"Not at all."
"Thank you. Enjoy your marksmanship." It floated down and to the side, disappearing round the edge of the stand. Yomonul had it in his sights most of the way.
"You just let it go?" he asked Gurgeh, laughing.
"Glad to be rid of it," Gurgeh told him.
They broke for lunch. Nicosar congratulated Yomonul, saying how well he'd shot. Gurgeh sat with Yomonul at lunch, too, and went down on one knee as Nicosar's palanquin was brought up to their part of the table. Yomonul told the Emperor the exoskeleton helped steady his aim. Nicosar said it was the Emperor's pleasure that the device be removed soon, after the formal end of the games. Nicosar glanced at Gurgeh, but said nothing else; the AG palanquin lifted itself; the imperial guards nudged it further down the line of waiting people. After lunch, people returned to their seats and the hunt went on. There were other animals to hunt, and the first part of the short afternoon was spent shooting them, but the troshae came back later on. So far, only seven of the two hundred or so troshae released from the forest pens into the run had made it all the way through the wooden funnel and out the far end to escape into the forest. Even they were wounded, and would anyway be caught by the Incandescence.
The earth in the wooden funnel in front of the shooting platform was dark with auburn blood. Gurgeh shot as the animals pounded down the sodden run, but aimed to just miss them, watching for the spatter of muddy ground in front of their noses as they tore, wounded and howling and panting, in front of him. He found the whole hunt somewhat distasteful but could not deny that the infectious excitement of the Azadians had some effect on him. Yomonul was obviously enjoying himself. The apex leant over as a large female troshae came running out of the forest with two small cubs.
"You need more practice, Gurgey," he said. "Don't you do any hunting at home?" The female and her cubs ran towards the wooden funnel.
"Not much," Gurgeh admitted.
Yomonul grunted, aimed at long range and fired. One of the cubs dropped. The female skidded, stopped, went back to it. The other cub ran on hesitantly. It mewled as bullets hit it.
Yomonul reloaded. "I was surprised to see you here at all," he said. The female, stung by a bullet in a rear leg, swung growling away from the dead cub and charged forward again, roaring, at the tottering, wounded cub.
"I wanted to show I wasn't squeamish," Gurgeh said, watching the second cub's head jerk up and the beast fall at the feet of its mother. "And I have hunted—"
He was going to use the word "Azad', which meant machine and animal; any organism or system, and he turned to Yomonul with a small smile to say this, but when he looked at the apex he could see there was something wrong.
Yomonul was shaking. He sat clutching his gun, turned half towards Gurgeh, face quivering in its dark cage, skin white and covered in sweat, eyes bulging.
Gurgeh went to put his hand on the strut of the Star Marshal's forearm, instinctively offering support.
It was as though something broke inside the apex. Yomonul's gun swung right round, snapping the supporting tripod; the bulky silencer pointed straight at Gurgeh's forehead. Gurgeh had a fleeting, vivid impression of Yomonul's face; jaw clamped shut, blood trickling over his chin, eyes staring, a tic working furiously on the side of his face. Gurgeh ducked; the gun fired somewhere over his head and he heard a scream as he fell out of his seat, rolling past his own gun's tripod.
Before he could get up, Gurgeh was kicked in the back. He turned over to see Yomonul above him, swaying crazily against the background of shocked, pale faces behind him. He was struggling with the rifle bolt, reloading. One foot lashed out again, thudding into Gurgeh's ribs; he jerked back, trying to absorb the blow, and fell over the front of the platform.
He saw wooden slats whirling, cinderbuds revolving, then he struck, crashing into a male animal handler standing just before the run. They each thudded to the ground, winded. Gurgeh looked up and saw Yomonul on the platform, exoskeleton glinting dully in the sunlight, raising the rifle and sighting on him. Two apices came up behind Yomonul, arms out to grasp him. Without even glancing back, Yomonul swung his arms flashing round behind him; a hand smashed into the chest of one apex; the rifle slammed into the face of the other. Both collapsed; the carbon-ribbed arms darted back and Yomonul steadied the gun again, aiming at Gurgeh.
Gurgeh was on his feet, diving away. The shot hit the still winded male lying behind him. Gurgeh stumbled for the wooden doors leading under the high platform; shouts came from the platform as Yomonul jumped down, landing between Gurgeh and the doors; the Star Marshal reloaded the gun as he hit the ground on his feet, the exoskeleton easily absorbing the shock of landing. Gurgeh almost fell as he turned, feet skidding on the blood-spattered earth.
He pushed himself off the ground, to run between the edge of the wooden fence and the platform edge. A uniformed guard with a CREW rifle stood in his way, looking uncertainly up at the platform. Gurgeh went to run past him, ducking as he did so. Still a few metres in front of Gurgeh, the guard started to put one hand out and unhitch the laser from his shoulder. A look of almost comic surprise appeared on his flat face, an instant before one side of his chest burst open and he spun round into Gurgeh's path, knocking him over.
Gurgeh rolled again, clattering over the dead guard. He sat up. Yomonul was ten metres away, running awkwardly towards him, reloading. The guard's rifle was at Gurgeh's feet. He reached out, grabbed it, aimed at Yomonul and fired.
The Star Marshal ducked, but Gurgeh was still allowing for recoil after a morning shooting the projectile rifle. The laser-shot slammed into Yomonul's face; the apex's head blew apart.
Yomonul didn't stop. He didn't even slow down; the running figure, head-cage almost empty, trailing strips of flesh and splintered bone behind it like pennants, neck spouting blood, speeded up; it ran faster towards him, and less awkwardly.
It aimed the rifle straight at Gurgeh's head.
Gurgeh froze, stunned. Too late, he started to sight the CREW gun again, and began struggling to get up. The headless exoskeleton was three metres away; he stared into the silencer's black mouth and he knew he was dead. But the bizarre figure hesitated, empty headshell jerking upwards, and the gun wavered.
Something crashed into Gurgeh — from the back, he realised, surprised, as everything went dark; from the back, not from the front — and then came nothing.
His back hurt. He opened his eyes. A bulky brown drone hummed between him and a white ceiling.
"Gurgeh?" the machine said.
He swallowed, licked his lips. "What?" he said. He didn't know where he was, or who the drone was. He had only a very vague idea who he was.
"Gurgeh. It's me; Flere-Imsaho. How do you feel?"
Flear Imsah-ho. The name meant something. "Back hurts a bit," he said, hoping not to be found out. Gurgi? Gurgey? Must be his name.
"I'm not surprised. A very large troshae hit you in the back."
"A what?"
"Never mind. Go back to sleep."
"…. Sleep."
His eyelids felt very heavy and the drone looked blurred.
His back hurt. He opened his eyes and saw a white ceiling. He looked around for Flere-Imsaho. Dark wooden walls. Window. Flere-Imsaho; there it was. It floated over to him.
"Hello, Gurgeh."
"Hello."
"Do you remember who I am?"
"Still asking stupid questions, Flere-Imsaho. Am I going to be all right?"
"You're bruised, you've got a cracked rib and you're mildly concussed. You ought to be able to get up in a day or two."
"Do I remember you saying a… troshae hit me? Did I dream that?"
"You didn't dream it. I did tell you. That's what happened. How much do you remember?"
"Falling off the stand… platform," he said slowly, trying to think. He was in bed and his back was sore. It was his own room in the castle and the lights were on so it was probably night. His eyes widened. "Yomonul kicked me off!" he said suddenly. "Why?"
"It doesn't matter now. Go back to sleep."
Gurgeh started to say something else, but he felt tired again as the drone buzzed closer, and he closed his eyes for a second just to rest them.