Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

The combination of the storm with its ground-shaking thunder, flashes of lightning, and tremendous volume of rain and the discipline of the two groups made for a nightmarish scene, but the momentum had shifted the moment the Family warriors had managed to form a tight V. The Hunters knew it, and decided to use one last-ditch surprise and the weather before they lost all advantage.

There were two of them, and as the two flanks closed in they leaped up as one right at the unmoving center. The center guards, however, had carved spears up, and one of them penetrated one of the two Hunters in midair. The momentum hurled the struck Hunter forward and threw the spear carrier flat on his back, but the wound in the Hunter was a deep and painful gouge.

The other had broken free right into a second guard, who took two feet in the chest and went down hard. Even as the second Hunter rushed forward, toward the kraals, the first one was just trying to get to its feet when it ran right into an equally startled Littlefeet. The boy reacted instantly, kicking and then leaping on top of the injured Hunter, who began to yell and scream like a horrible demon of the night storms. Littlefeet felt pain himself as something on the Hunter tore at his flesh, but he held on and just kept hitting and hitting no matter what. Other warriors came immediately to his aid and two spears came down directly onto and through the Hunter’s skull.

The second Hunter had managed to leap free of the sentry line and now had a straight run at the Family camp.

The rain was already beginning to slack off, and the Hunter knew that there was little time left. A getaway was primary; while one Hunter could inflict real damage, it would also be at the cost of its life. Thus, it continued to run, slashing at a couple of older males who were standing a rear guard and heading then for the women’s kraal.

The women had arranged themselves as a human wall behind which other women waited. As the Hunter approached, even in the near inky darkness they could smell death and a foreigner in their midst. Then the human wall screamed as the others rose up behind it and let loose a barrage of drugged thorns from blowguns. Most missed, but a few struck the Hunter, who cried out but kept coming. Only when the creature had virtually reached the human wall did it suddenly falter, seem to become disoriented, turn, start striking at the air and anything else around, and then go down.

The moment the Hunter fell, all the women were upon it with cries so terrible it even scared some of the nearby men. There was so little left of the Hunter by the time they were through, it was difficult to tell that it once had looked not unlike them.

Hunters always attacked in packs. Therefore, much of the balance of the night was spent with everyone awake, on guard and waiting, lest more of these dreaded creatures come. The camp kept quiet so they would not be caught by surprise again. When morning came there had been no more attacks. It was most unusual to find Hunters only in a pair, but perhaps the others had been frightened off.

Littlefeet rushed back to make sure that Spotty was okay. She was, but she gasped when she saw and felt his wounds, and it was only after she made him lie in the grass and went for aid from the women’s kraal that he began to feel it himself. When it finally hit, the pain was incredible, but he did not cry out. Still, when she returned with mud and grain-based salves and some fermented potion that knocked back his ability to feel the pain, or at least mind it, he did not refuse any of the help.

When dawn came, he was asleep from the drugs, and Father Alex was over by him, concerned. Even Spotty gasped at the wounds: slashing strokes, almost as if made to take off skin, across half his face, much of his abdomen, and his right calf.

Sister Ruth, who knew the potions and salves, examined him thoroughly and then applied various salves from gourds she carried around her neck.

“Keep him asleep if at all possible for most of the day,” she told them after. “And I will be here to apply more salve and balm as needed. Only a few of the cuts are deep but all are painful. I do not believe any damage was done inside that will not heal, but I expect him to wear most of those slashes as scars. He was quite fortunate with this, you know. The Hunter’s claws were not poison.”

Father Alex nodded. “Did you see the Hunter? The one that got Littlefeet?”

Ruth nodded. “So—strange. I never get used to seeing them.”

Spotty made sure that Littlefeet was as comfortable as could be, with others nearby in case he needed anything. Then she said, “What does she mean? I have never seen a Hunter close-up. Not the body.”

“Come, then,” Father Alex invited her. “It is laid out over here, right next to the three of our own those two got before we stopped them. You should see the enemy now and again.”

The figure looked surprisingly tiny in death, although the ferocious energy of its life and attacks magnified its presence then. The skin was a golden yellow-orange, with streaks of black and white going randomly all over the body. In the tall grass, it was virtually invisible until and unless it moved. The jet-black hair was short and wiry and only on the head.

The most prominent feature were the hands. They weren’t exactly hands, but distortions of hands, in which the nails were not ordinary fingernails but thick, long claws that were razor sharp and extended a good ten centimeters past the tip of the fingers. The feet, too, ended in curved claws that looked as if they could slash as well as kick.

Nevertheless, it still looked very much like a young girl. Even a pretty young girl, in top athletic shape but just prepubescent. The curves were there in the body; it was very definitely female, but there were as yet no breasts or pubic hair. It was easy to guess that, at most, she’d stood perhaps a hundred and thirty centimeters, not much more. Her throat had been not just cut but slashed, but she’d already been knocked out by the drug in the darts, so there was a curiously peaceful look on her face. It was unsettling.

“So this is the enemy?” was all Spotty could manage.

“One of them,” Father Alex replied. “If you looked in her mouth, you would find few molars—the flat teeth we have. They’re all sharp, designed to tear flesh off bones rather than eat and chew. They also will die if they do not eat flesh, since they can not digest the vegetable matter which is all we eat. And since there aren’t any big animals left, the only thing they can eat to survive on is us. I often feel sorry for them, really. They didn’t choose this, nor did they choose to hunt us. I’m sure we look as familiar to them as they do to us. But they were not born to this, they were bred to it. They are in a sense the demon’s wild children.”

She shuddered. “Do they—I mean, she looks so young. Are there older ones?”

“There are many variations of them, but they all look very young and not very developed. I am not at all sure that they have sex. I don’t know how they reproduce, or even if they do, or if, periodically, the demons simply create and release more. I don’t think I shall ever be in a position where I can sit down and ask them about it, even if they were willing and able to tell me the answers. I’ve never seen or heard of a baby, nor a full adult. That says something; only God and the demons know the rest.”

She turned away and looked at the others. In addition to Littlefeet, the two had injured five and killed three more. The bodies were now laid out near the Hunter’s, and they did not look nearly as peaceful in death as the Hunter had. The first sentry’s midsection was shredded almost to bits, and entrails and organs hung out in spite of their best efforts to make him at least presentable. A second’s head had been torn completely off. It seemed incredible that such little girls as the Hunters could have the strength to do that. The third was the least mutilated, but had suffered those nails going repeatedly into his chest and abdomen, puncturing vital organs. He had most likely died later, during the night, of internal bleeding.