Free The Devil's Breath by David Gilman

drove through the tall grass, his eyes fixed on the distant rise of mountains. He would rejoin the track, drive for two or three kilometers and then find an entrypoint to the foothills for what looked to be an arduous drive across bumpy terrain. Concentrating hard so as not to have any mishaps before he reached the road, he failed to see the dust drifting in the sky over his shoulder. He was within meters of bursting through the low trees and shrubs, up a small rise in the ground, before joining the track. He pulled the gear lever down, floored the accelerator and the Land Rover surged up and onto the road. Max swung the wheel, shifted a gear and nearly died of fright as a black pickup truck grated alongside, colliding with the Land Rover. Metal screeched and he heard shouts from the men in the truck as they tried to regain their balance.
    The pickup had been traveling at some speed and failed to see Max’s camouflaged vehicle as it lurched out of the undergrowth. Just as well. There were three men in the back, all armed, and if they had seen the Land Rover, Max and !Koga’s blood would now be soaking into the dust.
    For a second the two vehicles grated metal against metal, jostling side by side. Max glanced desperately across at the gunmen. The driver was wrestling with the steering wheel, just as Max was doing. The men in the back were thrown down. One of them had been standing against the roll bar, clutching a radio handset in his fist, and that wire was broken as the man fell and rolled. The image fed information to Max’s brain. They had lost radio contact!
    The vehicles clashed again, and Max felt the Land Rover sliding, being pushed dangerously close to tipping over the rim of the road and back into the tall grass. The steel sand ramps strapped to the side saved them from serious injury. The gunmen’s 4×4 had ripped the ramps away;now they slid under its wheels and for a few vital seconds took control out of the driver’s hands. The pickup was riding a two-meter skateboard. Max heaved the steering wheel over and the bull-bars on the Land Rover’s nose clipped the rear of the pickup, spinning it around. However, the driver did an amazing job of turning into each successive spinning skid, giving the men in the back a chance to clamber to their feet.
    There was a gap between the pickup and the edge of the road, and Max headed straight for it. The pickup truck was parallel again; snarling faces in the billowing dust; shouts above the noise of the tortured engines. One of the men steadied himself with one hand and leveled an AK-47 straight at them. Sweat stung Max’s eyes, the windshield glare blinded him momentarily, the Land Rover’s engine was screaming and he could not get another ounce of power from it. The gunman couldn’t miss. They were dead. Why hadn’t he fired? The man screamed. Blood smothered his chest as he fell into the other men. Confused, Max turned to see !Koga holding his meter-long hunting bow, now free of its lightweight shaft. It was a killing shot, taking the gunman in the heart.
    The Land Rover got past the pickup, whose driver was trying to respond to one of his men screaming and shouts of panic from the others. !Koga’s face was expressionless. Kallie had told him enough about the Bushmen for him to know that they did not relish killing; that there was no anger in a kill. Life was taken only when it meant survival. The Bushmen did not kill for sport. No matter how harsh their life in the desert, no matter how many times !Koga had killed toeat, Max felt sure he had never harmed another human being before.
    Max nodded at him, hoping that simple gesture would convey everything he felt; knowing it could not.
    Max had to get them out of here. The pickup had fallen back, giving him a few vital extra seconds before the expected gunfire found them. The men in this pickup were the second search party; the spotter plane had been working two teams on the ground. Why hadn’t he thought of that?