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  A hundred more yards and we stood still, her breathing audible. Any moves from her that I didn't like and she would have a broken jaw, but I think she knew that and kept still as I scanned the surroundings, silently cursing the shadowy undergrowth that limited visibility. The trunks allowed a prospect along the downward sloping ground for maybe fifty yards one way, all the rest being cut off by trees. Squatting slowly down on my haunches, I made her do the same and watched. Minutes passed before a quick shadow flitted from one tree to another, a shadow carrying a long stick, a spear? I was watching her out the corner of my eye. These people were presumably her allies, so I was waiting for her quick getaway, but she was rigid, staring down the line of sight.

  Why had we heard no gunfire? Were these shadows just lurking? As if to answer my mental queries, a man jumped out from behind a tree ten yards off and threw the spear he was carrying, letting out a tremendous whoop as he did it. The whoop didn't last long because the rifle round went through his chest before the spear had left his hand.

  "Come on!" I yelled, forgetting who she was, springing up and breaking into the zigzag run they teach you in the infantry. Strong crashing sounds from my right revealed a tall man with some kind of cloak over him which was not armoured because the three shots I gave him bowled him over in cloud of leaves and litter. Melanee stuck to my back like a leech as a pregnant silence descended, the gunsmoke filling my nostrils with memories and resolution. Ceasing to scuttle like a crab, I made a sweep all round, wishing I had the full scanning outfit.

  She made me start by gripping my upper arm like a vice and pointing, her breath hissing. The man was close, having cunningly imitated a bush. The arrow whistled as it came at me but bullets are faster. His head exploded, spraying blood and brains but regrettably the arrow was well aimed and hit me on the left arm, high up. I staggered slightly, but the pain wasn't bad, not yet and we had things to do.

  Three of them had been disposed of so far. The forest whispered around us as the night breeze started up, the shadows growing with the setting sun. My arm began to throb badly and the arrow sticking out was a damned nuisance so I gestured at her to break it off. The mime made her widen her eyes, but she just nodded, gripped the shaft near the entry wound and snapped it firmly. An electric shock of pain made me grunt and sweat arrive, but we had to get on. The ants had stopped marching but we moved on slowly until I recognised the trees and shapes. This was where we had left everyone. Where were they?

  Two big, decaying trunks formed a vee shape and under the open end a vast, thick oak gave some shelter. They had all crowded in there, Linda telling me as I departed that it would have to do if I couldn't find anything better. Now, with the girl standing apprehensively close by, shooting glances at the surrounding gloom, I couldn't see Linda or anyone else. Equipment was scattered all over the ground including guns and ammunition, packs, rations, all our pitiful stores thrown around as if a party of bears had investigated. But this wasn't bears.

  Melanee grabbed my good arm and led me to bloodstains, fresh. The disaster was seeping into me but worse than that, night was nearly here. I couldn't track them in darkness, we didn't have the gear for it and we had our own troubles. The arm was getting to me and there was only one cure, that arrowhead had to come out and I hoped it wasn't barbed.

  What to do? I was losing blood, not a lot, but it was trickling down my arm. She was as frightened as I had ever seen her, much more than when she had been drifting along with us. Obviously she knew about whoever lived in the forest and she didn't like it.

  We were stuck here for the night, there was no point in trying to stumble around an unknown forest in pitch darkness. Up where the old trunks met, there was an overhang of tangled, broken, rotting branches under which the ground was nearly dry. Crouching down with her body warmth beside me I tried to get her to understand about the arrowhead. She'd left three or four inches of the bloody thing sticking out and I wanted her to put both hands on it and pull like hell. If it was barbed, it wouldn't come out. I would be left with a screaming pain which we had no way of treating. Barbed, and the thing would have to go out the other way, not an operation I looked forward to. Normally, it's something you should wait and explore carefully but we didn't have the time for such luxuries. Her eyes faded to black pools as the night overtook us, but I grasped her hands and put them on the broken end.

  "Do it!" I whispered fiercely, knowing the longer I waited the worse it would get. Sweat was pouring off me and the wound was hurting like fire. She said something, the first words all day, a mangled sentence that finished in the word 'David'. It was accented and distinct, but I didn't have time to gather the significance of this because she put her feet against my chest to give herself purchase and pulled. She was a strong woman, lithe, agile, well developed, and the arrow emerged with a spurt of blood, the sudden release making me fall away from her. I let out a cry of anguish, I couldn't help it, a choked moan of pain as the searing flare of agony swept through my shoulder.

  I became aware of busy fingers that tore away the shirt and pressed on a field dressing. She was a fast learner, she'd watched us treat her ex-companion and she knew what they were for. The warm night settled on us as I sat up, leaning on the wet wood of the trunk, the rifle resting on top. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain subsided and my eyelids began to droop. I didn't want to sleep. Apart from whoever was watching us, if anyone, there were images I didn't want to walk around my head in sleep. Linda was gone. So were the others of course, but Linda was half of me and up to now I had shut out the awful apprehension. They hadn't been killed, there wasn't enough blood for that, but they had been taken. Who by? Where to? Why? Could I find them?

  The fever in my blood and the pain combined to produce a low groan that made her slither up beside me. She said something softly, put her hand on my head, pressing gently until my cheek rested on the rough surface of the rotting bark. I slept, I know I shouldn't have and in the old days, I wouldn't have but I was soft after months on shipboard. She could have killed me then, it would have been as easy as robbing a baby.

  Sunlight brought me to life, gummy eyes opening to see the slanting rays shifting through the forest like bars of gold. The air was warm, insects danced in the morning light, but a dull throbbing pain made me sit up slowly and peer at the arm. A rustle of leaves and she was there, appearing beside me like a vision, a dirty vision but welcome for all that. She lifted my arm, frowned over the blood encrusted dressing, pulling it off to an accompaniment of a hiss of pain from me that she ignored. She slapped on a wet handful of leaf mould, glanced at me with dark eyes and deftly retied the dressing over the resulting bulge.

  Standing, I could see where she had rested during the night, where she had kept watch while the intrepid hero had slept. "Clever girl." I muttered as images of Linda leaped into my head. "We've got to go." Wearily, I paced around looking down for tracks, damning the rain. She knew what I was doing and led me off to a slope where the scuffles of many feet had kicked away the top surface.

  She found breakfast, fruit and leaves, she nosed out water, she was taking the expedition over, but I made her collect all our scattered equipment, packed rations and everything else I could cram into two packs and showed her how to carry them, the straps fitting over her well tattered shirt. I was impatient to follow the trail and grunted at her alert but silent questions, munching as we went along, her carrying two rifles and as much ammunition as I could sling round her waist. It clinked musically as she strode along but she seemed to have lost her apprehension of the night before and I didn't get any feelings of crawling ants. No one was around and the trail was mercifully plain enough, threading its way through the trees.

  For an hour we followed the tracks, veering off the flat surface until we came to a thicket of firs so close we had to force our way through. Alert, I pointed the rifle as we emerged from the stinging needles of the pines, to find ourselves overlooking a goodly stream, almost a river, twenty feet wide, foaming downhill. The other side was a gras
sy bank and there were no tracks, none.

  "Bloody hell." I muttered to myself after coming back from wading the stream which reached knee height. The far bank was soft after all that rain and not even a bird could have landed on it without leaving a mark, but there was nothing. Despair was beginning to settle on me. Whoever had taken our party, they knew enough to use water to cover their traces. Downstream, the rivulet narrowed and twisted its way between towering forest growth, disappearing into green darkness. Sinking down on my haunches, trying to ignore the fire in my left arm, I recognised the painful reality; there was no way of tracking them in this vast wilderness.

  She sat down beside me, apparently quite untroubled by possible raiders from the forest but easing her pack off, the unfamiliar load making her grimace. "Well, Melanee," I mused miserably. "What do we do now? Where can those bastards go?"

  "Nor." She said, a distinct word. Nor? Nord? North? Consulting the compass, I pointed north and eyed her uneasily. Her dark eyes regarded the compass and my finger. "Nor." She repeated.

  "North, eh?" I said. "Why north?" The map I fished out of my pocket didn't provide any answers, but she was fascinated by it, the old place names and the roads puzzling her, so I read out the names, wondering if they would ring bells.

  "Kissac?" She stared at the paper.

  Quissac was more west than north but the name clearly meant something. It was maddening, she was a highly intelligent woman and I was the last remaining brain of Britain, but we couldn't communicate. I nodded at the nearest big tree. "Tree."

  "Darb." She agreed. Progress was going to be slow at this rate, but I had to go on looking so I heaved myself up, plodding off downstream, hearing her pattering after me. The morning was advancing, the sun gaining power, the stream was glittering in shafts of bright light. For more than a mile we tortuously followed this energetic stream until the water disappeared over a low cliff, foaming and hissing. It fell away afterwards, losing itself in deep forest. The whole place was empty of people, I felt it. No sign, not even a broken twig, had shown itself and defeat descended on me, standing there, gazing down, watching the swirl of the water.

  "Oh God." I said. "Linda." The name brought images of her vibrant face and warm body. "Linda!" I shouted, the yell vanishing into the silent woods.

  "Linda nor." The voice made me turn to see her close, her eyes alight with intelligence, her hand pointing north. “North." She added, watching for my reaction. "Linda, Maree, Ilaree, mmm Miff, Meeek." She reeled off all their names with an intensity that told me how much she had been listening. 'Smith' was beyond her, but the rest was clear and her memory impressive.

  The shirt we had given her was much the worse for wear, her other garment invisible under it so that she seemed to be a long legged, dark haired, slightly dusky witch with discerning eyes and a figure that made the shirt bulge out. What did I really know about her? Damn all, was the answer. She could be leading me into a trap.

  We couldn't stumble around forever, searching a forest that seemed eternal. If I could get myself into that underground complex near Quissac, maybe, just maybe, some kind of high tech surveillance equipment might have survived. I needed an infra-red remote drone and second sight but more than anything else I needed Linda. Her absence hit me hard, that piercing intellect and unconditional love leaving my emotions frozen.

  "We'll go on." I said firmly. "But first, I need a wash." That convenient shallow waterfall was what I needed to cleanse the wound. The sign language to tell her to keep watch was complicated and unsuccessful because as soon as I peeled off my shirt and stepped under the fall she did the same with a slight but definite smile. With no other comment than a short sentence that meant nothing, she scrubbed herself with a handful of fine sand she dredged up from the bottom, watching me attentively as I washed the arm and the rest of me with some difficulty. The muscles near the shoulder were swollen and there was considerable inflammation but not so much as I had feared. Scrambling out in a distracting way, she made a short foray into the forest, returning with more of the moss or whatever, waving me to come out which I did, standing there while she plonked the stuff on my arm, retying a fresh field dressing on it from our small stores. I was uncomfortably aware of her nakedness, her breasts touching my arm as she finished the dressing. Her head came up to my chin, making her around five two or three, slightly shorter than Linda, who would have been half amused and half annoyed to see me being attended to by a nude beauty.

  "Jane." I muttered, thinking of Tarzan. She composedly clothed herself again, refusing a pair of trousers I offered her from the pack. Her slight smile returned briefly so I thought my charms must be increasing, not to mention the protection she thought she would get from the guns. I made a determined effort to dismiss any imagery of human sacrifices in savage rituals, Linda being slowly killed for amusement, but it was useless. But then, as we trudged back to the level ground, she started to point at things and lift her eyebrows, waiting for me to say the name. It became a routine, almost a game, and nearly took my mind off other things.

  There was nothing for it but to head for that cave we had found, take stock, hunt for food and then try and find Jules and Marie. All that day she kept asking for names, different trees, sunlight, colours, everything. It was near evening when we found the cave again. I checked, of course, to see if any bears had taken up residence but the place was empty. Foraging for dead wood, lighting a vast fire and hacking down any bushes too near for comfort provided our needs for the night, supplemented by rations from the packs. My arm was now so stiff I couldn't hunt a blind rabbit, so we had to use up these precious reserves.

  The fire was soporific, the forest was silent, the night was balmy. We agreed with hand signs to take turns to sleep. I had to trust her, what else could I do? And she could have killed me half a dozen times earlier. Slowly, the images of Linda faded as I laid down on the warm earth, gazing into the flickering fire, her sitting figure watching me as the blessed relief of sleep

  crept into my head. This was not what I had hoped or even dreamt of. Was I doomed to roam dark forests forever? What had happened to our world and how did her people, her ancestors survive? Did it matter?

  Chapter 9

  NEW GROUND

  We stayed in our convenient cave for two days. My arm was useless but I introduced her, with no real hope of success, to the art of setting snares. She scurried about, seemingly quite happy or at least not unhappy, while I sat around trying to recover by not moving the arm. Surprisingly the snares yielded a small pig. God knows how it wandered into the trap all by itself, but she carried the squealing body back for me to despatch with my knife, after which she very competently disemboweled it and set up a spit after the fashion of Bradley's efforts.

  The weather at least was on our side for the sun was out from dawn to dusk, the air warming to sultry heat. That forest was not so uniform as I had supposed, many different tree types mingling in the depths, a result, I presumed of the large variety of plants France had been cultivating. There were wild vines, welcome but we had no time to tread any grapes, but apples, pears, orange, lemon, olives in profusion, all were scattered around if we could find them, and she did.

  On the second evening, we sat munching the pig and assorted greenery with fruit, the sun slanting its rays over our heads while we were in shade, the forest quiet. She had taken to walking about without the shirt, a distracting habit, but now she sat, cross legged, watching while I finished my food and started to clean the rifle. I had slept badly, the arm plus images I could not drive out of my head making me unable to relax. Tomorrow we were to move but the soothing task of handling metal parts was cover for my mental turmoil. Bending over the disassembled breach block, I became aware that she was speaking, slowly but clearly.

  "David? Go north? Sun come up?" Her expression was intent, expectant.

  I was astonished. I knew she was quick but not like this. "Yes. Tomorrow. When the sun is up we go north." I replied, aware that we were going to go west but she was
n't to know that.

  "Why...mmm...why kill Loren?" Her language was stilted but her progress was astounding, to me at least, my linguistic skills being the facility to shout louder and louder in English until someone answered. The question, however, needed careful response.

  "He was going to shoot arrow." I told her. Slamming the rifle bits together, I cocked it, the sound making her jump. "He wanted to kill us. Bad." I said sternly. "Bad. Why did he do it?"

  She seemed to brood about that. "Loren mmm try stop David go north."

  There appeared to be a sinister significance about going north which I didn't grasp. The breakthrough in communication was a great relief, however, and the more she talked the better she got at impressive speed. I tried to find out why she and her boyfriend were tailing us but either she didn't know or she couldn't explain, but she did know that there were other denizens of the forest, especially going north, who were not friendly. I already knew that, but it seemed that her settlement was or had been until the Sorenson drone hit it, established by the river. They were nomadic but only seasonal, circling around to come back to the same place each year. Fascinating, but where had her people come from originally? She had no idea and didn't understand the question. She did ask me where we had come from, however, a question that defied rational explanation.

  The man had been her group leader, a kind of lance corporal and she was not attached to him although he had made it plain that she was going to be. He had been wise in woodcraft and hunting, so she said, and a kind, generous man, related in some way I couldn't fathom out, to her father. That explained the tears but the less than overwhelming grief.