William Wu - Invader

“I know I am not harming you,” Ishihara said quietly. “I can feel on my hand that you are breathing sufficiently through your nose.”

Jane decided to save her strength and quit fighting. Hunter should have heard her. Now she could only wait.

Hunter was lying on the ground pretending to sleep when he heard Jane’s first shout. He recognized her voice even before she identified herself. Instantly he rose and ran through the camp toward the sound, leaving Steve asleep; he did not want to endanger Steve by having him follow. By altering his vision to maximum light receptivity, he saw clearly enough in the moonlight to avoid stumbling over sleeping men or gear.

“You there! Stop!” A man standing on the edge of the camp to Hunter’s left shouted, holding up a spear. “Stop, I say! Now!”

Hunter angled his run away from the man, hoping to elude him. However, the man who had shouted began running toward him, as did other sentries on Hunter’s right. He changed his angle again, still running toward Jane’s voice. Having the sentries follow him might actually help him rescue her.

“Halt! What’s wrong with you? Stop!”

Up ahead, Hunter heard hoofbeats canter away. Even at his best robotic running speed, he doubted he could catch the mount. Still, he would normally have tracked the animal through the darkness on the assumption that it carried Jane and probably Wayne.

However, he could not reveal his true running ability to the sentries chasing him. For now, he would have to give up the chase. He came to a halt and turned to face them.

The first sentry ran up to him holding his spear forward. “When I order you to halt, you halt! What is your business out here?”

Five other sentries jogged up behind him, three from one side and two from another. They surrounded Hunter. No one else spoke.

“You must have heard the woman shouting,” Hunter said calmly. “I came to help.”

“You know her?”

Hunter decided that admitting he knew Jane could endanger her. He did not want the sentries to pay any independent attention to her if they came across her later. “No. I just came to help.”

“She’s just some camp follower quarreling with a scavenger,” said the sentry. “That’s their own business, not ours. Stay out of it.”

“He’s been a troublemaker all day,” growled another man. “I remember him by his height. He almost started a brawl by the wagons this afternoon.”

“Is he the one? I heard about that,” said the first sentry. He lowered his spear point toward Hunter’s abdomen, but did not advance. “The Saxons will give you all the fight you want. We have no rule against chasing a camp follower in the middle of the night, but you’ll need your rest. Go on back to your squad and I’ll forget about it.”

Hunter knew that Ishihara still had to be protecting Jane; in fact, he had probably forced her to stop yelling for help. That took away the immediate First Law imperative for Hunter. He nodded to the sentry and began walking through the moonlight back into the camp with the sentries.

The incident had not been a waste. Now he knew that Jane, with Ishihara and presumably Wayne, was with the army. He would have other chances to reach her.

Ishihara jogged through the moonlight away from the camp, carrying Jane by the waist under one arm. He still held one hand over her mouth to stop her from shouting again. Next to him, Wayne rode the mule at a canter.

By the time Ishihara had run back to their campsite carrying Jane, Wayne had already slipped the bridle on the mule and rolled up the blankets he and Jane used. As soon as he had seen Ishihara coming back with Jane, he had mounted up and kicked the mule into a canter, letting Ishihara take the lead.

Now Ishihara, with his hearing turned up to maximum, could hear Hunter giving explanations to the sentries behind them. Because their voices were stationary, Ishihara knew the pursuit had ended for now. Still, he continued to jog parallel to the river, staying just far enough from the trees for Wayne to ride safely without hitting branches in the darkness.

When Ishihara heard one of the sentries discount Jane’s call for help as a dispute among camp followers, he knew the sentries were not concerned. After a while, he stopped, signaling for Wayne to rein in. At this distance, he would hear Hunter’s footsteps approaching alone if Hunter made another attempt to come close tonight.

Ishihara set Jane on her feet and released her. “Are you well?”

“Not as well as I could be,” she said angrily. “I’m real tired of all this. The idea that you aren’t harming me is insane.”

“I disagree,” said Ishihara.

“We have to gag her,” said Wayne. “Or else she’ll yell again and give away our position.”

“The First Law will not allow that,” Jane declared firmly. “It will hurt me and interfere with my breathing. If you don’t tie my hands, I’ll pull it off. And if you tie me, I might suffocate.”

“She’s playing games with you,” said Wayne. “A careful gag won’t kill her.”

“I agree with her,” said Ishihara. “I cannot allow her to be gagged and tied. We will have to stay far enough from the column so that I can clearly hear anyone or two sets of footsteps or hoofbeats approaching us long before they come close. If necessary, we will maintain enough distance so that even Hunter cannot hear her shout again.”

“We’ll be too far to get MC 6, in that case,” said Wayne. “So what’s the point of following him at all? Are you telling me just to give up?”

“We are far enough for both of you to get some rest,” said Ishihara. “During the night, I will remain alert for further pursuit and I will consider our options.”

Steve felt himself shaken awake early in the morning. When he looked up, Bedwyr grinned and handed him a chunk of cold, cooked mutton and a piece of bread. The earliest light of dawn broke as a yellow haze through the gray clouds, angling among the trees along the river.

“It has to last you all day,” said Bedwyr. “Eat it at your leisure, but we won’t have any more till we return to the new camp tonight.” He also gave Steve a small water skin on a leather strap.

While the rest of the camp rose slowly and built up their campfires, Bedwyr roused his scouting patrol to eat their cold breakfast while saddling and bridling their horses and mounting. Only a few minutes after waking, Steve found himself riding out with Hunter, following the other ten men in the patrol.

When everyone else was out of hearing, Hunter quietly told Steve that he had heard Jane call him for help the night before. Hunter related how the sentries had stopped him. However, they now knew that Wayne, Jane, and Ishihara had followed the column somehow.

A light drizzle fell as the patrol moved away from the camp. First they rode along the near side of the river, walking their horses through the trees, going upstream. Then Bedwyr turned and led them across the river. As they rode through the ford, the horses walked into water up to the level of their underbellies. The river was narrow here, though, and in a moment all the riders had crossed.

When they had left the trees on the far side of the river, Steve saw Bedwyr rein in and glance over his shoulder to make sure all his riders had crossed safely. Then the scouts looked in all directions, across more grassy, rolling hills. In the distance to the east, Steve could see the edge of a forest. To his right, far downstream, he saw another patrol also cross the river and leave the trees. That patrol angled away from them, to the southeast.

Bedwyr suddenly kicked his mount into a canter and rode off toward the distant forest. The rest of the patrol followed. Steve continued to ride in the rear, next to Hunter, squinting in the drizzle.