Hellgate London - Exodus Part 2

"I thought you said it was illegal to hunt in this area." Dalton was in his late forties, a wiry man with an awkward way about him.

"It is," Simon a.s.sured the man.

Another couple of gunshots echoed over them.

Voices came from the other tents now. That was good. Saundra wouldn't have to wake everyone, and she'd have help waking those who were reluctant.

"Then whoever is doing the shooting must be a-"

"Stay with Miss McIntyre, Mr. Dalton." Simon took the rifle in both hands and headed out of camp at a jog.

Perspiration quickly covered Simon as the gra.s.slands grew hotter with the rising sun. It peeked through the rose and cream ma.s.s of clouds to the east.

His head and stomach protested the strenuous exercise at first, but-as always-his body became regulated and he moved effortlessly. Once again, all the harsh conditioning his father had compelled Simon to do came to his aid.

When he'd been younger, he'd enjoyed the runs and the martial arts, especially the sword training. But that had been back when he was a boy and still believed that demons lurked somewhere out in the world just waiting for an opportunity to take it over again.

He didn't believe that anymore. One of his main problems was that he didn't know what to believe. All his life he'd been brought up to fight demons, trained in arcane ways and even taught limited mystical abilities. None of which could be talked about outside the Underground labyrinth where the Templar skulked in the shadows.

Simon had tired of all of it. Two years ago, at twenty-three, he'd left the Templar, his father, and all of London.

Talking about the training he'd received, about the cult-like atmosphere he'd been brought up in, would have done no good. Few left the ranks of the Templar, and only those who knew to keep their mouths shut escaped a date with the loony bin.

Simon pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on running. No hunting was allowed in the gra.s.slands these days. He and Saundra carried hunting rifles only for self-protection and to protect their charges. Occasionally a lioness that had gotten too old to hunt and had been abandoned by her pride developed a taste for blood. But the biggest worry was from poachers.

Only minutes later, something less than two miles from camp, Simon found the shooters.

There were five of them. They were a scruffy lot, from their early twenties to their forties or fifties. All of them had the permanent sunburned look of men who had spent their entire lives in the bush.

They drove two four-wheel-drive Land Rovers strapped with extra tires, jerry cans of fuel, and water. Evidently they'd settled in for the long haul.

Five adult elephants lay on the sun-baked scrubby ground. Blood leaked into the dry dust. Overhead, vultures circled, waiting for the predators to leave.

A baby elephant tugged pitifully at its mother, wrapping its trunk around its mother's head and crying out. One of the hunters raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The baby elephant dropped in its tracks. The killing happened before Simon knew it would. If he'd had a chance to stop it- You don't know what you'd have done, mate.Simon concentrated on the men, working on seeing through the death. Settling into the shady protection of a camel-thorn acacia tree, he shrugged out of his backpack and watched the poachers.

He took a pair of expensive MechEye digital binoculars from his pack. His father had given them to him on his tenth birthday. And they were far better than those that any other guide he knew carried into the bush.

Depressing the power b.u.t.ton, Simon zoomed in on the men as they went about their brutal business.

They used handsaws to cut free the elephant tusks. Even with the recent decision to issue licenses to kill off a few hundred head of elephants after it was deemed their populations had grown too large to sustain them, ivory remained valuable on the black market.

The men worked with grim alacrity, tossing their b.l.o.o.d.y prizes into the backs of the Land Rovers. One of them stood guard, a rifle braced on one hip. His sungla.s.ses reflected the orange coal of his cigarette as he smoked.

Simon captured images of the men and their grisly profit. The binoculars came fully equipped with a surprising array of software.

Okay then, you vicious cutthroats, you're going to pay for what you did here.

During the last sixteen months, Simon had gotten to know the Cape Town police and the gamekeepers that worked in the Fynbos Biome. The area was protected by international law.

Someone will know you.

Simon captured a few more images, then watched in silence as the corpses were stripped of their tusks. The radio vibrated in his pocket.

Leaning back, Simon shook the earpiece out and shoved it into his ear. "Yes."

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right." Saundra sounded worried. "I heard that final shot-" "Wasn't me." Simon quickly explained what had gone on.

Saundra cursed when he'd finished. "We can't let them get away with this."

She had very strong feelings about preserving wildlife. As a result, they'd never guided hunters while working together. She knew that Simon did, when the price was right and the interest was there, but they never talked about that.

"I've got pictures of them. They won't get away with it."

The circling vultures dropped from the sky and alighted on the carca.s.ses. Their hooked beaks and cruel talons tore into the elephant flesh.

"What are you going to do?" Saundra asked.

"Wait here. Watch them. Make sure they don't come your way. Get our tourists out of harm's way. I'll catch up to you quick as I can."

"All right."

Simon took his earpiece out and dropped it back into the radio. He pocketed the radio and pressed the Velcro tab closed on his thigh pocket.

Almost twenty minutes pa.s.sed. The poachers worked quickly. So did the vultures.

Simon knew the blood scent would draw other predators. It always did. But he didn't expect the Cape buffalo that came up to the scene and stood in the scrubland on the other side of the kill site.

The buffalo was huge and black, with the wide, curving horns of its kind. This one looked near to six feet at the shoulder and weighing more than a ton. The face was ma.s.sive, all bone and muscle. Most of the gamekeepers Simon knew regarded Cape buffalos as the most dangerous animals in the region. A single lion couldn't bring a Cape buffalo down, and it took a pack of hyenas to do the job.

Since it was alone, Simon guessed that it was a "bachelor." Older bulls were usually cut out of the herds by the younger bulls. People every year died on the horns or under the hooves of Cape buffaloes. They died hard, and most of them didn't die alone.

The poachers noticed the Cape buffalo, too. They pointed at the animal. The older men in the group got more wary. Even a Land Rover wasn't always the best protection out in the open. Cape buffaloes were quite capable of overturning vehicles.

One of the younger men brought his rifle to shoulder.

An older man shouted, "No!" but that happened at the same time the younger man fired.

The first bullet caught the Cape buffalo between the horns, knocking a chunk of hide flying. The buffalo staggered, throwing its head back. As a result, the second and third bullets. .h.i.t the animal in the chest.

With an angry bellow, the buffalo broke cover and charged the poachers. Simon watched, hoping the buffalo would get them all.

The poachers scattered. The more seasoned among them ran to the elephants' bodies for refuge. The dead elephants were bigger and heavier than the Land Rovers.

Never breaking stride, the Cape buffalo slammed into the side of the lead Land Rover. The impact echoed under the acacia tree where Simon sat. Incredibly, the Land Rover came up on two wheels and rolled over onto its side with acrunch.

Still in motion, the animal sped into the trees and tall shrubs. It disappeared almost immediately. The young poacher got his nerve back and tried two more shots that Simon doubted hit anything.

The older poacher crossed to the younger one, grabbed the rifle barrel, and backhanded the other man to the ground. Then he turned the rifle on the younger man, who threw his hands up in front of him and tried to scoot away on his back. For a moment Simon thought the man was going to kill the younger man.

"That was stupid." The older poacher lowered the rifle, then finally tossed it onto the younger man. "Do something like that again, and I'll kill you." He turned and walked away.

Simon settled back into the shadows. The radio vibrated in his pocket and he took it out. "Still not me, love," he whispered, then explained what had happened. "Are you out of camp?"

"Yes. About two miles west. We're headed for the coast. I think the tour's over. At least for the moment." Saundra didn't sound happy about that. She hated being stuck in Cape Town with nothing to do. She couldn't make money in town.

"There are a few campsites we'll have to visit between here and there," Simon pointed out. "Maybe we'll convince them that making an early retreat isn't what they really want to do." Personally, he didn't care. He enjoyed Cape Town. At least it wasn't London. And he didn't have to hear any talk about demons.

But it meant being around Saundra when she wasn't happy. That wasn't a pleasant prospect.

"I don't want to go back," Saundra said.

"I know. Something will come up." Simon sighed, watched as the poachers gathered by the overturned vehicle and pushed it upright once more. "In the meantime, I'm going to be a little late."

"Why?"

"Got to track down that buffalo bull. Can't let it wander around out here to hurt someone. And it shouldn't be left to linger and die of infection." Simon listened to Saundra breathing over the radio connection. He knew she was frustrated and concerned.

"Go," she said finally. "Just take care of yourself."

In spite of the dire circ.u.mstances, Simon grinned. Saundra didn't like to hunt, but he did. And the wounded Cape buffalo was a danger he didn't want to leave out in the wild.

Cautiously, Simon made his way through the brush. He angled around the kill site where the poachers concentrated on the condition of their vehicle, then took up the trail of the wounded animal. A few minutes later, he found the first few bright crimson splatters on leaves where the Cape buffalo had vanished into the scrub.

Judging from the amount of blood, the animal had been severely wounded. Left to its own, it might die anyway. But that might take days. Wounded as it was, it was also dangerous.

Simon slung the hunting rifle over his shoulder and took up the trail.

Two.

The Cape buffalo stood in a stream and drank noisily. Two hyenas cowered in a tangle of broken rock and brush. Blood pulsed down the buffalo's chest, but from his position behind a thick-boled acacia tree Simon could see that the wound had slowed.

He felt badly for the animal. The wounds would never heal properly in the wild. Infection would settle in around the bullet and turn gangrenous. He focused on the fact that it would have a hard death ahead of it if he didn't kill it.

Of course, there was also the possibility the buffalo would kill him.

That made Simon smile, and he knew if Saundra had seen him she would have taken him to task for it.

So would his father.

But that bit of uncertainty to life was what drove Simon. It had been that draw to the daredevil side of his nature that had made him the skateboard champ he'd become for a while. With the LiquidBalance technology available to the boards, he'd gone faster and higher-especially since those boards had limited hover ability-than anyone had before.

Then his father and the Templar Grand Master had made it plain that extreme sports weren't going to be in his future. Too many people had come around asking too many questions. Then there'd been that base-jump from Big Ben. He'd done that one after getting in trouble for doing the one from the Tower of London. Just to throw it in their faces before he left London. If the police had caught him, Simon would have served time for that one. He'd gotten out of London just in time and made his way down to South Africa.

Quietly, smoothly, Simon slipped out of the rifle sling and the backpack. He laid both to the side. For the last hour, he'd tracked the buffalo, watching as the blood trail had thinned but had never completely gone away. For all he knew, the poachers might have gone, or they might not have noticed a round going off somewhere else.

On the other hand, they might be only a short distance behind him and might wonder if he'd seen them killing the elephants. Especially since he was trying to kill the Cape buffalo one of them had wounded.

He reached into his backpack and took out one of the expanding punching daggers he'd bought shortly after he'd arrived in South Africa. The daggers were deadly weapons, modeled on the Indian katar, also known as the Bundi dagger.

Collapsed, the weapons were easily stored, but the segmented blades sprang out of the forearm brace and provided twenty inches of razor-sharp steel. The Roman army had conquered the world with eighteen-inch blades.

Simon strapped the punching dagger onto his right arm, took a final quiet breath to focus his mind, then eased through the brush toward the Cape buffalo. He moved in a crouch, like a tightly coiled spring.

The old bull wasn't foolish, though. It had gained experience over the years, and-wounded as it was-it was especially wary. Shoulders rippling, the bull swung about just as Simon emerged from the brush.

Simon froze. The punching dagger hung loose and ready at his side.

Beneath the rocks and brush, the hyenas laughed in antic.i.p.ation, as if they knew they were going to be eating in a few minutes one way or the other.

Breathing easily, Simon stood his ground. He locked eyes with the buffalo, wondering if it was simply going to run away again. He didn't want to have to chase after it.

Without warning, the bull charged. Its hooves tore into the earth, cutting free clods that sailed in its wake. Tremors raced through Simon's feet and legs. He waited till the last instant, then dove and rolled to the side.

The Cape buffalo's horn sliced a groove in the ground only inches from Simon. Pushing himself to his feet again, Simon whipped around, seeing only then that the huge animal had spun on a dime and was once more right on top of him.

This time Simon launched himself into the air, barely getting over the bull's horns. Tucking himself into a roll, he landed on the animal's broad back for just a moment, then slid off its glossy hide. He dropped to his feet, finding his balance only just in time to save himself again.

Spinning, seeing that the bull was faltering now from its exertions and that the wounds had opened up again, Simon gave chase to the animal. When he closed to within a few feet of it, he vaulted onto its back.

The bull went insane, throwing itself into the air as it sought to rid itself of the unwanted pa.s.senger.

Simon tried to hold on with his knees, but the thick expanse of the Cape buffalo's back was too broad to properly manage. He knew he was going to fall; it was only a matter of time.

He threw himself forward and roped an arm around the bull's neck as far as he could. He strained to hang on, to keep his balance. As he watched, the radio came free of his thigh pocket, landed on the ground, and was crushed beneath one ma.s.sive hoof. When the bull's foot lifted again, only pieces remained.

Setting himself as best as he was able, Simon drew the punching dagger up, then shoved it between the Cape buffalo's ribs and into its heart. For another moment, he hung on desperately, not trusting the fall or his ability to avoid the rampaging hooves. In the next, the buffalo suddenly gave out and fell, a mountain of rolling flesh that dropped at the edge of the stream.

Stunned, Simon sprawled beside the great beast. Shafts of sunlight slashed through the trees overhead.

He lost consciousness briefly, scared because he wasn't sure if he was paralyzed or if he was breathing.

When Simon opened his eyes again, one of the hyenas was almost on him. The scavenger's nose was wrinkled back to expose sharp, yellow teeth.

Simon moved out of instinct, slashing the hyena's throat with the punching dagger. Blood sprayed, but the animal ran until its life fled.

Drawing a deep breath, Simon levered himself to his feet. The other hyena ran off, barking with insane laughter. Simon looked down at the Cape buffalo and saw at once that it was dead. He felt bad for it.

Just like the elephants the poachers had killed, the buffalo had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After washing the punching dagger in the stream, Simon went back to survey the damage to the radio. It was immediately evident that the radio was a total loss.

So much for impact-resistant.