Separation

by James Axler

  Jak appeared through the trees like a wraith, seemingly able to wrap himself around the shadows cast by the trunks.

  “Clear ahead. No sign yet.”

  “Are you sure they’ll be there tonight?” Sineta whispered.

  Mildred affirmed. “They’ve got no choice, sweetie. They know I’m still alive, and they know how much I know. Even if I didn’t go to you and Markos, then they’d figure that I’d get Ryan and the others to snatch the treasure tonight, before they had the opportunity to act. If they’re going to get their hands on it, then they have to move tonight.”

  “If only we knew who the other party was,” Markos mused. “Elias I can understand, and his motivation of greed. I make no secret of the fact that I have neither liked nor trusted him. But I cannot think who else would sink so low, particularly if, as you say, this is a man who is a separatist. They are motivated only by a burning sense of dignity. It just does not make sense.”

  “Sometimes things people do just don’t, Markos,” Mildred answered, feeling uneasy about how he would take the revelation when the time came. “So let’s just stop talking about it and get down to the bank, try to take up a position where we can see them. Okay?”

  Sineta and Markos agreed, and at an indication from Mildred, Jak led them through the trees and down to the river.

  It looked so calm under the wan silver light of the crescent moon above. The water flowed sluggish and slow and the crop of rocks coming out of the riverbed rose in relief against the trees beyond. The ground on the bank in front of them—the place where she had earlier fought for her life before Jak’s timely intervention—looked serene and undisturbed, as though it had never seen human intrusion.

  “Not here yet, and not many places hide,” Jak whispered, breaking her reverie. “I take rocks, find crevice to hide. You three stay together. Cover away from any paths. Elias not good woodsman, so take easiest path.”

  “Can you be sure of that?” Markos queried. “What if they stumble on us from the rear?”

  “Trust him,” Mildred said softly. “If Jak figures that’s how Elias will come, then that’s how he’ll come.”

  “Besides,” the albino added with a sly grin, “signs there of where left earlier. Triple stupe even figure come back that way.”

  Markos raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, I take your point. But how are you going to get out to the rocks without risking them seeing you as they approach?”

  “Two things—one, I find route there that not make water ripple, two—” he added with a sly grin “—I checked. Elias and other not anywhere around yet.”

  Mildred uttered a short laugh. “Okay, Jak. You take up your position and we’ll take up ours. Then I guess we’ll just have to wait for however long it takes.”

  The albino set off without another word, melting into the shadows of the woods. The remaining three moved toward their position of cover in order to take up observation. Markos kept glancing toward the river, but couldn’t see or hear a sign of Jak.

  “Remarkable,” he murmured. “I would not have thought…I suppose—”

  “Don’t doubt it.” Mildred sighed. “Look, if Jak says he’s there, then he’s there. Okay?”

  Markos shrugged, but said nothing further as they gained a secure position and settled down to wait.

  LEAVING THE OTHERS, Jak had skipped over the root systems that treacherously lined the floor of the woods and wrapped himself around the trunks of the trees until he was at the very edge, with only the bare stretch of ground between the woods and the river to traverse. To his left there was a patch of shrub that would provide cover. Jak dropped to his belly and slid across, moving fast and crablike to gain the cover of the shrub. In daylight, he could be spotted, but under the much dimmer moonlight he was able to use the cover of shadows to remain unseen.

  From the shrub to the water was a matter of a few feet. The real difficulty would be to gain the water without causing too much of a disturbance. At the same time, he had to make sure that his blaster stayed out of the water. Jak wrapped the Colt Python in a piece of plastic he had secreted in his pocket before they’d left, figuring that he would need to do this. He then stowed the blaster in an inside pocket of his camou jacket. He’d also thought long and hard about how he would tackle the problem of the river. To the left, just downstream, was a small clump of wood—discarded branches and leaves overgrown with creeping vine. It would provide more shelter, especially in the gloom. He made the cover in quick time. From here he just had to slip down the bank and into the slow, sluggish current. Legs together, narrowing the angle of his body as much as possible to cause the least disturbance, he slid into the water, crouching into mud of the riverbed until only his shoulders and head were above water. Then, taking a deep breath and sighting the rocks to give him direction, Jak slipped under the water and struck out for the crop.

  It took him only a few strokes to come to the base of the rocks. He found a crevice that came up out of the water and broke the surface in a narrow inlet that was deep in shadow. He exhaled and gasped in two quick breaths before looking up to see where he had arrived. He was on the reverse side of the crop to the cave entrance. It was narrow, but it was simple for him to climb up and around, keeping close and on the far side of the bank where he was certain Elias and Chan would come: here he could move freely and with speed.

  As he reached the angle where he would, for a fraction of a second, be exposed before gaining the cover of the cave entrance, he paused and looked deep into the wood. Ceasing to breathe, and filtering out the familiar sounds of his own central nervous system and blood flow, he could hear nothing that would indicate their approach. He could see the slightest movement of the branches around the position where Mildred, Markos and Sineta were stationed. He could hear the occasional rasp of breath from one of them when the night sounds dipped. But he could hear nothing else apart. Chan and Elias weren’t hunters, and even with their best efforts he would be able to hear them from some way off.

  He would have a wait ahead of him, but it meant that he could move with ease right now. His mouth curling into a grin of satisfaction, Jak slipped around the edge of the rocks and melted into the mouth of the cave. Once in the darkness, and with a good view of the area along the riverbank, he took the Colt Python from his inner pocket, unwrapped it before restoring the plastic to another pocket, lest it should prove useful, and checked the blaster. It was as dry as a bleacher bone. From habit, he checked that the blaster was fully armed. Satisfied, he holstered it before hunkering down to wait, eyes trained on the bank, the only sound his shallow breath. There was no movement at all.

  Over on the bank, Markos had been watching the whole while. Despite the fact that Jak had relaxed himself when moving around the rock, Markos hadn’t seen him. All he’d noticed had been the slightest flicker of movement that may have been nothing more than the scuttling of a cloud across the moon.

  ELIAS AND CHAN HAD BEEN in hiding for most of the afternoon, bickering with each other. The giant couldn’t resist goading the albino, and for his part Chan would always rise to the bait, unable to understand how the giant could be so casual when everything seemed to be going wrong.

  “Tell me something—would your brother believe two outsiders? Would Sineta be upset about her father saying nothing to her about the legends? Of course not, and of course, if you were paying attention. So listen to me. We go back tonight. Mebbe they’ll be waiting for us and mebbe not. If that bitch has got her whitelander friends to get the treasure out, then we just chill them.”

  “How the hell do we do that when we’ve only got one blaster between us?” Chan had demanded.

  Elias fixed him with a glare. The sardonic humor that always seemed to be in his eyes had suddenly faded. “We would have more than one blaster if you hadn’t been so damned useless. And we’ll do it because we have to. We have no choice now, no going back. I do not intend to travel to the whitelands knowing that Mildred and her little friends have that knowledg
e as power over me. Is that clear?”

  Chan had nodded, his throat too tight and dry to speak. As with many others on Pilatu, he had always thought of Elias as untrustworthy but harmless, too laid-back to be of any danger.

  The look in the giant’s eyes told him that he had been wrong. And the thought of being alone in the woods with this revelation was a more frightening prospect than taking on the companions.

  So now, as the night hit its stillest and darkest watch, he found himself stumbling after the giant as Elias made his way through the woods, from the copse where they had taken shelter to the riverbank by the outcrop and caves, where the whiteland treasure lay hidden.

  They followed the same path as they had taken that afternoon, only traveling in reverse. It wasn’t long before they gained the riverbank, with the crop a few feet out into the water, rising to a peak with a cave beneath.

  “There it is, just sitting there waiting for us,” Elias said with a chuckle. “See, my cowardly little friend. It’s not that hard, is it?”

  “I CAN HEAR SOMETHING,” Markos mouthed at Mildred and Sineta as the sound of the two men thrashing through the woods reached their hiding place.

  Mildred nodded and pointed in the general direction of the sound. Markos assented.

  “Wait till they are in the open,” he said softly.

  “Wait until Jak moves,” Mildred amended.

  Markos looked puzzled. “But surely—”

  Mildred shook her head. “Just do it.”

  She looked around at Sineta. Even in the dim light of the half moon it was plain to see that the woman was anxious and hyped up in anticipation. Despite Sineta’s willingness to be here, Mildred found it obvious that the woman had never been in a fighting situation before, and she was terrified, even though prepared to fight.

  Let’s hope her nerve holds, Mildred thought, taking in the tight grip that Sineta had on her blaster.

  She looked back in the direction of the sound. They were nearing the clearing that delineated the riverbank and would soon come into view. Now was the moment of truth. Looking at Markos’s face, intent but impassive, prepared for combat, she wondered how he would take it when his beloved brother came into view.

  The brush at the edge of the woods was swept aside and Elias strode out onto the riverbank, looking around him. His eyes—even at this distance—blazed, and Mildred sucked in her breath. It looked like the giant had cracked under the strain and was quite mad, which would make him completely unpredictable.

  His companion stayed hidden while the giant looked up and down the bank and across to the outcrop, where Jak remained silent and still in the shadows. Elias saw nothing and assumed that the cave was empty. He turned to the brush, where his companion stayed hidden, and laughed loud and harsh, gesturing with his blaster.

  “Come out, you cretin. She has done nothing as yet and we have all the time in the world.”

  Mildred looked at Markos, whose eyes were intently trained on the scene.

  “Now we’ll see who his accomplice is,” the sec boss whispered, cradling his H&K.

  From the brush, peering out as though disbelieving of his compatriot, Chan cautiously emerged.

  Mildred braced herself, watching Markos’s face. The sec boss appeared to pay the revelation no heed whatsoever—although if she could have seen in clearer light, Mildred would have noted a hardening and tightening around his jaw.

  “This is too easy,” Chan said in a voice that, although not loud, carried across the space between himself and his brother in hiding. “She must have said something, if not to her pale friend then to that cretinous Sineta and my fool brother.”

  “What? You dare to mock your wonderful brother?” Elias chided.

  Chan spit on the ground. “He pretends to love me, but he is like the others. He cannot see me as anything other than freak because of this. He is the hero, stupid as he is, because he has a black skin, and he is the one who would have a chance of marrying the baron’s daughter, even though they would produce brainless cretins.”

  “Markos, no!” Mildred hissed as she felt the sec boss brace beside her, his calf and thigh muscles propelling him upward, the catch on his H&K snapping off.

  “Let him,” Sineta said, also scrambling to her feet, her tension unleashed by his action.

  “Shit, this is not good,” Mildred muttered to herself as both Markos and Sineta broke cover, running for the riverbank.

  SILENT IN THE CAVE, Jak watched as Elias and Chan bickered on the bank and then Markos and Sineta—without Mildred—broke cover and walked openly toward the two bandits.

  Although no one could ever have told as much from his still-impassive expression, Jak was amazed at what was happening. Mildred hadn’t broken cover, which suggested that the other two hadn’t listened to her. That was their choice, but it was a choice that was likely to get them chilled. Jak couldn’t see for sure, but it looked to him as though only Elias was armed. That cut down on the odds, but it still meant that both the sec boss and the baron’s daughter were offering the giant a clear shot on either or both of them.

  Cursing inwardly, Jak uncoiled from his position and began to move toward the lip of the cave.

  It looked as if he’d have to make his move before he would have wished.

  MILDRED WATCHED them walk into the open in sheer disbelief. She, too, had moved out of cover, but was keeping low. Something that Markos and Sineta were failing to do. She would have expected this from the baron’s daughter, but not from the sec boss.

  “Stop right there. Don’t move a muscle or twitch an eyelid, unless you want to join our ancestors.”

  Markos’s voice was firm and carried over the distance despite not being loud. It made his brother turn and gasp, falling to his knees as the shock and his accumulated fear finally got the better of him. Elias, on the other hand, was made of sterner stuff.

  On hearing the voice, the giant whirled and fired. The shots echoed across the last few words uttered by the sec boss. He laughed maniacally as he fired, falling sideways to avoid being a sitting target for any return fire.

  One of the shots hit Markos in the shoulder, throwing him backward, his H&K falling from nerveless fingers. He stared wide-eyed at his shoulder, the shock of seeing his brother followed by his rash action and his injury throwing him into a paralyzed confusion.

  “Oh, fuck it,” Mildred muttered under her breath as she moved forward, breaking into a run. The tableau in front of her eyes presented her with two distinct problems. First, Chan was scrambling toward where Markos’s H&K had landed, with the intention of laying hands on it. That would make him a threat, which he hadn’t been up to that point. Second, Elias was standing with a blaster in his hand, sizing up a shot at Sineta. For her part, the baron’s daughter was facing the same dilemma as Mildred. She stood between the two threats, not knowing which one to go for. Her Glock was uselessly pointed somewhere between the two. Mildred could make a snap decision and act. In fact, if she had been standing in Sineta’s position she would have had no hesitation in taking out Elias first, then pivoting and taking out Chan with a second shot. But she wasn’t in that position. From where she was, running, there was no way she could do both. And Sineta, for all her raw courage, had no idea of which to go for first, and no experience to guarantee a good shot.

  Mildred could only take one of the options, and she knew which one it had to be when she glanced across toward the outcrop and saw Jak emerge.

  The albino hunter jumped nimbly from the mouth of the cave and into the river, hitting the bottom with a stride that already propelled him across nearly half the distance to the shore. As he jumped and landed, he unholstered his Colt Python and extended his arm, the heavy blaster dwarfing his small, scarred white hand. His arm was at full extension, rock-solid as he took another stride. He saw Elias bring the blaster up toward Sineta to get a clean shot.

  Jak didn’t hesitate. In a fraction of a second he sighted along the barrel of the Colt as he strode forward and squeezed the
trigger, almost with a caress. The recoil from the powerful blaster didn’t even jolt the tensed muscles of his forearm and bicep, the arm remaining rock-solid.

  Elias didn’t know what hit him. One second he was shaping to blast Sineta, whose hand he had once sought in the pursuit of power; the next he knew nothing as he was despatched to join his ancestors.

  Sineta saw Elias level the blaster and tried to turn to fire, but she knew she was too slow and was preparing to meet her forefathers when she saw the giant’s head suddenly explode in front of her. One second his malevolent glaring eyes and vulpine grin framed her imminent demise, the next they had disappeared as his skull split open and a spray of blood, brain and bone splinters spewed out around his head, mostly to her left. The corpse, now with just half a head, tumbled sideways.

  Sineta screamed.

  Mildred had ignored the shot from Jak and the woman’s scream, concentrating her attention instead on Chan. If she had stopped and taken aim, she could probably have chilled him before he reached the H&K, but her momentum was such that it would have taken a fraction of a second too long to actually come to a complete halt. Her best bet was to keep running and to throw herself at the albino, stopping him gaining the weapon.

  Chan was reaching for the H&K when he felt Mildred cannon into him. He hadn’t looked up to see her coming, so had taken no evasive action when she threw herself across the last couple of yards. He was kneeling, but she pitched herself low and he was flung back—and away from the blaster—by her sudden appearance and impact. Unfortunately for Mildred, the momentum of her flight carried them back toward the woods. As they landed she hit the side of her head on an upraised tree root.

  Desperately, Mildred fought to cling to her faculties, even though stars exploded inside her head and the world turned upside down. She felt her limbs grow heavy and unresponsive, refusing to react and allowing Chan to squirm out from under her. Her ZKR slipped from her grasp and before she had a chance to drunkenly fumble for it, the albino had seized it and taken hold of her arm, twisting it up behind her and holding the blaster to her head, dragging her to her feet.