The Hero

Chapter 18

What in the hell did the Elf think he was doing? He’d moved along the east side of this savanna, which looked like it was probably a sinkhole lake that had emptied out, then moved rapidly west, then to the north. Now he was moving west again. Slowly. More meandering than moving. And all the while on the savanna. He had to have a better knowledge of tactics than that.

Dagger had found a lonely tree and climbed it for a good look. Generally he hated to shoot from trees. If you were detected it made you a perfect target and even without being detected it was a vulnerable spot. Better to be hunkered down on the ground. But you did what you had to do and the savanna was a mixture of high pseudograss and bushes; there was no clear view from ground level. He referred to his tracker, then tried to spot the same general area on the savanna. It was several clicks away and the ground was rough but he couldn’t spot anything that looked like the Darhel. There was a large herd of those damned beetle things that had gotten in his way before. The Darhel might be staying among them. That wasn’t a bad tactic, actually. Dagger would have to get closer to take a shot, and there’d be a lot of interference.

Then he ratcheted up the magnification on his scope and swore. The box was attached to the broad gray back of one of the damned herbivores.

Without even thinking about it he was on his way to the ground. The Darhel would come looking for him now. He couldn’t kill, though. There was one thing that all humans knew about Darhel; no matter how bad they were they couldn’t kill.

So was the shoe on the other foot or not? Oh, this was just lovely.

Why couldn’t the asshole have had the decency to die?

Tirdal paused and took a few breaths. This was really playing with the black side. The tal reacted to hatred, fear and aggression, all the demons that lurked in the Darhel soul. And it also accentuated them, causing a feedback loop. Now on the trail of his first kill, Tirdal constantly found himself forcing the glinak back in its cave. If it was this bad just trying to track in on the sniper, it would be nasty when it came time for the… the… kill.

That, and he’d have to dodge numerous shots. It was better than a draw that would leave him stranded, with Dagger in control of the pod’s landing sites, or leave both of them stranded to die. Though that option was preferable, as a last resort, than to let Dagger have the artifact. If so, Tirdal was prepared to face that death. It would be an easy one. All he had to do was let tal push him into lintatai and he’d not care what happened next. Of course, the chewing of predators would drag him out of trance in order to die, but that could be avoided by hiding in a cave or depression.

Tal was still an enticing option, too. He needed it, and the dosage he required increased as he developed the taste and the accompanying Sense. Would it be possible to build immunity through exposure? Research said not, but Tirdal was certainly running at a level rarely encountered. If control was the reason, then it spoke well of him as an individual, but would not help the race. He let his thoughts continue as he rose and pushed off again, running in a low crouch to stay below the grass tops. He was uncomfortably aware of the trail he was leaving, smashed flat behind him. He could do nothing about that.

He summoned Jem and breathed deeply, regrouping his control. The breath caused an ache in his chestplate that was not gone yet. Had he been able to rest more, it would likely be healed by now. As it was, it had improved, but would need medical care afterwards, or the healed, misaligned crack would forever be a weak spot. The tight pain in his shoulders was still there, though discarding gear and the artifact had reduced it to a mere annoyance for now. Hunger gnawed at him, feeding the tal. Thirst hadn’t hurt him yet; he’d been near water and able to resupply. But he was reaching a fatigue level that would begin to affect him, even with the brief nap he’d had. Tal seemed to increase strain on the metabolism, as well as causing him to use more energy.

Always the tal. Every problem in the Darhel psyche and physiology came back to tal. How had they accomplished so much with that stone tied to their feet, anchoring them? More questions to be asked afterwards. And more reasons to loathe the Aldenata.

But for now he must move, until Dagger reacted and he could Sense the activity and respond accordingly.

At a trot, he headed east, making no effort to mask his movement. His head stuck above the grass, making him feel exposed and naked as he bulled through it. Either Dagger would see him and start taking shots, or he’d get clear and be able to circle around, Dagger having no idea where he was. He couldn’t get too far away, or Dagger would simply snag the artifact and go. That would leave him with no bait, and still risking stalemate and abandonment. But there could be no gain without risk.

He’d gone about three hundred meters when Dagger faded in his perception again. Likely a shot would follow. He gave no indication of his awareness, though part of him shouted to take cover. Instead, he breathed deeply, let his stride even out to a pace that didn’t require thinking, and reached out with his Sense as tal rose, ready to respond.

Shot fired! his Sense shouted at him. He threw himself sideways and low, rolled over the lump in his pack and stayed still as tufts and seeds drifted down, torn loose by the projectile’s passage. The crack of tortured air rang his ears and echoed loudly from the hills. He breathed in the smell of the grass, and that of the earth just centimeters from his nose. His chin stung where the muzzle of the punch gun had smashed it as he landed. He took a breath to steady himself and held motionless. But staying still would simply let Dagger take a followup shot to end this, he realized at once. He scrambled forward and ran again, faster. He would keep this up until he had Dagger in a good frame of mind.

Shot fired! And again he dodged, this time dropping as soon as possible. A small eruption of dirt in front of him indicated Dagger was trying to catch his feet. That would be a difficult shot, but obviously Dagger thought he could make it. Not good. It might have been best not to provoke him in this terrain. Still, it was better than just running, hoping for a chance. He could also feel tal pushing at him.

Shot fired! Dagger was getting angry. Tirdal could feel it. This time he dove far forward, hoping Dagger wasn’t leading him much, in response to his last two evasions. If he was right, he’d gain a few moments as Dagger repositioned for the next shot. If he was wrong, hopefully his armor would slow the round enough to reduce the injury. He arched in midair, landing flat on his abdomen and slapping the ground with his hands and toes to absorb the momentum. It was easier than he’d trained for, in this low gravity, although he got bashed in the head by his own gun again. At once he pushed up and went into a rapid crawl on toe and fingertips, scrabbling under the brush like a local scavenger. The tall grass and stalky growth reluctantly parted in front of him, bending but little from the narrow print of fingers and toes. The plant tops waved but little, leaving Dagger a broad potential target area to choose from. Dust and tiny insects blew past Tirdal’s face.

He felt another shot and rolled to his right, where the shots were coming from, hoping a low round would pass over him. It did, the grass cushioning his mass for a moment before ripping away, leaving a flattened area. But Dagger now knew what he’d done there, and that round had already been close. It wouldn’t take many more before this came to an end.

Another one came, this time a hornet round that cracked overhead as it targeted him. His suit snapped out a signal and the dead round banged into his hip, making him wince with pain but not causing major injury. That was good. It meant Dagger was getting frustrated, and doubted his own ability to make the shot. But he could shoot quite a few more rounds, and eventually one would hit Tirdal.

Then something happened.

The tenuous connection between them solidified again, and he could feel Dagger shooting. For just a moment, he could see what Dagger saw, a ghostly image over the reality in front of him. He closed his eyes for a moment to catch the scene, and moved. Dagger was aiming right at him and shooting now as Tirdal rolled away and rose to his feet, the shot chewing ground where he’d been, then another passing behind him. Dagger fired, leading him and he just stopped, standing precariously where he was for a moment, then moved at an angle then forward. Another hornet cracked, but he knew it was coming and dove forward. It missed him, barely.

Then the connection broke, feeling as if it were full of static. Dagger was furious, howling angry. He was panting and sweating and starting to shake. But he wasn’t shooting.

And Tirdal knew where he was. He was on a low hummock of the rolling ground to north and east. Now he was heading for higher ground and trees to the north. Very well. Tirdal would meet him there. Should he follow behind Dagger, or circle around the east?

Follow. That would disturb Dagger even more. He grinned again, despite the sting in his hip now turning numb, the aches in his shoulders and chest, the itching from abraded skin irritated by sweat, the urgent, gnawing hunger and the cloying promise of tal.

It was time for Dagger to feel some of this.

He let tal build, slowly, until he was experiencing a dizzying, exhilarating rush. It was still controllable, though it took concentration, and he’d have to shut it down in a hurry before anything resembling a kill. He’d just have to hope nothing attacked him across this savanna. In the meantime, he could easily feel Dagger over there. That confirmed, he moved at a low crouch, helmet batting the grass aside as he strode. He reached out for other life, and found the herd, dumb and contented with its grass, and a buzz of lesser creatures underneath that, nonsentient and merely background. No predators reached him here, though there were some in the “distance,” undefinable. They would not be close enough to worry about, so he drew his awareness in to focus on Dagger and anything in that range.

Dagger was moving for that small copse of trees, yes. Likely some trick of geology funneled water and nutrients to them, as they stood on solid ground, all alone. And Dagger intended, most likely, to climb one to use as a platform for a better shot. So while he moved that way, Tirdal could hurry closer.

Should he risk the kill? Should he risk trying to capture Dagger? Both had their dangers. He’d have to decide soon, but options were always desirable.

And there was Dagger, far ahead but visible. The range was about a kilometer, and Tirdal could see his head and rifle. The man was so enraged or so conceited he wasn’t bothering with cover. Well, good. Some stray shots would serve to annoy him further… and just might hit him. Tirdal stopped, raised his punch gun and took careful aim.

The first shot caused an eruption of dirt ahead of the sniper, who sent out a mental shriek of fear but then dove for ground with trained reflexes. Tirdal fired again and again at the area, tossing stalks and dirt in cascades. Dagger’s fear was palpable, edging up toward the level of his rage. And there… fatigue, despair. Emotions were piling on each other, wrestling to be the most important. Tirdal realized he could not ask Dagger to surrender. It would be perceived as weakness. He must push and keep pushing until something snapped. It was still possible, however unlikely, that Dagger might ask to surrender. That would be the best outcome. But it must be begged for, not offered.

Dagger was moving now, low and slow. Tirdal took his best guess as to where and fired again. As long as a few of his shots were close, Dagger was too low to realize they were simply lucky, and would continue to panic. The occasional wisps of smoke from scorched grass couldn’t hurt, either. It would be best to space the shots, so the seventy left would last a goodly number of minutes. Tirdal recalled a human joke about Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics: things get worse under pressure. So pressure there would be.

In fact, fire might not be a bad thing. Brush fires couldn’t be too uncommon here, even though the oxygen level wasn’t that high. It was a perfectly natural occurrence the Tslek shouldn’t notice, and might serve to throw Dagger over the edge.

A tiny adjustment to the punch gun’s controls, accomplished as two movements between the ongoing shots, and the beam would disperse just slightly more. However, that meant a lower-pressure plasma sheath around each bolt, which should encourage dry, stalky growth, covered in dust and flaky husks, to ignite.

It was a pity the weapon wouldn’t fire faster. Still, four or five shots on the same area should do the trick, the subsequent beams providing more ignition sources and a slight wafting of air through the growth to fan the flames. Tirdal picked a spot he was sure was ahead of where Dagger was, drew it back to what seemed a good estimated distance, and started firing.

Dagger stopped prone and took a few breaths. He cringed as another scattering of dirt preceded the poounk! of the punch gun. The damned Darhel had figured out a way to track him. He thought at first that Tirdal had acquired some gear back at camp, and had finally figured out how to use it. His actions, however, indicated that he was only able to track sporadically, when Dagger was most frustrated. So it was his damned sensat crap. He seemed to notice when Dagger was going to take a shot, but only after the fact; he still could only sense emotions, not thoughts. So the thing to do would be to just… shut down. Get in that sort of meditation mode like when he was shooting. Just… become a rock, a blank spot… What was it that Darhel had said? “Think of a floating bubble…” He’d use that one, since he must. He shut out the earlier comparison to a pool and the surface. Had the slimy freak detected a residual thought of that time when he was eight, when the local bullies had held him under at the local swimming hole? Could it be coincidence, or was the Darhel trying to enrage him with bad memories? If so, it was working, and Dagger didn’t believe in coincidence. So don’t think about that. Think about that soap bubble bit. Ignore the implied insult about how simple and childish it was. There would be time to gloat after he took the shot.

Then he twitched again as another shot landed close enough for him to smell cooked lime from the ground. The Darhel bastard was learning quickly, and Dagger wondered if he’d managed to meet up or talk to Ferret. He was getting harder to kill, not easier.

How could something dodge so many rounds? He was sure a few of them had nicked, at least. Enough to slow the alien twerp down. Except they hadn’t. Was his suit that good? If so, Dagger might be in deep shit. But that wasn’t reasonable, or Tirdal wouldn’t be running.

Except he wasn’t running now. He was attacking. A sudden change in tactics indicated desperation. So Tirdal was in bad shape. A faint grin crossed his face as he thought of that. The asshole was trying to keep him scared as he approached, but he still wasn’t doing too well. His best attack so far had been to try to topple a bluff. No matter what happened, Tirdal still couldn’t actually kill.

A familiar odor crept into his nostrils and brain. It was pleasant and relaxed him just slightly. That was nice. It wasn’t something he’d smelled here, it was… grass smoke?

Then through the waving stems he saw an orange flicker that was also familiar. “You asshole!” he whispered hoarsely, and started to shimmy back in panic. A lucky beam must have caught something dry and flammable in this arid terrain.

Then Dagger realized there were more flames, making that crackling noise that meant they were spreading. Oily gray smoke hung low around him, and tickled his nose and stung his eyes. Shit. A whole area to his left was flaring up, between Tirdal and him.

Still, that meant he could use it as a screen, and he’d better damned well hurry, he realized, because that was the direction the prevailing winds were coming from. If that was a five kilometer breeze he felt, it was as fast as a brisk walk. He’d need to be faster than that.

Eyes wide again, feeling frustration, panic and fear fight with exhaustion and stress, Dagger rose to a crouch and sprinted the hell east and north. He’d had general plans to go that way anyway, but he hated, just hated, being forced into a course of action. But a grass fire was not something he could ignore, and it wouldn’t react to his weapons.

He rode over his shivers and thought of how best to dispose of the rage and, and… fear… he was focusing and concentrating. How about as a mental attack for that sensat bastard? Throw some of this at him and see what happened?

Are you reading my mind, Tirdal the Darhel, cowardly little bastard? Read this, asshole.

Tirdal felt Dagger’s mental outburst. Once again, he had a flashing connection to his enemy’s brain, thoughts and feelings and sensory input cascading over him. Raw, seething hatred! Power and control. The strength of it caused his tal levels to rise, and he fought to lower them. That was the ongoing problem; maintaining the level high enough, without flying off that precipice.

But he had caught that brief glimpse of Dagger’s surroundings. He was now farther to the northeast, almost to those trees at the edge of the prairie. The fire behind him and to Tirdal’s right front was dying down to an angry black and red scar, the red fading to ashen gray as a pall of smoke rolled up and thinned, the upper edge flattening out in the stratified air.

Dagger’s detectability was fading in and out as Tirdal fought the tal levels. Also, he seemed to be becoming “fainter.” As if he was getting ready to take a shot. Or, more likely, trying to mask his emotions. There was a lot of rage there. Time to tweak it even further. Also time to stop shooting, so as not to provide a return target. He got low and began to belly crawl, arms stretched out ahead to minimize damage to the grass.

He called up Dagger and started playing mind games again. “So, Dagger, how are you doing?” he asked as he slipped through the stalks, bending rather than breaking them again. “Of course, I don’t really have to ask. I read your mind.”

He paused at a thinning of the weeds, only to determine it was a path cleared by another herd of gargantuan insectoids. Good. He’d learned much in the last three days. This was something else for the Darhel to practice, on either cultivated “wild” areas or remote planets. The human monopoly on force became less of a potential threat as other tactical knowledge grew.

Dagger replied, a bit breathlessly but sounding surprisingly well controlled, “I take it you’ve never seen a real brush fire you little asshole? You do know they can go against prevailing winds, spread out in long lines, create firestorms that suck air in to feed them, and generally not do what you want them to do?”

Tirdal had known some of that. The rest sounded very reasonable and he realized he — they — had been lucky the grass was merely weather dry and not kindling dry from drought. That was not a mistake he should have let himself make from eagerness. On the other hand, risk was an essential part of war. He should push the man more, since he seemed worried.

“Dagger, a few degrees of flames and carbon monoxide with sulfur isn’t bothersome to Darhel. I may decide to do that again. It’s my turn to chase now.”

“Oh, quit with the bullshit. I’ve seen Darhel burned in accidents. You’re as easy to cook as we are. That was either an accident, or you’re really clueless out here.”

“If so, Dagger, it doesn’t speak well for the humans I’ve been learning from,” he said.

Dagger apparently decided to ignore that. He seemed to be getting smarter. Instead, he changed the subject. “That was rather clever, hiding the box on the bug. It would have been really clever to keep it low, where I couldn’t see it sticking out like a saddle on a boar.” There was a slight smugness pervading the control in his voice. And the control was obvious to Tirdal. Dagger was trying hard to suppress his emotions. Suppression, however, was not what he should do. They should flow, not be bottled up. And Dagger seemed to do exactly the opposite of what anyone wanted…

“I felt you needed the hint,” he said to goad Dagger. “So far, you’ve shown little ability to outthink or outtrack anything smaller and brighter than these bugs.” The bugs were impressive, though, he thought as he skipped behind one and dropped back into the stalks. They were the size of Earth’s extinct rhinoceri.

“I tracked Ferret, and he was supposed to be the vaunted master of it. You remember Ferret? I think he was wetting his pants when he realized I could see him. He was in good cover, too. Better than you’ve ever had. But the fickle finger of fate holds the trigger. And if you’re so good I need a hint, why’d you drop the box and hide in the weeds?”

“Very simply, Dagger, I found your tracer some time back. It no longer serves my purposes to have you follow it. That was a ruse to keep you where Ferret could stalk you,” he said. He also could use Ferret as a mythical ally. And as the man was now dead, Dagger couldn’t cross check. “Now that Ferret is gone, I have no need to make things simple for you anymore. You’ll have to do some real tracking. It’s time for you to learn a few things.”

With that, he rose back to a crawl, though this crawl was as fast as a good jog for a human, fingers and toes extended like a lizard’s, but reaching far forward and behind to reduce the profile they cut in the grass.

“I’m going to kill you, you alien freak,” Dagger said.

Tirdal spoke again to keep Dagger talking rather than shooting. “Really, Dagger, you should acquire calm, not just the outward symptoms. One should focus not upon the blankness within, but the blankness without, allowing it to draw the storm.”

Dagger interrupted his spiel. “I’ve got a philosophical question for you, Tirdal.”

“Yes, Dagger?”

“If a Darhel gets his head blown off in the middle of the forest, do the trees hear anything?”

“There, Dagger, you’ve made progress. You’ve acknowledged your anger. Now allow it to draw your fear of competence with it, and learn to feel. Only then will you be able to track a Darhel on flat ground without the tracer.”

The crack of a projectile echoed across the savanna. One of the large herbivores twitched and staggered, trod in a circle as its sharp-edged feet threw clods of sod and grass. It was seeking its antagonist, and confused at not finding one. Moments later, it lined up on a nearby bull and charged. There was nothing wrong with its gait. The armor-piercing projectile had done no more than chip its carapace and annoy it. And that should be another lesson for Dagger, Tirdal thought. The beast’s thoughts had spiked at the shot and were now subsiding back to normal. Dagger needed to do the same thing, and disappear behind the noise of the local life.

Dagger wasn’t stupid. He knew the conversation had been designed to distract him. Anyway, a good sniper worked better in silence. To say nothing could be the scariest statement of all. And the damned Elf wasn’t going to trick him into not using the tracking module. That whole jab had been an attempt to throw him off. It hinted of “fairness,” and Dagger was not one for “fair” when “effective” was available. He’d use the tracker, the superior range of his weapon, his cunning and precision. And, he’d use his human ability to kill. To do otherwise would be silly. Let the Darhel mutter his philosophy. Dagger would shoot beads instead.

He took deep drafts of air, both to revitalize his flagging strength and to calm his nerves. Now he had to get into a state that Tirdal couldn’t track. That would mean his tools would give him the advantage. His tools that didn’t depend on emotion.

Tirdal really was desperate, he reminded himself. He was talking, running, hiding the box, setting fires. It was all very annoying, some of it was foolishly dangerous, and all of it meant he was out of practical ideas. This was a battle. A low-scale battle between only two combatants, but still a battle. Some damage was inevitable. Tirdal had trouble inflicting it directly — probably he couldn’t kill and was hoping to push Dagger into getting injured, thus leaving him here in a cowardly fashion.

For a moment he remembered his own threat to Ferret, but that had been vengeful, not of necessity based on fear. Anyway, Ferret was dead, cleanly killed one-on-one.

Otherwise, Tirdal was just hoping for a lucky shot to catch Dagger, and all Dagger had to do was stand up to the fire, figuratively, and dish out what Tirdal couldn’t take. He’d gone face-to-face with Ferret, this gutless troll should be easier. And that’s what he was. Not an Elf, but a troll. A filthy little freak from a race of freaks who needed humans to fight for them. So here it came.

Dagger was going to head for those trees, get a good position, and at this range he could watch the Darhel’s brains splatter as the round hit. That would be sweet.

Dammit! Calm! It’s just an exercise. Locate the target, paint the target, shoot. Just like that bet with Thor. Just like the range. Afterwards was the time for a beer and a boast. And that artifact would be all the boasting he’d ever need. It would make him part of the war stories people passed around. Better yet, it would be one of the true ones.

He performed a maneuver that would have made his instructors proud. With an enemy at close range, he exfiltrated unseen and secured a new position. Chameleon at full power, because that was one of the things the Darhel couldn’t track, and he really didn’t care how much juice it ate up now, as he wouldn’t need it after today, he squirmed snakelike, curving through the grass. Straight lines are a giveaway of intelligent activity, and a long, winding path would not only be harder to see, but if seen would be mistaken for an animal track. He did as little damage as possible. His rifle was slung over his shoulder, a loop of the sling held in his hand as a drag. Some of the beetle and flyer forms were disturbed at his passage, but nothing larger, and those only twitched because of the movement, not because they noticed this strange apparition.

Movement ahead made him stop short. He held utterly still, breath clenched, as he examined the shape. It was a small scavenger form, about a half meter long, and it trudged on past at an angle. Good. He resumed crawling, seeing the copse dark ahead. He’d pick one about three trees in, which would give him a clear enough field of fire, and provide both screen and some hard cover.

The grass thinned as he neared the outer reach of roots, and the ground rose slightly, too, built up from centuries of rot and decay. The tracking gear showed Tirdal to still be about fifteen hundred meters away, though the little asshole was moving at a hell of a clip. Well, that would make it easier. And with Tirdal heading straight at him, easier still. An upright, advancing target. The Darhel was a sucker if he thought that was a good tactic against a sniper. Still, Dagger would have to be quick across the exposed ground, as he couldn’t spare the time to find the best approach or circle around behind. Then he’d have to be quick into position for a shot. He had perhaps two minutes.

Taking a breath for courage and for extra oxygen, he scurried like a lizard across open ground. His eyes were set on a tree ahead, and he made straight for it, then shifted sideways and dove around behind. No fire. Not detected by the Aggressor Team. Close eyes, avoid thinking, just breathe. We have a target, and that target is just a target. A pop-up, computerized dummy, just like a thousand others. It’s a pass/fail shot. Show the general how good his troops are, then have a beer. Remember the old joke? One shot, one kill, drink coffee. A target was a target was a target.

In his best shooting trance, Dagger crawled low and quickly, seeking a good, climbable tree.

That one. Easy to climb, easy to evacuate, and it appeared to have a decent view from about five meters up. Perfect. And the target was now…

Less than seven hundred meters? How did the little bastard move that fast?

Dagger clambered quickly up the tree, trailing his sling. He found a solid limb about three meters above the ground, and paused to drag the rifle up. He made it up two more limbs, right to five meters or so, with a great view, even better than he expected. It was perfectly framed by the main trunks and limbs in front. He could lean over this angled limb while standing in that crotch, and would have cover from it. He linked all his sensors and his scope to make tracking fast, and gazed out quickly. He was going to pass this shot, so he’d have to take it fast.

The target was about there… and there was no movement there. There was only grass. He checked everything again. Right there… and nothing, not even the haze of a chameleon. There was an IR source, maybe, though the sunlight even filtered by haze made it only a ghost…

The target was crawling, except it was the fastest damned crawl Dagger had ever seen. Holy shit, that was fast! And no clear target. Blue Team was being tricky. So for this exercise, switch between hornets and antiarmor, and fire as fast as possible. Outthink, outfight. Ready… and…

Tirdal felt Dagger’s presence. Dagger seemed to have learned, as his mind was reasonably calm and ordered. Ordinarily, that would have sufficed to mask him, but Tirdal was running tal to the very limits of his control. He had a Sense, a hunch of where Dagger was, and he was going to exploit that right now.

Dagger was still focusing on the fact that a Darhel would find it tough, if not impossible, to shoot a human. That thought stopped him from thinking about what else Tirdal could and might shoot at. Like that tree. That one right there.

Flashing a grin any human would recognize as triumphant, Tirdal eased his punch gun forward and fired.

A flash told him Dagger was firing, too, but there was nothing to do but follow through. His carefully aimed shot blew shreds of wet, fibrous wood out the back and into the tree behind it. Which was the tree Dagger was hiding in, if his estimation was right.

He tried to ignore the incoming fire as three hornet rounds cracked. The first blew dirt in his face. The second slammed into his boot and made his foot numb. The third he couldn’t identify, except that it hadn’t hit him. Then he was firing again, into the tree behind the first, shutting down his Sense in case he got lucky and hit Dagger. Twigs tumbled from the limb the shot had hit, and stray twigs blew out. They weren’t much good as fragments, as they lacked mass. Still, they’d distract. In that time, he shifted his aim down near the base and started firing deliberately. Three shots took just over 1.5 seconds, and that particular tree had no base. The remains started to tumble sideways, its limbs whipping and crashing through the other trees. Then he turned his attention back to the one Dagger was hiding in. Another shot at a main limb blew chips in all directions. He’d not noticed Dagger’s next shot, which had almost taken his hand off, but the next one cracked overhead, a clear miss because Dagger was too busy to think. That falling tree was crashing through the one he used as his platform.

Three more shots took out the base of Dagger’s tree. That should have a positive effect. Tirdal grinned again and moved his aim to another.

Dagger was firing his third rapid hornet round at the warm spot in the grass when the tree in front of him exploded. Wet sap, splinters and chunks ripped past him and splashed over him. “Gah!” he yelled aloud, suddenly spooked. How the hell had the Darhel done that? And could he actually shoot to kill? The noise of the punch gun continued as Tirdal kept shooting.

There was nothing for it but to recover position and shoot again. This was where it ended. He shifted his grip, took a good stance and resumed firing, this time the dumb rounds. He’d march them along that line and hit something, he was sure.

Then the branch less than a meter above his head exploded. A chunk of it slammed into his helmet, dizzying him, and another jarred his rifle. Before he could recover, he was being whipped by tendrils and the tree was shaking as one off to his right fell across it. He shifted his balance, trying to recover position, as the tree shook convulsively. Then again. He figured out what was happening and quickly jumped out his escape route, wanting to be clear of the tree in a hurry.

His fall took him through the branches of the downed tree, and he scrambled through the obstacle, rifle held high to avoid tangling it. Branches caught at his feet and thighs as he fought to free himself. Already, he could hear his tree cracking angrily, and it just might fall backwards and crush him if he wasn’t clear.

Off to his right, another tree was spewing splinters.

Dagger ran. He’d find cover some distance away and wait for Tirdal to follow. But this area was not safe. He tried to force his breathing back into control, but was scared. And admitting he was scared frightened him even more. He could hear trees crashing behind him, and wondered where the hell he could get a good shot and not be exposed? The farther away he was, the easier the Darhel could dodge his fire. Up close, he was in range of the punch gun, and it had been proven twice now that an inability to kill wasn’t entirely a hindrance to the little turd. He needed to stalk better, wait for him to pick a route, then move to intercept. He batted at tendrils of stems, sacrificing stealth for speed.

Wasn’t that little bastard ever going to sleep? That five-hour nap seemed a long time ago, and had barely taken the edge off his fatigue. But if the Darhel wouldn’t rest, he couldn’t. What would happen if it shot him while he slept? Or just buried him? Because Dagger knew he couldn’t stay awake another three days until the pod left for its second point putting him between it and the Darhel.

Then he realized it was all moot. The Darhel was now tracking him. He’d have to move fast and switch roles again.

Ahead was clear grass and a slight rise. If he backed up that hill, he could keep the copse in view and shoot the damned Darhel if he came through. Or, he’d be in a good position for a long shot, and there was nothing to collapse around him. Breath tearing at his parched throat as he tried to moderate it, he dropped to a sitting position and scrabbled backwards, rifle pointed out and ready to swing to any threat.

Tirdal wasn’t about to follow Dagger into, through or around that copse. It was too likely he’d be targeted. The sniper was definitely still alive, though there was a hint of injury or pain in what Tirdal could Sense. All good, but not enough.

However, Tirdal was now confident he could ambush Dagger, on terrain of his choosing, pin him down and inflict injury by proxy or directly. Whether or not he could kill directly was another question, but a crippled Dagger put Tirdal in a much better bargaining position.

With Dagger confused, Tirdal beat a retreat for the stream, careless of the path he left. His plan was to reach a scrubby area he’d passed through not long before, all tangled and thick though not qualifying as “forest,” merely brush. It was strewn with rocks and would provide several good places to dodge and shoot from. As Dagger’s thoughts seemed to become coherent, again he began a series of zigzags to make himself somewhat less obvious.

He took long lopes down the slight slope to the stream’s bluffs, then dropped over them. Dagger was alert now, and was starting to move. He was “far” and approaching “middle” in Tirdal’s mind. Good. That gave Tirdal enough lead to get where he wanted to be.

He splashed across the stream, following a game trail southward that more or less paralleled the stream. He knew that he was leaving a trail but didn’t know what to do about it. The terrain was karstic and there was a large chunk of limestone, a low bluff really, on this side. He looked at that, looked at the surrounding trees and his clear boot tracks in the mud and smiled.