Death Hunt

by James Axler

  “Gaia! It’s true! Ryan, Doc, look!” Krysty yelled.

  Coming toward them, through the crowd, were J.B. and Mildred, astonishment written large on their faces, echoed by that of the four riders.

  “How…” Mildred began.

  “Could ask you the same,” Krysty answered.

  Michaela stepped forward to where the six companions and Stark were now clustered.

  “No talking now,” she said gently. “You know as well as I do, Mildred, that what you all need, what we all need,” she added in a louder voice, “is to rest. This has been a momentous day. Tomorrow,” she added with a steely edge to her voice, “we decide what to do with this coldheart.”

  She tapped the semiconscious Ethan, who responded with a quiet, exhausted grunt.

  THE NEXT DAY saw the populace clustered around the sec compound, while the six companions, Michaela, Stark and Eddie stood within. With them, hands bound in front of him, stood Ethan. Despite his position the baron, now refreshed after a night’s sleep and medical treatment for his wound, stood proud and erect.

  The companions had caught up on each other’s stories and were now ready to move on, but had agreed to stay for a while to see what the ville had in mind for their deposed baron.

  Michaela spoke directly to Ethan, although her words were loud and directed at the crowds.

  “For too long, you’ve ruled us by the hunt. It made our ville wealthy, but it became more than that. Its sadism and perversion infested your soul, and by extension the soul of our ville. We became obsessed by jack and chilling, even though we began with the idea to move beyond that. Well, I guess we will now. We don’t want you, or what you stand for, and what you made some of us. We had to chill people we knew to get back to the right way of things. You’re as responsible for those buying the farm as we are. So you’ve got one chance. From here, I turn you loose. You have to run through the streets to the ville walls. If you get out alive, you’re free to go. But you’ll be hunted every step of the way.”

  Ethan sneered. “You might as well chill me now, and you know it. That makes you no better than me.”

  “True,” the spiky-haired young woman agreed, “but we are what you made us.”

  “Very well, let’s get it over with,” Ethan snarled, holding out his hands to her.

  Stark stepped forward, a blaster in his hand. He smiled without humor. “Oh, no, I get to untie your bonds. You’re not going to go for her, or you won’t even get one step.”

  “You always were too smart,” Ethan said flatly.

  Hands cut free, the baron took one last, lingering look around at the people who had once followed him, then cast a venomous glance at Michaela before heading for the compound’s gates.

  He ran as though he meant it, but in truth he had to have known that he was doomed, condemned to a drawn-out execution that was a hideous parody of his own trade.

  ETHAN TURNED LEFT at the gates, running through the streets and pursued by a baying mob that pelted him with stones. Michaela and Stark had forbidden the use of blasters, but they had said nothing about blades; the streets were also lined by crowds with knives who slashed at him as he ran past. The stones and rocks bruised and cut his back and shoulders, skimmed low and bit sharply at his knees and calves. His head, kept low, was also hit, and he staggered as dizziness began to overwhelm him.

  The slashing from the sides ripped at his clothes and flesh, small cuts stinging, blood loss minimal from each, but cumulatively enough to add to his lightheadedness. He had no idea where he was going, stumbling and falling, the ground hard and unwelcoming as it came up to meet him, his forehead clashing against concrete and tarmac, making his head ring and spin.

  Ethan rolled onto his back, gasping for breath, eyes unable to focus, barely able now to hear the baying crowds that loomed over him, the hail of rocks and stones no longer hurting as a comfortable, numbing blankness began to wash over him. The world closed in, darkness turning it into a tunnel that closed to pinpoint, and then…nothing.

  WHEN THE BARON’S chilled corpse had been taken away and the crowds dispersed, Michaela, Stark and Eddie followed the companions back to where they’d been billeted following their return.

  A meal had been laid on for them, but none had an appetite to speak of. What had just occurred had left an unpleasant taste.

  “Such savagery is not the way to start a new world,” Doc commented softly.

  “No, but perhaps it was necessary. To purge the old ways, it was right to get it out of our systems and to direct it at the man who was responsible for taking us that way. Drawing a line under it,” Michaela explained.

  “But you did not have to follow in the first place,” Doc pointed out.

  Michaela grimaced. “No, but that’s what we’ll have to live with, isn’t it? Kind of a warning not to go back that way.”

  “It’s not going to be easy,” Ryan said.

  “Nothing worthwhile is.” The spiky-haired healer shrugged.

  “Meantime, we’ve got something to ask you,” Stark added, directing his comment to all six of the companions. “Running a ville is like making that old tech work. Once you get the hang of it, and know how it fits together, then it’s okay. But it’s gonna be hard at first. Mebbe we need someone from outside who knows how it works, to show us. Would you do it for us?”

  “Do what?” J.B. questioned, taking in his companions’ bemused expressions.

  “Help us run the ville. You’re outsiders and have no vested interests,” Michaela explained. “If you do this, then we can sort out what they used to call democracy while you stand apart.”

  Doc smiled. “It is a nice thought, but there can be no standing apart from democracy. Believe me, I know.”

  “Anyway, we have to keep moving,” Ryan added. “It’s hard to put into words. When we got here, I was fucked in the head, not thinking straight. We got into a mess because my son was gone, and that was all I could think about. I know he’s alive, and mebbe the fates will let our paths cross one day. But dreaming won’t help. I nearly lost something more here—my mind, my friends—and I’ve learned something from that. Mebbe we all have,” he said, scanning the faces of his companions. “We belong together, and we learn together, because we’re looking for something. And we all want it. And we’ve got to keep moving until we find it.”

  “But what is it?” Michaela asked.

  Ryan thought about this for a moment, then said softly, “I don’t know. Mebbe none of us do. Mebbe we won’t know until we find it. But we can’t stop until we have.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-7331-6

  DEATH HUNT

  Copyright © 2004 by Worldwide Library.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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