IN NATURA: a science fiction novel (ARZAT SERIES Book 2) (20 page)

  Just as the dark figure reached the Arzat, she saw him swiftly roll out of the way. The cat tumbled, completely taken by surprise at the sudden move, and skidded to a stop close enough to Alex that she could have reach out and touched it.

  Alex couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This was no cougar. It was far larger. In fact, the beast was as large as any full-sized African lion or tiger she had ever seen—four or five hundred pounds of pissed off feline.

  The giant cat hissed and pinned its ears back, obviously confused by the sudden turn of events. It glared at the Arzat, who was now standing in front of it with his hunting stick drawn. Then, the cat turned its head toward Alex with rage in its yellow eyes and sprang toward her, ready to rip her to pieces.

  Alex braced for the blow and instinctively shut her eyes—but there was no impact. She heard a blood-curdling roar, and when she opened her eyes again, she could see the Arzat and the huge feline struggling on the ground, clenched in battle. Alex watched in shock as the cat screamed and growled and rolled several times with the Arzat’s bulk wrapped in its two enormous front paws. She was helpless to intervene.

  As suddenly as the battle had begun, all movement between the two combatants suddenly stopped. The big feline had somehow ended up on top of the Arzat, almost completely covering his body. She could hear the cat breathing rapidly. A moment later there was complete silence. Alex held her breath.

  Finally, she saw the Arzat’s arm move. It grabbed a portion of the big cat’s shoulder and rolled it off of himself. The feline ended up on its back with its head listing to the side. Alex could see the sharp end of a killing stick buried in its jugular. The cat’s lifeless tongue draped over its large canine teeth and spilled into the bloody dirt beneath it.

  Alex looked back at the Arzat, who was rising to his feet. She noticed his left arm was bleeding badly, but otherwise he was still quite alive.

  The giant stood, his arms visibly shaking. He regarded the cat carefully, pulling his hunting stick from its throat, then kicked it savagely and turned his attention to Alex. He paused a moment, looking deep into her eyes, then switched his gaze to the sky and its early morning light and howled in triumph.

CHAPTER 28

SIGNS IN THE SAND

Mot couldn’t believe he had been so foolish. He had not only unnecessarily walked into a dangerous situation with the dogs but he had also completely lost the tracks and the scent of the Arzat who had captured Alex in the process.

  You must perform better than this
, Mot son of the Great Hunter Url, he told himself.

  After chastising himself at length, he took a chance and doubled back on the same trail he had used to escape from the beasts, listening and testing the air often for any sign of them. He was determined to regain the scent of the mysterious Arzat who had taken Alex, even if he had to backtrack for half a
het
and kill every dog he encountered along the way. For the moment, there was no longer any sign of them besides a very faint scent that indicated they had given up on him and moved on.

  When he thought he was about halfway back to the human camp, Mot surveyed the land and looked toward the mountains that loomed in the direction of the morning stars.
That is where he is taking her,
he thought, painfully aware of the fact that he was actually heading in the opposite direction.

  Mot changed course and covered the ground in a large arch around the human encampment. He sniffed carefully, especially when he crossed any sort of game trail. The process was painfully tedious and time consuming. Every moment he spent trying to reacquire Alex’s scent was putting him farther and farther from her. The clouds he had noted at sunset were continuing to threaten a downpour. If it rained, his search for Alex would become next to impossible.

  Mot crossed a small ravine—easily leaping from one side to the other—and his senses were overwhelmed. A group of Arzats had come through the area very recently, and there was the faint odor of human flesh.
No doubt,
he thought,
these are the scents of the hunters taking their kills back home.

  Mot bent to study the ground, but it was packed hard and gave little indication of the exact number of Arzats or the number of human carcasses he imagined they were carrying over their shoulders.
Five or six of them,
he thought,
probably six.
He shuddered, still hoping that the Arzat he had tracked earlier was not part of this hunting party or that, at the very least, he hadn’t yet rejoined them.

  For a moment, he considered following the larger group.
Perhaps they will lead me to him,
he thought, and hence to Alex. Mot marked the spot in his mind.
I will try for one torch of time, no more, and then return and follow this group
.

  He continued to cut through the forest, pausing at each sign of an animal passing, sniffing carefully, but he could not regain the scent of Alex or her abductor. The sky was beginning to show more and more light. Qu’aa was about to rise and show his face through the scattered rain clouds.

  Mot stopped briefly, placed one knee on the ground, and made a silent request to the Great Creator to show him the way to Alex, listening intently all the while to the ground vibrations. His fingers failed to detect any significant movement.

  As he stood back up, he looked back at the valley he had just come through and tried to imagine where exactly Tom and Ara must be.
They will be coming soon,
he suddenly remembered.
I must leave Ara enough signs so she can follow.

  Mot turned and swiftly headed back to the ravine where he had sniffed out the hunters. When he reached the spot, he made sure to leave a strong scent by rubbing his hands on some tree limbs and urinating for good measure. Up until the encounter with the dogs, he had been carefully marking the trails he had taken so Ara could easily follow, but he knew his efforts spent trying to regain Alex’s scent would only confuse her.

  This is close enough to the camp,
he thought, as he finished pissing. Ara cannot miss this. He worried for a moment about Tom and Ara crossing paths with the dogs.
The Pilot will know what to do,
he reassured himself.

  Mot straightened his loincloth and started up the trail he knew the Arzat Hunters had taken, increasing his pace to a full trot. The scent of so many Arzats was easy to track and they had left enough other signs that Mot had no trouble following.

  They must be young,
he surmised, from the unnecessarily obvious trail they had left. It was as if they had no fear of other predators or had not been properly taught how to hunt.
Perhaps they are as poorly schooled in combat,
he thought hopefully.

  Eventually, he spotted a small creek and gratefully stopped for a drink. As he bent down to the water’s edge, Mot looked up and noticed other tracks in the sand on the opposite side. He sniffed the water and sipped, carefully observing the tracks from a distance. They did not look like Arzat tracks. They were far too deep and sunken into the sand.

  He rose and jumped to the far side to fully examine them. His senses were immediately overwhelmed with strange new scents.

  The indentations were deep and circular and the smell was familiar to Mot from the brief time he had spent on Alex’s ranch. The animals she and Tom called
horses
had recently watered here and much more recently than the hunters Mot was tracking. But there was something else. Mot looked closely at the horse tracks. There were many of them, all centered near the water. Then he spied another kind of track intermingled with that of the horses and the scales bristled on the back of his neck. He bent down and took a good sniff, then stood and cautiously looked around.

  There was no mistaking it—the scent was that of humans—and these humans were still very much alive!

CHAPTER 29

AMBUSH

Baa’s feet hurt, and he had grown weary from fast pace that he himself had set, never mind the fact that Za’at had ordered him to maintain it on pain of death. Secretly, Baa hoped to beat Za’at back to the caves, and he had been pushing hard to do so. Now, with the light of Qu’aa about to show his face over the horizon, it was beginning to look as if that might actually be a possibility. There was still no sign of Za’at, and they were getting close to home.

  Baa was still smarting over the beating he had taken from Za’at, but as they neared the caves, he was becoming more concerned with the potential repercussions of his own actions with every step he took. The more that his head had cooled off, the more Baa began to realize how stupid he had been to have ever challenged him. He knew, regardless of what the Elders might have to say about Za’at’s leadership, he had committed an atrocity of his own by openly challenging him; it was very unlikely he would escape some kind of punishment from the Council for his own behavior. His only hope would be to present his case to the Elders before Za’at showed up.

  Baa shuddered at his prospects and gave the group the command to break. Suddenly, he found himself in no hurry to reach home. He looked at the sky and could see more morning light coming from over the mountains. The hunters had reached the steep terrain that would take them into the mountains and eventually to the caves.
Just half a
het
,
he thought,
and we will be home
. Another wave of dread swept over him.

  Baa vaguely wondered again where Za’at might be and why he had not caught up with them yet. A very small part of him started to wish he had. Being the appointed leader was not as easy as he had thought, and Baa had already grown weary from the weight of it. The wellbeing of all of the hunters now rested completely on his shoulders, and this was a treacherous and dangerous land. If anything happened to his group, Baa would now assume full responsibility. He found himself actually looking forward to relinquishing command when they finally made the caves.

  He looked anxiously at the surroundings and sniffed and flicked the air. The Arzats had been traveling all night and on several occasions Baa had been overcome with the uneasy feeling his group was being followed. Each time he had stopped, he fully tested the air and the ground for enemies and had the hunters do the same. Each time, neither he nor any of the others had detected any unusual movement or scents.

  Mek, at one point, had sensed the movement of a group of four-footed beasts. Not heavy enough to be
ungos
and
not light enough to be
var
or
ree
, Mek was unable to make out just what they were
.
“Perhaps a wild herd of
arsas,
”
he had reported,
but the animals were too far away to be sure. Thankfully, none of those beasts presented any real threat to the hunters, and Baa had dismissed Mek’s comments when he failed to detect them himself.

  The Arzats found a group of large, clean boulders and gratefully dumped their heavy loads of
uman
carcasses on top of them. They were in a wide ravine that had a small creek flowing down its center. Walls of dark rock, perhaps five or six sticks high, surrounded them on both sides.

  As Baa stretched his back and looked around, he suddenly realized that their low position was not the best from a strategic standpoint. It would be hard to defend themselves from any would be attackers.
Za’at would never have allowed us to stop here,
he thought.

  For a moment, he considered immediately moving on to a better resting place, but he was exhausted and the other hunters had already settled into a semi-circle and were either squatting or sitting, resting their tired feet.

  Just a short break,
he resolved, and squatted with the rest of the group. Baa pulled his water skin out for a drink and nervously scanned the dark rocks above. Something moved.

  Baa rose quickly, sniffing and flicking his tongue. There was nothing alarming in the air, but he knew they were too low in the valley to fully detect what might be going on above them. He crouched, placed palms to the ground, and continued to watch the ridgeline carefully. Something up there had moved. He was almost sure. Had it?

  “What’s wrong, Baa?” one of the other hunters asked, still nervous from the earthquake they had experienced earlier and convinced it had been a bad omen.

  It was still too dark to make out the full detail of the ridge, but there was no further visible movement, and Baa could sense no ground vibrations. He looked closely at the top edge of the cliffs, scanning both sides of the canyon with his sharp eyes. Nothing.

  My head must be playing tricks,
he thought, yet he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that he and his hunting party were being watched.

  “I thought . . . I thought I saw some movement up on the ridgeline.”

  At once, each of the hunters placed their hands to the ground, flicked at the early morning air, and carefully scanned the ridge.

  Finally, Mek waived his hand dismissively. “There’s nothing there, Baa. It’s just the light.”

  Baa continued to observe with all of his senses, but he could detect no movement and no scent of any threat. Still, his gut told him that something was not right.

  “Mek,” he finally said to his friend who was squatting close by. “We need to move out of here.” He stood up and was just about to issue the full order to the entire group of hunters when a shaft entered his mouth and partially exited the back of his skull.

  Baa stumbled, gagging on the projectile, his mouth full of blood. He looked over at Mek as his consciousness quickly faded. The last thing he was aware of was the distinct smell of
uman
wafting down his nostrils from the wooden shaft protruding from his face.

  The rest of the hunters immediately rose and split, aware of the attack from the sudden movement of
umans
on the ridge and the rain of their weapons into the valley. They began to run separately for the safety and cover of the canyon walls, but they were too late. A volley of the
uman
arrows and spears was coming down on them from every direction and the hunters were falling. Only Mek, who had been the first to see his friend skewered, had managed a fast enough start to put any distance between himself and the carnage.

  He ran swiftly back down the canyon, away from the attackers, and was just about to reach the cover of a large rock formation when one of the small
uman
shafts caught him from behind. He lost a step and almost tumbled before regaining his footing, the head of the weapon visibly protruding from the front of his right shoulder. The pain was excruciating, but Mek continued to run until he knew he was well away from the ambush.

  When he was sure he was safe, he paused and placed his good hand to the ground. Now, he could feel the movement of many of the two-footed
umans
interspersed with a lot of four-footed activity that Mek was now sure must be their
arsas
. He tried to judge numbers, but there was too much activity to measure.

  That is how they managed to surprise us,
he thought, the pain surging through his right shoulder along with the sickening revelation that he had actually detected them much earlier.
The umans have used arsas!

  He used his mind to search for any sign of life from the other hunters, but there was only stillness.
Five more Arzats dead and I myself wounded,
he thought,
perhaps on my way to death
.
Nothing about this trip was good. Ar’ta had been right—the earthquake was an omen.

  Mek tried again to reach the other hunters one last time, but nothing came to him other than signs that the smooth-skin warriors were stalking him. When he tested the ground, he could feel them approaching.