Bunduki (Bunduki Series Book One) (23 page)

Letting out a strangled gasp, Elidor
folded over at the waist. Linking her fingers, Dawn swung them as
if wielding a baseball bat. Her knuckles caught the side of the
woman’s head. Twirling around, Elidor crashed to and rolled over on
the floor.

‘
Stop her!’ Dryaka ordered,
as Dawn went after her opponent.

Running forward, the two women grabbed
the girl by the arms from behind. They were strong enough to
restrain her. Nor did she struggle too hard, believing that the
fight was over. However, having halted on her hands and knees,
Elidor forced herself erect. For a moment, she stood swaying on
spread apart feet. Then she stumbled forward with her hands crooked
like talons.

Bracing herself against the two
women’s grasp, Dawn swung her legs from the floor. The soles of her
bare feet lashed up to meet Elidor’s jaw. Back snapped the woman’s
head and her charge turned into an even more rapid retreat.
Twirling helplessly, she collapsed face foremost on the table which
buckled under her weight. She made an involuntary attempt to rise,
then slumped forward and lay still.

The women threw Dawn to the floor
before she could return her feet to it. Already breathing hard from
her exertions, the landing winded her and she flopped limply.
However, before the women could do anything more to her, Dryaka
barked an order for them to leave her alone.

‘
Go and attend to Elidor,’
the High Priest ordered. ‘Then bring water and food for the foreign
girl.’

Waiting until the women had taken
Elidor by the arms and dragged her into the kitchen section of the
pavilion, Dryaka turned his gaze to Dawn. She was already sitting
up and he studied her with satisfaction. Despite the failure to
obtain her bow and arrows, he felt sure that she would serve his
original purpose. If she could defeat Elidor while her wrists were
shackled together, she would have a good chance against Charole
with her hands free. Except that the end would be different. When
Dawn fought against the Protectress, it would be to the
death.

The
Protectress of the Quagga God was in
anything but a pleasant mood as she rode alone across the plains
about two miles from the Mun-Gatahs’ hunting camp in the late
afternoon.

Ever since Charole had watched—through
a slit specially made in the wall of her pavilion tent’s sleeping
quarters—Elidor’s party returning with the foreign girl as their
prisoner, she had been filled with an ever-growing sense of
annoyance and perturbation. Not even receiving the news that Dawn
had defeated the High Priest’s main female adherent in a fight
despite having had her wrists secured by a pair of hobbles, made
the Protectress feel any better.

On being told Mador’s version
of the hunt for the foreign girl, Charole had not been surprised to
hear that her half-sister’s party had separated from the other
faction. So, although she was puzzled by Sabart and Chanak allowing
their rivals to take the
grar-gatah
belonging to the dead eagle’s attendant, she had
no suspicion of foul play having been done nor did she fear that
her supporters would not be coming back.

Just about the only consolation
Charole was able to draw from the situation was in thinking of
Dryaka’s disappointment over his party’s failure to bring the
girl’s bow and arrows with them. Although he had not referred to
the weapons when sending the party after their owner, the
Protectress had guessed that he wanted to lay his hands upon
them.

Wanting to avoid having to put
up with the High
Priest’s smug satisfaction, Charole had anticipated his
invitation to go and see the prisoner by taking her quagga and
leaving the camp. She knew where to find a party of her supporters
who were hunting and was heading for them. However, she was
grateful for the opportunity to ride alone as it gave her time to
think. She was aware of the threat to her position. After the
failure of her eagle, and of Ragbuf and Sabart’s party, the people
might start to believe that she was no longer in the Quagga God’s
favor.

Something had to be done to restore
her prestige, Charole told herself. The problem she must solve was
what should she do? It would, she realized, have to be something
important or spectacular to off-set her string of misfortunes and
failures. Dryaka was building up too much superiority for anything
of a trivial nature to bring her back level with him.

Thinking of the High Priest’s recent
successes brought up another matter upon which Charole had not been
able to gain any enlightenment. She was very curious about the
reason for him being called back to the camp the previous day. With
his interest in the foreign girl and her weapons, only a matter of
considerable importance would have made him leave the hunt for the
girl in his adherents’ hands. Although Charole was aware that his
recall was connected with Zongaffa, that was the extent of her
knowledge.

Despite all her efforts, Charole had
not yet been able to find out what it was that the aged herbalist
had discovered. All she could be sure of was that Dryaka regarded
it as being of the greatest importance. However, she had recently
been fortunate enough to have obtained the services of one of the
High Priest’s serving-women. So, even if she could not gain
possession of the secret, she had hopes of solving the mystery that
surrounded it.

Having become engrossed in her
thoughts, Charole was almost oblivious of her surroundings and far
less
alert
than usual. She was passing along the bottom of a valley and
approaching a fairly sharp bend. The gentle slopes on either side
were generously coated with large clumps of bushes, some of which
effectively concealed what lay around the curve. All in all, it was
not the kind of terrain through which she would normally have
ridden in such an incautious fashion.

The folly of the Protectress’s
behavior was brought home to her in no uncertain manner. If she had
been less deeply involved in her thoughts, she would have heard and
been warned by various sounds which were emanating from the valley
beyond the bend.

Suddenly, when Charole was about a
hundred yards from the curve, something huge and black came dashing
from beyond it. Slammed out of her reverie, she realized that she
was confronted by just about the worst kind of animal with which
she could have come into contact under the
circumstances.

The Protectress’s quagga stallion was
a good mount. Fast, agile, possessing stamina of a high order,
under most conditions it was steady and completely trustworthy.
However, there was one creature which terrified it and with good
cause. During its training as a combined hunting-and war-charger,
it had been attacked by a bull buffalo. Although it had not been
gored or even seriously injured, despite having been thrown, the
fright which it had received had made it unreliable in the presence
of such an animal.

Already being pursued by the party of
hunters whom Charole was meaning to join, the enormous bull buffalo
took the gravest exception to finding its path being blocked by yet
another rider. Letting out a thunderous bellow, it tossed the
great, fifty-eight-inch span of its massive curved horns and rushed
onwards with the intention of removing the latest and closest of
its human foes.

Unfortunately for Charole, the
realization of her peril came just a moment too late.

Letting out a startled scream at the
sight of what it regarded as being a mortal enemy, the previously
well-behaved quagga displayed its antipathy. Its erstwhile
leisurely walking gait changed abruptly into a rearing pivot and
lunge away from the source of its terror.

Such was the violence of the quagga’s
panic-induced reaction and the change in its motions that Charole,
taken completely unawares, was unable to counter them. Nor,
excellent rider though she was, could she avert the disaster which
befell her.

Slipping backwards as the quagga
reared, the Protectress began to tighten her legs so that she would
not slide over the cantle. While she succeeded, the turning
movement tilted her to the right and as her mount started to run
the propulsion of its hindquarters’ powerful thrust dislodged her.
Instinctively kicking her left leg free as she felt herself being
thrown from the saddle, she found to her dismay that her right foot
had become entangled with the stirrup iron. So, while she had just
enough coordination to break some of the force with which she hit
the ground, she could not prevent herself from being dragged along
as her mount bolted. Nor, with the buffalo thundering after them,
was there any likelihood of the quagga heeding the gasped out
commands to stop that she was giving it.

From behind the clump of bushes, where
he had halted and taken cover when Charole first came into view,
Bunduki watched what was happening. Although—even dressed as he
was—he had no wish to come into contact with a member of the
Mun-Gatah nation, he realized that the woman was in deadly peril
and needed help.

After having spent a restless,
anxious and worrying night, the blond giant had set out to find his
adoptive cousin as soon as day had broken. He had killed a
bush-buck before parting from Joar-Fane and At-Vee, leaving them
with sufficient meat to last until the hunter’s ankle
was healed.
Promising that he would return if he was successful in his bid to
locate and rescue Dawn, he had made preparations for the
quest.

Having learned from At-Vee that the
Mun-Gatahs lived on the open plains, along with such other details
as the hunter could supply to augment the scanty information
already given by Joar-Fane, Bunduki had appreciated the
difficulties of tracking Dawns captors without being seen. That
would apply particularly as he intended to make use of the zebras
which had belonged to Joar-Fane’s late pursuers.

Returning to the clearing where the
fight had taken place, the blond giant had removed the garments
from the man whose back he had broken. He had known that his blond
hair and lighter skin would give him away, so he had also donned
his victim’s sleeveless over-tunic with the rearing quagga
insignia. According to At-Vee, members of the People-Taker’s
escorts always wore them. With its cowl drawn up, it would conceal
his hair and face more effectively than one of the leather helmets.
The corpse’s greaves and sandals, although the former were a rather
tight fit, had completed the disguise.

The next problem to be faced had been
that of armament. When discussing his plan with the Telonga couple,
Bunduki had reluctantly concluded that he could not take along his
bow and arrows if he wanted his disguise to serve its purpose. The
Mun-Gatahs never used such weapons. Even if they had, the bows
would not have been like the blond giant’s fiber glass Bear Super
Kodiak. If the Mun-Gatah saw what appeared to be a member of their
nation armed in such a fashion it would arouse interest, if not
outright suspicion, which it was important that he should
avoid.

Having given the matter some
thought and talked it over with At-Vee, Bunduki had decided to
restrict his weapons to the Smithsonian bowie knife and the spears
that were hanging from the three zebras’ saddles. He had
examined one of
them and felt sure he could use it effectively if the need arose.
So he had left Dawn’s and his bows with the two Telongas. As At-Vee
had disclaimed all knowledge of archery, although some of his
people’s hunters practiced it, the blond giant had unstrung both of
the bows.

Setting off upstream in the
direction from which At-Vee had heard Dawn give the distress call
of a she-Man
gani,
Bunduki had ridden one of the
ocha-gatahs
and led the other and the
banar-gatah.
That had been less
difficult than he had anticipated as all of the animals were used
to being handled in such a fashion. He had found Dawn’s and her
pursuers’ tracks, following them to the clearing in which she had
been captured. The patches of dried blood on the ground had been
sufficiently disturbing for him to have investigated the bushes
around and he had found the two bodies. Realizing that Dawn could
not have inflicted the injuries, particularly as the corpses’
zebras had been slaughtered in the hiding place, he had deduced
what must have happened.

Following the signs left by
Dawn and her captors, Bunduki had found the third of Charole’s
murdered supporters along with his dead
banar-gatah.
The discovery had increased the blond
giant’s deep concern for his adoptive cousin’s welfare. Even
without the stories told by the Telonga couple, he realized that
the Mun-Gatahs were a ruthless race who had small regard for the
sanctity of human life.

Pressing on at the best speed
his acquired mounts could manage, Bunduki rode relay on the
two
ocha-gatahs.
He was reserving the
banar-gatah,
which was superior in quality, to be
used in case of an emergency.

Reading the tracks had been
somewhat easier out on the plains and the blond giant was making
good time. For all that, the party he was following had had such a
lead, he had not caught even a distant glimpse of them. The tracks
appeared to be heading towards some smoke
which was rising a long way ahead,
but he was disinclined to take the chance that it was their
destination and he continued following the trail.