Jungle Of Steel And Stone Part 15

"Out there, man!" the boy says, his head bobbing up and down. "He's right down the street!"

Suddenly the bar is filled with excited shouts, the grating sounds of chairs sc.r.a.ping on the hardwood floor, then the ominous clanking of steel. The boy stares wide-eyed as men rush past him, over him, pushing at each other as they pour out the door. Most of the men carry weapons of some sort, and only now does the boy realize that the bar was filled with a vigilante group on the hunt for Toby. In a few moments he is alone; everyone, including the bartender, has rushed out into the street.

The boy gets to his feet and limps out of the bar in time to see a naked black figure carrying a bundle dart through a gap in the fence surrounding the half-finished building in the next block. The vigilantes have seen Him and are shouting excitedly, waving their weapons in the air, as they run through the intersection.

By the time the boy reaches the construction site, a dozen men are cl.u.s.tered around the gap in the fence where Toby had disappeared. There is a great deal of shouting and confusion. One man, armed with a hunting rifle, steps through the gap into the darkness beyond, but he reappears after only a minute or two.

"It's dark as s.h.i.t in there," the man says. "I ain't takin' no chance on gettin' a spear stuck up my a.s.s."

The men back up into the middle of the street. One of the men grunts as he points to an area high up on the steel skeleton. He raises his rifle to his shoulder and squeezes off a shot. Another man shouts that he has seen Toby. More shots are fired. Bullets ricochet off the forest of steel girders, and a few of the men duck and run for cover from their own bullets.

Veil rolls away from the dream, but he does not awaken, and he does not enter into deep sleep. Instead he searches for Toby until he finds him and becomes him.

Veil is Toby.

He cannot remember ever feeling so tired or sick. The Nal-toon has set him a very great trial, he thinks, one which is perhaps greater than any K'ung warrior has been asked to endure. He prays that he will have the strength to continue.

But then he reminds himself that if the trial is great, so are the Nal-toon's gifts; food, sweet water, sanctuary in the Newyorkcities' jungles of the dead, anda"most wondrous treasure of alla"the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk. He must have courage.

He lies in a shallow trench he dug at the bottom of a shallow basin, near a stream, in a copse of trees surrounded by brush-covered knolls. He knows that it is not good cover, but he has simply been too exhausted and sick to search for better. He has to rest.

A short time before, he took an unusually large dose of the blood-shilluk, but it does not seem to be having the usual rapid effect; his bowels churn and he is still in great pain. Indeed he has found that he must continue to take increasingly larger doses of the G.o.d-medicine in order to function at all.

He wishes he could think clearly, for the behavior of some of the Newyorkcities is increasingly confusing to him. It is difficult for him to imagine any tribe that would not be totally united in their desire to possess the Nal-toon, Who is all.

Yet . . .

There was the young Newyorkcity warrior who had surprised him in the dark street. The warrior could have attacked him but had run away.

And there was Reyna, and the man-in-night.

Veil is now considering the possibility that it had been Reyna in the last jungle of the dead, not a spirit, and that she was trying to find him in order to give him aid. Perhaps Reyna and the man-in-night have been trying to help him all along. Obviously, Veil thinks, they seem to know where he is going, yet have not told any other Newyorkcities.

He remembers vividly how the Newyorkcities running after him in the street had strengthened his muscles and cleared his mind, enabling him to run and hide in the open building.

The problem had been that the building was a trap, not sanctuary, and when the huge warrior with the hand-light and big bang-stick had entered, Veil had a.s.sumed that this was the Newyorkcities' champion, their greatest warrior, sent to duel with him in a battle of honor. In his weakened condition, Veil had known that he had no real chance against this land's most powerful warrior, but he had resolved to fight with courage and die with honor.

From the moment the warrior had entered the building, Veil had stalked him from a higher levela"and it had come as a shock to Veil to see how poorly the huge man tracked in the darkness; even with his powerful hand-light, his healthy body and two good eyes, it had seemed to Veil that the man could not see or move. With growing excitement at the thought that the Nal-toon might purposely be weakening this champion, Veil had continued to stalk the man, squinting his good eye in order to focus his vision. He'd known that he would have to be very cautious, for even a good hit with a poisoned arrow would not prevent the man from using his deadly bang-stick.

Then, to Veil's amazement, the man-in-night and Reyna had come into the building. And the Newyorkcity champion had tried to kill them. Reyna and the man-in-night who traveled with her were willing to risk their lives for him, Veil had thought.

Perhaps. If it was not a trick to put him off-guard.

Veil had stalked the warrior as the warrior stalked Reyna and the man-in-night. He had ignored Reyna's pleas for him to run, for there had been the possibility that she was trying to force him out into the open, where other Newyorkcities would be waiting for him.

On the other hand, if it was not a trick, Veil would not abandon the two people who were risking their lives for him. That was not the way of the warrior. If Reyna and the man-in-night were his allies, then he would fight to help thema"and he would trust the Nal-toon to see into his heart and watch over a K'ung warrior who was doing what he thought he must.

Then the warrior had started down after Reyna and the man-in-night, and Veil had attackeda"first with his throwing stick, and then with a poisoned arrow that had found its mark. Reyna and the man-in-night had escaped.

Veil had watched with some amus.e.m.e.nt as the big warrior had continued to stumble around in the dark, looking for him. Veil had not been able to understand how a man who was facing death would waste a single heartbeat pursuing another warrior he obviously could not find.

He had waited patiently until he'd been absolutely certain that all the Newyorkcities were gone before he'd left the building. By then the excitement and activity had begun to take their toll; his stomach had begun to cramp severely, his legs wobbled under him, and he could barely see.

He'd been halfway down the street before he'd realized that he was being followed. A chill had gone through him, for in the time that his senses had deserted him, his pursuer could easily have killed him, especially if the Newyorkcity had a bang-stick.

Breathing a prayer of thanks to the Nal-toon for making him aware of his pursuer, Veil had hobbled as fast as he could down the street, then cried inwardly with joy when he had seen a gap in the stone wall to his right, which led into a jungle. He'd darted into the jungle, then ducked behind a tree and waited.

Veil had been surprised to find that his pursuer was the same young warrior who had confronted, then run away from him earlier. The boy had no weapons, and so Veil had merely put the tip of an arrow against the boy's throat.

"Holy s.h.i.t!"

"Go away. I do not want to kill you. Just go away."

Although his entire body trembled with terror, the young warrior had stood his ground.

"Man, I can't understand a word you're saying, but I can see that you're hurt. I want to help you, and I promise I won't tell anyone where you are. Come home with me. My mom thinks you're like Jesus, and maybe I do too. She'll fix you up, and then you'll have a good place to hide."

"Go!" Veil had commanded, removing the arrow tip from the boy's throat and pointing toward the street. And the boy had run away.

Perhaps he should have killed the boy, Veil thinksa"but the boy had not killed him when he'd had the chance. Veil finds everything confusing; life is clean and simple in the desert, and it is usually easy to tell friends from enemies. Not in Newyorkcity, this is a place that clouds a warrior's mind and drains his will.

He sniffs a large amount of the Nal-toon's blood-shilluk. Then, impatient with the increasing slowness of the effect, he sniffs still more. Finally, his head spinning, Veil pa.s.ses out.

Night-chill awakens Veil-in-Toby. He lies still, listening, trying to probe the darkness with his hunter-warrior's senses in order to evaluate the surrounding area. When he is satisfied that there is no one near, he pushes aside the brush that covers him and sits up. The pain that shoots through his skull almost makes him keel over, and he quickly sniffs some blood-shilluk. It takes a long time for the blood-shilluk to take effect, but Veil waits, unwilling to risk pa.s.sing out if he takes more. He must move on.

It occurs to him that he should eat, although he has not been hungry for a long time. He has no food but resolves to find the strength to hunt at the earliest opportunity. He drinks at a nearby stream, then moves on to the southeast.

A full moon lights the open ground. Under other circ.u.mstances he might not travel so quickly after the incident in the open building, but he feels that the Nal-toon now wants him to hurry. No matter how much he rests, Veil thinks, he seems to grow progressively weaker. He must get to the airplane fields soon. He is terribly lonely and he wants to go home.

He moves through the trees around the perimeter of a meadow. As he approaches the far end Veil stops and gazes suspiciously at an area where the meadow narrows. The whole jungle is growing smaller, he thinks, narrowing. Although he has been walking in a straight line through trees, he now finds that there is a stone wall close to his right, and beyond that a street. He is in danger.

His head pulses with pain, but he resists the impulse to take more blood-shilluk; while the G.o.d-medicine at one time cleared his senses and eased his pain, it now tends to confuse and disorient him even further. He is no longer sure of the proper amount to take, and so he decides to try to take nonea"at least not while he is traveling.

Veil slumps down, braces his back against a tree, and checks his weapons. He has lost his throwing stick, but he still has his bow, six poisoned arrows, and a hastily constructed spear with a sharp stone head, lashed to the shaft with vines. He considers these adequate replacements for the spear and knife lost in the place of the rolling wooden objects.

He is so very, very tired, Veil thinksa"yet he must make a decision. He does not wish to go out into the lighted street while there is still cover, but the narrowing of the jungle before him makes him nervous; it is an area where man-snares could be set, or where Newyorkcities could be waiting to ambush him.

To go out into the street where he can be seen, Veil thinks, or go on into the narrow jungle where he can be trapped?

He knows he must make the decision, and it looms as an unbearable, momentous hurdle. Suddenly he begins to weep.

"Great Nal-toon, please help me," Veil whispers, ashamed of his sobbing but unable any longer to control his depthless sorrow and loneliness. "My will is leaving me, and I do not think I can go on without strength, which You must give me. When will I be judged to have pa.s.sed Your trial, great Nal-toon? Please have mercy on and forgive me, Nal-toon, for this warrior is finished."

Chapter Fifteen.

Veil rose to his feet and glanced around them, while Reyna continued crawling on her hands and knees along a bare patch of ground where there were many footprints. Throughout the day, mourners had cast hostile glances at the man and woman who acted strange and carried a noisy tape recorder. However, it was not annoyed mourners that concerned Veil; once, just before noon, he'd caught the glint of metal where the bright sunlight had shafted down through a gap in a heavily wooded area with no graves. He had the strong feeling that they were being watched, and it did not surprise him. After the incident at the construction site he knew that anyone with a map, ruler, and a modic.u.m of intelligence could at least guess that the K'ung prince was heading southeast, even if his destination was unclear. Veil expected any number of hunters in the field before nightfall.

"Who were you talking with on the phone last night?" Reyna asked without looking up from the ground.

"Victor Raskolnikov and a couple of other friends," Veil answered absently as he continued to study the surrounding woods and the small field of grave markers, which they were now searching. "One's a doctor, and the other's a pilot and a mercenary. They're going to deliver Toby and the Nal-toon back to the Kalahari. Victor's financing the operation."

"Oh, Veil," Reyna said, glancing up at him. She was crying but with joy. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

Veil shrugged. "We can't take Toby anywhere unless we find him."

"How will they do it?"

"In stages. First he'll be flown over the border into either Canada or Mexicoa"it hasn't been decided which yet, and that decision rests on a couple of other factors. If the doctor can patch him up, he'll be given false travel doc.u.ments and put on a plane to Botswana. Otherwise, Walrusa"the pilota"will deliver Toby himself. Your missionary friends have already been contacted, and they're taking care of business at the other end."

Reyna got to her feet, walked over to Veil, and hugged him. "Thank you," she said simply.

"Don't thank me yet. We have to get Toby to Flushing Airport. Right now that fifteen miles might as well be fifteen thousand. Have you found anything?"

"Not here. I'm pretty sure he's behind us."

"If you do find spoor, don't react. I think we've got company."

"I know. I saw a couple of them. They're waiting for us to deliver the goods, aren't they?"

"Of course. How did you read them? Cops or crooks?"

"I think crooks."

"Agreed. Cops would handle it differently." Veil held Reyna out at arm's length and smiled. "You're holding up beautifully."

Reyna grinned shyly. "What else is there to do?"

"Nothing. I'm just telling you that you're special."

"Thanks. My biggest concern right now is that Toby will try to circle around through the streets tonight."

"Because he'll see that this is a bottleneck?"

"Yes. And he'll sense the presence of the mena"if they're still here tonight."

Veil glanced at his watch. "It will be dark in a couple of hours, so it's time for us to lose our observers. We'll walk back up to the other end of the cemetery, then go out and get something to eat. Keep talking to him. Lay it on the line, Reyna. Make it short and sweet. If he doesn't come to us tonight, it's all over."

Veil worked quickly in the darkness, stooping and opening the canvas sack he had brought back with him. Inside was a three-hundred-yard length of strong twine to which tiny bells had been attached at twenty-yard intervals. Twine and bells had been stained black.

Both Veil and Reyna had covered their exposed flesh with mud.

Avoiding the patches of bright moonlight that fell through the trees, Veil went to the far edge of the cemetery. He tied one end of the twine around a tree trunk, then worked his way back. Within twenty minutes he had strung the entire width of the bottleneck.

Veil took both of Reyna's hands in his. "a.s.suming Toby finally decides to do things the easy way, do you think he can find us?"

"I don't know, Veil."

"Well, we can't use the recorder or have you call out anymore, because we don't know who else might be listening. So we'll have to do it the hard way, if necessary. You stay here, and I'll go out along the line about a hundred yards. When and if he does come through here, he should hit that string. He's sick and weak, so I should be able to sit on him before he can stick me with anything."

"Veil, you have to be so careful. If he even nicks you with one of those arrows . . ."

"You let me worry about it. And I'm in charge now, so you'll do exactly as I say. No matter what you hear, you stay put. I'm the only one who reacts to anything. For one thing, somebody other than Toby might trip the line. I don't want you shot. And speaking of shots, if you hear any gunfire, you get the h.e.l.l out of here. There'll be nothing more you can do, and I'll meet you at the car. You understand?"

"Veil, I can't justa""

"You'll do as I say, Reyna. End of discussion."

Veil knelt beside a tree and stared out over a moonlit expanse of grave markers, listening for the tinkle of bells and thinking of the other men who were undoubtedly close by, also watching and listening. He was going to have to be fast, Veil thought. And lucky.

Suddenly the line shook, and there was the sound of bells. To his left.

"Hey!" a man shouted. "There's some kind of line strung across here!"

Veil sprinted silently through the trees. He had gone fifty yards when a figure lurched out at him from behind a tree, to his right.

"I've gota"" the man managed to shout before Veil broke his neck. The revolver in the man's hand went off, shattering the stillness.

"Reyna, it's over!" Veil shouted as he picked up the dead man's gun and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans. "They're all over the place! Get out of here!"

He was answered by a fusillade of bullets that ripped through the leaves and branches around him and thudded into the tree trunks.

"Veil? Are you all right?"

"Be quiet! Get out of here! Run!"

There were more shots. Veil ducked and cursed when he heard Reyna call out what he a.s.sumed was a warning in K'ung.

There was an answering crya"a distant, ululating, banshee howl that filled the void of night like a physical presence and seemed to come from all directions at once; it began as a low, quavering moan, then abruptly climbed the scale to a warbling, high-pitched scream broken by clicks.

The strange, chilling cry was repeated once, and in the deep, prolonged silence that followed, it was as if time had been stopped.

That silence was broken by Reyna's startled scream of terror.

"Don't hurt her!" Veil shouted as he ran toward the sound of Reyna's voice. "I'm coming out!"

"Veil, stay away!"