Verecleeve's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Verecleeve ran east until his lungs burned. Then he stopped. Running got a man killed. Hunting kept him alive. The crew was on his trail, so he would let them come to him. He turned off his own path and climbed toward higher ground. He found what he wanted on a slope of thinning pines. One old tree stood taller than the rest. Its crown faded from green to yellow, and its lower branches lay broken and wrapped in moss and roots. A split in the trunk gave him a notch to rest the barrel. He wedged himself into the roots, slid the long rifle up, and went still. The stone in his pocket sat warm against his leg. He ignored it and watched the dark below. The first man came fast and careless. He followed the boot prints Verecleeve had left on purpose. Verecleeve breathed out, held, and fired. The shot took the man through the chest and dropped him without a cry. The crack rolled through the trees and faded. Two more froze at the sound. They crouched and swept the slope with their eyes. They looked everywhere but up. Verecleeve worked the action. He picked the left one first, because the right one stood near open ground and would run the wrong way. His rifle spoke again. The left man folded over his own knees. The last one broke and ran, just as Verecleeve had guessed. He ran downhill into the open. Verecleeve tracked him, led him, and squeezed. The man pitched forward into the roots of a fallen tree and did not move. Three shots. Three dead. His homemade rifle had shot true, the way he built it to. He stayed in the roots and counted his breaths and listened. Nothing moved but the wind in the yellowing needles above him. This was easy work. Average men against a marksman were no contest. He almost felt cheated. Then the warm stone burned. Not warm now, but hot, hot enough to make him gasp and dig it out. It glowed green in his palm. He had never seen it do that. It pulsed once, twice, like a slow heartbeat, and grew hotter with each beat. Far off, past the last trees, a shape rose against the sky. The tower. And something at the tower answered the stone. A thin green light climbed its side, matching the beat in his hand. Verecleeve understood, cold and sudden. The stone was not only a gift. It was a marker. Someone had just felt him through it. Someone now knew exactly where he stood. He shoved the stone deep in his pocket and grabbed the rifle. His three kills meant nothing now. He had cleared the men behind him, but he had lit a beacon for whatever waited ahead. The tower had seen him. He rose from the roots and ran, no longer the hunter.