The fifth and sixth of the sleepers woke-experienced men, hardened by battle and many surprises. The first shouted at Cale and came directly at him thrusting a short spear at his face. Cale aimed a blow at his neck but missed and struck him through the ear. The Redeemer screamed and went down bellowing in pain. The last of the sleepers lost his habitual presence of mind, the years of fighting no use to him now, and gazed in horror at his friend clutching the dead leaves of the forest covered in blood. He silently watched, stock-still as a tree stump, as Cale in a trance struck through his breastbone. A single gasp and then he fell, the man on the ground still roaring.
For the first time Cale started running, heading toward the girl, who had woken to see the last three killings. She was bound hand and foot, and he lifted her in one movement over his shoulder and ran to cover behind the great boulder against which she had been sleeping. An arrow zipped past his left ear and ricocheted among the rocks.
From directly over their heads IdrisPukke answered with an arrow of his own. There was an immediate reply from the second guard, zipping into the trees that hid IdrisPukke.
For the next few minutes arrows shot back and forth but IdrisPukke could see the pattern-one of the guards was stalking him while the other provided covering fire. It was getting lighter now with every passing second, and with the rising dawn any chance of Cale making a successful break was fading. IdrisPukke would have to move soon or be cornered.
Cale gestured to Arbell to stay put and keep quiet, then he was moving, running out from behind the rock and toward the rise out of the hollow. IdrisPukke, bow drawn, hoped for a too-quick shot that would give away the bowman’s position as soon as he saw Cale on the move. But the bowman was cool-he was going to wait until Cale reached the rise that must slow him down, and catch him then. It took the young boy only four seconds or so, and then he was climbing, his feet and hands sinking into the surface layer of loose and dry pine needles-and slowing all the time. Then three-quarters of the way up, he slipped on a tree root covered by loam and slid to a halt, scrabbling for a foothold. It was only a second, but it stopped his momentum and gave the archer as much time as he needed. The shot came, zipping like a wasp across the bowl, and struck Cale even as he made it over the lip.
IdrisPukke’s heart leapt-in the gloom it was hard to see where it had hit, but the sound was unmistakable-a thwack! at once soft and hard.
Now he was in trouble himself. The two guards had only him to worry about now-if he stayed, his chances were poor, but if he moved away, they could take his present ground and merely lean over the lip of the bowl and finish the girl-something that now there were only two of them, they’d be sure to do. The bushes around him were dense, and while this gave him cover, it would do the same for the guards. Everything was now in their favor, nothing in his.
During the following five minutes many unpleasant thoughts crossed his mind. The dreadful fact of approaching death and the temptation to cut and run. If he died here-as he surely would, his conscience devil pointed out-it would do the girl no good: two of them would die instead of one. But then, of course, he would have to live with himself. But you could manage that, said his devil conscience. Better a live dog than a dead lion.
And so IdrisPukke, sword stuck in the ground in front of him and a bow at the ready, waited and endured the thoughts hammering in his brains. And he waited. And he waited.
Pain was nothing new to Cale, but the arrow that had taken him just above his shoulder blade was an agony far beyond anything he had ever felt before. The sound he let out through gritted teeth was a whining noise, as unstoppable by courage or an act of will as the blood he could feel warmly pouring down his back. His body began shaking with the pain as if he were having a fit. He tried to breathe deeply but the pain kept hitting him and drew out a spasm of short gasps. He had to sit upright and bring it under control. He stated crawling and whining, crawling and whining. Then he passed out. He woke up unsure how long he had been unconscious-seconds, minutes? They were coming for him and he had to get to his feet. He crawled to a pine tree and started to pull himself up. Too much. He stopped, then pushed on. Get on your feet or die. But it was as much as he could do to turn himself around and lean the unwounded part of his back against the tree. He vomited and passed out again. When he woke up, it was with a start and a grunt of pain, but this time from a fist-sized rock that a Redeemer standing about ten yards away had just thrown at him.
“Thought you might be playing possum,” said the Redeemer. “Where are the others?”
“What did you say?” Cale knew he had to stay awake and keep talking.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re over there.” He tried to raise his hand to point away from IdrisPukke, but he lost consciousness again. Another rock, another start awake.
“What? What?”
“Tell me where they are or I’ll put the next arrow in your groin.”
“There are twenty… I know Redeemer Bosco… He sent me.” The Redeemer had drawn back his bow, deciding that he’d get no sense from Cale, but the mention of Bosco astonished him. How could anyone here know about the great Lord Militant? He lowered the bow and it was enough.
“Bosco says…” and Cale started to mumble his words as if he was going to pass out again, and the Redeemer, without really thinking, made a few steps forward to hear what he was saying. Then Cale lashed out with his good left arm, launching the rock so it took the Redeemer high on the forehead. His eyes rolled back in his head, mouth gaping, and he slumped to the ground. Cale fainted again.
IdrisPukke still waited in the small, roughly circular space surrounded on three sides by bushes so dense that he could not see out and no one else could see in. Behind him was the thirty-foot steep drop at the bottom of which still waited, he hoped, Arbell Materazzi. There was a faint rustle from beyond the bushes. He raised his bow, fully drawn, and waited. A stone dropped into the circle. He almost let loose the shot the thrower had hoped for. Moving the arc of the bow back and forth to cover a rushed entry he called out, voice shaking.
“Come in here and it’s fifty-fifty you’ll get an arrow in the gut!” He moved sideways three steps so as not to give away his position. An arrow zipped through the bushes and out over the edge of the bowl, missing IdrisPukke by the same three steps. “Leave now and we won’t come after you.” He ducked and shuffled again to one side. Another arrow. Again buzzing through almost exactly at the point he had been standing. Talking had been a mistake. Twenty seconds passed. Idris-Pukke’s breathing sounded so loud in his ears that he was sure the Redeemer knew exactly where he was.
From about two hundred yards away there was a high-pitched skirling cry of pain and terror. Then it was silenced. Everything seemed to stop, only the wind hurrying through the leaves for what seemed like minutes.
“That was your friend, Redeemer. Now it’s only you.” Another arrow, another miss. “Run now and we won’t come after you. That’s the deal and you have my word.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“It’ll take my oppo about two or three minutes to get here-he’ll vouch for me.”
“All right. I agree to a covenant-but come after me and I swear to God I’ll take one of you with me before I go.”
IdrisPukke decided to stay quiet. With Cale out there, clearly alive and in a bad mood, all he had to do was wait. In fact, Cale had fainted again directly after he had killed the Redeemer just as he regained consciousness, and was in no state to do anything very much, let alone rescue IdrisPukke. But after ten minutes waiting, his anxiety slowly increasing, Cale spoke to him softly from beyond the bushes to his right.
“IdrisPukke, I’m coming in and I don’t want you taking my head off when I do.”