Free Flying the Storm by C. S. Arnot Page B

button of his radio. “Fredrick, could you bring the Iolaire close to the building on the point?”
    “What f or?” was the suspicious reply.
    “Do you think you could blow it down?”
    “ Oh, I’ll huff and I’ll puff,” laughed the pilot.
    Tovmas moved his line of men back thirty paces or so as the Iolaire swooped in once more, this time flaring and coming to a hover a hundred metres above the crag. It descended slowly and ponderously, pressing the grass of the hilltop flat and blowing away several of the slavers’ tents. Soon it was above the corrugated shack, and the thunderous wash of its props shook the small structure violently. Then, with a deafening roar, Fredrick opened up the throttle, blasting it with the full force of the Iolaire ’s twin wave-rotor engines. As the aircraft accelerated away, there was a terrible tearing sound and the roof of the structure lifted. It flipped off and the walls caved in, with pieces of debris flying out over the wooded valley. Then the Iolaire was gone, far across the valley and climbing hard. Amongst the pile of twisted metal and broken wood it left in its wake, nothing moved. Tovmas stood up and walked over to the wreckage with his men in tow.
    Kicking away a corrugated steel sheet revealed the occupant of the shed. It was one man, not five, and there were no women with him. Tovmas grabbed him by the hair and heaved him from the wreckage. It was no small feat either: the man struggled like a mad thing. Nardos stepped forward and pressed a pistol to the man’s groin.
    Understandab ly, he stopped struggling.
    “Now,” Tovmas said to Nardos, “Ask him where they take the women.”

8.       Vika
    Vika woke up on the hard stone floor. Her b row was damp and her gown clung clammily to her skin. Her sleep had been dreamless and black, and she did not feel it had done her any good. In fact, as she stretched, she felt even more aches and stiffness than before she had given in to sleep. The other girls were still sleeping, huddled next to her in the corner of the small room. Even their fat guard was snoring.
    Vi ka froze as she realised this.
    She would crawl up to him, slip her tied hands over his head and strangle him, perfectly quietly. Or maybe she would steal his pistol, press it to his head and splash his brains all over the faded wall hanging behind his little chair. And she knew she could do it: her father had taught her how to shoot a gun almost as soon as she could walk.
    Instinctively , she had raised herself to a crouch and was making a first step forward when her ankle snagged. She was chained to a ring on the wall. How stupid she had been to forget.
    Vika sat back down, the faint hope of escape fluttered away and an awful wave of foolishness and despair washed in to replace it. Tears rolled uninvited down her dust-smeared cheeks. It was hopeless. She was never going home.  
    Time passed. One by one the girls roused and the guard’s snoring stopped. A single shaft of sunlight was spearing in from the tiny high window, forming a perfect, blinding square on the limestone floor. Motes of dust floated lazily in the thick air. The room became stuffier. Vika could hear the lowing of a cow outside, and every so often a distant reply framed in the constant shrill of cicadas. There was no sound of people, so Vika was sure they were in the countryside.
    They had been brought in at night, blindfolded, disoriented from the flight and exhausted with fear. She could have been anywhere, but from the Azeri her captors spoke, she thought it safe to assume they had gone east. She doubted that they’d crossed the Sea, since the flight couldn’t have been more than an hour. But it was impossible to be sure: every minute since her capture had passed like an eternity.     
    Finally, the re was the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside. The room’s door swung open. The fat guard got to his feet and the girls sat bolt-upright just as a man Vika had not seen before entered