John Ringo: The Hero

Pain lanced again, this time through his right thigh. His Sense had been distracted and missed this one. He drove the butt of the weapon down, tearing the mandibles free, fabric and flesh following them with an animated trail of blood droplets. The blow might have damaged the creature’s jaw, as it seemed askew. A twist, point, shoot. Point-blank through the open mouth would also kill one, it seemed, and another surge swept through him. Forcing the searing pain in his chest and leg aside, he leapt over the horse-sized carcass, its legs thrumming the ground in death, and turned to face the remaining three as the tortured nerves in his shoulder, chestplate and thigh caused a cramp the entire length of his right side, from shoulder to ankle. The tiger beetles seemed to lack the rational sense to leave a losing battle. Or maybe they were starving. Or maybe Darhel smelled like chicken. They were going to leap now, and Tirdal dropped. It wasn’t hard to let gravity do the work.

As they jumped, he fell behind the last corpse, its legs still twitching, brushing him in a macabre caress. But he was pointing straight up as they went overhead, and his shot caught one of them at the rear of the underside. That one split, its rear legs and joint tumbling free with a gout of entrails and yellow goo to land in a twitching heap. Tirdal dragged his feet painfully under himself in a squat, then shoved as hard as he could, rising up the curve of the carcass and over to the other side of the corpse, twisting as he went. The ankle on his already injured leg responded too slowly to the landing, and he felt it crunch, trauma inflaming the soft tissue into an instant sprain. He shot again and nothing happened. It had not been three-quarters of a second. The remaining pair spread wide, and he fired as the weapon recharged, getting one obliquely underneath as it left the ground. He dropped and rolled in close to the corpse behind him and waited for recharge and another attack.

The final tiger beetle continued its leap into a run and disappeared.

Tirdal did what any human martial artist would. He went into recovery breathing, slow and controlled, forcing his chestplate to obey. That alone reduced the pain somewhat, and he curled into a comfortable position. Sitting folded was preferred, but any position that helped an injury was the choice in the field. He grounded his thoughts and drifted for just a moment, pulling himself from the edge of unconsciousness. The cliff marks the edge. The edge can be walked. From the edge one can see into the distance. Behind is safety. Look not behind, but over the edge to the fear… He came back enough to feel the lintatai, and split his mind to deal with it. The wind stirs ripples through the leaves. The leaves sway the tree. The tree bends and flexes but does not yield. Supple is the tree. Supple is the mind. Emotions are but leaves in the wind of existence…

It took only a minute, but it was a minute well spent. Control returned, his mind aglow with the thudding of his heart and the warmth of emotion. All fell away into a cool, refreshed focus on a stalk in front of his eyes, its dun length covered in fuzzy white hairs.

That, and a gaping wound in his thigh and a sprained ankle. For the former, a self-healing bandage was called for. He cut away more of the damaged suit, keeping the hole as small as possible for protection. He eased the bandage inside, pressed it gently around the edges to seal it, then stroked its surface to activate it. It would disinfect the wound, staunch the bleeding, and drop nanites in to effect repair. It would be healed in a day, if he could only rest and eat. But of course, that was out of the question.

Rising painfully to his knees, then his feet, using his arms and the punch gun for support, he pressed a patch to his neck, letting a mild analgesic and more nanites into his bloodstream. What he needed was the Darhel equivalent of a narcotic and a muscle relaxer, but that, too, was out of the question.

The scrapes and minor tears he’d have to ignore. It was time to move. He lurched off deeper into the brush.

Dagger squatted low. The firing had stopped as he came down the hill. That could mean dead Elf, or crippled Elf, or that he’d won his engagement. It was time to be cautious again. That thick tangle of crud was definitely where he was, and there was nothing to do but ease in slowly, rifle raised at the ready and be prepared to shoot at any disturbance. This had to end soon, and there would be no better time. The Darhel had to be disoriented and possibly injured, too. Even likely injured. That had been a lot of shooting, indicating a predator.

So watch out for predators and wounded Darhel. Shoot both, ask questions later, he thought as he brushed fronds aside with the barrel of his rifle. The undergrowth was thick and matted, and he’d have to step carefully. What he needed was a hint as to where Tirdal’s trail was. From there, he could stalk him down. And it would be damned near impossible for the little freak to dodge in this undergrowth.

Dagger was smiling faintly as he pushed forward. He raised branches carefully, stepping underneath and then lowering them to avoid swishes or snaps. Each step was thought through before the foot went down. He twisted as he walked, turning his torso to avoid growth where possible, so as to minimize his own trail. The sun was hot, flyers drifted up past him, disturbed by the movement, and pods and seeds clung to his skin and his gear. Rather than prickly like earth seeds, most here were gooey. That had to be because most life-forms had shells and not fur or feathers.

Then he came across a cracked stick. Near it was a flattened patch of grass. There, a turned log. This was trail, certainly. In a few moments, Dagger had it. A drop of violet blood glistened on a tall blade of grass.

He smiled; a drunk blind man could follow this trail. There were broken stalks from clumsy footsteps, bent and torn leaves from the passage of a body. Now to get in a good position to take the Darhel down. Though from the size of the blood trail the Darhel wasn’t going to be much of a challenge anymore. More violet drops and faint greasy smears showed him to be injured.

Had Dagger seen the size of the area torn apart in the fight, resembling a tornado touchdown, and the corpses of six dead tiger beetles blown into pieces, he wouldn’t have been so confident.

It was likely that Tirdal would seek shelter, somewhere to patch himself up and rest. He might have major trauma from that fight. He might have a strain or other damage. A concussion, even, if Darhel were susceptible to them. Shock. All things that would slow him down. Dagger would exploit each one of those, find and nail him. He would be calm, methodical and professional, and afterwards he’d gloat.

The gloating would be very sweet. It had, after all, been a hell of a chase and a bastard of a fight. That made the coming victory that much more enjoyable.

Behind both combatants, the local scavengers had found the sign of the battle. Snuffling and twitching their antennae, those niche-fillers moved in to examine the area. There was protein in plenty here, with six large, well-fed predators dead, and their shells were already open. The meat would be efficiently disposed of in ever-smaller bites until the antlike legions scoured the skeletons clean. Then the insect borers would crumble those and the sun would break down the structure until it became merely crunchy soil underneath. But for now, best to feast quickly, lest some other predator dispute the rights. Most of them tore at the dead animals, but the area was crowded and blood had splashed widely. Some of that blood was interesting, different. What tasty flavor might such a wounded creature yield when dead?

A pack leader chittered, and brushed her antennae over her pack. At her lead, they trundled off through the scrub, following the scent of that strange blood. One stopped for a last bite of tiger beetle.