Hunter, Warrior, Commander

by Andrew Maclure

  Sitting there, resting, Sah Lee was starting to wonder if there were any vulpen, or even if Sor Tan had been telling the truth about having heard there was a pack in the area. There was a much simpler explanation for the wound on her head that appeared to have been inflicted as Sor Tan came abreast of her.

  As she sat holding her water bottle, Sah Lee saw a large bird flying overhead, high in the sky. Only it wasn’t like any bird she had seen before. Squinting up at the bright morning sky, the bird looked black, a rectangular shape with no wings. It was moving quickly in a dead straight line.

  Unsettled by this, Sah Lee stood and continued her slow jog, following the tracks of the students returning to the city.

  Chapter Thirteen

  City Camp

  Sah Lee found the remains of the camp late in the afternoon. The first thing she saw were the bodies.

  Her first thought was that a vulpen pack had attacked, but when she examined the remains, the wounds were nothing like she had seen before. There were two types of injury, holes that went through the bodies with blood coming out of them; it was obvious where whatever made the hole went in, there was not much damage around the wound, but where it came out again there was a bigger wound with the flesh pushed out and away from the exit hole. The other type of wound was even stranger. Small clean holes that didn’t bleed and looked the same on both sides of the bodies. Some bodies had entry wounds in their backs and looked like they were running away from whatever attacked them.

  All but one body was unarmed. Sah Lee found the body of her roommate Lat Raan. She had drawn the hunting knife that Rin Tor gave her before leaving for their field trip, and it had blood on it. Sah Lee sniffed the blood on the blade. It didn’t smell like the blood of any of the animals she had hunted. She knew what Aarnth blood smelt like, and it wasn’t like that either. The blood smelt strange, as if it didn’t belong here. She wondered if this was anything to do with the strange bird she had seen earlier. This was like nothing she had ever seen or heard of. Perhaps Rin Tor had been right, the four moons that the Makers had put round Aarn as protectors had abandoned them, just stood by while the demons from Maaren, the small, hot innermost planet, did their evil. But Rin Tor was dead now, along with most of the students.

  Tears stung Sah Lee’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. A fury grew inside her. If these were demons that did this, they could still bleed. She would smell more of their blood when she found them.

  She checked the bodies to see if anyone was missing. Mah Dak, Kel Mai and Ran Bor were amongst the dead, but Tir Mal was missing, as was Sor Tan. Everyone else had perished.

  This was no time to honor the dead by burying them. Sah Lee examined the ground to try to understand what had happened here. The tracks were churned up and confused, but clear enough to show that there were several types of track she had never seen before. Many of them had regular patterns on them that didn’t look like feet - or the paws, claws and hooves of any of the animals on Aarn. As she scouted the site of the camp, she found the direction the tracks had come from, and led back to. As she followed the trail, she could see that the tracks in the direction of the camp were deep at the toes, which indicated that they had been running. The top layer of tracks was light and closer together, with an even pressure on the whole foot, as if whatever made them made an unhurried return. A pair of grooves leading away from the camp looked like they had been left by the heels of a body being dragged back with them.

  The tracks started and stopped suddenly at a straight line in the dust, as though they had stepped off something when they arrived and stepped back onto it when they left. Whatever it was, it was gone now. As she scouted the area, she found six large square depressions in the dust in two rows of three, as though something big and heavy had squatted on the ground. She returned to the camp site and scouted until she found a set of tracks running from the camp. It was difficult to be sure whose they were. Both Sor Tan and Tir Mal had been wearing thin leather moccasins, but she thought the angle of the feet and the spacing between the paces looked like they belonged to Tir Mal. Settling into a jog, her head still aching, Sah Lee followed Tir Mal’s tracks.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reunited

  Sah Lee ran steadily until it was dark, pausing only for a drink occasionally to make sure she did not dehydrate. The tracks were easy to follow. There was more dust than usual that had settled on the ground from the destroyed city, and Tir Mal had made no effort to hide her tracks.

  Sah Lee felt tired and sick and her head throbbed. She knew that after a head trauma she should have laid down and rested for a day, but this was no time to take a day’s rest. Nonetheless, she knew she had to stop and sleep now. In the glimmer of light from the Necklet she saw a rocky outcrop ahead. When she reached it, she climbed up and found a sheltered niche in the rocks. She took a deep drink of water from one of her water bottles and promptly vomited it up. Taking another mouthful of water, she rinsed her mouth and spat it out. She got up and found another sheltered spot and settled down with her head on her backpack, then fell into a deep sleep.

  The faint sound of a moccasined foot on rock woke Sah Lee with a start in the pre-dawn light. She sprang up, instantly wide awake, drawing her knife from the sheath strapped to her back.

  “Sah Lee, thank the Makers you are all right. It’s me, Tir Mal. What happened to you? Sor Tan said a vulpen had chased you.”

  “Sor Tan said a lot of things.” Sah Lee replied, sheathing her knife again. “There are no vulpen. I can’t remember what happened to me, but I think Sor Tan ran up behind me and struck me on the head with a rock. I came round hours later with a pool of dried blood by my head. I think she left me for dead.”

  “But I thought you two had made up? She seemed happy for you to take the lead in the city.”

  “I don’t know what she was thinking, but it wasn’t the same as she was saying. I need to eat. Let’s go and hunt.”

  “You stay there and rest. You look sick. I’ll get something.”

  “Before you go, have you seen any of those strange black birds flying around?”

  “I think I know what you mean, but they’re not birds, they are machines. One landed near our camp in the city and those creatures came running out of it and they were carrying stick-like things and some of them made a sound like a rock cracking in the sun and some of them didn’t but they both made holes in us and people screamed and died and there was blood and bodies and, and…”

  Tir Mal’s voice broke into sobs that rocked her shoulders. Tears flowed down her face and she dropped into a crouch, burying her face in her arms, like a child.

  Sah Lee was shocked at Tir Mal breaking down like this. She crouched next to her and put her arm round Tir Mal’s shoulders. Pulling her to her chest, she rubbed her back like Sah Krin, her mother, had done to her when she was upset as a child.

  After a few minutes Tir Mal sat up, wiping her eyes with her arm. “I’m sorry Sah Lee, so many are dead, and I feel so, so…”

  “You don’t need to say anything Tir Mal. These are strange times. Bad times. These creatures, were they demons from Maaren?”

  Tir Mal sniffed and wiped her eyes again. “I don’t think so. The demons are just stories. These were real and anyway, demons wouldn’t need machines. The stick like things were weapons. Demons are supposed to have long curved swords. I don’t know what the creatures are or where they came from.”

  “I found Lat Raan. She had her knife in her hand and it had blood on it. It didn’t smell like any blood I have smelt before. It didn’t belong here. Whatever they are, they bleed, and I think she might have killed one, it looked like a body had been dragged away by them.”

  “They are not all the same. They all wore thick clothes and their heads were covered, but they are different shapes and sizes and made different sounds.”

  “If one bleeds, they all bleed.” Sah Lee could feel the cold fury building inside her again. “I will end my life ending theirs.”

  “I will sta
nd with you Sah Lee, but you must rest now. Stay here, I’ll hunt for food for both of us.”

  Sah Lee wanted to get out and hunt the creatures but knew that Tir Mal was right. Her head was aching, and she was in no condition to fight strange creatures with unnatural weapons. She took a small sip of water and lay down in the shade. Within moments, she was asleep again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Demons

  Sah Lee woke as a hand clamped over her mouth. Her eyes popped open as she reached for her knife and saw Tir Mal leaning over her.

  “The creatures from the flying machine are here.” she whispered urgently.

  “How many? Are they coming this way?” Sah Lee hissed.

  “Two. They don’t know we are here. They were sitting on the rocks at the bottom of the outcrop. I caught their scent on the way back.”

  “Is there a flying machine there?”

  “I don’t think so. I couldn’t see or scent one. They may have run here, though they don’t look like they are built for running.”

  “They can walk though. Can we get close to them?”

  “Are you planning to kill them?” Tir Mal asked, surprised.

  “Lat Raan killed one. I’ll either kill one or die trying.”

  “You’ve not recovered yet, you should rest first. We can get away from them if we head east.”

  “I’m well enough to kill one. How about you?”

  “I’m ready to die trying too.” Tir Mal answered, with a mirthless grin. “You’re a better fighter than me, but I’m a better rock climber. We can kill them both between us.”

  Tir Mal clambered up the rocks, moving towards and above the creatures while Sah Lee crept down and round to their right flank until she was only a few feet from them, and sheltered under a shallow overhang. When she was in position, she gave out a staccato series of short whistles. She waited patiently until she heard an answering call from Tir Mal.

  A few pebbles and dust fell on to the creatures. They both turned to look up just in time to see a huge boulder plummeting down towards them. They leapt to their feet and threw themselves to the side. One of them jumped the wrong way, the boulder hit him with a dull thump and a wet crunching sound. The other staggered backwards as Sah Lee launched herself at it. She caught its head in her hands as she flew through the air just behind it and as she passed, twisted it round with the weight of her body. There was a loud crack and as she hit the ground with the creature’s body coming down beside her, she let it go. She rolled once and sprung to her feet, pulling her knife from its sheath. She didn’t need the knife. The creatures head lolled loosely, its legs twitched weakly then stopped. It was dead.

  Sah Lee bent down to remove the cover from the creature’s head. While she was trying to get it off Tir Mal scrambled down to join her.

  “Without their weapons to protect them, they are easy to kill.” Tir Mal said.

  “I think the rock you dropped on them would have killed a massoon, but this one’s neck broke easily enough.”

  “What are you doing?” Tir Mal asked,

  “I want to see what a demon looks like.”

  “They aren’t demons. I don’t know what these creatures are, but they don’t come from Maaren.”

  “You call them what you want, I’ll call them demons.” Sah Lee answered as she wrestled with the creature’s helmet.

  Sah Lee braced her foot against the creature’s shoulder and twisted and pulled the helmet. It suddenly released, and she fell on her back with the helmet in her hands. Throwing it down she sprang up to get a good look at the face of their enemy.

  She didn’t know what she expected to see, but it wasn’t this. Its head was covered in short, soft, fine brown fur, turning paler around the eyes, nose and mouth. Small pointed furry ears lay flat against the side of its head. It had a hairless, black, flattened nose, long white eyelashes and thin, pink lips. The mouth hung open, showing small sharp teeth. Its large dark eyes were wide open and lifeless. For a moment Sah Lee was reminded of her first farun kill and felt a pang of regret for killing this harmless looking creature, but then remembered the carnage back in the city, the sight of her friends slaughtered by these things for no reason and she felt the cold fury inside her again.

  Tir Mal picked up the weapon that the creature had dropped. The boulder had crushed the other weapon, along with its owner. Sah Lee looked on as Tir Mal carefully examined it.

  “They held them like this.” She said, lifting the weapon to her shoulder.

  “How did they make it go?” Sah Lee asked, thinking they could use their enemies’ weapons against them.

  “I don’t know. This is the kind that make a noise like a rock cracking, but louder and very close together. They just held them and pointed them at us.” The color drained out of Tir Mal’s face as she recollected the attack. She thrust the weapon at Sah Lee and sat down with her face in her hands.

  Sah Lee dropped to a crouch beside her. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Tir Mal lifted her head. Her face was ashen. “We stood there looking at them as they walked towards us. They lifted these stick things and pointed them at us. We just stared at them, wondering what the creatures were and what they wanted. Then there was a terrible noise and people were dropping all round me. Some of them suddenly had holes in them, some of them jerked and had red splashes on their fronts and a pink mist and red blobs coming out of their backs. I saw Sor Tan run and I did the same. I should have stayed and fought them - but we didn’t know, we didn’t know…” her voice trailed away. She looked down at the ground and her tears dropped into the dust.

  “If you had stayed you would be dead now. You did the right thing. You have already started to get revenge for our friends.” Sah Lee stood up and held her hand out to Tir Mal. “Come on, let’s go. There will be a lot of dead demons before we’ve finished.”

  Tir Mal grasped the outstretched hand and pulled herself up.

  “We are hunters.” Sah Lee said. “Let’s go and hunt demons.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Village

  Sah Lee led the way west. She had no destination in mind, but she had traveled east toward the city from her village and she knew there was nothing there for them. The train journey to the city had taken her over six hours. Traf Dek had told her that the train would travel as far in one hour as a fit hunter could travel in three days, so they were still eighteen days travel from her village - if they could find it. Sah Lee had never traveled more than three days away from her village on a hunt, and then only rarely. Tir Mal’s village was even further to the west than hers, so she wouldn’t recognize any of the terrain either.

  As they ran steadily at the loping pace of a hunt, they saw flying machines crisscrossing high in the sky, traveling in dead straight lines. Sah Lee worried that they would spot her and Tir Mal and come down for them. She knew she could easily kill the demons if she ambushed them, but if there were many of them and they used their stick weapons, she and Tir Mal would be defenseless and quickly killed.

  They ran for hour after hour, stopping only when they scented water for a brief rest and a drink. As the afternoon sun dropped towards the horizon, Sah Lee spotted a thin line of smoke in the distance, south of the direction they were traveling. It looked like the smoke of a village fire. She altered their course to run towards it.

  They approached in a wide arc, so they came toward the village from downwind. As they got closer Sah Lee slowed down and the two of them approached as though they were stalking it. As they drew closer, they expected to hear the everyday noises of a village. Chatter and laughter and the sound of children playing, but there was a silence broken only by the faint rustle of the wind in the grasses, the chirring of insects and the distant call of a bird of prey. Then the breeze brought two distinct scents to Sah Lee. Blood and males. She stopped dead and signaled to Tir Mal to do the same.

  “There’s something wrong at the village. Something bad. Draw your knife and we’ll split up. When we can see what ha
s happened, we’ll signal each other.” She whispered to Tir Mal.

  Sah Lee broke to the right and Tir Mal broke left as they silently crept toward the village. Tir Mal signaled first. Three low whistles, the all clear. Sah Lee slowly stood and saw Tir Mal standing close to the edge of the village, looking into it.

  Trusting Tir Mal’s judgment, Sah Lee ran over to join her. She saw what Tir Mal was looking at. Aarnth bodies were laying on the ground. The compound for the males was close to the village and she could see from where she was that it had been broken into and the males slaughtered. The fire that the smoke was coming from was almost burnt out. She and Tir Mal walked into the village and checked some of the dead. They had the same wounds she had seen on her friends back in the city. The bodies still had the heat of life in them, though the arms and legs had cooled and were stiffening. Sah Lee estimated that they had been dead for an hour or so.

  The village’s solar cells had been pulled down and smashed, and the batteries had holes in them from the creature’s weapons. They had pulled the fridge over and scattered its contents in the dust.

  As Sah Lee looked around, she saw the same heavily patterned footprints she had seen in the city where her friends died. She followed the direction the footprints came from until they ended at a straight line in the dust where they had got back into their flying machine. She returned to the village center where Tir Mal was standing, looking at the surrounding carnage.

  Tir Mal looked at Sah Lee as she walked toward her. “Why?” she asked.

  “They don’t need a reason, they are demons.” Sah Lee answered. “Come on, this isn’t the time to pay our respects to the dead. We will join them soon and there will be nobody to lay us to rest.”