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Larra moved off rapidly down the
trail. She was hampered somewhat
by the fact that she was wearing the sandals of the dead
warrior. She had cut them down
quite a bit, but they still flip-flopped on her
feet. Still, it was better that
walking barefoot. She estimated
that she still had a few hours left before
daylight. After that she could
expect immediate pursuit. She
would have the advantage of a few hours head start, but she also knew that
her progress would be slow because she was not familiar with the
terrain. She could also expect
the black warriors to flood the direction she was most likely to
flee. And she was certain that
they would be expert trackers. Her
best chance was to put as much distance between herself and the black village
as possible before the pursuit began.
An hour later and Larra was past the
village. However, the smell of
smoke from early morning fires drifted to her on the morning
breeze. She knew that it would
not be long before her absence was
discovered. Food and water were
going to be problems. She had
none with her and foraging for food would really slow her
down. Going without water would
bring her to a quick end. But,
she had little choice. Sneaking
into the village to stock up was simply not an option; it would almost certainly
lead to her capture. Her best
strategy was to go as far and fast as she could and hope that she could find
what she needed along the way.
She kept going steadily for three
hours. After the stress and ordeal
she had been through only her superb conditioning enabled her to keep going
that long. With the tropical
heat now approaching 80 degrees it was time to find a source of
water. With some luck she might
also stumble upon something she could eat as
well.
The trail she had been moving along was on
fairly high ground. She reasoned
that if she moved downhill she might find some water at the
bottom. The knowledge that this
delay would allow any pursuers to gain on her did not
matter. Without water she would
collapse and escape would be impossible.
Ten minutes of gradual descent brought her
to a languid pool surrounded by dense
foliage. She went down on her
belly and drank deeply from the shallow
pond. After drinking as much
as she could she immersed her body in the shallow water, luxuriating in its
coolness. That would keep her
going for another couple of hours.
Food was another matter.
There did not appear to be any that she could see.
“I’m probably surrounded by all
sorts of edible plants,” she thought, “but I’m too stupid
to recognize any of them as food.”
She started back uphill to the main
trail. She understood that travelling
along such a well-worn route was not the smartest thing to do, but if she
deviated from the trail she was quite sure that she would get lost, and that
would be even more disastrous.
Distracted as she was by the fear of pursuit,
Larra was not oblivious to the wonders of the
rainforest. The gigantic trees
and the other flora that abounded everywhere never ceased to give her a feeling
of awe. Walking along the forest
floor was like being in some enormous green cathedral that went on
forever. Lianas and other forms
of vegetation festooned many of the great
trees. Among the upper branches
a huge variety of arboreal animals
cavorted. Colorful birds shrieked
and cackled, and monkeys leaped through the upper branches. Larra noticed
that some of the monkeys seemed to be feasting on ripe fruit. Somewhere in
those high branches was something that she might be able to eat, but it was
far beyond her reach.
“Perhaps,” she thought, in a flash
of inspiration, “if I can’t reach the food I can get the food brought
to me.”
Larra bent quickly and picked up a rock from
the ground. Throwing as hard
as she could, she hurled the stone high into the branches in the general
direction of the cavorting monkeys.
She picked up another rock and repeated the
action. And then
another. By this time she had
the monkeys’ attention. One
of the primates tore off a small branch and hurled it Larra’s
direction. This seemed to inspire
the others and soon Larra was being showered with all sorts of
vegetation. Included in the
bombardment was a good deal of ripe
fruit. Chuckling, Larra gathered
up what she could and moved away from the
onslaught. The monkeys followed
her for a short distance and then seemed to lose
interest.
Larra examined her
haul. Most of the fruit was a
mystery to her, but she had seen some of it being sold in the native market
in
Seven black warriors trotted down the forest
trail. The signs of their quarry
were getting fresher. None of
the fit young men had any difficulty maintaining a fairly rapid
pace. A lifetime in the forest
had made each of them into superb
trackers. A
bent piece of vegetation here, a broken twig there, a slight indentation
in the ground, were all obvious signs of the passage of their
prey. She was not far ahead
now. They quickened their pace
in anticipation.
Kabaka led the
pursuit. His slim build and long
legs gave him a speed advantage over the
others. Soon he would catch up
with the White Witch and then she would
pay. He had been especially angered
when he and the others had come across the body of Rukidi with his testicles
and throat smashed. He would
catch her and vengeance would be his!
Just ahead a thicket of bamboo invaded the
trail. He
slowed. It appeared that the
White Witch had gone into the dense vegetation for some reason instead of
staying on the trail. He plunged
in the way she had gone. Two
paces into the bamboo his feet kicked away a few strands of bamboo leaves
that had been twisted into a primitive
rope. This released a bamboo
stalk that had been bent over close to the
ground. It tangled in his feet
and Kabaka stumbled and fell face first into a dozen sharpened bamboo
stakes.
Following immediately behind Kabaka, Lulaklenzi
saw him fall. His friend’s
screams froze him in his tracks.
Before him Kabaka was writhing in agony, his body pierced by several
pointed bamboo stakes. Three
of them had gone right though him.
Kabaka struggled to free himself from the horrible trap and then shuddered
and went limp. Lulaklenzi and
the rest of the hunting party stared open-mouthed for an entire minute, before
they moved forward and pulled their dead comrade off the bamboo
spikes.
Superstitious fear and doubt plagued their
minds. What kind of woman were
they trying to catch? The White
Witch! She had killed
again!
Lulaklenzi spoke
first. “I think we should
turn back. This White Witch has
strong magic. If we follow her
we will die.”
Chui, the chief’s eldest son spoke
next. “Lulaklenzi speaks
like and old woman. The White
Witch set a simple trap and Kabaka fell into
it. He was so eager to be first
that he forgot proper caution.”
Chui was an impressive man.
He stood six feet, eight inches and weighed over 260
pounds. When he spoke other members
of the tribe listened.
Lulaklenzi felt
shamed. He had panicked like
a young girl. Chui was
right. Kabaka had been
foolish. Lulaklenzi held his
tongue. He would not be shamed
again.
“We will continue, and we will catch
the White Witch.” Chui stated,
his deep voice booming. “She
cannot be far ahead. If we pursue
quickly, she will not have a chance to set more
traps.” This made sense
and the remaining warriors followed Chui in
pursuit. Lulaklenzi, not so confident
this time, brought up the rear.
Farther up the trail Larra heard Kabaka’s
agonized screams. “Good
God!” she thought. Her
pursuers were closer than she had imagined!
She redoubled her pace, and found that she
was now in a more open area, travelling between a jumbled formation of large
stone boulders. She moved among
the huge stones. This would take
her off the main trail, but the harder ground would make her more difficult
to track. Also, if all went well
perhaps she could stage a little surprise for her
hunters.
Larra scrambled up among the
boulders. The ground sloped
considerably here so she soon found that she was several feet higher than
the trail. Climbing atop a
particularly large boulder, she lay down on her belly and waited.
Within a few minutes several black warriors
trotted down the trail, their eyes on the
ground. Larra saw that although
they were following her trail, they were making very good
time. Fortunately, they appeared
intent on tracking her. Not one
of them looked up. She counted
six of them altogether. Five
of them were bunched fairly close together and were led by a massive black
warrior. The sixth appeared to
be holding back. As the party
moved past her the last man fell farther and farther
behind.
Larra saw her
chance. An attack from behind
would probably prove very unnerving for her pursuers, provided she could
execute it properly. As the last
man passed Larra descended from her perch and moved in behind her
trackers. Now she was following
them!
Larra removed her
sandals. She needed to be sure
of foot and didn’t want to her ill-fitting footwear to impede her
progress. She moved without a
sound, closing in on the black warrior at the end of the
line. Within a minute she was
close enough to strike. The last
warrior seemed a little slower than the
rest. By the time Larra caught
up with him he was a good 100 yards behind the
others. Larra smiled
grimly. No doubt her little trap
had demoralized this man. Now
he was to pay a high price for his laggard
pace.
She was now within six feet of her prey, moving
as he moved, all the time closing
slightly. She had to execute
her attack with precision and without a
sound. She closed the remaining
distant in two long strides and struck hard with her nunchuka, swinging the
deadly weapon in a swift arc. The
lighting blow struck the black warrior at the point where his neck met the
base of his skull. The was a
sickening “thwack!” and the man dropped noiselessly, sprawling
in a heap at her feet. Following
through on her attack, Larra drove the point of her shortened spear deep
into the warrior’s throat.
Blood spurted from the gaping wound and his body convulsed as his
lifeblood was drained from him.
Larra watched the young man
die. Slowly she collapsed to
her knees. She had never done
anything like this before, and was overwhelmed by her own level of
violence. It was one thing to
defend herself against an attacker in open combat, but quite another to
deliberately stalk and assassinate her
victim. She thought back to the
other men she had killed in the last few
days.
“No, they were different,” she
muttered.
In those deaths she had been defending
herself. Even the man she had
lured into a trap had been killed because he was trying to capture
her. But this last
one… She felt a little
weak. She could have just let
him go, but she had hunted him like a wild
animal. She felt sick to her
stomach. Her body was bathed
in a cold sweat. She remained
kneeling for a full minute before she snapped out of her
reverie. In a short while the
other blacks would realize that they had missed her and come
back. They would find the body,
and they would find her if she did not high tail it out of
there.
Quickly she crossed to the fallen warrior’s
body. She retrieved his knife
and a gourd containing water. Now
she would no longer have to continually hunt for water while she tried to
escape. After putting her sandals
back on she scrambled back up into the
rocks. She reasoned that once
the other blacks turned back they would move back down the path to where
they last had traces of her trail.
If she kept above them and moved through the concealing boulders she
would be able to pass them undetected and get ahead of them
again. She was also counting
on several minutes of discussion and a much more conservative pursuit once
they found the body of their dead comrade.
Chui was very
angry. Somehow the White Witch
had given them the slip. She
must have turned off the trail somewhere.
He barked out an order. And
the five of them headed back.
Five? Where was
Lulaklenzi? Five minutes back
down the trail and the question was
answered.
For several minutes Chui and his four companions
stood in shock around their dead comrade.
There was much whispered discussion, as if they feared that the killer
of their tribesman might be listening.
Most of the discussion centered on the theme of turning
back. “We cannot continue,
Chui,” stammered the oldest member of the
group. “She is a
sorceress. She will kill us
all.”
“No!” exclaimed
Chui. “She is not a
sorceress. She is a White
woman. We can catch
her.”
“But you call her White Witch,”
came the reply. “You know
she has special powers. She will
put a curse on us.”
“We will put a curse on ourselves if
we do not catch her. The tribe
will call us old women. We will
be laughed at. I am going to
catch her. There is a
way.” The other blacks looked
at him. What did he have in
mind?
“The bridge,” he
explained. If she is going this
way, she must cross the bridge. We
do not have to catch her. She
will come to us.”
With that Chui strode determinedly down the
trail. Over his shoulder he shouted:
“Go back if you wish, but I am a man, and I will catch
her.” With that he broke
into a trot and soon disappeared around a bend in the
trail. The remaining warriors
looked at one another and then without saying a word, they followed Chui,
running hard to keep up.
Larra kept to the high ground for about an
hour. She guessed that by now
she should be far enough ahead of her black pursuers to return to the
trail. She had become quite thirsty
and took a small drink of water.
Better to conserve what she had until she was sure that she could
refill the gourd. The sun was
almost directly overhead and the heat was becoming
oppressive. She really should
find a place to rest until it cooled off a little, but that would mean chancing
an encounter with her black hunters.
Better to keep moving rather than risk capture.
She returned to the forest path and moved
down it at a steady pace.
Fortunately, most of the walking was downhill, but by now the forest
heat was almost overwhelming.
Larra’s brief costume was soaked with her
perspiration. “The humidity
must be close to 100%,” she thought.
She found herself sipping almost continually
at her water gourd. Eventually
she finished off her meager supply.
Once again lack of water was a serious
problem. She knew that if she
became dehydrated she would be in severe
difficulty. The trail, however,
kept on going downhill, so sooner or later there should be
water. Larra was now strolling
through a particularly thick stand of
forest. Here the foliage was
so dense that at first she could not see in the dim light. Gradually, however,
her eyes adjusted and she could find her way without difficulty. The
transpiration of the thousands of plants dropped the air temperature
considerably. This made for much
more comfortable walking. Up
ahead she could see a lighter section of the
forest. It was like moving toward
the end of a tunnel.
She emerged into the
light. The forest seemed to end
quite suddenly and Larra saw with a start the reason
why. Before her
yawned a deep
chasm. Approaching the edge she
saw the sides of the canyon were almost
vertical. Without proper equipment
there was no way that she could climb down into
it. The trail now ran paralleled
to the canyon. Larra looked
back. Retracing her steps did
not seem to make any sense. Best
to keep following the trail and see where it
led. She did not have long to
wait. Fives minutes farther on
the path veered toward the canyon and ended at the beginning of a rope
bridge. There was the way
across. It was at that point
that five black warriors emerged from hiding only a few feet
away. This time it was Larra’s
turn to fall into a trap!
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