A Warrior's Revenge (3 page)

They tore into the deer carcass with their
knives and teeth and began to eat it raw on the spot. The fools!
Didn’t they see the rope? As if on the tails of her thought she
watched, as a round ball fell near the busy feaster’s with a soft
plop onto the spongy forest floor.

Kana whipped her head back around the tree
and had to fight to hold back an involuntary scream as a large
explosion rocked the clearing behind her. Gruesomely drawn to see
what had happened she peeked back around the tree trunk. All of the
cannibals were down and probably dead, as there didn’t appear to be
much left of them or the deer.

On a sharply inhaled breath Kana watched as
three large powerfully built men converged on the clearing. The men
moved with the grace of big cats and Kana caught her first glimpse
of Hunters. It was said that you never lived to see them a second
time.

They wore full body armor and had partial
helmets, but they moved with seamless grace despite their bulky
appearances. They came to a stop in the midst of the wreckage of
the forest clearing and quietly surveyed the bloody carnage of the
scene. Seemingly satisfied they looked away and started scanning
their surroundings and Kana quickly brought her head back around
the tree.

Had they seen her or had they sensed that
she was there?

Kana had an awful feeling rise up inside of
her. The feeling she got was that she was going to be as dead as
those cannibals were very soon. She glanced to her right suddenly,
had she heard something or was it more that she had sensed
something?

Her wild eyes scanned the forest undergrowth
and the trunks of the nearby trees. She saw nothing and then she
did. She saw a heavy armored boot! Her horrified gaze followed the
outline of the boot up the cleverly camouflaged leg to the torso
that was half behind the trunk of a tree and finally her gaze
landed on the eyes that were staring right at her! It had to have
been the intense focus of those hazel eyes that had made her sense
another’s presence so near to her.

The Hunter, for that was what he was, was so
cleverly disguised that she still doubted her eyes were telling her
the truth. She was just seeing something that wasn’t really there!
She couldn’t have been hiding in full view of the Hunter that stood
less than twenty feet away from her all this time and not know it
could she?

It didn’t matter what her brain tried to
tell her, the pair of eyes watching her were real and that meant
she was as good as dead. She didn’t want to die!

In a panic of motion she sprang from the
base of the tree to the left dropping her bow and quiver of arrows
in the mad effort for freedom and continued existence. She heard a
heavy foot fall behind her and her head was twisted to the side, as
several strands of her long black hair were caught in a steely
grasp. Kana yanked her head away, the hair tearing free in the
Hunter’s grasp.

The knowledge of how close the Hunter was to
her gave her a burst of energy such as she had never known before.
She felt like she was flying, she was running so hard. Her long
legs and natural athleticism took over and she began to run smart,
which saved her life.

No sooner had she weaved to the side to
slide through a knot of close grown trees did the bark of a tree
straight ahead of her old route explode showering her face with
sharp bits of bark. The fast-paced realization that that could have
been her head reinforced the need for distance. Kana ran with a
speed that was reckless, as she weaved back and forth over the
un-even terrain, but she had nothing to lose because if she lost
this race it would mean her life.

The four Hunters stood watching the
departing form of the forest girl. As warriors they respected her,
but they had their orders. The three hunters from the clearing
departed back toward the coast, while the fourth Hunter took off
after the dark skinned girl in a pace eating stride.

It was a simple decision. It would only take
one Hunter to bring her down no matter how brave she was. The
Hunter ran along the route she had taken following after her
relying on sent as much as he did on his sight in following the
signs of her trail. Hunters never stopped, until their target was
dead and this time would be no different than the thousands of
times before.

Kana pulled up at the edge of the patch of
forest breathing hard. She saw no sign of pursuit, but beyond the
shadow of a doubt she knew that there would be. Hunters never
stopped, they just kept coming.

Wiping some tears away from her cheek Kana
started out at a more reasonable pace into the weedy shrub spotted
vastness of the Barrens. She had no weapon with which to defend
herself, all she could do was run and hope. Hope that something
positive would happen to save her, because she needed a miracle if
she was to survive.

The Hunter pulled up at the edge of the
forest, a light sheen of sweat across his forehead the only
indicator of the expenditure of effort in following after the girl.
He could see her moving out across the Barrens ahead of him and he
admired the easy swinging stride she had settled into. If she kept
that pace up it would be a long hunt and his respect for her
grew.

The sun had lowered over the horizon, but
Kana still ran on. Her sides hurt and her feet were becoming clumsy
on the uneven ground of the Barrens. She was tired and hungry. She
tried to fill her hunger by stopping to drink often from the many
streams and seeps that were across the Barrens. She ran all during
the night, never had she pushed her body so hard, not even when
she’d had to run from a party of cannibals three years before.

Wearily she saw the sun rise over the
horizon and it began to lighten the day with its warm rays. She was
approaching their home base. She’d be there in a couple of hours.
On a rise she stopped and fell to her hands and knees and breathed
hard, as she took the burden of supporting herself upright off of
her sore lungs for a few moments.

Reluctantly she glanced behind her at the
barren landscape she had just come across. Screaming in fright she
bounded up to her feet, “No!!!” She screamed out, as she tried to
wave away the fast approaching figure of the Hunter from the
forest, as if it was a possible solution.

He couldn’t be much more than a quarter of a
mile behind her! She was the fastest runner of their whole group
and yet there he was after an entire night of hard-pressed running.
She’d earned the right to survive!

Looking up at the morning sky she sobbed
out, “Oh God help me! I don’t want to die! I want to live!” There
was no answer from the heavens and sobbing Kana started down the
rise at a run that she knew she couldn’t sustain for much
longer.

She surprised herself, because two hours
later he hadn’t gained any on her, maybe she could out run him
after all. She had veered away from their home base’s location for
fear of bringing the Hunter upon them too. Topping a rise she
gathered her ragged breath and issued forth a series of high
pitched calls that would signal any of her group that there was
danger close by and that they needed to hide.

A small stream lay ahead and she planned to
lose her trail in the fast-moving water and hopefully shake his
pursuit of her off. She ran down the bank and jumped into the
stream, but she didn’t see an up thrusting rock and her foot landed
awkwardly. Her ankle turned over and she fell into the water
clutching at it with a cry of pain. Bitterly she said to herself,
“You’re dead now Kana!” She couldn’t stop the sobs of hysteria that
began to rack through her.

Kana tried to stand, but fell back into the
water when she tried to put weight on the twisted ankle. Sobbing
she did what she could and she started crawling through the water
upstream on her hands and knees.

Two hundred feet upstream she saw a flat
rock beside the stream and she crawled out over top of it. Twenty
feet further along the rock was a heavy thicket of shrubs and she
pulled herself into the shelter that they offered. It was all she
could do to hide herself adequately. She turned over and looked
back out through the screening branches of the thicket at the wet
rock she had crawled across to get here from the stream.

Kana’s lips moved in a frantic prayer, as
she watched the wet rock dry in the hot morning sun. “Please dry!
Please dry! Oh God please dry!”

Minutes passed by and the rock became dry
and she breathed a sigh of relief, but otherwise she kept
absolutely still and silent. She heard a splash further downstream
and she knew that the Hunter was near. She stopped breathing, as he
came into view and continued past where she had left the stream,
but then he abruptly stopped and lifted his head, as he looked back
like an animal scenting the breeze.

He was an animal, a soulless brutish animal
that killed without hesitation. His head turned and he looked right
at her and somehow even with the shelter of the thicket she knew
that he had seen her.

“No!!!” She screamed out pounding the sand
of the ground with her fist. She turned over onto her belly and
started to crawl out of the thicket crying as she did so, because
she knew the uselessness of her actions.

Her shoulder was grasped in a grip that felt
like iron and she was flung over to her back. Kana blinked
temporarily blinded by the brightness of the sun, but then the sun
was blocked out by the form of the Hunter, who straddled her. Her
flailing arms were caught and shoved to the ground and secured
there by the Hunter’s knees. She couldn’t move and even if she
could have she didn’t have the strength left to fight anymore. She
was done.

The finale of her life was a hard
realization, as she looked up into the heavy breathing face of the
Hunter, who held her captive. Their eyes met and she knew that he
was going to kill her now. His powerful hands came up to her throat
and closed around it. As his hands began to tighten she whispered
imploringly up at him, “Please!”

The powerful strength of the tightening
hands stopped for a moment and she saw a fleeting emotion of some
kind flip across the otherwise emotionless gaze of the Hunter’s
eyes. Why had he stopped? Whatever it had been was gone, because
his hands started to tighten again painfully and she couldn’t
breathe. In her oxygen deprived state of near unconscious awareness
she saw a fast-moving shadow and then there was a hard jerk.

Air filled into Kana’s starved lungs and
with a sharp inhalation she reeled over to her side choking, as she
desperately sucked up more air. Her brain started to work again.
What was happening? Why was she free?

Kana’s eyes focused and she saw her sister
Eshta clobbering the heck out of the Hunter with a heavy piece of
driftwood. The Hunter had fallen over onto his side and must’ve
been unconscious, because he wasn’t moving. Kana saw her sister
draw her hunting knife out and she raised it back to stab down into
the Hunter. Kana reached out and grabbed her sister’s leg and
croaked out as loud as she could, “No, don’t kill him!”

“What?” Eshta demanded in consternation
turning to face her. Eshta’s face was identical to her own, as they
were identical twins from birth.

“Don’t kill him! I don’t know why just don’t
kill him!” Kana rasped out as loudly as she could. Kana couldn’t
keep her head up and she let it fall back to the ground. It had
been such a long day already, was her last thought before she
passed out.

Eshta knelt down beside her sister and
checked to see if Kana was still breathing okay. She was, but her
throat was badly swollen. Eshta looked behind her at the fallen
Hunter and then to her shaking hands and closed her eyes briefly.
She heard rustling in the brush and she looked up to see the rest
of the group come into view.

“Tie him up.” Was all she said by way of
explanation. They looked at her strangely, but did as she said, as
in a way she was a junior leader of the group.

Kana’s eyes drifted open and she squinted
against the brightness of the sunlight that streamed in through the
open flap of the tent. She felt stiff and by the feel of it she’d
been here for a while, which meant that the brightness of the sun
outside was likely that of the next day. Another day that she was
alive.

“Thank you God!” She whispered out hoarsely
into the still tent.

“Thank God indeed for your survival my dear!
God well knows that we can’t go on without you. Whatever would we
do without your spirit of optimism Kana?”

Kana’s eyes drifted over to the old hunched
over form of Zora, who was the oldest among them. She was a hundred
and four, an unheard of age in the present circumstances, but an
age that had once been common before the disaster. Most older
people had been killed in the early destruction of the cities, few
had survived the days that had followed.

It had been Zora’s wisdom that had time and
time again helped them to continue on surviving in the tenuous
world that they lived in. Zora had been more than just a guiding
influence to her and her sister Eshta though. She had stepped in
and assumed the role of parent for her and her sister, when theirs
had been taken away from them by the Hunters.

They had not been the only ones that Zora
had adopted, in a way she was a mother to all within their group of
survivors and she was fiercely loved by all of them. Kana reached
out her hand toward her and Zora’s old hands closed tightly over
her hand, as a single tear spilled down her old weathered
cheek.

Zora held her hand for a long moment, as
they both shared an intense unspoken communication of how glad they
were to see each other again. Letting go of her hand Zora wiped the
moisture from off her cheeks before saying, “As glad as I am to see
you alive and all in one piece my dear I have a bone of contention
to speak with you about. You have brought me many injured and
maimed creatures over the years to patch up that were better suited
for the stewpot than for anything else. I drew the line at the
three legged marsh cat you once brought me, but this! My dear even
you have to admit that bringing home a Hunter is an entirely new
level for your caring heart to deal with!”