Sunlord (63 page)

Kiroth voiced his agreement. "Tatura, bring your
huntsmen back and organise them for the defence. Have all able
bodied hunters fully armed with a quiver of arrows and spears."

The Huntsmaster produced a carved wooden horn and,
facing the forest, sounded three long ear-splitting notes.
Meanwhile Kiroth motioned to a young eloprin. "Fetch my spear and
knife from my hut - and be sure that everyone is out into the
clearing!"

"I suggest we set the hunters off in all directions
to confuse any Sunlords trying to track us." Capac looked upon the
band of villagers gathering, the chilling sounds of approaching
artillery so loud now it was unmistakable. "I suggest you address
them, Kiroth. Fear is in their hearts."

"I should do well to bring sense back into their
minds," agreed Kiroth, and moved towards the centre of the
clearing. While the leader spoke words of confidence Capac
retrieved his cane and ducked quietly away towards his shelter. He
had spent a year fashioning this hut to his tastes and he knew that
everything inside must be left behind. Except for one thing, he
thought as he began searching through a woven basket.

Capac started when a sudden movement sounded the
entry of another. Looking around he saw it was Riel, the small
child's face pulled into an expression of befuddlement.

"What are you doing, uncle?"

Tucking the long bladed hunting knife into his belt
Capac took Riel's shoulders in his hands clawed with age and looked
the boy square in the eye. "The Sunlords have come and you have to
go with Miora."

"I don't want to go with Miora," protested the boy,
referring to the nurse who looked after him. "I want to go with
you, uncle!"

"No, you will go with the other children." Capac
found himself perturbed as Riel's brown eyes met his own gaze; eyes
that reflected so much of Ashian. One year was a long time for the
eloprin, for a high metabolism meant they age quickly; the boy had
grown strong over ten months and already he had developed a
temperament much like his fathers. But there were other times,
Capac reflected, when Riel was quiet and sullen as Myshia had oft
been.

"Are we going to die, uncle?"

"Now what made you think that?" exclaimed Capac with
forced confidence. "Come on, I can hear Kiroth speaking."

They emerged into the evening air where every single
member of the Clan had gathered together. Kiroth was midway through
a sentence when an unexpected roaring grew to a startling
crescendo. Too stunned to make any movements the tribespeople could
only watch as a jet aircraft rocketed overhead in a flash of light
and blast of shocked air in its wake.

The eloprin screamed and dispersed as the forest to
all sides burst into sudden flame - a napalm like substance
bursting even the dampest of leaves into fire.

Even Kiroth's powerful voice was almost drowned in
the dim. "This way! This way!"

Hesitantly pausing, Elio made broad gestures with his
arms as he led the tribespeople into the forest. On all sides huts
burned and a thick smoke filled the air, sparks and hot ash falling
over every surface.

Tatura the Huntsmaster used the complex sign-language
used when stalking prey to save strain upon his voice to call to
his hunters. From the corner of his eye Tatura noticed Capac move
with the hunters, a longbow in hand. Tatura shook his head. "Stay
with the tribe."

Capac fitted an arrow into the bow, walking cane
tucked into his belt. "I'm not decrepit yet, Tatura." Pulling the
bowstring taut Capac wished for one of the Sunlords' handguns, but
he had not set eyes upon one for nigh upon a year. He had lost his
rifle used aboard the Urisa, and here deep in the forest any forays
into Sunlord encampments to steal was out of the question.

Tatura regarded Capac's arms, parched with age yet
wry with seasoned muscle. "Okay, but stay close to me. I don't want
to leave you behind."

"I can manage," assured Capac, keeping pace as the
hunters flanked the body of the tribe. Every movement drew waves of
grinding pain and without his cane the weight upon his left leg was
almost unbearable.

"Any suggestions?" Tatura turned, still walking,
while he spied through the trees back at the burning village.

"Keep going along this path," said Capac. "Keep your
hunters from firing upon Sunlords wherever possible."

They moved quickly through the dense forest. Night
was settling in and a cold mist blanketed the space between the
towering tree trunks, providing an eerie setting for the now-silent
flight. Time passed, yet Capac knew not how long for in that period
time had no meaning; they may have been travelling for minutes or
hours.

Fingers tracing thoughtfully over passing tree
trunks, brow furrowed in thought as if counting, Capac suddenly
halted and lay his hand upon Tatura's arm. "Wait, this is the
place."

Tatura pursed his lips as he observed they were now
between two faces of rock that towered up on either side, details
obscured by the night mists. Capac pulled his cane from his belt
and leant heavily upon it, trying to hide the pain from showing on
his face. Forcing aside discomfort he limped forward, gesticulating
with his right hand. "There are traps set above these faces. To
activate them remove the safety pegs." Turning to Tatura he
explained. "I've got boulders stacked against a log that will fall
aside when a rope is pulled." As he spoke two hunters clambered the
rock and disappeared from sight. Capac bent to his knees and moved
a length of vine across the path behind them that would act as a
tripwire. "With any luck, the boulders should be enough to kill
their soldiers or trap their tanks."

Tatura's eyes showed admiration. "You've been
busy."

Capac grunted. "Call me paranoid, but I've long been
worried that this day would come. I have had several of the older
boys assist me while you have been out on hunts."

"We owe you for your forethought," remarked Tatura.
"The trap is set then? Let's move."

The country grew steadily softer underfoot as they
headed downhill towards the swamplands. The path under the hunter's
feet was muddy from the passage of the rest of the tribe further
ahead. Their pace had slackened considerably due to the older
tribespeople's exhaustion, and as a result the defending hunters
had to drop back.

Capac was just beginning to think they had moved
beyond the danger zone when a deep reverberation ran under the
soles of his feet. It was quiet with distance, and it few of the
eloprin heard it. Tatura paused, breath pent. "The trap?"

"Then they are on our trail. No less than ten minutes
behind."

"I shall run ahead and urge the our tribe to make
haste, then return here." Tatura slung his bow over a shoulder and
bolted ahead, glad at last to be moving swiftly.

Watching the spring-footed eloprin disappear into the
night Capac felt a stab of jealousy that his own body had betrayed
him in old age, leaving him forced to hobble along using the cane
to maximum advantage. The old wound ached almost intolerably
now.

Breath coming out in visible clouds of steam Capac
called to a pair of the younger hunters bringing up the rear of the
convoy. Under his directions they set about placing uprooted bushes
over the path, obscuring it, and then planting their spears deep
into the soil so that a running solider would be impaled by the
sharpened shaft. The three worked quickly, haste added to their
movements by adrenalin, knowing that something followed their
path.

The light slapping of bare feet heralded the return
of Tatura, who immediately cursed upon spying Capac hard at work
chopping shrubs off at their base and dragging them over the track.
"What are you doing - do you want to get yourself killed?"

"We're try to give the tribe a little more time!"
exclaimed Capac breathlessly.

"Yeah, and at expense to your live. I won't allow it,
come on."

"A little more time - "

A sudden gunshot assaulted their senses and all fell
instinctively back. Words caught in his chest Capac ducked low as
his periphery vision saw the bullet catch one of the eloprin
hunters. Head turning in horror Capac saw the eloprin's body cast
backward, chest exploding into a shower of blood.

Falling to his stomach, rolling, then leaping to his
feet as best as he was able, Capac stumbled for cover. Tatura and
the other hunter were nearby and together they sprinted for all
they were worth. Several more shots were fired, tearing at the bark
of trees near their heads. Tatura was practically carrying Capac
now as the old eloprin's left leg dragged limply, contorted with
cramps and cursedly refusing to move.

"Leave me," cried Capac. "Run on."

"No way, old man."

"Then move off the path." Capac knew they stood no
chance of outrunning the Sunlords. They would just have to hope
that the other hunters further along the path would provide
protection for the tribe. "Move into cover - we'll see how many of
the useless bastards we can pick off."

The three angled perpendicular and immediately hit
with a wall of prickly brush and ground so soft it sucked upon ones
feet. Unheeding of scratches they fought through the scrub,
labouring breath loud now that the gunshots had stopped. Notching
an arrow into his bow Capac stopped, waiting.

They did not have to wait long. Seconds later a
wraith-like runner shot from the shadows, obscured by mist and
moonlight. Three arrows shot from the undergrowth as the armoured
figure passed.

One missed and one glanced harmlessly from the
breastplate, but the other - Capac's arrow - lodged firmly into the
neck joint. It was more luck than skill, Capac thought in relief,
that his arrow had flown true. The solider rocketed sideways and
collapsed with a heavy thump, skidding forward with momentum. Then
it stopped and lay still, an indistinguishable mass of blackness in
the mists. Flung forward from an outstretched arm something silver
glinted. A blaster.

"I need that weapon."

"Wait!"

But Capac was already on the track inspecting the
corpse. Details drew into focus as he drew closer; the arrow
jarring from the neck, the wide open eyes through the visor, the
armour.

"Mother of the Forest!" Blinking twice, Capac shook
his head, staring at the logo emblazed upon the chest armour of the
space warrior.

Tatura came to his aid. "What is it? Capac - what's
wrong?"

Capac's eyes never left the body. Even in the
moonlight the blue insignia was unmistakable - Shaun had described
the Federation markings accurately. And the face of the
solider...it was undeniably human. "A Federation solider." Was he
being chased by Sunlords, too? Capac clenched his jaw. It seemed
unlikely, but that meant only one thing. They were being pursued by
Federation soldiers.

The rumble of machinery grew audible as did the
steady march of footsoliders closing in rapidly. Tatura grabbed
Capac and hauled him from the track, all thoughts of obtaining the
weapon forgotten.

As the eloprin dove through the forest they heard
above the racket of snapping branches under their feet a steadily
growing humming. It built in intensity until it seemed to be
shaking the very molecules of dirt under their feet.

Capac knew that sound. "Get down!"

The three rolled behind the cover of a fallen log,
half-tripping half-diving into the moist humus. Concussed air
pounded their eardrums as the rocket exploded where their feet had
been an instant earlier. Flame licked outwards and the vegetation
in a two-metre radius was stripped bare of all foliage. Capac
wasted no further time as he ordered they move once more. In his
efforts to aid Capac Tatura dropped his longbow, knowing there was
no time to pause to retrieve it.

They all heard the footsteps behind them, and it was
the young eloprin who stopped and drew back her bow. Her arrow
lanced forward and smashed into the half-visor of the Federation
solider stepping from the mists. Barely had the eloprin completed
her recovery had another warrior emerged from over the body of his
comrade.

A split-second later the warrior fired a single
whip-like thwack of blue electricity.

The eloprin hunter cried out as her flesh singed and
charred to black. Cast back by the force she was throw against a
tree and impaled by a thick branch.

The dreadful feeling of being betrayed seeped through
Capac's numbed heart as the Federation solider reload the weapon,
still stepping forward with unstoppable determination. The body of
the young hunter hung limply from the tree disfigured beyond
recognition; Capac had not even known the eloprin's name.

The next few minutes were a blur as Capac and Tatura
fled. The trees they ran past towered into the night sky, their
girth the size of a large hut. It was through this terrain that
Tatura and Capac knew best and both moved as if of one mind,
weaving and leaving few tracks to mar their passing.

"We've got to loop around," panted Capac
breathlessly. "Got to get back to the rest of the tribe."

Allowing his pace to slow Tatura dared to look back
the way they had come. The forest was silent, almost serene.
"Agreed. It seems we've lost them."

Capac produced his cane which, remarkably, had
survived the flight through the dense forest. His grip tight on the
handle he stopped to regain his breath, shaking off Tatura's aid to
stand by himself. He had no time to collect his thoughts and
already the confusion was becoming too much. Perhaps he had
mistaken the Sunlord as a human in the moonlight. He refused to
believe it was the Federation firing upon them. Now, in the forest
devoid of movement save the rustle of leaves overhead and the sound
of their pulse in their ears, it seemed impossible to believe.

"They were human?" Tatura asked.

Capac could only nod. "Human, yes. They are killing
us."