Dane came to his feet and even as his fingers found the sword hilt a Mekhar—no! A Hunter in Mekhar form!—came running at them through the rocks at their right, sword upraised; behind were three human shapes.
On impulse Dane waited until his enemy was almost upon him, then whipped his blade from the scabbard in a cut that brought it across his foeman's eyes. Before the cat-thing could recover he clapped his left hand to the hilt and, swinging the blade two-handed, brought it down in the "pear-splitting" stroke, cleaving the leonine head. It gouted blood and fell two ways. Freeing his blade, Dane stepped to meet the first of the human shapes—
And found himself staring into a face indisputably Japanese. A lean, and hawk-nosed face, dark eyes alert and watchful, short whipcord body in the garb of a samurai of four centuries before. And his long curved blade was rising in the classic Men cut to the head, and Dane knew, in a flash, that this was the face of the man whose sword he bore.
For an instant the recognition froze him where he stood, and then the same face again, in perfect duplication, behind the other's shoulder, showed him that he faced no ghost, but a Hunter who, as a knight might wear the armor of a gallant, fallen foe, chose to wear the face of a man dead four centuries.
The pseudo-samurai's sword was raised above his head; as it fell, Dane's old samurai blade—the original?—rose to meet it. The sides of the two blades brushed in passing, diverting the downward stroke so that it whistled harmlessly past Dane's elbow; then Dane's own blade snapped down sharply. For half a second he thought his stroke had missed, but then a thin red line appeared on the forehead where the razor-keen blade had bitten. Blood came pouring out, and the manlike form swayed and fell on its borrowed face.
Do they live that long? Dane wondered in a rush. Or do they film the Hunts; do they somewhere have films four hundred years old showing how one brave, lost Earthman died? Behind him he heard splashing sounds and Aratak's deep roaring bellow, but he was too hard-pressed to turn.
As his blade rose to meet the second ersatz samurai, he saw the flaws in the man's, the pseudo-man's, basic technique, the slight unsureness in stance and grip. They're copying movements they've seen, he thought, and only the simplest at that. With my training, I'm a better imitation samurai than they are.
The Hunter charged, blade brandished over his head, exactly as the other had. Dane sidestepped in a long lunge to the right, his sword dropping across his body in the classic Doh cut, the blade's razor-sharp tip shearing the other's body just below the ribs. Bright arterial blood spurted and hoarse breathing stopped with a choked gasp; the Hunter fell without a cry. It would have taken a human hours to die from that cut. I must have hit whatever it uses for a heart.
He felt a sudden, fierce exultation, an almost painful stab of hope. They're vulnerable. God damn them, they're vulnerable after all, they're even easy to kill when you know how. But God! It's hard to learn how!
Even as his blade snapped out to the end of the stroke he was already sizing up his fourth opponent and found himself, without surprise, looking into his own face. Whatever effect it might have had on him before, now it seemed only the natural thing, even obvious. Maybe they thought while the samurai types polished me off, this one could get Rianna or Aratak. As the one that took Cliff-Climber off guard did. But as this thought streamed through his head his body did not even pause in its flowing motion; a sharp snap of the wrists reversed the direction of his edge. The pseudo-Dane came in warily, his own blade at the center of the body approximating Dane's guard position; but the point was too low. Dane's blade lashed down in the Priest's-robe stroke, through the left shoulder and deep into the chest; and as the Hunter hit the ground, Dane turned on his heel and ran back toward the others. The Hunters he had killed were already regaining their original semblance, flesh flowing like water. Does anyone ever live to tell about it? he wondered. Is that why they like to attack near dark?
Aratak stood on the bank of the stream, spear and club both bloodied; there was blood on the slope and already formless bodies were floating in the stream, showing where they had been at work. A few man-shaped and Mekhar-shaped bodies were in the water, weapons on guard, but for the moment they were keeping their distance. One of the dead bodies in the water was much bigger than the others; it was already dissolving, but Dane could see that it had been enormous and hairy. He wondered how they managed size.
On the opposite bank, dripping as if he had started to wade across and changed his mind, was a miniature copy of Aratak; only eight feel tall, but armed with club and ax almost as big as the real Aratak's and carrying a shield as well. Beside him, also dripping, stood the huge proto-ursine Dane had momentarily identified as the leader of the Hunt.
There were what looked like a dozen—perhaps more pseudo-men and perhaps as many more pseudo-Mekhars. Some of the cat-men, he noticed, had tails—and so did some of the humanoid types. Copies, he wondered, of slightly differing species? But men and Mekhars were still in the majority. There were a couple of things, he saw in a flash, that looked as if their ancestors had been wolves or raccoons, and a creature rather like a man-sized octopus, only it had ten limbs instead of eight and each brandished a different weapon. And at the back of the crowd of Hunters in all shapes, Dane saw a huge spider-man twirling its deadly spear. A chill touched him. That other spider-man had come so close to killing them all single-handed, and now they had all these to fight. But then he saw the spider-man fumble with his spear and drop it. The first imitation spider-man had been a natural, or maybe had practiced more, but even he had been slower than the real spider-man aboard the Mekhars' slave ship.
He and Aratak had killed everyone in the first wave and the others had not yet crossed the stream. He spared an instant to look back at the girls. Bodies in the water showed where Dallith had been at work; Rianna stood leaning again on her spear, backed against the cliff. Two dissolving Hunter corpses were at her feet.
But no smell of blood. Their blood must evaporate as soon as it's shed, almost.... Dane stood, getting his breath, readying himself for the next attack. Matter of time, he thought, but they've got to kill us. They can't let four survivors get back to spread rumors about their real shape—or lack of it.
Not too far to sunset. Will even that stop them now? They're throwing everything at us.
He noticed that they had, as well as the pseudo-Aratak and the pseudo-Dane he'd killed, a false Dallith and an imitation Rianna. "Dallith" even bore a sling. Suddenly that frightened him, badly.
They must have been mimics, once, like some insects, hiding from—or trapping—their enemies by resembling them. Had he met one of those during the first wave of the battle, rather than the samurai, he might well have hesitated, unmanned, just long enough to be finished off. He tried to steel himself to the thought of slicing off "Dallith's" lovely head, or running his sword through "Rianna's" soft body—a body he'd held in his arms so often—but even while he reminded himself that they were just Hunters, his horror grew and he knew his nerve would break. I'm no empath, I could never be sure it wasn't the real one—
His agony and distress must have reached Dallith, and its cause, for an instant later he heard the whirring of her sling stone through the air; the false-Rianna crumpled, her face a mass of blood. The false-Dallith, maybe guessing what was happening, whirled her own sling, but the shot flew wide so wide there was no way of knowing who she had aimed at, though Dane suspected it was himself. The real Dallith's answering stone took her in the temple, and Dane momentarily closed his eyes to avoid seeing her fall.
He opened them quickly, knowing that this would bring the others across the stream for the attack; and already they were splashing in the shallow water. One of the manlike ones (only it looked like a woman, with brick-red skin and long blue-black hair) came wriggling up the bank; Rianna's spear pierced the vital sac from the back and the thing gouted blood and lay still. One of the pseudo-Mekhars made it halfway up the bank before Aratak's club crunched down and crushed in his skull.
; Dane waited, sword raised, but no more of them climbed the bank. The huge proto-ursine called, with that wailing cry he had heard before, and they fell back and stood waiting, clustered in the center of the stream. Dallith's sling cracked an unprotected skull open, and they fell back a little.
Dane threw a puzzled glance at the great leader. He's holding them back. Why? Surely he knows we couldn't hold the bank if they rushed it all at once—
An arrow arched over the stream and sank quivering in the ground, followed by another; both flew wide. Dane picked out the archer, a tall gray-skinned creature with a prehensile tail that fitted the arrows while he held the bow two-handed. That could be a mean one, but I guess they don't practice much with projectile weapons, or those pseudo-limbs can't handle them somehow. Maybe they lose interest when they don't get the kick of feeling the blade go in—
One of Dallith's stones made a crater in the mud on the far bank; another splashed between the archer and another man. What's wrong? She usually shoots better than that.... Dane turned swiftly to look. Dallith's face was pasty white, and her eyes were blinded with tears; her lip bled where she had bitten it through. Her hands were shaking.
Oh, God. I knew it would come. She's breaking down, killing that thing with her own face must have been the last straw.... He started to run toward her, to comfort her, if only by taking a stand near her, when suddenly, along the stream to his left, he saw a flicker in the underbrush. So that's what they're waiting for....
Swiftly he ran back toward Rianna. "Fall back by the cliff," he ordered. "Aratak, hold the bank if you can, but don't wait too long; get back to the cliff if you have to. Dallith may not be able to help much—" He raised his voice, shouting with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling: "Dallith! Save your stones for the spider-man! We'll handle the rest of them!"
And at that moment the Hunt leader gave another of those strange wails. Dane saw them surge forward, and ran to meet the horde of Hunters who boiled toward them from the path along the stream.
If I'd stood there gawking another minute, they'd have cut us off from the cliff—and from Dallith.
Oh, God, Dallith. Poor, tortured darling....
Two pseudo-Mekhars had bounded ahead of him; he dodged as one cut at him, jumped away from the other, his sword dipping for the Doh stroke and slicing through the Hunter's body. The falling corpse blocked the second cat-thing's stroke just long enough; Dane split its head open and ran on.
Even though he knew now, with absolute certainty, that they were all going to die, that nothing could save them now, Dane felt a wave of elation sweep through him, and a curious light-headed giddiness. Is this the battle-joy they used to write about—Viking sagas?
Then he saw the second spider-man. Pseudo-humans with long spears surrounded him and his own long lance flickered and twirled in the slanting sunlight. He loomed ominously huge among his man-shaped kindred.
As they burst out of the narrow way, Dane flung himself upon them, seeing no other course but headlong attack. There were still splashings from the stream and the crunch, crunch, crunch of Aratak's great club. He had no idea how long Aratak could hold the stream; he knew he should retreat to the cliff so that he and Rianna could cover one another, but first he must kill some more. God, it was satisfying to attack instead of run; he was going to kill every one who came within reach of his sword.
Let the Hunters beware! Before they hung his head on the wall, he'd send as many as he could to tell their God-damned illustrious ancestors that they could raise the price for humans these days, the Prey was getting rougher. And when he and the old samurai were hanging side by side on some Hunter's wall, he could tell his fellow Earthman that he'd kept his sword well-fed while it was in his keeping!
The two leading spearmen lunged at his chest; with a snap of his shoulders he drove one lance aside so that it fouled the other; his sword came flashing down on his foreman's spine, and as the blood spurted from the first one's severed neck Dane reached over the falling body to kill the other spearman with a slash to the head. And then the spider-thing was upon him, its shield pressed against his sword, and he saw the deadly lance whirling down.
Time seemed to have disappeared, to have stretched itself out into endless consecutive fragments. He threw himself slowly to the ground—but in his insane mood he seemed to move in slow motion—somehow managing to keep the razor-edge of his blade away from himself as he rolled. The spinning lance missed him twice by bare inches, striking sparks from the rock. Somewhere along there he became aware of Hunters in human form, with long spears stabbing at him; he curled his knees up over his belly and was amazed to find that he could fend off the spears easily with the sword from this position, snapping his blade across his body. Then one spearman came too close and Dane smashed his kneecap with a karate kick; the spearman fell across two of his own kind's spears and in the confusion—the Hunter with the smashed knee was impaled on his friend's spear—Dane rolled to his feet. He slashed one through the throat, remembered just in time he couldn't kill him that way, and brought the blade down on his head. Nine, by God, nine, or is it ten? Who's counting?
He swatted one spear aside a fraction late and the cloth of his tunic ripped; pain slashed along his arm and the sting of it cleared his head— God in Heaven! What was happening to the others? The spider man had gone right past him. He raised his sword and yelled, and as the remaining spearmen braced themselves for his new attack he turned and ran like hell for the cliff.
Aratak was falling back from the stream, his club pounding down again and again on the shield which sheltered the octopus-thing, which crawled along the bank slashing at Aratak's ankles with its various weapons; up the now undefended bank came a wave of the Hunters, led by the great proto-ursine and the pseudo-Aratak, and the larger of the spider-things.
The other spider-man stood poised between Aratak and the cliff; the long lance spun menacingly as the great red eyes moved from Aratak to the girls and back again. Arrogance was stamped in every line of the spindly gray body, so different from the stooped and crouching stance of the real spider-man he'd seen. A sling stone whirred past his head; he did not even turn. Aratak's going to be trapped between the spider-man and that octopus-critter! Dane opened his mouth to shout a warning, but his voice would not carry.
Another stone struck the spider-man where the upper body joined the abdomen; the Hunter whirled with lightning speed and scuttled toward Dallith and Rianna.
Dane ran, although he knew he could never match that thing's speed. He saw Rianna brace her spear to meet the thing and saw more clearly than anything else, sharp-edged as if etched in acid, Dallith's white, tear-drenched face as stone after stone flew from her sling without a pause. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aratak sink back into a sudden crouch, then hurl his great bulk in the air, over the weapons slashing at his feet, to come down on top of the octopoid. One great claw gripped the shield; shield and tentacle went flying through the air, torn from the Hunter's body; the club-smashed down and the octopoid squashed into a formless mass. The lizard-man turned and ran toward the cliff.
Dallith straightened, flung her sling away, and stared with horror, her hand clapped over her face. The spider-man had reached the cliff now; Rianna lunged for him with the spear, but the Hunter's shield brushed it aside and at the same instant two of his arms snapped his spear into a straight thrust that passed over Rianna's lunging head and pierced Dallith's slender body between the breasts.
Dane screamed her name; his one thought now was to kill that thing and throw away his sword and hold her in his arms.
But Aratak was there before him, and before the spider-thing could draw his lance back from Dallith's crumpling body Aratak's great claw gripped two of his spindly arms and heaved the creature over on his side. The terrible club crashed once and both vital spots splattered blood for yards around; the powerful lizard-man heaved the dead Hunter up in his arms and hurled the great body into the oncoming pack.
Dane's mind was numb. Dallith! It was
n't true! Dallith—He screamed her name again, without conscious thought; a cat-thing came lunging at him with a sword and Dane killed him. It was automatic. He wasn't thinking. He was just a killing machine, screaming. Aratak and Rianna were fighting desperately over Dallith's fallen body, and a little part of him stirred and woke.
Her body is mine. Not theirs to eat, or stuff, or hang on a wall. Dead or alive, she's mine; they won't get her even if I have to kill every Hunter on this accursed moon....
With a tiny fragment of his brain he knew he was completely mad, but his body, undistracted by thought, exploded into a deadly ballet of death. The nearest spearman went down with his chest shorn open; a Mekhar-type swordsman lost his head. He was half conscious of Aratak fighting at his side, ax and club alternating in a deadly rhythm Long spears were smashed aside or shattered and their owners died; swordsmen died before they came into reach. Rianna crouched behind them against the wall, her lance thrusting from the level of Aratak's knees. The man-sized Hunters clustered around Dane, getting in one another's way; he cut down a couple of them. It was automatic by now. Over Aratak's head he saw that the disk of the sun had touched the edge of the horizon. Who cared, now? Kill them all or die trying!
A bearded man-shape ran toward Dane, a round metal shield raised before his body, a straight heavy sword whirling over his head. A fleeting memory of the way the spider-man had trapped his sword made Dane lunge to the left, drawing his blade away from the shield, pivoting while his own sword flashed in a great circle that sheared through the man's right shoulder and into his chest.
The next few instants were confused, impossible to sort out. Aratak somehow sent the bearlike Hunt leader flying through the air, his blade broken by a blow from the lizard-man's club; stooping, he began to search for another weapon through the globular, dissolving bodies of his dead; Dane and Aratak rushed him together and the false lizard-man, rushing up to join battle, struck Aratak on the knee with a replica of his own great club. He went down with a grunt, but his ax whirled out and, as the Hunter's shield went out to intercept it, Rianna's lance drove in under his rim and the pseudo-Aratak went down. For a moment Dane thought it was his friend who had fallen; real Aratak and false one lay together on the ground. The great proto-ursine had picked up a lance like Rianna's and came rushing on, but stumbled over one of his own men, the gray-skinned archer. All around him, the Hunters were falling back, toward the stream, and Dane, looking around through a mist of blood over his eyes, realized that the last scrap of the sun had vanished.
Hunters of the Red Moon Page 19