Cold obsidian
Шрифт:
Here they went, all four, two people and two animals, right into the trap. Crogan waited until they had reached the middle of the river before passing the signalling horn to his son. Blowing it proved to be hard for the young lungs, but the lad did his best. He managed to produce a weak, but distinguishable sound. The team, following the order, let the hyenas loose.
The fastest of the hyenas died first, it got an arrow between the eyes. Kan was quick. The second-best runner got an arrow to the side and yelped, spinning in circles and biting at the arrow shaft in a desperate attempt to get rid of it. Kan had drawn the third arrow, ready to bring another snappy monster down, but lowered his bow as he saw the bandits emerging from the fog at both sides of the river. Every single one of them had a gun.
The trap had closed. Here they stood in the middle of the river, with hyenas raging on both shores, anxiously awaiting a command to tear them apart, and the silent bandits standing behind the beasts, guns ready. The chargas hissed, baring their teeth, bristling their fur. Kangassk, not knowing what else to do, tried to shield Vlada with his body.
“Drop your weapons!” somebody cried to them from the western shore. The voice was young, impudent, and boyish.
“Do as he says, Kan,” said Vlada in a chilly tone.
They threw their swords, bow, and arrows into the river. The swords sank to the bottom, but the bow and arrows were carried away by the bubbling water.
Thanks to his wild friend’s acute sense of smell, Sasler had finally found the kids after a couple of hours. He climbed a lofty rock to rise above the fog a bit and took a closer look at them through the scope. That was when he had realized he came too late.
Two black figures stood barefooted in the middle of the river, their hands in the air, their weapons at their feet. Crogan’s thugs watched them from the both sides of Fervida.
Sasler’s heart began to race as he zoomed in to examine the bandits’ faces: both Crogans, father and son, had been there! The boy looked so much like his sire there could be no mistake.
“My revenge will be terrible, Crogan,” he thought, aiming at the little bandit’s leg…
Young Crogan uttered a shrill scream and fell to the ground, clutching at his leg. All the thuggish insolence he had been so proud of washed away in an instant, he cried like a child he was. His pants were soaked with blood and the stain was growing wider and wider.
“The ghost shooter! The Wood Ghost is here!” the bandits around him shouted, their fear quickly turning into panic. A moment later they broke the formation and started shooting in all directions in a desperate attempt to reach the unseen hunter in the fog.
The second bullet bit the young Crogan in the palm, adding to his agony. Then it was the thugs’ turn. The ones who had carelessly removed their kevlar cowls in the heat got shot in their heads and died instantly. The others weren’t so lucky and shared the young Crogan’s fate: the Ghost shot them in the legs.
Vlada and Kan froze where they stood, with their hands still up. Both were afraid to move at first but soon realized the ghost shooter was after the bandits, not them. They, on the other hand, had a new problem to deal with: the hyenas. The beasts, maddened by their masters’ panic, decided to go for the kill and charged.
“Kan, pick up your sword!” Vlada came to her senses first, just in time for the spotted monsters were already advancing from both sides.
The chargas took the first two hyenas and were busy ripping them apart, rolling and splashing in the reddened water. The rest of the pack targeted Vlada and Kan. Whoever that “ghost shooter” was, his attention had obviously been somewhere else at the moment, so they were on their own.
The outer world where people shouted and died, where two strangers fought back to back against the hyenas in the middle of the river, where everything that could go wrong did go wrong, no longer existed for old Crogan. There was only him and his dying son. The boy no longer cried. He curled up in the grass, gasping for air, his face as white as chalk. There was nothing the mighty gang leader could do, nothing.
When Vlada and Kan had finally crossed the river – Kan walking with a limp because one of the hyenas had bit him – they saw not the famous leader of the dark horde, but a broken old man devastated by his grief. Crogan wept, wept inconsolably, helpless and defeated for the first time in his life. His son was dying in his arms, nothing else mattered. Crogan's gun lay beside him in the grass, thrown away and forgotten. He took off his kevlar cloak, his only protection against the ghost shooter's bullets, and covered the boy with it so the Ghost would not torture him any more. One of the hyenas that survived the fight by running away in time snapped at the young Crogan's arm. Old Crogan broke its neck with his bare hands, his strength magnified tenfold by the grief.
"Please…" the boy whispered, "No hyenas, dad… I'm afraid." He went silent.
That was the moment when old Crogan went mad. He cried, tearing his hair out one moment, praying the next, he cursed, he begged his son to wake up… Then the world went dark for him, literally, for Crogan went blind.
Kangassk caught a glimpse of a dark figure walking through the fog. Soon, a stranger emerged from beyond the misty veil. He wore no kevlar, just a green woollen cloak over his worn leather clothing. The gun he carried had a black, bulging “eye” on its barrel. Uncovered, the “eye” blinked with every step. Kan couldn’t stop looking at it.
“This is your punishment, Crogan,” said the stranger, “Do you remember how you tortured my son to death? He was about the same age as yours. Does it seem fun to you now?”
The old man didn’t answer. He kept raving – praying, cursing, begging… but suddenly there was a glimpse of consciousness, so brief yet so bright.
“Kill! Kill me as well!” demanded Crogan.
“No,” the ghost shooter shook his head. His voice was icy cold, merciless. “I want you to live. And suffer, like I did.”
That said, he stepped over the dead boy’s body and approached Vlada and Kangassk.
“I’m Sasler,” he introduced himself. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you left the old road, wanted to keep you safe. Little did I know where you would lead me, kids. But I’m grateful. I dreamed of revenge for years. It feels good to be free again… Now, take the guns from the dead and be on your way. No one will hurt you any more.”
He didn’t wait for the answer, he just turned around and walked away. Soon, he was no more than a dark silhouette in the fog. The “eye” on his rifle kept glimmering through the white veil long after he had disappeared altogether.