The Tiger’s Den

The discussion is inconclusive, but Taylor nods at Vikram’s counsel. Stealth it is.

The area becomes quiet and still. The late afternoon air is cooling, and diurnal birds have wound down their daytime song.

Bear can still make out faint movement in the most distant stupa. He hears, even more faintly, the familiar clicking of an ammo belt being lifted into position. A heavy machine gun. They have sensed the party’s approach all right!

One safe route of approach presents itself. A crawl route through the brush that will take them into the cover of the stupa on the left. The party wriggle forward. The brush claws at them. The ground, baked hot from the day’s time, burns at their bellies.

But they reach the cover of the leftmost stupa. Peeping around the stupa’s corner, they are able to spy out the approach more closely.

The heads of the gunners in the machine gun are now—just—visible in the second, rear stupa.

Strange creatures are stealing out from the gloom of the high temple entrance . Three shapes , similar in form to the stone leopard they destroyed in the Mandalay hotel grounds. But more humanoid and impish in appearance. They prance and hop forward , fanning out to search the temple approach for invaders.

Two of the monkey forms explode into black dust. The third creature spins and charges towards the adventurers. As it charges, the third monkey is caught in a hail of machine gun and small arms fire. It disintegrates into chunks of dust and stone-like matter.


A few seconds of silence pass. Bear detects the thudding of retreating feet. Vikram, peering cautiously around the corner of the first stupa, sees that the second stupa is now empty of its gunners. He sees the barrel of the machine gun poking through wall slit. It is unmanned. The party can now advance tentatively and scout the second stupa. A hole has been made to its rear to give access to its hollow core. Apart from the machine gun, US military-stamped crates have been carefully stacked. The temple --at least its steps and front chamber--also now seems empty.

Vikram notices a crude but effective trap. One of the crates is rigged with a tripwire, connecting to a hidden device—presumably a bomb—hidden within.

Bear finds two spare belts for the heavy Japanese machine gun, but no other ammo.

Vikram discovers that the tripwire is attached to a bundle of American grenades, hidden inside the trapped crate. The crate is otherwise packed with field telephones, radios, and expensive walkie-talkies. The crate markings suggest that they were part of a cargo sent as military aid to China during the recent war. Vikram knows that the US air-lifted a billion dollars worth of gear over the ‘Hump’, the Himalayas. Brave young Yank crews flew heavily loaded transport planes across the "roof of the world". Many planes, Douglas Skytrains, were lost, brought down by Japanese fighters , altitude and harsh weather harsh. The hills and jungle in this area is strewn with the wreckage of their effort.

"Geez," says Taylor. "The gear in these crates might be as valuable as any crap we might find in the ruin. What shall we do? Open this stuff up, or move into the temple? "

The party climb the temple steps tentatively and enter the gloom of its portico. The polished teak doors directly ahead are battered by age and have been holed by bullets. They are partly ajar. Peering in, they see a large temple hall [area 5 on map] . The area is dark, with sunlight streaming in through the slit windows on its left wall.

Just to the right of the teak doors, tiny row of steps into the inky blackness of the temple basement.

Bear is able to detect faint traces in the dirt trail. He determines that animal-drawn carts have used the track, but not regularly or recently. There are a few, old elephant prints visible. The machine gunners have likely run off into the jungle. Others on the scene have also either fled, or remain somewhere in the temple.

In the large frieze room, Vikram recognises images telling the most famous story from Hindu myth, the Ramayana. A sequence of twenty pictures follows the life and journey of Rama, prince of Ayodhya and avatar of the god Vishnu, including the rescue of his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. As a Sikh, Vikram has been taught to dismiss such idolatrous tales. But it is so well-known in his home country, he knows the gist of the story.

He notices that the last few pictures add details to the usual account. One of Ravana’s demon generals, a tiger-headed devil, flees across the sea after Ravana’s defeat. He is pursued and captured by Rama’s soldiers in a barbed net. Rama swings the net and hurls the demon general to a prison mansion on the moon. The final picture shows the tiger-headed devil peering from the gates of his prison.

It resembles closely the temple in which the party are standing.

The small room on the left contains a large ornamental table, on which carved stone fruit rest as if for a meal.

As they return to the frieze room, the doors to their right [to 7, the altar area] burst open and the three remaining temple dwellers rush in to attack. The priests swing ceremonial maces. The villager shoots a pistol.The attacks are clumsy but fierce.

The priest attacking Eketerina swings wide. The villager shoots well wide of Bear.

But Taylor is knocked off-balance by the first priest and is unable to fire his pistol.