Читать книгу Atlantis Reprise - James Axler - Страница 11

Who am I? Is the real me the man who now posits these questions, or is the real me the man Jordan who they say I became for a short while? It does, does it not, raise many questions as to the nature of identity? Is all of this through which I move an artifice, the mere whim of my own imagination, or is it real? But then, what is reality?

Of all the things I remember, of all the things that have occurred within the confines of my own mind over the past few days, there is only the one constant: the search for some kind of truth. Whatever I am, and wherever I am, there is a part of my mind that is still active and still seeks to find an answer of some kind for what has happened, and what is continuing to happen. If I am to ascertain the truth, then I must follow that course through to the end. That quest is the only one which matters. Wherever that leads.

Am I in a padded cell? Am I here? Am I Theophilus Tanner? Am I Joseph Jordan? There is only the one way in which I can find an answer. I must follow my gut feeling. When the consciousness is confused, then intellect alone cannot be trusted. In order to find the answer, then I must follow what instinct tells me.

And yet what it tells me to do is something that I cannot share with the others. They would not want to go back to Fairbanks. Why should they? They lived that nightmare in a way that I cannot comprehend. By the same token, they could never comprehend the compulsion that drives me onward.

I have said nothing. I shall continue to say nothing. If I hang back in the tunnel, I can slip away while they walk out into the new lands. If I close the door behind me, then by the time they have noticed my absence, reopened the redoubt and tried to find me, I will have traveled back.

Oh, I know only too well that the settings on the mattrans are random, but that is the point. Whatever happens to me next will be a large part of the journey. If fate—or the workings of my own imagination masquerading as fate—decrees that I end up back in the frozen north, then it shall be nothing more than another sign that I have taken the right path.

These are not times for plans. Plans demand intellect; intellect is confused by the workings of insanity; the gut is the only true arbiter.

But I shall miss them. I dimly recall thinking of them as angels at one point in my madness. Perhaps they are, in a sense. Guardians of ideal qualities created by my mind, perhaps based on those I have known at some point. Or mayhap they are real, and this world is my reality. In that case, then they are angels of the best kind: firm friends in the face of adversity.

I salute them…

‘WHAT THE HELL does he think he’s doing?’ Mildred yelled as she turned and ran toward the closing sec door, Doc now nothing more than a darkness in the shadows as he moved out of sight.

‘Millie, wait,’ J.B. yelled. He cast a glance at Ryan, wondering if his friend would want to follow Doc. The old man was still suffering from some kind of psychosis, and the last thing they needed—friend or not—was to become embroiled in more games.

But J.B. need not have wondered. Already, Ryan was catching up to Mildred and passing her on the way to the sec door.

‘Bastard won’t start to open until it’s fully shut, even if you punch the code in,’ he yelled breathlessly. ‘We’ve got to get through it and get him, let the others wait.’

Mildred didn’t bother to answer, saving her breath to try to keep pace with Ryan’s longer stride. Particularly if she was going to make it under the door. They were now about twenty feet from the entrance and the door showed less than a foot of space. It was going to be incredibly tight.

Ryan was a crucial few feet ahead of her and he flung himself into the gap, flattening himself as much as possible and bracing for the impact as his flying body connected harshly with the floor of the tunnel. He winced in pain as his shoulder jarred, a tingling numbness momentarily shooting down to his fingers. He ignored it, concentrating on rolling so that he could get the hell out of Mildred’s way as she came through.

Cursing loudly with her last desperate exhalation of breath, she took a flying leap at the ever-narrowing gap, feeling the edge of the door bite as it closed the gap uncomfortably. She threw herself with as much force and momentum as possible, the foot-long thickness of the tunnel almost catching and trapping the toes of her boots as she slid past, ironically just enough to kill her speed and insure that she didn’t hit the floor as hard as Ryan.

The one-eyed man was already on his feet and headed down the tunnel as she picked herself up.

‘That damn fool old buzzard. We should just leave the old bastard to do what the hell he wants,’ she muttered darkly as she hauled herself to her feet and set off in pursuit.

They knew exactly where they were headed, and as they were stronger and faster than Doc, they might just have time to catch him before he entered the mat-trans unit. Once the chamber door closed, it would be impossible to open it until the process had been completed.

Neither of them wasted time looking to their rear. They knew that the others would follow as soon as they could get the sec door opened once more. It was more of an imperative to reach Doc.

Their choices were justified. As they thundered down the lower corridor, heavy footfalls echoing around the dank and scarred walls of the lowest levels, they knew Doc could hear them. But it didn’t matter. Speed was more important than stealth. Something that was proved when they entered the comp room to find Doc about to grab the lever to the unit’s door. He was almost crying with frustration as his shaking hands and trembling fingers, fraught with anxiety, seemingly refused to grasp the lever.

He looked up as they approached.

‘Please. I did not want you to follow me. Allow me to do this.’

‘To do what, Doc? To send yourself off into God knows where?’ Mildred asked.

‘It’s something I must do,’ he replied as firmly as he could.

‘The hell it is,’ Ryan snapped.

Doc looked at him, momentarily distracted. ‘How the hell would you know?’ he retorted angrily. ‘You have no idea what I am trying to do, or why.’

‘Then why don’t you tell us?’ Mildred questioned in as reasonable a tone as she could muster.

Doc sighed. ‘It would take too long, and you would not want me to do it. I do not think you could understand—’

‘Too stupid, is that it?’ Mildred countered.

‘No, it is not that. What’s the point, you’ll only stop me anyway,’ he added with a resigned sigh, standing back from the door.

In the distance, they could hear the others approaching.

‘C’mon, Doc, I really don’t want to talk about it in here,’ Ryan said softly. ‘Let’s go topside, and then you can explain. Mebbe we’ll understand, after all.’

‘I somehow doubt that that very much,’ Doc murmured, ‘but I suppose I should give you the chance.’

If nothing else, Mildred could treasure the confused looks on the faces of J.B. and Krysty when she, Doc and Ryan calmly walked out of the mat-trans anteroom. There was even a flicker of confusion crossing Jak’s albino visage.

For the second time, they exited the redoubt and stood in the glorious morning. But there was little attention to be paid to the landscape or the blazing clear sky. The first thing was to try to sort out the problem with which Doc now presented them.

A few hundred yards from the entry to the redoubt was a small clump of trees, twisted and stunted with thick growth on their boles, but enough canopy to provide shelter from the heat and brightness of the sun. They took refuge beneath these and Doc started to explain what had caused him to turn back.

It was a long, rambling tale. Sometimes he had to stop and go back on the story, as though there were parts that he even had to explain for himself. Which was no surprise, as what had made so much sense when mulled over within the confines of his own head now seemed to be disjointed and absurd when spilled out loud. He could see from the faces around him that they were having trouble understanding the questions he had to ask himself and the non sequitur answers that had caused him to take his instinct-led course of action.

He finished up weakly, shrugging and telling them that he didn’t expect them to understand, but that it was something that he had to do.

‘Doc,’ Ryan said softly after a long silence, ‘you weren’t with us when that ville went up. Well, you were, but you were this other person. And then you were unconscious. You didn’t see what happened to it. There was no way anyone could have got out of there. The whole tribe, except for mebbe those who stayed behind at the ville, were wiped out. There is no one for you to go back to, even supposing that, by some miracle, the mat-trans took you back to the right redoubt and you could find your way on foot from there without freezing. We only made it as a group because we could support one another. You’d have no one to lean on if you had to.’

‘Yes, I understand completely what you’re saying,’ Doc stated, ‘but can you not see that it makes no difference? This is not about being rational. This is about following an instinct because I cannot trust that which I see and hear around me. As far as I know—in an empirical sense—you may not even exist.’

‘A what?’ Krysty asked. ‘Mother Sonja told me about some old ideas from before nukecaust, but that’s a new one on me.’

‘Doc,’ Mildred said, deciding to try her luck, ‘I’ve listened to what you’ve said, and although I can’t totally understand, I ask you to trust me on one thing. As far as I’m concerned, I know I’m here. And knowing that, I trust my senses. And what they tell me, as a trained physician, is that you’ve been through an immense trauma from fever, followed by a concussion. From my perspective, this is real, and the things in your head that make you doubt yourself are the symptomatic results of a definite medical cause. It would be wrong of me as a doctor to let you follow your instinct at the risk of your own safety. I would recommend that we take you with us, even if we have to, at this stage, do it by force.’

Doc’s face hardened as he looked around. He was met with features as determined as his own.

‘I have no doubt that you would do that. I am outnumbered, and I have little choice but to acquiesce. Be warned, if I have the chance, I will try to get back to the redoubt and jump.’

‘Mebbe so,’ Krysty said softly. ‘But consider this—mebbe part of your journey is to find another way back, and that is why we were allowed to catch up with you and stop you.’

Doc’s face cracked into a wry grin. ‘That’s very good, my dear. In truth I have no answer to that. I am not allayed, but you have, nonetheless, set me a logical quandary that I must ponder.’

‘That mean we get fuck out here?’ Jak asked, disgruntled and a little lost.

J.B. rose, stretched and yawned. ‘Soon as we find which way’s the best way, then, yeah, I guess so. Right, Ryan?’

Ryan shrugged. He felt uneasy that he hadn’t quite grasped where Doc now stood, somehow angry with himself for not understanding; but action would force any issues that remained.

‘Yeah. Sooner the better,’ he growled.

USING HIS MINISEXTANT, J.B. got their bearings. A northwesterly path would take them toward the coast from their current position, and so they set out in formation. Ryan was at front, J.B. covering the rear of the line, with Jak in the middle, keeping close to Doc, and flanked by Mildred and Krysty. Doc seemed content enough to fall in with their plans, yet there was something that jarred. It wasn’t like him to give in that easily. Nonetheless, there seemed little option for him at this time.

It was a strange territory in which they moved. The wide, stunted trees with their bizarre growths and sparse canopy were intermingled with sudden needles of tall, thin firlike trees that shot into the sky as though about to scratch the very surface of the heavens. There was no rhyme or reason to the placing of these particular trees. It was as though the mutated woodlands had produced mutations within the mutants. Clustered around the dwarf trees were spiky grasses of a brilliant color that were as tough as rope. The carpet of rough grass was interspersed with flora of an equally brilliant hue and of a wide variety of colors. Reds, blues and yellows splashed among the green of the woodland floor, their flowers showing as distended and distorted shapes among the grasses, leaves of differing sizes on the same bloom causing them to droop at bizarre angles, hideously enlarge stamen ready to spread pollen across the surface of the ground and into the air with puffball explosions.

It was inevitable that the blooms would have to spread their own pollen, for the one immediately noticeable thing about the terrain was that it had no wildlife: no animals, no birds, nor any insects. The only sounds that broke the silence, other than those made by the companions themselves, were the muted rustlings of the grasses and the leaves as the light breezes of the day caught them.

It was incredibly peaceful and after a short while the companions found themselves relaxing, their every instinct telling them that they were safe from any kind of attack. Yet, for all the ease that they could now feel, one question nagged. Why was there such a lack of fauna when both rats and insects had invaded the redoubt?

It was a question soon answered. After a couple of hours they broke stride briefly to rest. A small stream bubbled twenty yards from where they stood, and Jak made his way down to test the water. Hunkering, he let the cool stream run over his hand. As he did, something sent an involuntary spasm down his spine. Cupping his palm, he lifted a little of the water to his nose. There was a faint tang to it that set alarm bells ringing in his intuition. He flicked at his palm with his tongue, rapidly spitting out the few drops that caught on the flesh.

The water had a metallic taste and every sense told him that it would chill him to drink from the stream. He straightened and turned to see J.B. taking a bright orange fruit from one of the trees, holding it under his nose to sniff it. The Armorer turned, sensing that he was being watched. His eyes met Jak’s and he nodded shortly. Prying the fruit open with both thumbs, he sniffed at it. A sweetness did little to overlay the sour stench that followed on the heels of the initial scent.

The others had observed this exchange, and each proceeded to test fruits, berries and leaves in a similar way. The results were completely inclusive: everything that grew or ran over the earth was toxic to the taste. The very ground itself had to have been heavily contaminated, either by the nukes or by something that had been let into the soil during the nukecaust. Given that this area had once lain close to heavily industrial and military suburbs, it should not have come as a shock. The mutie flora had adjusted to the soil from which it sprang, and any fauna had either perished or moved on.

It was, however, with a jolt that they realized that this gave them a problem. Not eating or drinking in the contaminated area would be simple enough; they had drinking water and self-heats, as well as some of the fresher food they had taken from the redoubt. But this wouldn’t last forever, and from the complete silence surrounding them, the contaminated land obviously spread over a great distance. Would they be able to clear the area before they ran out of supplies?

‘If we assume the place we started from is now about six miles back, and that the coastline hasn’t changed too much from when that old map was made, I figure it’s three days’ march at most before we hit the ocean,’ J.B. said as he double-checked their current position. ‘This can’t last all the way to the coast, ’cause we saw no sign of it before. And even if it does, then we just make a raft and risk it on the waves down the line of the coast itself,’ he added with a shrug.

‘Yeah, that sounds about the best of it,’ Ryan agreed. ‘Go triple cautious with the water, and we’ll ration the food, try to keep those self-heats to a minimum. We should be okay,’ he finished.

And it was true. They had enough for the distance J.B. estimated. But what if they had to change course? What if they were diverted before they hit the coast? Suddenly a simple route march had taken on a darker edge. They were used to facing practical matters head-on, and a nagging doubt at the corners of the mind was potentially more damaging to the group.

For two days they struck out toward the coast, eking out water and food. They made good progress as the only obstacles in their path were those created by the twisted and stunted boles of the trees, some a good yard across, and the patches of iron-hard grass that had to be avoided as they were too damaging even to the heavy boots worn by the walkers.

With no wildlife of any kind to impede them, it seemed certain that they would reach the coast easily before their supplies ran out. The cloud of possibility that they felt hanging over them began to dispel and they traveled at a greater pace, with more optimism around them.

The optimism increased, the pace decreasing, as they hit land that was less contaminated. The grasses and the trees became less warped and stunted, the going softer underfoot, and there were signs of life. Borne on the distant breezes were the sounds of birds in flight. The buzz of insect life became apparent, the flying creatures attempting to take bites from them. And in the undergrowth they could hear the rustle of movement. The smell of the woodlands changed from the sterility and sickly sweetness of the contaminated areas, the air now infused with the musk of living creatures, the woodlands in which they lived now stinking of life. It was at times an unpleasant odor, but one that bespoke life rather than the stasis of the contaminated area.

But the influx of life meant that they had to slow their pace. They had no real idea what shape that life may take. The sounds they had heard so far suggested that there was nothing particularly large or dangerous lurking in the shadows to leap out and chill them. Yet the smaller beasts could be just as dangerous; a bite could lead to an infection, or one well-placed claw could sever an artery. If there were packs, they could attack in numbers and prove difficult to repel.

So the only option was to slow the pace of their march. Jak scouted ahead. A natural-born hunter, his senses and instincts developed by years of practice, he was the perfect member of the group to recce ahead for any life and any danger it may represent. It was, after all, a function he had fulfilled many times before.

Despite the fact that they now had a possible danger with which to contend, they felt more at ease. This, at least, was a palpable threat, and one to which they were used; the unnameable fears that had lurked in each of their minds now began to subside.

The nature of the trees and grasses changed: softer and shorter underfoot, with boles and trunks that had a shape, height and width that was more like the kinds of growths they had seen in other areas.

‘I figure the water and the fruits must be edible here,’ Ryan mused. ‘It keeps these damn insects going,’ he added, batting away thirsty midges that dive-bombed his neck.

‘We want to be careful about that,’ Mildred cautioned. ‘It’s possible that whatever lives here has some kind of tolerance to whatever’s in the soil. It can’t be as bad as back there, as at least it does support life. But it might be too much for us.’

‘In effect, my dear Doctor, we are in the same position—do not drink the water and stick to the interminable self-heats,’ Doc mumbled. ‘It is nothing more than the same thing all over. No change. Perhaps it would have been better if you’d let me go as I had wished—or perhaps had come with me.’

‘Doc, don’t start on that again.’ Krysty sighed. ‘It wouldn’t have been any better if you’d got back to the north, and it could have been a whole lot worse. Who knows where you would have ended up.’

‘Somewhere without a poisonous forest, perhaps,’ Doc replied sharply.

‘Dark night, will you stop going on about it, Doc,’ J.B. muttered wearily. ‘For the last two days, all you’ve done is moan. It’s like you want to wear us down and make us admit we were wrong. But what the hell good would that do?’

‘None,’ Doc snapped bitterly. ‘It would do none as it’s too late to turn back. But don’t think that I won’t take another option if I can find it. With or without you.’

They hadn’t heard him be this openly antagonistic before. It was as though the quietness of their progress over the past few days had done little for the old man except give him the time to brood on the wrong he thought they had wrought him. He had made no point to leave them and turn back, as though at least some part of him knew the futility of this; but at the same time there was little doubt that the thought of getting back to the people he considered his destiny was something that was looming larger still in his thoughts.

Which was something that could become a major problem if left unchecked. But for the moment, Ryan was thankful that it was all they had to be concerned about.

They continued for the best part of a day, their progress impeded by the need for caution. Most of the mammalian life in the woodlands was small: squirrels, rabbits, other rodents, some of which showed signs of the long-lasting toxic effects of the nearby ground by their mutations. None of the creatures were that big, and were misshapen, though not enough to stop them from surviving adequately in the woods. They were helped in this by the fact that nothing large seemed able to survive and prosper in the immediate environment. The birds, likewise, were all small. The flitted from tree to tree, always staying just enough out of sight to prevent themselves from becoming a target either to the companions or to the lower level life-forms.

The trees and plants were hung with a variety of fruits that differed from those in the contaminated area in as much as they were smaller, less hideously malformed and had duller colorings. They also showed signs of being eaten by the fauna of the woods.

Nonetheless, taking heed of what Mildred had said earlier, they refrained from partaking of the fruits, or hunting any of the small animals and birds, setting a fire to keep the rodents at bay as night fell, and relying on their dwindling supplies of food and water.

‘By my reckoning, even though we’ve slowed down, we should be able to hit the coast by tomorrow night, the morning after at most,’ J.B. told them after they had eaten. ‘We just need to keep on this heading. Just as well we’re past those shit strange mutie trees.’

It was an optimistic, contented group who settled for the night, Ryan taking first watch. Not that there was much to take note of. The birds had settled for the night and the only sounds were of some nocturnal rodents hunting in the undergrowth. Although nominally alert, Ryan allowed himself to relax slightly. There was nothing out there to disturb their rest or to impede their progress.

The following day, he felt, they would make good time.

WITHIN A FEW HOURS of breaking camp and setting off for the coast, he knew that his assumption of the night before had been incorrect. It wasn’t something that could be put into words, but there were signs that a major change was ahead of them. Although the landscape around them remained the same—certainly showing no signs of deterioration into the contaminated state they had first encountered—the sounds and signs of life began to fade away. There were fewer birds and insects, less scuttling in the long grasses or flashes of fur as the smaller mammals turned away from the intruders in their land.

‘Something’s changed,’ Ryan said softly. ‘But what?’

Jak was doing a recon and he returned. Ryan repeated his question. The albino shrugged. ‘Nothing. Trees same, ground same. But no animals, no birds. Something scaring them away, but not anything seen.’

‘Fireblast, this is what I hate more than anything. Give me an enemy that you can see any fuckin’ day. Triple red from now on,’ he said, shrugging the Steyr from his shoulder and chambering a round.

‘You want me to recce ahead?’ Jak asked.

Ryan shook his head, his single ice-blue eye glittering as he surveyed the land around. ‘No. This might not be something we can see that easily. If it can scare the wildlife away, then it might not be as simple as a single enemy we can see.’

‘By the Three Kennedys, you’re not suggesting that we may be up against some kind of supernatural agency?’ Doc asked, his voice suspended uncertainly between fear and a desire to mock.

‘Nothing as simple. Whatever’s cleared this area has a wide sweep and has mebbe been doing it for a while. Notice the smell, anything else?’ he asked.

‘No spoor,’ Jak said. ‘No half-eaten fruit or plant. Been deserted a long time.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I figure. So we keep together, we keep going, hope we don’t meet it—whatever it is—and we stay triple alert on this, okay?’

Blasters poised, they tightened formation and fell into line. It was hard, not knowing exactly what it was that they needed to protect themselves against: all they knew was that the danger was nearer than before, if less palpable. Their pace decreased, as well, so that it seemed they were making no progress at all.

So far, they had been blessed with excellent weather during their trek. The skies above the canopy had remained clear, the temperature almost humid. This now grated, as the sweat of concentration and fear began to gather upon them, running in slow rivulets down their skin, collecting in pools in the small of the back, under the arms, behind the knees. They were itchy and uncomfortable, the irritation adding to their mounting tetchiness.

It was therefore, perhaps, fortunate that they didn’t have to wait long before the silence was broken. After only an hour’s slow crawl, they became aware of something approaching them, head-on.

Jak caught first hearing and Krysty’s mutie sense echoed his own acute senses, her hair coiling protectively and the dread rising in her. The enemy—whoever or whatever it may be—was approaching so quickly that it became audible to the others before either Jak or Krysty had a chance to verbalize their forebodings.

‘What the hell is that?’ Mildred whispered.

‘I’d say there’s at least a half dozen of whoever it is, and they haven’t had much need to use stealth up to now,’ J.B. commented wryly as the noise reached them.

‘Take cover,’ Ryan commanded. ‘See how many of these sons of gaudys there are.’

The woodland provided ample cover. There were no paths as such that could be taken, rather a maze of gaps between the trees that could be utilized. None was suitable for more than two abreast, so it was a reasonable assumption that the oncoming force would have to split themselves in some manner to pass by where the companions were located. Jak shinnied rapidly up a tree to try to get a better look at the oncoming party while the others took advantage of the excellent cover the greenery presented.

From his vantage point, Jak could see that there were nine people in the party approaching. All were men aged from their early teens to their late twenties. There were no veterans among them—in fact, the age tended more toward the younger end of the scale—and this, allied to their seeming inability to use stealth, was a good sign. All the same, they still outnumbered the companions. The strangest thing about them was that they made no attempt to camouflage themselves. In fact, their garb was some of the strangest that Jak had seen from men who were his opponents. They were all dressed in white robes that were cut short, toga-style, rimmed in thick red trim. Their legs were encased in leather thongs that were crisscrossed and tied up to the knees. They carried daggers in sheaths and a variety of handblasters. Jak thought he could pick out a Walther PPK, a Vortak precision pistol and a Browning Hi-Power like the one Dean had used before he’d gone missing. All good blasters, but ones that needed a degree of skill. Looks could be deceptive, but Jak doubted that these strangely attired men had the skill to be effective—not if their shooting echoed their stalking skills.

Jak scrambled down the tree and outlined the position to the companions beneath. Although secreted, they were close enough to hear him as he rapidly gave them the requisite information before taking cover himself.

All they had to do was to wait for the hunting party to come upon them. Why they were in the woods was a mystery. If they knew that the companions were there—and how was another matter—then they were making a poor task of concealing themselves. They were easy to track as they closed on the area where the companions were taking cover.

The nine men had spread themselves out among the twisting gaps through the trees, making it hard to take them all in one attack; and yet they were too close to risk blasterfire once the companions engaged with them. Too far apart to take out, too close to take out. It was more luck than judgment, that much was clear, but it was enough to make the companions’ task harder.

Ryan signaled with a sharp whistle and the six friends shot from their hiding places as the strangely garbed hunting party passed them. It was a measure of how inexperienced the strangers were that they seemed to be completely unaware that they had the companions in their midst until they had already been attacked.

It was a swift and brutal battle. Unwilling to risk blasterfire that may hit their own people with stray shells, Ryan, Jak and J.B. had opted to use their blades. Mildred and Krysty used their bare hands. However, even in this they had the drop on their opponents, who had kept their daggers sheathed. The two men that the women chose to attack both fumbled for their blades rather than defend themselves, and both found themselves on the end of crushing blows. Krysty delivered a kick to the groin that was made more painful by the sharp silver point on her blue cowboy boots, whereas Mildred took out her man with a roundhouse punch that connected perfectly on the top of the jaw, just beneath the ear. The man’s eyes rolled into his head as his skull snapped back.

Doc was the only one who held back. So many thoughts raced through his head, some of which he was obscurely ashamed of. Should he join the fray or see who won? What would benefit him in his long-term aim? But surely he should help his friends—ah, but had they been of any help to him, not allowing him to return to his destiny? All of this spun around his head, freezing him until the moment when he was actually attacked. A burly man with a blond beard to match his mop of curls snarled and thrust at Doc with his dagger. The old man smoothly withdrew the razored blade of Toledo steel from its cane sheath and parried the blow, countering with a thrust that swept across the man’s chest, ripping his toga and drawing a line of blood from beneath.

At six on eight, the odds were already beginning to even up a little. They took another turn for the good when one man howled in agony, his arm sliced vertically by a blow from Ryan’s panga. The flesh hung from his upper arm, blood splattering on the foliage around him. He was fortunate that it missed his artery, but nonetheless he recoiled and took no further part in the fray.

‘It’s not them…it’s not them,’ the cry was echoed around the hunting party, much to the confusion of the companions. They didn’t stop fighting, but now found that instead of standing toe-to-toe they were driving their attackers back, as though the hunting party was deliberately retreating.

The strangely attired men pulled back enough to turn and flee. Jak was about to give chase when Ryan stayed him. Still the cry of ‘not them…not them…’ echoed from the retreating men.

As the sounds faded into the distance, the companions exchanged bemused glances. Who had the hunters thought they might be, and did that mean they weren’t alone in the woodlands?

There was one way to find out. The man on whom Mildred had landed the perfect punch was still unconscious, sprawled on the ground.

Ryan strode over and pulled the man to his feet. The movement made him stir and his return to consciousness was aided by the open-palmed slaps Ryan delivered across his face. His eyes opened, bleary and unfocused.

‘Wake up,’ Ryan grated. ‘You’ve got a lot to tell us, and you’d better do it quick.’