Bunduki (Bunduki Series Book One) (18 page)

Almost before the last note of Dawn’s
call died away, nearly drowning the startled exclamation which came
from very close behind her, she heard an explosive ‘whoof’ not far
in front of her.

It was the sound made by a black
rhinoceros that had been disturbed!

There was a crackling of broken
foliage and the bushes
ahead of Dawn were agitated violently as the huge
beast lurched to its feet.

As its kind always did when surprised,
disturbed or alarmed, the rhinoceros rushed forward. Pure chance
directed it towards the girl. She knew that it was not making a
deliberate charge, but merely trying to escape and avoid contact
with whatever creature had caused the unexpected noise. For all
that, its actions were just as dangerous as if it was meaning to
attack her.

Despite the trail having widened
slightly, Dawn knew that there was not sufficient room for her to
spring aside at the last moment and allow the beast to blunder by.
Nor would turning and running away by of any greater use. Even if
the Mun-Gatah had not been blocking her retreat, the rhinoceros was
capable of much greater speed than she could attain.

Discarding
the idea of flight, Dawn took
the only action which was left to her. Darting forward as if to
meet the onrushing black rhinoceros, she watched until its head
dropped ready to hook up at her. Timing the move perfectly, she
leapt high into the air. Spreading her legs apart, she passed over
the long anterior horn as it jerked upwards. Her hands slapped on
to the huge beast’s back and helped to thrust her onwards almost as
if she was playing leapfrog. Aided by her own and the animal’s
forward momentum, she was propelled over its rump to land on the
ground.

There was a startled yell from
somewhere to the girl’s
rear as she ran forward the few steps needed to
let her regain her equilibrium. Another furious snort burst from
the rhinoceros, followed by a piercing and agony-filled human
scream. Having recovered control of her movements, she came to a
halt and spun around. She found that the eagle’s attendant must
have dashed around the curve of the game trail and straight into
the path of the enormous animal.

Having missed the first object of its
wrath, the rhinoceros did not bother to differentiate between Dawn
and the Mun-Gatah. Instead, its horn had been lowered and snapped
upwards with all its might. Taking him between the thighs, the
solid mass of hard-packed fibers sank into the man’s body. Blood
gushed from the wound as he was thrown over the animal’s head.
Although he landed on and bounced helplessly from the beast’s back,
the rhinoceros did not attempt to turn. Instead, it continued to
rush straight ahead, shattering a way through the undergrowth as
though the foliage did not exist.

Dawn looked at the man and knew that
he was beyond any human aid. Then she glanced around in the hope of
locating his sword. As its scabbard was empty, he must have been
carrying the weapon. In which case, as it was nowhere to be seen,
it must have left his hand when he was tossed and landed among the
bushes. Concluding that trying to find it would be a waste of time,
she turned and walked onwards.

On reaching the fringe of the bushes,
after having had to wind about due to the vagaries of the trail,
Dawn paused to survey her surroundings before emerging. She looked
to the right without finding anything to disturb her. However, as
her gaze turned in the opposite direction, she discovered that the
smaller of the women and one of the men were sitting their zebras
about two hundred yards away. They had either found a way through,
or had passed around the end of the bushes and were now scanning
the edge in search of her.

Deciding that she had not decoyed her
pursuers far enough away from the injured Telonga hunter, Dawn
ignored her first impulse to withdraw into the comparative safety
of the bushes. Instead, she walked out in a cautious manner. It
would, she hoped, lead the couple to believe that she was unaware
of their presence. The land ahead was still fairly open. However,
beyond a small stream which she suspected might be the one that had
supplied the means to bandage At-Vee’s sprained ankle, the trees
began to grow more closely together.

‘
There she is!’ shrieked the
woman. ‘Mador! Elidor! She’s between us!’

‘
Stupid bitch!’ Dawn
thought, as the excited words reached her ears.

Chanak was uttering a similar
sentiment, although—because of his companion’s relationship with
the Protectress of the Quagga God—he too did not put it into words.
What annoyed him was the fact that Sabart’s shout would do more
than just warn the foreign girl that she had been seen. It would
also bring the High Priest’s adherents onto the scene. They had not
yet come into sight at the other end of the bushes and, but for
Sabart’s stupidity, might not have appeared until after the quarry
had been captured.

Acting as she believed the Mun-Gatahs
would expect of her, Dawn started to run. She had already gained
some ground on her pursuers. So she went at a swift lope which
would allow her to carry on for a long distance, or to increase
speed if necessary. Hearing the sound of hooves and voices to her
right, she chanced a glance in that direction. At a somewhat
greater distance than the small woman and her companion, the
brunette and another of the men were turning from around the end of
the bushes.

Coming to the stream, Dawn
built up her speed and leapt across. On landing, she continued to
run. Weaving through the trees, she found that she could hear
enough
to
make it unnecessary to look back at her pursuers. They were coming
closer, but not sufficiently so for her to feel any alarm. In fact,
if the cursing which occasionally reached her ears meant anything,
now they had passed over the stream, the men were finding
increasing difficulty in moving through the denser
growth.

Having covered about another quarter
of a mile, Dawn decided that she had created enough of a diversion.
The terrain was becoming more densely overgrown and she guessed
that she must be approaching the transitory zone between the
woodland and the jungle. If the Mun-Gatahs lost her, they might be
disinclined to continue the search. Living as they did on the open
plains, they could even be afraid of getting lost if they
penetrated any deeper into such an alien environment. In which
case, they would most likely take the easiest way out and return
along their tracks. If so, they would miss finding any trace of her
meeting with At-Vee and she would have achieved her
purpose.

Fortune appeared to be continuing to
smile on Dawn. Ahead, a tree had started to fall for some reason.
It had been prevented from doing so by its crown having become
entangled with the foliage of a neighbor. Leaning at an angle, it
offered her the means by which she could travel as she had been
taught—and had frequently practiced—in her tomboy childhood. What
was more, although at least some of her pursuers were fairly close,
a glance to her rear informed her that she was hidden from their
view. In which case, she ought to be able to make a complete
disappearance.

Alert for shouts, or anything
else that would suggest she had been seen, Dawn ran up the inclined
trunk. She went with the agility of a cat, but was not sorry that
she had left her bow and quiver of arrows with At-Vee. Useful as
they undoubtedly would have been if it had come to a fight, they
would have made climbing and the mode of progression that she was
contemplating very
difficult. On reaching the branches of the supporting tree
without having heard anything to disturb her, she prepared to
continue her flight in a way which she felt sure would baffle the
Mun-Gatahs. Even if she could not go very far, she believed it
would suffice for her needs.

As always when about to start
travelling through the branches, Dawn found herself thinking with
wry amusement of how this particular activity had invariably been
portrayed in the fictitious movies about Tarzan. If she could only
find a succession of conveniently positioned vines, everything
would be so much easier. Unfortunately that mode of passage through
the trees had never existed outside a movie production unit’s
sets.
^xxxiv

With the thought come and gone, for
she would need all her wits about her, the girl ran along a sturdy
branch until she felt it bending under her weight. While doing so,
she studied the nearest tree and selected a suitable place to
alight. Then, making use of the bough’s springiness, she leapt
forward. On arriving in the next tree, she deftly regained her
balance and darted to its trunk. Mounting higher, she picked out a
limb which would allow her to reach the foliage of the neighboring
tree.

Although effective in allowing Dawn to
move without leaving tracks on the ground, her passage through the
lower terraces of the jungle was of necessity a noisy process. She
had to crash through the leaves, breaking twigs and small branches
to attain a safe point of arrival. So she stopped in the third tree
and found a position from which she could see the
ground.

From all appearances, the two
parties had not yet come together. While the smaller woman and her
companion were already passing the partially fallen tree, there was
no sign of the second couple. Dawn found that
she could see the first pair
and, although she could not hear what they were saying, guessed
that they had been attracted by the noise she had been making as
she moved onwards through the branches. They were staring upwards,
paying more attention to the foliage than the ground. The man had
either lost, or discarded, his lance, for he no longer had it with
him. The woman was looking nervously upwards, alternating the
scrutiny with glances darted from side to side at the bushes and
tree trunks.

Passing around the bole of the tree,
Dawn found that it was on the edge of a small clearing. Measuring
the distance to be crossed, she decided that she ought to be able
to leap over. There was a convenient, sturdy branch that she could
catch hold of and, by using simple brachiation, swing from it to a
more secure perch.

After a moment’s thought, the
girl considered that the chance might be worth taking. Once in the
other tree, she would give the distress call of a
she-Mangani.
There was just a
slight chance that Bunduki would hear and identify it. In which
case, he would come as quickly as possible to her aid. Even if he
did not, the cry might serve a useful purpose. From the look of the
woman, she was already nervous. Hearing the far from pleasant
scream emanating out of the foliage, she and her companions might
be frightened into turning back.

Once again utilizing the resilience of
the branch along which she was advancing as a means of added
propulsion, Dawn threw herself forward and up as if diving from a
spring board. As she was flying through the air, she thrust her
arms ahead of her. Just before her hands—with the fingers bent and
the thumbs tucked in out of the way—came into contact with the
branch, she saw a slight movement on it.

It was a snake!

Dawn did not have any
unreasoning fear of reptiles, but she had a very sensible caution
regarding some of them. She knew that out of the 2,300 species of
living
snakes, divided into twelve families, only about a third
were poisonous to a greater or lesser degree. Of those which were
venomous, a mere seven-per-cent were capable of causing death to a
human being. However, despite the odds favoring the snake being
harmless, she felt disinclined to take the chance. Nor could she
prevent the involuntary withdrawal of her left hand, which would
have descended on to the reptile.

Although the girl’s right fingers
hooked over the branch clear of the snake, she had been thrown off
balance. Swinging by the one arm, she felt her grasp slipping. Then
her head struck the limb a glancing blow, but it was sufficient to
stun her. Losing her hold, she toppled into the denser foliage
below her. It began to bend under her limp and unresisting
weight.

Down and down Dawn went. Although
vaguely aware of the predicament she was in, her mind refused to
function. In a way, her dazed state was fortunate. If she had tried
to halt her progress, she could easily have made things worse.
Instead, she was tumbling limply and with her body yielding rather
than trying to resist when it came up against the
branches.

Dropping the final ten feet, the girl
was lucky in that she came down on a thick layer of leaves and
moss. Being so relaxed, the worse effects of the fall were broken.
For all that, her landing jarred all the breath from her body.
After a brief period when everything appeared to explode into a
brilliant burst of colors, blackness descended like a cloud over
her and she lay still.

Having heard the commotion as
Dawn fell and noticing the silence that followed it, Sabart and
Chanak advanced in a wary and watchful fashion. As yet, Elidor and
Mador had not caught up with them. Nor did they offer to wait until
the High Priest’s adherents could do so. Chanak had discarded his
lance soon after crossing the stream, having found it more of a
hindrance while passing through the denser growth, especially as he
wanted
to
keep ahead of the other two. So he was riding with his sword
unsheathed and in his right hand.