Free Hunted by Lindsay Buroker

tried to sit up, but failed to rise an
inch. Hands forced her shoulders down, and something across her
legs pinned them to the ground.
    Darkness still blanketed the forest, but she
figured out what was going on. Cedar had gone to investigate the
other camp, and Sebastian was taking the moment to truss her up
for...whatever stupid plan he had now.
    She writhed and bucked in the blankets,
though only to disguise her real goal: she found the two smoke nuts
in her pockets and yanked them free.
    “Hurry, pick her up,” Sebastian
whispered.
    Trying to be quiet was he? He must fear Cedar
would hear and return. Good.
    Now if Cedar’s fancy blanket weren’t
constricting her almost as much as her assailants, she might be
able to do something. The men—at least four of them—hefted her into
the air with the Euklisia Rug still tangled about her. She gripped
a smoke nut in each hand, thumbs poised to press up on the trigger
tabs.
    “In the tent?” a man with a guttural accent
rasped.
    They started moving her, stumbling over the
rocky ground as they went. Maybe they would be more distracted
now.
    “No, we don’t want her lover to be able to
get to her,” Sebastian said. “We need to—argh!”
    Kali grinned fiercely as she bit down on his
hand, glad he was the one who’d sport tooth marks. He snarled and
let go.
    “Cedar!” she bellowed.
    One of the hands gripping her shoulder let go
to reach for her mouth. The maneuver dipped her down, so her head
almost cracked against the rocks.
    Sensing she had her moment, Kali yanked her
arms from beneath the blanket, flicked a trigger tab, and dropped
one of the smoke nuts. She twisted and used her free hand to grab
the closest thing to her face. A belt. Perfect.
    Something slammed into her back. She almost
dropped her second smoke nut, but she managed to yank on the belt
and stuff the device down the owner’s trousers.
    Unfortunately, she was as close to the smoke
weapons as the men. Kali burrowed back into the cocoon of blankets,
squeezed her eyes shut, and dug for the knife at her belt.
    “What did she—”
    “Damn it, move!” Sebastian yelled. “It’s one
of her things!”
    Whoever held her legs dropped them. Kali
thrashed, though she made sure not to leave the padded shelter of
the blankets. The last man with a grip on her lost it, and she hit
the ground, a hard nodule gouging into her side. She rolled away,
not wanting to smother her own artillery.
    She did not hear the click that heralded the
release of the metallic shards, but yelps of pain told the story.
Though she was rolling away as fast as she could, several
projectiles struck the side of her blanket. A couple burrowed
through the material and her clothing, slicing into her skin. It
was not as bad as it would have been if she had no padding though,
and she scampered out of the blankets without permanent damage.
    Smoke from the weapon stung her eyes. In the
darkness, she struggled to see what was happening, but angry shouts
of “It got me!” and “Get it out!” told her where people were.
Agonized screams came from the man who had taken the projectile in
the pants. Given these thugs’ goals, she could feel little
remorse.
    Kali patted about, looking for her rifle.
They must have taken it. She could not find her packsack—her tools! —either. Damn Sebastian. He must have moved all her
belongings first. Damn her heavy sleep too.
    Knowing the smoke nuts would not buy her
indefinite time, she scrambled away from the camp. All the fires
along the shoreline had gone out, and clouds hid the stars and the
moon. Only the sound of the river helped her navigate. Though she
was on the wrong side of the waterway, she headed in the direction
of the Wilder camp, hoping Cedar had heard the commotion and was
coming to help.
    “Which way’d she go?” one of the men behind
her snarled.
    Kali kept running, not bothering with
stealth. The pained curses of the most injured man pierced the
night, and concerned calls from other