Hunted

Chapter 24: Battle on Chanos

The golden sun that Chanos revolved around had yet to rise, but dawn was close enough to breaking that the eastern half of the sky had gone from black at its apex, through varying shades of purple, to deep blue near the horizon. A soft breeze wafted through the trees and off the tents of the Chanok, as if gently whispering to the sleepy little village that it was time to come to life.

Three tents away from Haley's temporary home, a man named Kelres was going through a repetitive cycle of motion as he tried to wake up. He would lift his eyelids slowly, only managing to get them half open, then let them fall back down. He knew he had a big day ahead gathering corn, but he wanted to steal just another ten minutes of sleep. Rolling over, he tried his eyes again, and smiled lazily as the lids started to drift downward, happy they made the decision he was reluctant to make. A troubled scowl crossed his face as he thought for a second, a flash of movement having just barely caught his attention. When his brain registered how odd it would be for him to see motion in his tent, he opened his eyes suddenly. Seeing he was alone, he went back to sleep.

Madoo's eyes were fluttering open about the same time Kelres was falling back into slumber. She blinked a few times, listening to the soft sound of her husband's breathing. Suddenly, over her shoulder, she saw a man as clearly as she had seen anything in her life. He was tall and broad, wearing a gray bodysuit and a helmet with a tinted visor which hid his face. The only other thing she had time to notice was that he was carrying a weapon of some sort, one which was roughly shaped like a rifle. As quickly as she could blink her eyes one more time and ask herself if she was seeing things, he was gone. Shaken and unsure whether her mind was on the brink, Madoo did the only thing which seemed sensible at that particular moment. Madoo screamed.

Jack Haley sat up with a start, being yanked from an unpleasant dream by the scream from the next tent. The dream was forgotten instantly, and he didn't have time to bother with wondering why the woman was shouting. All that mattered in that instant was the man in the gray bodysuit leveling a pulse rifle at him. There was no time to ask questions, no last requests. They had found him, and they were calling the game. End of story. The man pulled the trigger.

Haley didn't close his eyes, didn't even flinch. He just sat there, numb, ready to take the shot and then to die. But the blow he waited for never fell, and the only man dropping hard to the ground was the assassin.

It had happened so quickly that Haley had to put it together deductively after the fact, even though he had seen it. One of the Lumen had arrived out of the void they called home. It had met the pulse rifle blast halfway to Haley, and it not only survived it, but seemed to absorb it, glowing a bit brighter after the shot struck it. Then it darted toward the stunned, would-be killer, boring through his chest as neatly and easily as the pulse rifle shot would have sliced through Haley. When it was over, the Lumen hovered above the man's body, as if waiting for Haley to pet it like a dog and tell it it had done well.

Haley heard another scream, then a growing tumult of confused conversation and questioning shouts. If the scream had come from Chelle or Ando he might have gone to help immediately, but he could tell it wasn't them. Besides, there wasn't anything he could do that the Lumen already couldn't. Except, perhaps, explain.

He went to the fallen warrior, and saw a shudder passed through him. Haley was surprised that the man wasn't dead, but he knew that wouldn't be the case for long. He snapped the visor back sharply, and for a moment was taken aback. If a harsh face with a scar and a wicked grimace had been peering up at him, he would have moved on relentlessly, would have grabbed the man harshly by his suit and demanded information. But this man was almost painfully handsome and young-he couldn't be more than twenty-five-and he had the sort of clean-cut appearance that a father liked to see when a young gentleman came calling on his daughter. What's more, the only emotion on that face wasn't bitterness or hate, it was fear. This man was afraid of dying. Only at that moment did Haley fully understand that his enemies weren't mysterious gods, they were human beings, and along with that realization came the understanding that seeing a man die, any man, was a hard thing. All he had been through so far, all he had seen, hadn't delivered that message as clearly as the scared, utterly desperate look on this ironically angelic face.