The Tattooed Tribes (28 page)

He grinned in
delight.

“
It should be a short war, but a merry one.
And when it’s all over, the land will be free of the bloody tribes
and open to those who know just how to milk it.”

Jon had
managed to struggle to his knees.

“
Do you want this, Eldrien?” he asked,
blood trickling from his split lips, but Eldrien’s eyes had already
glazed over and he began to sink into a state of semi-conscious
oblivion.

Frain bent so
he was face to face with Jon.

“
You’re a bonus I wasn’t expecting,” he
said. “Killing you is a pleasure I intend to keep for myself and
I’m going to take my time doing it.”

He stood and
looked around at the circle of men. The dust had done its work; not
one of them was able to stand.

“
Fuck it,” Frain muttered. “Useless
bastards.”

He turned and
pointed the rifle at Dr Riddett and Wainwright, who was now
sitting, leaning against her shoulder.

“
Get in the shed with the brat!” he
ordered.

Dr Riddett
protested, but he retrieved one of the discarded war clubs and gave
her a sickening blow on the side of her head.

“
Don’t annoy me again!” he
snapped.

Slowly she
managed to get Eric Wainwright to his feet, but blood already
seeped from the crude bandage. Frain chivvied and bullied them to
the lean-to and shoved both of them through the door and secured
it.

He came back
to Jon.

“
You can join them, but not until I’ve had
a little fun. I always hated your sanctimonious guts, Harabin. This
is going to be pure joy.”

He brought his
rifle butt down a couple of times and blood spurted. Away in the
gathering gloom Lucien’s fists clenched.

“
That reminds me,” Frain said as he dragged
Jon towards the hut. “Where’s the damn kid you had in tow? He’s not
skulking around here somewhere, is he?”

“
No!” Jon replied with another gasp of
pain.

Frain grabbed
his hair and pulled his head back hard.

“
You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
he asked. “I’d have to pop out one of your eyes if you were. Just
like you did to a friend of mine back at First
Cataract.”

“
He bought weed with those trade beads you
gave him,” Jon groaned.

A slow grin
spread over Frain’s face. “Did he?” he gloated. “What a fine boy.
And you of course, sacked him on the spot.”

He smacked
Jon’s head down into the ground.

“
I must look the kid up when I’ve the time;
he sounds just the sort of lad to be of assistance.”

“
You do that, Tim,” Jon said, spitting
blood, “But make it quick, before any of the river tribes catch
you.”

Jon tried to
roll away from the punishing boot.

“
They’ve got to find me first,” Frain
chortled. “And you won’t be telling them where to look.”

With this he
flung Jon’s broken and bleeding body into the hut and secured the
door.

Then he went
back to the fire and the men around it. Some were beginning to come
around from their first hit and found the first two bags had been
emptied.

“
Dust!” Frain shouted, throwing down more
bags. “Dust for my brave warriors!”

There was a
shout and in seconds most of them were fighting for total
possession of a bag. Knives flashed in the fire light and there was
the odd shriek of pain.

Beyond the
clearing, Lucien, Vlic and Stacey did not stay to watch what
followed; they sank back deeper into the darkness and huddled
together as if seeking protection one from the other.

Stacey was
white-faced and trembling and Lucien seemed to have turned in on
himself. He gazed into the middle distance apparently unaware of
his companions.

Vlic finally
broke the silence. “My father will be here soon.”

Lucien stared
at him for a second, his face starkly illuminated by the moon just
beginning to rise.

“
Not soon enough. That bastard is going to
kill Jon tomorrow.”

“
There are only three of us,” Vlic was
forced to point out.

“
I know,” Lucien replied. “Which is why
we’ve got to be clever, not behave like dumb arses.”

Vlic’s jaw
dropped at this; whatever else he had expected from Lucien, caution
and thought were the last ones he would have come up with.

His expression
must have given him away, because Lucien coloured furiously.

“
I’ve done some growing up,” he
muttered.

Despite the
seriousness of the situation, Vlic grinned. “It had to happen
eventually.”

Lucien gave a
tiny mirthless laugh. “I guess it did.”

“
What are we going to do? “ Stacey asked;
she was back in control of herself.

“
We’ve got to make plans,” Lucien replied.
“We can’t go far, Jon will be in no condition to travel and neither
will your father. And we’ve got the two women to
consider.”

“
Sod bloody Riddett,” Stacey hissed. “She
can take her chances.”

Lucien shook
his head. “No, Jon would never agree to that.”

She opened her
mouth to say something, but stopped.

“
You’re probably right,” she sighed. “So
we’re going to need somewhere we can hold up until Vlic’s father
gets here.”

They began to
wrack their brains for a possible place until Vlic gave a
start.

“
Where I fell!” he almost shouted. “There
would be room for us under there and if you didn’t know about it,
you’d never find it.”

“
Yes!” Lucien said, delighted. “And even if
they do find us, we can defend it. Come on!”

During the
long hours of the night all three of them worked tirelessly. They
gathered wood and water by the light of the moon and packed it away
under the cover of the tree root canopy.

Water would be
vital for their survival and fire would make a signal for Iesgood
if they needed it. Food was going to be a problem, they were
already hungry and getting hungrier, but there was no time and not
enough light to hunt or forage, they would have to go without and
hope it would not be for long.

All the time
they went about their silent work, they took turns to keep a watch
on the camp.

There had been
violence done there as men fought over what remained of the dust.
At one point when the boys came back to relieve her, a nervous
Stacey reported a death.

“
Good,” was all Lucien said. “One less to
worry about.”

Finally, a few
hours before dawn everything was as ready as they could make
it.

“
I think we should leave the rifles and the
bows here,” Lucien said, “Its dry under here and if we have to
carry Jon or your father we won’t have enough hands. And I don’t
want to leave them where those bastards might find
them.”

Stacey nodded
her agreement and then, to the boys’ delight, she drew a lethal
looking stiletto from its hiding place in the side of her boot to
supplement the large and very serviceable knife she wore at her
waist. Vlic grinned and made sure his own knife was easily to hand
before taking up his axe.

Lucien who had
no experience with a knife as a weapon, unhooked his war club.

By the time
they got back to the clearing, the moon had long set and dawn was
little more than an hour or so away. A couple of times they nearly
got lost in the darkness, but the red glow of the camp embers
showed them the way.

Around what
remained of the fire men sprawled in various attitudes of sleep;
most seemed comatose, not moving a muscle and hardly seeming to
breathe.

Dust had some
uses.

Beyond them in
the gloom, the dark shape of the cabin loomed and they drifted like
ghosts beyond the sleepers. If they made a sound, it was smothered
by the steady hum of night insects and heavy snoring.

Frain lay
asleep in front of the door to Jon’s prison making noises like a
pig in labour. His head lolled to one side and a thin trickle of
saliva ran from the corner of his open mouth. By the smell of him
his drug of choice was raw whiskey.

“
Tim!” Lucien whispered softly in his ear.
“Tim! Wake up!”

There was a
grunt and a groan.

“
Wha …?” Frain asked, sleepily. “Hell, I
need a pee. Who’s there?”

“
Your morning alarm call,” Lucien breathed
and smacked him smartly behind the ear with his war club. He
collapsed like a house of cards, a boneless, sprawling
heap.

“
Did you kill him?” Stacey
whispered.

“
I …. I don’t know,” Lucien replied and
suddenly felt sick to his stomach. The reality of possibly taking a
life was hard to take, but he put it to one side and began to saw
through the leather throngs holding the door.

Shielding it
with his body, Vlic struck a spark to a tiny bundle of twigs. There
was just enough light to see by.

Stacey went
swiftly in and over to Evandne Riddett, who sat asleep by the wall,
Eric Wainwright’s head in her lap. Gently she put one hand over her
father’s mouth and, far less gently, clamped the other over the
woman’s.

Dr Riddett
woke with a start, but whatever exclamation came to her lips was
stifled by the iron grip over her mouth.

“
Be silent,” Stacey hissed. “Or we’re all
dead.”

Although her
eyes were wild, Dr Riddett made no sound. Stacey turned to her
father.

“
Okay, dad?”

He nodded;
opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

Vlic turned
his light to the other corner of the hut where crouched one small
and dirty little girl. She was thin and her pale grey eyes were
bloodshot, but her expression was one of grim determination.

“
It’s about time,” she murmured.

Vlic was
momentarily taken aback by this reaction, but then her bottom lip
wobbled and a couple of fat tears rolled down her face, but she
silenced her sobs, clenching her fists until her knuckles went
white.

“
Can we go now?” she asked.

“
Yes, little sister,” Vlic said and bent to
kiss her palms.

Lucien took no
notice of either sideshow; he went straight to Jon who watched him
from the other corner.

Both his eyes
where blackened; his lip was split in several places and his nose
was broken. He had managed to push his back up against the wall and
was ready to defend himself to the best of his limited ability, but
when he saw Lucien he seemed to collapse, slumping towards the
floor.

For a terrible
moment Lucien thought he was having convulsions, but then he
realised he was laughing, and gasping from the resulting pain from
his broken ribs.

“
I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said
in a ghost of a voice. “What the hell am I going to do with you,
son?”

“
Teach me to be a Liaison Officer as well
as a woodsman,” Lucien whispered back. “Just lately I’ve realised
there’s a hell of a lot more to it than I thought.”

He cut away
Jon’s bonds and did his best to work the circulation back into his
arms and legs. He was more mobile than Lucien had dared to hope he
would be, but he was weak and needed support.

“
The girl,” Jon whispered.

“
Vlic will see to her,” Lucien assured
him.

“
Wainwright and the Doctor,” Jon
worried.

“
Stacey is on it,” Lucien said helping him
to his feet.

“
Wainwright’s hurt, he’ll need
help.”

“
Stacey can handle it,” Lucien told him
patiently, and began to move him out of the hut.

The little
party began its cautious way across the clearing. Dawn was still a
way off and the birds were still silent, but time was moving on
much faster than any of the three young people wanted it to.

Frain lay
unmoving as they went, so did the men in their drug induced sleep,
but there was the odd sign that soon some of them might be
returning to natural sleep rather than the comatose state they were
presently in. Any unnatural noise would call a tribesman from
normal sleep quickly.

“
We should use the canoes,” Jon whispered,
seeing the lake before them.

Lucien shook
his head. “The reeds would slow us and they could easily catch us
on foot. We don’t want to be caught out in the open.”

“
Then we’d better …”

“
How about you shut up and let me deal with
this,” Lucien replied.

Again Jon
began to shake with suppressed laughter and had to bite back a gasp
of pain.

“
I think we’re going to have another talk
soon,” he said, but he did not argue and allowed Lucien to help him
over the ground.

“
Where are we going?” he asked.

“
To hide,” Lucien replied. “And wait for
help.”

It took time to
get back to the ridge and even longer to get Jon up the slope.
Anxiously Lucien looked at the sky for signs of dawn.

“
Quickly!” Vlic urged as the first pale
light began to shine down the valley and all around them birds
began their morning territorial declarations.

“
Where are we going?” Dr Riddett asked from
one side of Eric Wainwright. He was leaning more heavily on his
daughter, but she supported him on the other side.

“
Just shut up and walk,” Stacey
snapped.