The Dutchman sent out a wall of air to knock Remo off his feet. At the same time he sent another, stronger one toward Chiun, The old man squinted against the gale, unable to move. The Dutchman closed in on Remo.
Remo rolled out of the way of the first blow, a kick that left a deep pit in the ground. The dirt from the pit swirled and dissipated in the growing windstorm that the Dutchman had created. He struck again. Remo dodged it by instinct alone. The experience in the cave had taught him not to rely on his eyes.
A long tongue of flame licked out of the turbulence. Without thinking, Remo lunged toward it, two fingers poised to strike. They hit. Out of the flying dirt and thick salt spray came a howl. Then the Dutchman's fingernails thrust past Remo's face, near enough to scrape four bloody lines across his skin.
It was hard to breathe in the maelstrom of whirling leaves and earth. Two trees were uprooted nearby. Their gray trunks flew overhead, weightless. Remo lunged again and missed. An invisible foot caught him on the thigh, sending him sprawling through the mist. He kept going when he landed, sure the Dutchman would have heard his fall. The shape came— how fast could that guy move? Remo positioned himself for attack. When the Dutchman touched ground, Remo stepped forward with a thrust to the neck.
He hit. Not the neck. A shoulder groaned in its socket, shattered, and fell away from his fist. Without a second's hesitation, the Dutchman's other arm lashed out and took Remo in the ribs. Two sharp snaps sent Remo back, reeling. An inch closer, and they would have pierced his heart.
Then another shape loomed nearby. Instinctively, Remo charged for it before realizing it was Chiun. He stopped cold as Chiun spoke.
"Move!" the old man said. But Remo moved too late. Chiun's tiny figure in the mist upended and seemed to blow away in the wind.
"Chiun!" Remo called.
Silence.
"Chiun!"
The hand came out of nowhere toward Remo's temple.
"Chiun," he whispered as the walls of consciousness came crashing in blackness around him. It had been a glancing blow, but enough to stop Remo. Enough to weaken him. The next would kill him. He was beaten. It was over. He tasted the dirt on his lips.
And then from the depths of his soul, his voice spoke. "I am created Shiva, the Destroyed; death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju."
And he struggled to his feet.
He moved, infinitely slowly, the blood of ages stirring within him. The Dutchman emerged from the storm. His mangled shoulder was dripping blood, and blood was pouring from his side. His face was twisted in pain and rage as he came for Remo.
Silently, swiftly, Remo sprang from his back, his being focused in his powerful right arm. A look of terror flashed across the Dutchman's eyes as Remo struck, tearing his face to a pulpy mass.
At the instant it was over, Remo felt a wave of pity rise in his throat.
The Dutchman staggered off his feet and disappeared backward into the storm. In the mist a fluttering sigh began and died.
Soon the soughing of the wind ebbed. The dead leaves that had been coloring the sky black settled to the ground, and twilight returned in its electric blueness. Far away, a tree frog began singing, and others took up the chant.
"Chiun?" Remo called.
The old man stood near a broken Ackee tree. Slowly he raised his arm to point toward the cliff side of Devil's Mountain. Across a jagged boulder was draped the broken body of the Dutchman. Remo and Chiun went toward him.
The explosion happened before they reached him. The earth shook, and a double blast burst from the castle in a curtain of flame. Fire poured out of its narrow slit windows. Women screamed.
A second explosion rocked the castle to its foundations. Huge slabs of stone tumbled to the ground as the white turrets crumbled, leaving clouds of dust and fire in their wake.
Chiun took hold of Remo's arm, his long fingernails digging into his skin. "Listen," he said, drawing Remo toward the Dutchman.
The young man's eyes were open and weeping, tears mixed with blood dropping red onto the rock where he lay as Nuihc's castle disintegrated before him. "I have failed," he croaked. "Nuihc, this is your vengeance." Then his head dropped. He made no other movement. Thin streams of blood coursed from his wounds down the gray stone, forming small pools around him. On the peak, the fire raged unabated, washing the Dutchman's body in a bright glow.
"How young he is," Chiun whispered. He picked up his robe and dabbed at the cuts on Remo's cheek. "Come. We must look after you now."
Then, in the orange aura from the blaze in the castle, they saw a line of figures marching toward them, their outlines wavy and rippled in the heat. At the head of the line lumbered a wide female figure who shouted commands at the others.
"Buge-toi, putain! Move it. You best be putting them buns to work getting you down this hill, else they gonna burn like de pork rind. Ha, ha," Sidonie cackled gleefully as she forced her charges down the hill.
Chiun peered at the strange parade. All of the figures were women in various stages of undress. Some were draped in sheets or towels; others picked their way down the hill clad only in diaphanous nightgowns. One of them, a proud redheaded Amazon, strutted apart from the group wearing a black garter belt, opera hose, and spike heels.
"That woman in front," Chiun began, pointing to the black drill sergeant in a ruffled skirt and bandana. "She looks like..."
"Who else," Remo finished, watching Sidonie wield the iron pipe she had brought to Remo's rescue earlier. She circled it over her head, threatening the girls behind her as she commanded them downward.
"Hey, Mr. Remo, Mr. Chiun," she bellowed. "Lookee what I got for you. Get going, girlie. You ain't laying around sucking up bonbons no more." Behind her, the girls grumbled and muttered in French. "Taisez-vous!" she shrieked, prodding one of the girls in the stomach with the pipe. "Soyez tranquille! Shut your mouth or I shut it good, hear?"
In silence the girls fell in near Remo and Chiun. From the rear of the line, a little terrier scrambled forward, stopping to beg at Sidonie's feet.
"Who are those people?" Chiun asked.
Sidonie picked up the dog and slung him onto her shoulder. "They the Dutchman's women," she said. "Sinners, all of them. Prob'ly pretty good at it, too, by the looks of them," she added with a wink. "I take them out of the castle after I sabotage the furnace."
"You what?" Remo asked, looking up at the flaming ruin on the hill.
"I take the gasoline tank what was in the Jeep Pierre stole. I drag it into the basement, I throw it in the furnace. Boom."
"You made the boom," Chiun acknowledged.
"Bomb," said Remo.
"I be in the French Resistance, remember?"
"And the Dutchman thought it was Nuihc's vengeance," Remo said.
Fabienne and another woman, who was strangely swathed in veils of sooty white gauze, came limping from the direction of the castle. "Remo, Remo!" Fabienne called, waving wildly. Her dirt-streaked face was happier than Remo had ever seen it as she jumped into his arms, sending shooting pains from Remo's fractured ribs.
"It's all right," Remo said over her loud apologies. "It's only my chest."
The woman in white reached over with a visible effort and took the dog Sidonie held out to her. The terrier whined and tried to lick the woman's scarred face beneath her veil.
"Adrianna will testify that the Dutchman used some kind of— how you say— hypno— hypno—"
"Hypnosis."
"Yes. He hurt many people, Remo." She took the hand of the veiled Asian girl. "Adrianna was nearly blinded. She thinks also that the Dutchman killed people in the shipyard. Perhaps if the police investigate—"
"They will. And they'll find plenty of bodies. You won't have any trouble getting your father's business back. You're rich, Fabienne."
She kissed him, but a shadow of worry passed over her face. "Will the Dutchman go to prison on Sint Maarten? You know, he's very clever. He may escape."