scout around the perimeter, Razif,’ Higgins murmured, his eyes darting left and right, peering through the endless, shadow-drenched ocean of trees, trying to pick out any signs of movement among the tens of thousands of vertical bars, slashes and stripes that extended as far as the eye could see into a greenish-brown blur in every direction. ‘Make sure we really are alone here.’
‘Yes sir!’ Razif answered, giving Higgins a stiff salute before speeding off, flitting like a woodland spright from shadow to shadow.
‘How long has our order searched for this place?’ Higgins said to Vasilevsky as they waited for their scout to return. ‘Centuries? Millennia, even? And here we finally are, at the centre of it all, at our El Dorado … but unlike the fabled city of gold, this, what lies ahead of us, just over the top of the next rise, is no myth. And our names – yours and mine, Vasilevsky – will be remembered for all of future history for what we are about to accomplish. Relish this moment, my friend … relish it.’
Vasilevky’s mask of sullenness remained unmoved at Higgins’ impromptu speech.
‘You want to be praised, talked about and remembered, Englishman, that much is obvious. Me? I just want to see every one of those disgusting things,’ he snarled, turning to jerk his thumb at the prisoner, ‘wiped forever from the face of the earth. I still think