Free Casca 18: The Cursed by Barry Sadler

flowers in gold and silver for its entire length.
    A weapon or an ornament? he wondered.
    "You're sure he's one of Zhang ]intao's extortioners?"
    "The worst of them, Baron Ying. His size is unmistakable, and we have many reports of that fiendish mask and that huge body in action. He's a foul animal. Not Chinese, thank the gods."
    "What is he then?"
    "Don't know. I've never seen his face. Some who have say he's Korean."
    "Well, let's have a look."
    There was a creaking of leather as one of the riders dismounted and the mask was jerked down from Casca's face.
    "Blue eyes! Does Zhang have a British devil for his tax collector?"
    Casca looked around him. He tried to rise, but when he put his weight on his hands immense pain shot through his left wrist, taking his breath away.
    He struggled to his feet. What the hell to say? "Greetings, noble baron," he said to the man he took to be the leader.
    "Silence dog ," the leader snapped. He motioned to the man standing beside Casca. He went to his horse and returned with a long leather whip.
    Fire seared through Casca's neck as the thong wound around it. He grabbed the thong and tugged, yanking the man off balance and pulling him toward him. With his good hand he clubbed him on the neck, knocking him to the ground. He drew his sword and backed away.
    One man on foot, four men on horseback. Not good odds, but the only odds going.
    With his left hand Casca tried to unbuckle Hu's heavy sword belt. If he could get his Webley in his hand he could adjust the odds a little more favorably. It might be small and the barrel lack ornament, but he would back it against the baron's giant pistol.
    But his injured left hand made no impression on the heavy buckle.
    The leader looked at him in some amusement. "The dog has some spirit, anyway." He drew his lance and pointed it at Casca's chest. The other three riders drew their weapons and moved their horses to surround him, while the man he had felled got to his feet and faced him, sword in hand.
    "Put down your sword," the leader said. "You are our prisoner."
    "I prefer to die here," Casca answered, and slashed at the man on foot, who parried the blow skillfully and lunged at Caca. The mounted men looked on as they fought.
    "But we are not going to kill you." The leader spoke easily. "We have need of what you can tell us, and you are going to tell us."
    Torture had never been a strong point with Casca. He hated to have to suffer it, didn't even care to inflict it. Better to die on the sword.
    But then he felt the jab of a lance at his back, not quite heavy enough to pierce his leather armor.
    He swung to face the horseman just in time to parry another thrust of the lance.
    From behind a sword struck him on the shoulder, and again his armor saved him a cut. But the next lance thrust from behind found a gap in the leather scales over his shoulder blade and he felt a spasm of pain shoot through his right arm, almost enough to make him drop the sword.
    He swung the heavy sword in a furious arc and drove back all of his attackers. He continued to swing the weapon in a figure eight, turning all the time so that none of the attackers came close.
    Indeed they didn't try. They watched in amusement and waited for him to tire.
    It wouldn't be too long, Casca realized as he felt warm blood oozing from his wounded back. He leaped at the man on foot, aiming a downswing of the blade at his head.
    But the man retreated, then riposted skillfully, forcing Casca to yield ground to back into another lance and collect a wound in the buttock. He started forward only to be met by the skillful swordsman and be driven back onto the lance again.
    Then another lance pinked him in the arm and the sword fell from his grasp. Before he could reach for it the swordsman was standing over it.
    In furious humiliation Casca drew Hu's knife and charged at the baron, intent on dragging him from his horse and killing him or being killed in the attempt.
    But the swinging shaft of another