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guiding him this way with stabs of beamer power to see what he could flush up.
Whatever his intent, he had upset the plans of the person sneaking up on Anana. He had also upset
Anana, who, hearing the frantic yowls approaching her with great speed, could not resist raising her head
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just high enough to see what was happening.
Kickaha wanted to take another quick look behind him, but he did not have time. He rose, bent the
bow and released the shaft just as something dark reared up a little way above the grass about forty feet
from Anana. It was dressed in black and had a black helmet with a dark faceplate, just like the helmets
with visors that the Los Angeles motorcyclists wore. The man held the stock of a short-barreled beamer
to his shoulder.
At the same time, the wolf ran howling by, the flames leaping off onto the dry grass and the grass
catching fire. The arrow streaked across the space between the trees and the edge of the clearing, the
sun sparkling off the metal head. It struck the man just under the left arm, which was raised to hold the
barrel of the beamer. The arrow bounced off, but the man, although protected by some sort of flexible
armor, was knocked over by the impact of the arrow.
The beamer fell out of his hands. Since it had just been turned on, it cut a fiery tunnel through the
grass. It also cut off the front legs of the wolf, which fell down howling but became silent as the beam
sliced through its body. The fire, originating from the two sources, quickly spread. Smoke poured out,
but Kickaha could see that Anana had not been hit and that she was crawling swiftly through the grass
toward the fallen man and the beamer.
Kickaha whirled then, drawing another arrow from the quiver and starting to set it to the bowstring.
He saw the tall figure of the man lean from around behind the trunk of a tree. A hand beamer was
sticking out, pointing toward Kickaha. Kickaha jumped behind his tree and crouched, knowing that he
could not get off an arrow swiftly or accurately enough.
There was a burning odor, a thump. He looked up. The beam had cut through the trunk, and the
upper part of the tree had dropped straight down for two inches, its smoothly chopped butt against the
top of the stump.
Kickaha stepped to the left side of the tree and shot with all the accuracy of thousands of hours of
practice under deliberately difficult conditions and scores of hours in combat. The arrow was so close to
the tree, it was deflected by the slightest contact. It zoomed off, just missing the arm of the man holding
the beamer. The beamer withdrew as the man jumped back. And then the tree above Kickaha fell over,
pulled to one side by the unevenness of the branches' weight. It came down on Kickaha, who jumped
back and so escaped the main weight of the trunk. But a branch struck him, and everything became as
black and unknowing as the inside of a tree.
When he saw light again, he also saw that not much time had passed. The sun had not moved far. His
head hurt as if a root had grown into it and was entangled with the most sensitive nerves. A branch
pressed down his chest, and his legs felt as if another branch was weighing them down. He could move
his arms a little to one side and turn his head, but otherwise he was as unable to move as if he were
buried under a landslide.
Smoke drifted by and made him cough. Flames crackled, and he could feel some heat on the bottom
of his feet. The realization that he might burn to death sent him into a frenzy of motion. The result was that
his head hurt even more and he had not been able to get out from under the branches at all.
He thought of the others. What had happened to Anana? Why wasn't she here trying to get him free?
And the man who had severed the tree? Was he sneaking up now, not sure that he had hit the archer?
And then there was the man in black he'd knocked down with the arrow and the person across the
clearing who had set fire to the wolf and precipitated the action. Where were they? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]