by Bev Allen
“Don’t annoy me again!” he snapped.
Slowly she managed to get Eric Wainwright to his feet, but blood already seeped from the crude bandage. Frain chivvied and bullied them to the lean-to and shoved both of them through the door and secured it.
He came back to Jon.
“You can join them, but not until I’ve had a little fun. I always hated your sanctimonious guts, Harabin. This is going to be pure joy.”
He brought his rifle butt down a couple of times and blood spurted. Away in the gathering gloom Lucien’s fists clenched.
“That reminds me,” Frain said as he dragged Jon towards the hut. “Where’s the damn kid you had in tow? He’s not skulking around here somewhere, is he?”
“No!” Jon replied with another gasp of pain.
Frain grabbed his hair and pulled his head back hard.
“You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?” he asked. “I’d have to pop out one of your eyes if you were. Just like you did to a friend of mine back at First Cataract.”
“He bought weed with those trade beads you gave him,” Jon groaned.
A slow grin spread over Frain’s face. “Did he?” he gloated. “What a fine boy. And you of course, sacked him on the spot.”
He smacked Jon’s head down into the ground.
“I must look the kid up when I’ve the time; he sounds just the sort of lad to be of assistance.”
“You do that, Tim,” Jon said, spitting blood, “But make it quick, before any of the river tribes catch you.”
Jon tried to roll away from the punishing boot.
“They’ve got to find me first,” Frain chortled. “And you won’t be telling them where to look.”
With this he flung Jon’s broken and bleeding body into the hut and secured the door.
Then he went back to the fire and the men around it. Some were beginning to come around from their first hit and found the first two bags had been emptied.
“Dust!” Frain shouted, throwing down more bags. “Dust for my brave warriors!”
There was a shout and in seconds most of them were fighting for total possession of a bag. Knives flashed in the fire light and there was the odd shriek of pain.
Beyond the clearing, Lucien, Vlic and Stacey did not stay to watch what followed; they sank back deeper into the darkness and huddled together as if seeking protection one from the other.
Stacey was white-faced and trembling and Lucien seemed to have turned in on himself. He gazed into the middle distance apparently unaware of his companions.
Vlic finally broke the silence. “My father will be here soon.”
Lucien stared at him for a second, his face starkly illuminated by the moon just beginning to rise.
“Not soon enough. That bastard is going to kill Jon tomorrow.”
“There are only three of us,” Vlic was forced to point out.
“I know,” Lucien replied. “Which is why we’ve got to be clever, not behave like dumb arses.”
Vlic’s jaw dropped at this; whatever else he had expected from Lucien, caution and thought were the last ones he would have come up with.
His expression must have given him away, because Lucien coloured furiously.
“I’ve done some growing up,” he muttered.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Vlic grinned. “It had to happen eventually.”
Lucien gave a tiny mirthless laugh. “I guess it did.”
“What are we going to do? “ Stacey asked; she was back in control of herself.
“We’ve got to make plans,” Lucien replied. “We can’t go far, Jon will be in no condition to travel and neither will your father. And we’ve got the two women to consider.”
“Sod bloody Riddett,” Stacey hissed. “She can take her chances.”
Lucien shook his head. “No, Jon would never agree to that.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped.
“You’re probably right,” she sighed. “So we’re going to need somewhere we can hold up until Vlic’s father gets here.”
They began to wrack their brains for a possible place until Vlic gave a start.
“Where I fell!” he almost shouted. “There would be room for us under there and if you didn’t know about it, you’d never find it.”
“Yes!” Lucien said, delighted. “And even if they do find us, we can defend it. Come on!”
During the long hours of the night all three of them worked tirelessly. They gathered wood and water by the light of the moon and packed it away under the cover of the tree root canopy.
Water would be vital for their survival and fire would make a signal for Iesgood if they needed it. Food was going to be a problem, they were already hungry and getting hungrier, but there was no time and not enough light to hunt or forage, they would have to go without and hope it would not be for long.
All the time they went about their silent work, they took turns to keep a watch on the camp.
There had been violence done there as men fought over what remained of the dust. At one point when the boys came back to relieve her, a nervous Stacey reported a death.
“Good,” was all Lucien said. “One less to worry about.”
Finally, a few hours before dawn everything was as ready as they could make it.
“I think we should leave the rifles and the bows here,” Lucien said, “Its dry under here and if we have to carry Jon or your father we won’t have enough hands. And I don’t want to leave them where those bastards might find them.”
Stacey nodded her agreement and then, to the boys’ delight, she drew a lethal looking stiletto from its hiding place in the side of her boot to supplement the large and very serviceable knife she wore at her waist. Vlic grinned and made sure his own knife was easily to hand before taking up his axe.
Lucien who had no experience with a knife as a weapon, unhooked his war club.
By the time they got back to the clearing, the moon had long set and dawn was little more than an hour or so away. A couple of times they nearly got lost in the darkness, but the red glow of the camp embers showed them the way.
Around what remained of the fire men sprawled in various attitudes of sleep; most seemed comatose, not moving a muscle and hardly seeming to breathe.
Dust had some uses.
Beyond them in the gloom, the dark shape of the cabin loomed and they drifted like ghosts beyond the sleepers. If they made a sound, it was smothered by the steady hum of night insects and heavy snoring.
Frain lay asleep in front of the door to Jon’s prison making noises like a pig in labour. His head lolled to one side and a thin trickle of saliva ran from the corner of his open mouth. By the smell of him his drug of choice was raw whiskey.
“Tim!” Lucien whispered softly in his ear. “Tim! Wake up!”
There was a grunt and a groan.
“Wha …?” Frain asked, sleepily. “Hell, I need a pee. Who’s there?”
“Your morning alarm call,” Lucien breathed and smacked him smartly behind the ear with his war club. He collapsed like a house of cards, a boneless, sprawling heap.
“Did you kill him?” Stacey whispered.
“I …. I don’t know,” Lucien replied and suddenly felt sick to his stomach. The reality of possibly taking a life was hard to take, but he put it to one side and began to saw through the leather throngs holding the door.
Shielding it with his body, Vlic struck a spark to a tiny bundle of twigs. There was just enough light to see by.
Stacey went swiftly in and over to Evandne Riddett, who sat asleep by the wall, Eric Wainwright’s head in her lap. Gently she put one hand over her father’s mouth and, far less gently, clamped the other over the woman’s.
Dr Riddett woke with a start, but whatever exclamation came to her lips was stifled by the iron grip over her mouth.
“Be silent,” Stacey hissed. “Or we’re all dead.”
Although her eyes were wild, Dr Riddett made no sound. Stacey turned to her father.
“Okay, dad?”
He nodded; opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.
Vlic turned his light to the other corner of the hut where crouched one small and dirty little girl. She was thin and her pale grey eyes were bloodshot, but her expression was one of grim determination.
“It’s about time,” she murmured.
Vlic was momentarily taken aback by this reaction, but then her bottom lip wobbled and a couple of fat tears rolled down her face, but she silenced her sobs, clenching her fists until her knuckles went white.
“Can we go now?” she asked.
“Yes, little sister,” Vlic said and bent to kiss her palms.
Lucien took no notice of either sideshow; he went straight to Jon who watched him from the other corner.
Both his eyes where blackened; his lip was split in several places and his nose was broken. He had managed to push his back up against the wall and was ready to defend himself to the best of his limited ability, but when he saw Lucien he seemed to collapse, slumping towards the floor.
For a terrible moment Lucien thought he was having convulsions, but then he realised he was laughing, and gasping from the resulting pain from his broken ribs.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said in a ghost of a voice. “What the hell am I going to do with you, son?”
“Teach me to be a Liaison Officer as well as a woodsman,” Lucien whispered back. “Just lately I’ve realised there’s a hell of a lot more to it than I thought.”
He cut away Jon’s bonds and did his best to work the circulation back into his arms and legs. He was more mobile than Lucien had dared to hope he would be, but he was weak and needed support.
“The girl,” Jon whispered.
“Vlic will see to her,” Lucien assured him.
“Wainwright and the Doctor,” Jon worried.
“Stacey is on it,” Lucien said helping him to his feet.
“Wainwright’s hurt, he’ll need help.”
“Stacey can handle it,” Lucien told him patiently, and began to move him out of the hut.
The little party began its cautious way across the clearing. Dawn was still a way off and the birds were still silent, but time was moving on much faster than any of the three young people wanted it to.
Frain lay unmoving as they went, so did the men in their drug induced sleep, but there was the odd sign that soon some of them might be returning to natural sleep rather than the comatose state they were presently in. Any unnatural noise would call a tribesman from normal sleep quickly.
“We should use the canoes,” Jon whispered, seeing the lake before them.
Lucien shook his head. “The reeds would slow us and they could easily catch us on foot. We don’t want to be caught out in the open.”
“Then we’d better …”
“How about you shut up and let me deal with this,” Lucien replied.
Again Jon began to shake with suppressed laughter and had to bite back a gasp of pain.
“I think we’re going to have another talk soon,” he said, but he did not argue and allowed Lucien to help him over the ground.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To hide,” Lucien replied. “And wait for help.”
It took time to get back to the ridge and even longer to get Jon up the slope. Anxiously Lucien looked at the sky for signs of dawn.
“Quickly!” Vlic urged as the first pale light began to shine down the valley and all around them birds began their morning territorial declarations.
“Where are we going?” Dr Riddett asked from one side of Eric Wainwright. He was leaning more heavily on his daughter, but she supported him on the other side.
“Just shut up and walk,” Stacey snapped.
“I just …”
“Be silent, woman of no worth,” the little tribal maiden said.
Even in the presence of so much danger the good doctor could not restrain herself. “I have told you before, Brigedh, women should not be bought or sold like cattle.”
The little girl gave her a look of withering scorn and went on ahead to help Lucien with Jon.
“Leave her alone,” Stacey snapped, struggling to support her father. “You’ve no idea what you are talking about.”
Dr Riddett might have argued, but up ahead Vlic seemed to disappear before her eyes. “Where did he …”
“We need to hide,” Stacey told her. “So shut up and do as you’re told.”
With this she went to help Lucien lower Brigedh over the edge of the ridge and down to where Vlic waited under the leaf canopy.
“You next,” he told Stacey. “Then your father.”
“I …” Dr Riddett began, a note of panic in her voice.
“You’re after,” Lucien reassured her with a curl of his lip. “I need you to help me with Stacey’s dad. And it needs all of you down there to hold Jon.”
It took a while to get Eric Wainwright down, he groaned with pain as they lowered him and Lucien gave a hiss of annoyance when he saw there was blood on the ground where he had lain. He covered it as best he could, sweeping leaf debris over it to disguise the spot.
Dr Riddett proved as difficult to get down the slope; she was scared and near panic. Stacey deliberately allowing her to land badly did not help either.
She flushed guiltily when Lucien’s head appeared and he snapped, “Pack it in.”
Slowly and with great difficulty Jon was passed to the waiting arms. It must have been agony for him, but he never allowed as much as a hiss of pain to escape his lips. Lucien was so proud of him; he thought his chest would explode.
When he joined them behind the curtain of foliage, he was surprised to find there was more room than he thought there would be. Brigedh wriggled between the columns of thick tree roots and made herself comfortable in the space behind. Stacey sliced away some of the smaller stuff and managed to get her father wedged near the back.
Dr Riddett found a gap as well, so Lucien and Vlic were able to lay Jon flat on the narrow shelf.
“What hurts?” Lucien asked him.
“Most of me,” Jon croaked back. “Is there water?”
Lucien held a canteen to his lips and he sucked it down quickly.
“Go easy,” Lucien warned. “We don’t have a huge amount.” He turned to the others. “Everyone take a drink, but remember we don’t know how long it has to last. And keep the noise down.”
With that he passed the canteen to Brigedh, who drank and handed it to Dr Riddett.
Jon gestured Lucien to come closer. “Tell me your plan.”
“It’s not a great one,” Lucien admitted. “We’re relying on Vlic’s father turning up sooner rather than later.”
“Food?”
“None, but we filled the canteens. And we’ve got plenty of ammo.”
“Defensible position?”
“Yes, I think so.” Lucien said. “First they’ll have to find us, then the only way here is to climb down and they will be in direct line of fire as they come.”
“They’ll probably find you quickly,” Jon said. “You’ll have left a lot of sign.”
Lucien nodded. “Couldn’t be helped, but we are in a good position and better off than we would be on open ground.”
Jon seemed to have slipped back into the pain-wracked haze he had been in earlier, but he roused at this.
“When they come, they will come hard,” he said. “I think you may find yourself in that place I didn’t want you to be in for a long while.”
Lucien frowned at this and then light dawned. “The one where I have to kill someone?” he said, grimly.
Jon nodded.
“Don’t worry about it. After what they’ve done, it isn’t going to be a problem.”
He tucked his pack under Jon’s head and covered him with a blanket.
“Try and sleep,” he said and then gathered Stacey and Vlic for a consultation, moving to the space near the end of the shelf.
“We need �
��”Lucien began, but was interrupted by Dr Riddett.
“Who are you?” she asked. “I recognised Stacey, but who are the rest of you?”
All three glared at her, but there was no confrontation in her face, merely concern born of gnawing fear. And perhaps something more, the deep need to be a part of a group, not an outsider.
Lucien would have been short with her, but Vlic had been bred to a higher standard of manners.
“I am Vlic cheed Feilda,” he said. “The beaten man is Harabin dheillwer of The Tribal Liaison Guild.”
“And I’m his apprentice, Lucien Devlin.”
He watched her face carefully for reaction to his surname, but there was none. However, Eric Wainwright, resting against his daughter’s shoulder, gave a small start.
Lucien turned to him. “Is he out there somewhere?”
“Who?” Wainwright asked, keeping his face completely neutral.
“Don’t fuck me about,” Lucien replied. “I’m not in the mood.”
Feeling the pressure from his daughter’s hand Wainwright sighed.
“Not to my knowledge,” he said. “He’s not involved; all he did was put me in touch with Frain, but I had no idea what that man had in mind. I wanted to help Evandne prove she was right about tribal practises.”
“So you could use it to destroy a way of life?”
Even wounded and in pain he managed to look pompous. “To stop some practices …” he began.
“Shut up, Eric,” Dr Riddett said. “Whether I’m right or wrong, we’re in trouble and this is no time for a discussion on culture.” She leaned over to Lucien. “I’m no good with a bow, but I can handle a rifle.”
Lucien was reluctant to allow her a weapon. “I don’t know whose side you’re on.”
“I might not agree with the TLG,” she replied, “but I’ll defend myself from those savages.”
Brigedh turned on her. “You didn’t think they were savages when they were killing my mummy and daddy,” she lashed out.
“I never knew about that,” she protested. “If I had …”
“Brigedh,” Eric broke in. “We didn’t know. I promise you, we didn’t. I’d never have allowed it, you must realise that.”