Free Fire Country by David Estes Page B

Eight
     
    N ot Cotees, but Killers. It’s a big pack, too—I try to count them but keep getting confused ’cause they’re moving so fast, flitting in and out of various formations as they rush toward the Hunters. Their movements are practiced. Professional. Twenty is my best guess. A big pack.
    Four-legged, w ith fur as black as night, long, lanky bodies full of muscle and speed, and claws and teeth that can rip and tear through muscle, tendon and bone without discretion, Killers, as their name suggests, are the ultimate killing machines. They’re animals, like Cotees, but a whole scorch of a lot bigger and scarier—smarter too, always planning and plotting.
    The spectators on the bluff, comprised of women, Younglings, and the few odd men who are too infirm to participate in the Hunt, are jabbering a mile a moment, some screaming, some waving their hands, all on their feet. Scared. Like me.
    Circ.
    The Hunters can see the Killers now, too, even from their lower vantage point, that’s how close they are. My eyes flick to the black death squad and then back to the Hunters, who are reassembling themselves, trying to form their own pack, but it’s clear they don’t know what to do. Never in broad daylight. Never so many.
    My mind racing, I estimate the distance. At their current speed, the Killers are less’n five desert sprints away, as the crow flies, maybe less.
    Circ’s down there. Will he be killed if I do nothing? I don’t know, but I can’t do nothing, it ain’t physically possible for me to sit and watch as he’s torn apart by rabid beasts.
    I have no time to think, and anyway, thinking’s not my skil l. Nothing’s my skill really, ’cept my speed, and what good’s that ever done me?
    My broken arm throbs, as if a reminder.
    With no other choice, I give myself over to my legs, knowing full well what a stupid decision it is.
    As I dart across the bluff, I see a few startled eyes following me, probably thinking I’m headed back to the village to get help. But I know there’s no help there. Anyone capable of helping is here, and I’m not seeing any of the other women or Younglings in a hurry to do a searin’ thing, so that leaves me. Scrawny. Runty. But fast.
    I cut hard to the right, into a narrow passage that slices between the bluff and provides access to the killing fields below. It’s the same path Hawk took earlier.
    Running with only one arm is harder’n you’d think. Or at least harder’n I thought it’d be. I expected having one bum arm would be no big deal, ’cause when you run it’s your legs doing all the work anyway, right?
    Wrong.
    I’m all off balance, which makes me clumsier’n ever, unable to run in a straight line. First I bash into one wall of the passage, bruising my good arm, and then into the other wall. The second time is my bad arm, which, with the Medicine Man’s herbs wearing off, sends scythes of pain through the entire right side of my body.
    Knock pain. Burn pain. Pain is nothing when my best friend since I was four is out there.
    I’ve always liked the feeling I get when I run. Wind through my hair and on my arms, drying the beads of sweat that accumulate faster’n they can evaporate. My mind clear, the effort required to pump my legs and arms is enough to clear my head of all the garbage inside. When I’m running is the only time I can think clearly.
    Well, this time ain’t like that at all.
    The wind buffets me, bashing me around like a brambleweed. My skin is hot. I’m sweating but it provides no relief from the heat inside me. And my mind is the worst of all, cluttered beyond belief.
    Circ. Killers. Circ. Killers. Hunt. Hunters. Circ. Prey.
    The Hunters have become the Prey.
    And I’m run ning into the midst of it all. Clearly when the sun goddess was handing out brains I was last in line. It’s one of my favorite jokes, one Circ has heard me tell a hundred times. His response: perhaps the sun goddess had a surplus, and you got all the leftover