Hunted (6 page)

'Sort of,' said Li. 'Just keep that bear banger ready.'

They marched on. Behind them, the roaring gave way to fighting and snarling. 'Now they'll start to squabble over who eats what,' said Li.

It was a chilling sound, vicious and primeval.

Gradually, the noise of the lions faded into the distance. Adrenaline stopped pumping through Alex's veins and he felt a wave of fatigue. It was extreme, like having a blanket dropped over his head. Not now, he said to himself. He gripped the handle of the bear banger hard, feeling its ridged handle dig into his palm. Maybe that would keep him awake. But he had been on the move for more than two days and nights. He had to try not to think about it. He couldn't believe that his body was craving sleep here, among all these hunting lions. Do it for the others, he told himself. They were depending on him to bring help.

'Paulo, don't fall asleep,' said Hex. He caught Paulo by the shoulders and shook him urgently. 'We mustn't fall asleep.'

Paulo was sitting next to Tessa. His head had nodded onto his chest for a moment. He came to with a jolt. '
Dios,'
he muttered to himself. He hadn't realized he was dozing. A shiver turned his spine to ice. A lion could so easily have crept up on them.

Hex checked Tessa. 'The tourniquet seems all right. Where's Chris?'

Paulo shone his torch around. Chris was slumped in a corner, his head burrowed into the side of the pit like a hibernating creature. Paulo turned to Hex and said quietly, 'I reckon he's better like that.'

As Paulo swung the torch back, he caught sight of a pair of eyes up on the rim of the pit. 'Lion,' he said simply. A huge face, surrounded by a mane, was staring back at him.

Hex's foot touched something. It was the bait the poachers had left. Hex picked it up by its hoof. 'Mind out,' he said to Paulo and hurled it at the lion. The lion whirled round and trotted after it.

'Nice one,' said Paulo. The lion stopped a few metres away. He sniffed the meat and settled to gnaw it.

'That won't keep it amused for very long,' said Hex.

Suddenly they heard a noise. Relief flooded through Hex's veins like a ray of light. 'Hey, that's a vehicle.'

A powerful set of headlights swung through the trees. Hex and Paulo stood on tiptoe in the pit and waved. They saw the solid front of a Range Rover. Its bonnet bore the red cross of the medics. With a squeal of brakes it pulled up beside the pit.

Alex and Li jumped out, along with three paramedics.

'She's over there,' said Li.

One paramedic ran past her and dropped down into the pit beside Tessa. He took one look at her and called up to his colleague: 'Get the stretcher.'

Chris woke and stood up, rubbing his eyes as he made his way to the edge of the pit.

Paulo and Hex climbed wearily out. 'You made it,' said Paulo to Alex.

Alex nodded over at the undergrowth. Just beyond where their torches had been able to reach were three more lions, only twelve metres away, sitting on their haunches and staring at the group.

'Looks like we were just in time,' said Li.

4
TO THE BITTER END

The transition point was bustling with horses, riders and helpers. Competitors were starting to come back from the mounted orienteering phase of the race.

Paulo, Hex, Li and Alex walked their horses in and jumped off. It was mid-morning the next day. They had completed another section in good time and it was all change again.

Tessa had been taken to hospital and Team Alpha Force had voted unanimously to continue despite the detour. There was still a race to complete. So Li, Alex, Hex and Paulo had hiked to the next checkpoint, taken a two-hour break for sleep, and met Amber for the next phase - the thirty-kilometre orienteering ride. Now they were back, having successfully persuaded their mounts through rivers and over mountain passes.

John Middleton grabbed the two friskier horses and led them away to untack and rub them down. Amber laid her crutches down on the ground and hopped up to take the quieter ones. But as she led them away they jogged with their tails in the air and eyes wide, staring at the strange bouncing creature that had taken charge of them. Amber realized she had made a mistake. Far from being tired and docile, they thought she wanted to play.

She pulled one of them up hard. It stood still, shocked. She sprang off her good leg up onto its back. The saddle immediately felt like home. 'Right,' she said. She gave the horse she was on a strong squeeze with her thighs, and firmly held the reins of the other one. 'Now I'm up here you'll do as you're told.' The horses quietened down immediately.

As she took the horses to the washing-down area, a truck trundled slowly past. It bore a logo:
TEAM WOLF.
Three competitors were lolling together on the back seats, fast asleep like children. Amber stared. The teams weren't allowed into their back-up vehicles so they must have withdrawn. But Team Wolf were legendary in adventure-racing circles. All around her, Amber was beginning to see how the course had taken its toll. Team Alpha Force were proving themselves in one of the toughest sports on earth.

This next phase was the final one - an eight-kilometre sprint. In normal circumstances that was a negligible distance for Alpha Force. At the start of the race they had agreed that this was where they would make up any lost time or mistakes. But now, after days of constant slog, it seemed a different prospect.

Paulo slipped off his riding boots and protective chaps. He picked up his running shoes but could hardly bear to put them on.

Alex, his chaps discarded where they had fallen, was already tying his laces. If they kept a positive frame of mind they would finish in good time. 'We'll get straight out and do the final push now, OK?' he said. His voice was strong.

Hex felt as if he was dead on his feet but he forced himself to match Alex's upbeat tone. 'No time to lose,' he replied.

Li straightened up. 'We're not tired, are we? Other people have given up but we won't. We've come through the worst and soon it will be over.'

'Everyone ready?' said Paulo. 'Then let's go.'

They set off, jogging in a row at a good fast pace.

Amber took care of her horses and made her way back to the Land Rover. She checked her watch. Time for her insulin. Amber was a diabetic and had to carry insulin with her in a hi-tech injecting pen to take twice a day, but that didn't cramp her style.

As she prepared to give herself the injection in her thigh she was aware of eyes on her. Someone from one of the other back-up teams was watching her, his face curious and pitying. Amber gave herself the dose, then stared pointedly at the man. He quickly looked away, but Amber was annoyed. She felt like saying,
No, I'm not an invalid or ill. I'm a fully active, fully functioning member of Alpha Force.

As she put away the injection pen, John Middleton came back from the stabling area, brushing hay off his clothes. 'We're allowed to follow the teams for the last phase,' he said. 'Shall we go?'

'Good idea,' said Amber.

The course took them out onto an unmade road. A team had just set out, running slowly with laboured steps. The road stretched ahead, long and straight; to either side, scrubby grass grew. It was a monotonous view with no landmarks.

'Oh, that is nasty,' said Amber. 'That's a real test of endurance - it's so tedious.'

John Middleton was having to keep his foot steadily on the gas pedal. 'It's uphill too. Even worse.'

He overtook the runners by swerving onto the grass and bumping over the rough ground. As the Land Rover passed them Amber saw their exhausted faces, locked in their own private hell. 'This is a real killer,' she said, 'especially after all they've done before.'

They passed another team, who had slowed to a walk. 'That bunch look beat,' said John.

Amber spotted Team Alpha Force. 'There they are!'

They were walking, heads down, determined. Paulo, Li and Hex had linked arms, with Alex walking on his own, but their pace had slackened since they'd set out. 'That does not look good,' muttered Amber.

'And there's the finish,' said John. In the distance, about two kilometres away, was a crowd of people gathered around two flagpoles supporting a fluorescent yellow banner.

In front of Alpha Force were another team. A Land Cruiser crawled along beside them. A figure leaned out of the window, waving and yelling at them.

Amber grabbed the rule book, which was sitting on the dashboard. 'Are they allowed to do that?' She riffled through the pages. 'Aha, here we are. "During the last phase only, members of the back-up team may accompany the competing team, in vehicles or on foot, and are permitted to offer encouragement and training tips. They must not, however, touch the teams in any way." So long as we don't give them a lift or tow them, we can do anything we want.' She threw the rule book back on the dashboard and grabbed her crutches, which were propped in the passenger footwell. 'Uncle, stop the car.'

John Middleton braked in a cloud of dust and looked at her quizzically.

'Guys, I'm hallucinating,' said Hex. A slim black girl on crutches had just come out of nowhere and was now alongside him. What's more, she was grinning at him.

'Hi,' said Amber. Her teeth were brilliant white and her eyes glittered.

'Guys, I'm having a nightmare,' groaned Hex.

Paulo finally registered what was happening. His reactions were so slow he felt like a sloth coming to.

Alex was staring at his feet, putting one in front of the other. He looked up momentarily. 'Hi, Amber.' His voice was groggy.

Li mumbled hello.

Amber kept up with them easily, poling herself along on the crutches as though she was punting a boat along a river. 'Hex,' she said, 'move your ass.'

Hex looked at her distastefully. 'Oh no, it's Miss Motivator. Go away.'

Amber looked at the team in front of them. One of them had fallen over. Now was the chance for Alpha Force. 'Hex,' she said, 'if I beat you to the finish there will be hell to pay.' She took off at a surprising speed, the crutches allowing her to vault over the ground in long strides.

Hex's arm was still linked around Li's. He disengaged. 'Well, I won't be beaten by someone on crutches,' he muttered, and took off in pursuit.

The judge, looking through binoculars from the finish line, could not believe his eyes. A girl on crutches was powering past the leading team, and turning to shout at someone behind her. Team Alpha Force found a burst of energy and began to run. They ran past the leaders, Team Hunter, pursuing the girl on crutches like greyhounds chasing a hare.

The trainer in the Land Cruiser gave his team a loud wake-up call. 'Come on, Hunters!' He was leaning so far out of the window that he was in danger of falling out. Team Hunter suddenly came to life. They began to run, fast.

At the finish line, Amber stopped and looked back. Team Hunter were gaining. She suddenly recognized their trainer: it was the man who had been staring at her when she took her insulin. She remembered the look of pity on his face. She opened her lungs and gave a great bellow. 'Move it, Alpha Force!'

Team Hunter had caught up. The teams were neck and neck. Eight runners in a row, pounding out the last hundred metres of their extraordinary marathon.

'Come on!' shouted the Hunters' trainer.

Hex, Li, Paulo and Alex were running hard. Their legs were on fire and their lungs were bursting. But the finishing line was merely ten or twenty strides ahead. After all they had gone through, Alpha Force were not going to give anything less than their best. Alex was the first to put on a spurt, and when he did, the others found reserves they had not dreamed existed. Adrenaline gave them raw power. Little by little, they drew ahead of the other team, intent only on reaching Amber - and at that moment a great cheer went up.

They had done it. They had finished their first adventure race - and in fine style.

Li, Paulo, Alex and Hex sat on the tarpaulin floor tent at the finish, their bare feet in bowls of warm water. All around were exhausted, relieved athletes who had finished the course, nursing their wounds while the results were calculated.

'Oh that feels good,' said Hex, wriggling his toes. 'I'm not going to wear shoes for days.'

'What I want right now,' said Li, 'is a huge plate of chips with mayonnaise. And I never want to see another fruit bar or packet of nuts.'

'I want a steak with garlic butter,' said Paulo.

'I second that,' said Alex. 'In fact, I'll have two.'

Amber was on her way back from the Land Rover, the medical kit in a red bag over her shoulder. Picking her way through the throng of bodies was like walking across a crowded beach - especially difficult with crutches. People took up so much room when they sat down. And why did they all put their hands on the floor?