Paul Kane - Arrowhead

It was the man Bill had met a fortnight ago, but hadn't forgotten. The 'poacher' with the rabbits.

The man called Robert who'd worn a hood.

Henrik couldn't believe how incompetent these foot soldiers were. Granted, there were only a handful of properly trained men to spread around the units (hence the fact he was doing the job of three – tank commander, loader and gunner – while his driver, chosen for his previous experience with tracked diggers, sat behind a 10 mm partition up front). The rest of their 'army' was made up of dregs they'd struck the fear of God into on their journey. But surely even they should be able to handle one man using such a primitive form of weaponry?

Yet he was running rings round them; running, ducking and hiding behind bushes. Bushes for Heaven's sake! Henrik couldn't get a shot off fast enough with the cannon, so he dropped back inside and ordered his driver to lead the rest of his squad down towards the figure, or at least where they'd last seen the man firing.

Looking through the viewfinder, Henrik saw the remaining vehicles not only following, but getting ahead of them, taking the hunt to this cretin with the arrows.

And there, yes, Henrik could see the speck running. He wouldn't get far, not on this terrain, not with bikes, a jeep, and a tank in pursuit. He'd picked the wrong people to play tag with. He was outnumbered and outgunned.

They followed him over the next small hill, and it was then that Henrik saw what the man had in mind. He was trying to get back to cover. He was going back to ground.

If he made it there, they might never find him. And he'd never let a kill get away.

Henrik bit down on his cigar, then ordered the Challenger driver to speed up.

Rory Wilkes didn't even know what he was doing here.

He'd gone along with all this since the armed men had arrived in his home town of Coventry – let's face it, they hadn't really given any of them an option. But now people were getting hurt; and there was a good chance he might be as well. While he had to admit the feel of the combats, the weight of the M16 in his hands, did feel good (what little boy hadn't wanted to play Action Man at some point, even after he'd grown up?) this was all getting a bit too serious for his liking.

Rory had been impressed by the ease with which they'd taken Nottingham, De Falaise's words as they moved into the castle like something from an old movie. But if one man could now send them into confusion like this…

As the jeep bounced up and down, in pursuit, Rory and the other men in the back looked ahead at the bloke they were after. He was running fast, hard, towards the trees. We should let him reach them, then we won't have to deal with him at all, thought Rory. But the man was spinning around, not even stopping – running backwards even while he was notching another arrow.

The projectiles bounced off the front of the jeep, and Rory ducked in case any found their way inside. One of the bikes flanking them went down. Rory looked around to see the unfortunate man get crushed under the tracks of the Challenger tank that their 'commander' was operating. God Almighty, enough was enough, wasn't it?

Obviously not, because they were still in pursuit of the running figure Then the hooded man was gone. The woodland absorbed him, sucking him inside itself like he was an extension of it. Surely they could give up now?

Rory felt their jeep slowing, the bikes and the tank behind doing the same. All the vehicles stood at the perimeter of the woodland, as if expecting the man to emerge again and give himself up. No such luck.

In the end the silence was broken by their unit leader who appeared from out of the top of the Challenger. "Inside," ordered the man, "after him on foot!"

If the men with him hadn't known the consequences of disobeying, they would have turned the jeep around and just driven off. But going in there was preferable to having a tank turn on you… just about. And there was no way any of them wanted to mess with Henrik. Not one of them could take him; Rory doubted whether all of them put together could, in fact.

Reluctantly, they climbed out of the jeep, climbed off their bikes and, holding their weapons in front of them, walked up to the edge of the woods. Rory hung back as far as he could.

"I said inside!" screamed Henrik from behind them. "Right now!"

The men all looked at each other, not really knowing what to do for the best. Then one of them made the first move into the undergrowth. The next man followed, then the next. Soon there was only Rory left. Swallowing, he stepped forward into the line of trees.

It wasn't as densely packed as some woods that he'd seen – though admittedly, his experience was fairly limited in this respect. It was thick enough, however, to hide the person they were tracking. As the men in front of him walked further in, they automatically fanned out – partly to give themselves some room if anything happened, partly because they didn't want to be standing too close to anyone who might be a target. Rory could feel the beads of sweat trickling down his face.

There was a rustling off to their right and one of his group opened fire, splintering the trees. When the sound died down, there was nothing to see.

"Where'd he go?" Rory heard one guy say.

There was no answer to that, none of them had a clue. Then the person who'd asked the question went silently down, falling over as if fainting. It wasn't until Rory looked more closely that he saw the arrow sticking out of the man's side.

More dropped like this, only a couple getting a chance to let off a round or two. Rory spun, looking for a direction the arrows might be coming from. He saw nothing. It might as well have been the trees firing them.

Then the guy to his left let out a piercing scream, dropping his rifle and clutching his leg. There was a huge knife sticking out of his thigh; the man hissed a swear word before dropping to the ground. The group that had gone in were already half their number and the rest began to open fire randomly – in the hopes that they'd get off a lucky hit, maybe wing their enemy.

Not much chance of that. Even as they were firing, the arrows flew – and one by one the noises died down until the last person who'd been firing was silenced.

That just left Rory. He was no hero, he hadn't signed up for this – hadn't signed up for anything, actually – so it was time to get out of there, whether the mad German was waiting for him or not.

Turning to run back out, he came face-to-face with the man they'd been hunting. Or rather, the bearded man who'd been hunting them. Only he couldn't see much of that face because it was obscured by his hood. There was a strap around his shoulder which held a handmade quiver, and this still had a few arrows left in it – but he'd made every single one of his shots count. There was also one in the bow Rory was looking at, pointing at his head.

He dropped the rifle on the floor, holding up his shaking hands in surrender. "Please… please don't hurt me, I had no choice. He was going to kill me. Kill us all!" Rory was almost in tears.

The man raised his head, looked directly at him. His eyes were narrowed, but whether he was readying to fire or just didn't believe a word of Rory's excuse was unclear. Then he lowered his bow.

"Who?" asked the hooded man.

"What?"

"Who was going to kill you?"

"T-the Frenchman. H-his name is De Falaise."

"Get out of here," he said to Rory. "Take the ones who can still walk with you." Then he went over and pulled the knife out of its home in the felled soldier's leg.

Rory gave a quick nod, searching for any survivors. There weren't many: two, three at most. Rory helped the guy whose thigh was pouring with blood, half dragging him along as he seethed in pain.