Chapter Forty-Six

IT WAS MIDMORNING when we heard the first gunshot. It ripped through the stillness and echoed far and wide. It hadn’t been near us but well within audible range.

We heard nothing else for a few minutes. Then, just as suddenly, came two rapid-fire shots, and a scream followed. Or more aptly, a set of screams. If there had been words in those wails, I couldn’t make them out.

“We’re closing the gap” is all Caspersen said, picking up the pace as she went. We pushed our exhausted bodies to comply. She was doing no more than needed, but I had the impression she’d have run a mean galley ship in the day.

The screams continued intermittently as we ran. As we got closer, and I heard them again and again, I formed a clear picture. They were cries of agony, with a word or phrase thrown in now and then. And I knew whose cries of pain: the professor. His voice carried clear and terror-struck through the trees.

A clutch of fear caught us all, and that desperation gave speed to our feet. We were close—close enough to hear the cries of our friends—but too far away to stop their torment. A thousand ghoulish horrors played out in my mind. I couldn’t forget the skin walkers, nor did I put it past the cannibals to feast on a live victim.

We started to pick up other voices in a lower register. I heard Matt’s, though I couldn’t tell what he said. There were too many other voices drowning his out, all speaking a garbled dialect I didn’t recognize. As with their cultures, the Nation and the Lava Dwellers seemed to have developed completely distinct languages. I could make out nothing they said.

In time, we caught sight of the band, small and distant in the far trees. They were on the move and seemed to be unaware of us. The professor’s wails kept up a steady pace.

Caspersen gave a sign to hold up. “There are about three dozen of them. They haven’t been running. If they catch sight of us, they’ll be able to make better time than we can.” Her eyes were alight with a steely gleam. I knew immediately that she had a plan. “Gat, your people should stay out of sight. Follow, but at a distance. We’ve got the ranged weapons—we’ll pursue, get close enough to make every shot count.”

He nodded, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

She turned to us now. “It’s going to be six shots each. Every one of them has to be lethal. Protecting Matt and Carter is our number-one priority. Kill anyone who gets near them.” She surveyed us. “You ready?”

“Let’s get these sons of bitches,” Connor said.

“All right, let’s go.”

We were about to follow her lead when Gat seized her arm. “There.”

“Fuck.” Caspersen summed up all of our thoughts as we saw what Gat had pointed out: a second band of cannibals on an intercept course to the first. I couldn’t see them all due to the trees between us and them, but I had the impression the second group contained at least as many as the first. “Get down, everyone.”

We weren’t in their direct line of sight, but they’d be able to pick us up in their peripheral vision.

What they lacked in boldness, the Nation surely made up in stealth. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of warriors vanished from sight. They slipped so seamlessly behind the broad trees and through the undergrowth that, if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have believed they were there at all. We followed their example.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “We won’t be able to take that many.”

Caspersen’s brow creased. “We’re going to have to approach without being spotted.”

“There’s too many of us,” Russell offered.

“We’ll have to split up,” Caspersen agreed. “Some will have to stay here.”

“No.” Gat shook his head. “Not stay behind. We will approach from above.”

“Are we near a road?” I asked. That seemed too lucky a coincidence.

The leader of the Nation shook his head again. “I will take our most surefooted. We will not need a road. We will get above them and send down death. And you will approach from the rear and also send death.”

Caspersen nodded enthusiastically. “Good—good, Gat. It’s brilliant. They won’t plan on an attack from the ground and above.”

The plan decided, we and a contingent of warriors set out, approaching as quickly as we could behind cover. Gat, meanwhile, and a number of the remaining Keplerites scaled the trees, disappearing into the branches overhead.

Needless to say, our pace took a serious hit. We were reduced to crawling and crouching runs for long stretches of forest. Rather than gaining on the cannibals, they put distance between themselves and us.

Until they spotted the second group of Lava Dwellers anyway. They cheered at that and changed course, toward their reinforcements.

They were still headed away from us but at an angle now which cost them time. We started to gain on them again.

Before long, we realized we had traded one difficulty for another. The cannibals were heading for a clearing in the forest in which sat a large lake. We would catch up to them—but not before they reached the open.

A great, rocky shore surrounded this body of water, speckled here and there with shrubs, bushes, and the occasional sapling. But the trees ended long before the jagged shoreline, and there wasn’t enough cover for our band to approach. Which meant the cannibals had a clear path for a retreat from both Gat and us, should they choose to pursue it.

The first band reached the rocks before we neared them and waited for the second. Their conversation wafted toward us, and though I could make out none of the words, the jocularity in the tone came through loud and clear. So did the professor’s continued cries.

We drew up shortly thereafter, a few hundred yards from the shore. We could see everything from this vantage without leaving the forest.

The cannibals had broken for a meal, with the newcomers helping themselves to the flesh of their dead comrade. They’d dumped the prisoners—Matt and the professor—in a heap. Now and then, one of the captors would rise and subject the pair to abuse, kicking and beating them with a glee that turned my stomach.

They never lingered long, though, as one of the first band, a great, grizzled fellow in skins, barked out a command at anyone who extended his stay too long. And eschewing the bravery with which they’d assail bound men, the offender slunk away to his meal.

I saw two unmoving bodies beside our own crewmates, both clothed in the mismatched furs of the cannibals. And there was the torso that served as the band’s current meal. The professor and Matt had put up a serviceable defense after all, it seemed.

“We can get some good shots from here,” Connor whispered, “but there’s too many for us to take them all on. Gat’s won’t be able to get close, so I don’t know how much help he’s going to be able to offer.”

Russell nodded. “I don’t think their bows are going to have the kind of range we need either.”

“And if the cannibals stick to the shore, they’ll be able to outrun us and Gat,” I said.

“We need to get them into the trees,” Caspersen added.

“How? If they realize we’re here, they’ll be gone before we get close.”

She considered for a moment in thoughtful silence. Then she said, “They didn’t run away from Matt. Or the professor, for that matter.”

“Well, no—but they ambushed the professor, and Matt was by himself when they took him.”

“Exactly.” She had that gleam in her eyes again. “I’m going to need everyone to stay behind cover. They cannot see you, understand?”

Then, in Kepler English, she repeated the command to the warriors nearest us, with an injunction to pass it along quietly. “Stay down, stay silent, don’t move a muscle until they’re back in the trees. No matter what happens.” She added a particular emphasis on the words that made my skin crawl.

“You’re not going out there to bait them?”

She flashed me a grin, and though the mask hid most of it, I could still see it in her eyes. “Of course. They won’t run from one person. They didn’t run from Matt. They won’t run from me.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“It will. They know what to expect from the Nation—or so they think. They’ve already figured out we’re less predictable, but they’re not going to be afraid of just one of us. They doubled their haul that way when they took Matt. They won’t run, especially not now they’ve got reinforcements.”

“And if they kill you?”

“They don’t seem to be in a killing mood, not yet.” Caspersen paused, her eyes meeting mine before she continued, “But whatever happens, you wait until they get under the trees before you do anything. Then, you unleash hell.”

“They have a gun,” Connor protested. “Matt’s, and probably the professor’s too.”

“And no idea how to aim. Listen, I’m ears if anyone has a better idea. But we need them in the trees, and we can’t risk them running. I can’t think of a better way to do that. Can you? Anyone?”

We exchanged glances, each hoping the other had some brilliant solution that didn’t put Caspersen’s life in quite so much danger.

No one did, and she nodded. “All right. I’m going to head out. Good luck. And remember, recovering Matt and Carter is our number-one priority.”

She left, keeping low as she cut through the undergrowth. In a minute, she vanished from sight. Now and again, I saw her, always nearer the shore than before. Finally, she came to rest behind a boulder and readied her rifle.

She raised her head and upper torso above the rock, higher than was necessary to take a shot. She aimed and a crack split the air; a cannibal dropped.

Their camp was midscramble by time the next crack sounded; another dropped.

She continued firing, spacing her rounds now. She had their attention, but she couldn’t kill too many. They needed to think they had a good chance of making it out of their encounter alive if they were going to pursue.

The professor and Matt had spotted her, too, and they started to scream their respective pleas. It didn’t take much to figure out who was saying what.

“Get out of here, Tracie. Run.”

“Help me. Help me!”

The cannibals, meanwhile, sprang to their feet. For a moment, they hesitated, throwing wild glances all around the trees. But they must have come to the conclusion Caspersen wanted because they turned for her.

Crack.

She dropped one of them. The others kept running.

Crack.

One of the men who had stayed at the lakeside fell.

Crack.

She picked off another. Now that she had their attention, she started to clear the ranks of those on the shore, near Matt and the professor. Her pursuers, some fifty or better of them, were getting closer now. She fell back, shooting as she retreated.

We saw the blowguns come up. I couldn’t see the individual darts at this range, but I knew they’d be firing a hail of them her way.

Caspersen increased her pace, shooting as she ran. And though she ran backward, most of her shots hit. She went through the rest of her magazine in this fashion. Then, she turned and ran full speed, drawing her pistol as she went.

They’d gotten close now, and she had to weave between the trees. Now and again, she’d pause to fire a round.

Meanwhile, back on the shore, Matt and the professor were on their feet; at least, Matt was on his feet. I hadn’t seen how, but he’d managed to free his legs and was working to pull the professor onto his. Caspersen had cleared the shoreline, and he seemed intent on making a break for it.

My attention returned to her. She’d reached the tree line but had more ground to cover to get to us. I exchanged glances with Connor, who was nearest me. She shook her head as if to say “not yet.”

She was right, but the darts were getting awfully close now. And whatever the cannibals’ ideas about capturing Caspersen alive might have been, she had inflicted so many casualties it seemed some would be content with an immediate payoff instead of an eventual one. Along with the quills that kept flying her way, she now had to dodge spears too. They wanted her down, dead or alive.

I glanced at the shore again. Matt and the professor had started to move for the trees, albeit slowly. I wasn’t going to wait any longer. I leaped to my feet, screaming, “Now.”

Caspersen dove to the ground a second before a hail of bullets rained out of the bushes into the cannibals behind her. Her pursuers pulled up short as we rushed out of our hiding spots. The Keplerites remained behind cover, but they unleashed a volley of arrows at the cannibals. The trees absorbed some of them, but all around us, cannibals dropped like flies.

Caspersen pushed to her feet, running for us again. At the same time, projectiles poured out of the trees somewhat to the right of Caspersen’s pursuers. Gat. He was in the area, then.

I had expected the cannibals to route, seeing themselves outnumbered and surrounded. But the realization had the opposite effect. The grizzled cannibal, the one who had warded off the brutal pursuits of his compatriots back at the waterside, offered a jumble of authoritative proclamations.

The cannibals charged us, chucking everything they had in our direction. A spear passed inches from my face, even as I drew Death to the ready. I heard the dull thud, the splitting sound as flesh parted, and saw Connor go down in my peripheral vision. I kept on firing, emptying round after round into the throng. Caspersen had pulled off to the side, ducking out of our range of fire behind a great tree. She poked her head around the trunk and followed suit. From behind and above us, the Nation’s warriors poured arrows and sling shots into our attackers.

One of the arrows pierced the side of the cannibal leader. And finally, their ranks broke. The few who remained disappeared into the forest on their left, out of range of our weapons.