An Unauthorized Field Guide to the Hunt (2 page)

“Allies?” the Nambian hissed.

Shane mightily resisted the urge to throw up again. “Thanks,” he told his assassin. He accepted the silver canteen and pretended clumsiness, spilling a little of its contents to ensure what spattered to the forest floor wasn’t acid. Maybe poisoned? Under the Nambian’s reptilian gaze, Shane lifted the canteen. He shifted casually to the side and placed the webbed skin separating his thumb and forefinger between the opening and his mouth before feigning a sip. He spit sour saliva into the dirt to dutifully “rinse.”

Returning the canteen to his kit, the Nambian squeezed Shane’s shoulder. “I will see,” the scaly predator said through his weirdly lipless mouth, gaze indicating the other two humans groaning nearby. “Stay.”

Since the Nambian hadn’t attacked yet, Shane sat on the ground and rested. Struggled to catch his breath. Maybe the Nambian preferred to eliminate the pesky humans from the Hunt one by one. A single man wasn’t as strong as one of the cunning reptiles, no matter how young, but humans outnumbered the Nambian for now, so Shane was probably safe. He’d exercise patience while the others tried to pull together an alliance among this landing pad’s refugees, and wait for his opportunity to slip away. Praying for a distraction, he watched the Nambian stride to the others.

“Snake got him. Does anyone have something sharp?” one of the humans, the chunky blond who had crashed into the first man, asked.

The Nambian pivoted to angle his creepy scaled head in query at Shane.

“No,” he reluctantly admitted.

The creature grinned, pointy teeth menacing. “I do.”

Figures.

“No, get away from it,” the other human whined, clasping his knee to his chest.

“You’re bit, and it’s already swelling,” the blond said. “Do you want to leave the arena on an accident medevac this early?”

Rucking up his Hunt shirt, the Nambian withdrew a forbidden dagger from the waistband at his scaly abdomen. “The venom must come out,” he agreed, beady black eyes focused on Shane instead of the others. “You could die.”

As if Shane needed another clue that the Nambian would make Shane his bitch if he didn’t get the hells away?

The blond guy held out a hand for the contraband knife. “I grew up on a farm with a lot of vipers. I know how to extract venom. I’ll do it.”

Smirking at Shane, the Nambian handed over the knife.

Stupid bastard.

The blond proved humans could be as sly and deadly as every other species sent into the arenas by sticking the blade between shiny scales and into the Nambian’s gut. As they wrestled for control of the smuggled dagger, Shane hauled his winded ass off the ground. He’d sprinted out of sight before the echoes from the first screams died in the alien forest, and the wardens’ shouted warnings to “Stand clear! Drop the weapon!” rang out. A trio of cats wearing the standard blue Arena 4 med tech jumpsuit streaked by Shane.

One less Nambian to compete against.

The snakebite would trigger the medical evac of the other human too.

Maybe Shane’s luck had turned.

* * * *

He jogged all day. The five landing pads inside the arenas were spaced so far apart he wouldn’t stumble into range of other competitor groups and a more secure human alliance until tomorrow, but Shane hadn’t survived to adulthood by being careless. Once he broke free of the perilous bottleneck at his entry point, he doubled back to ensure the blond hadn’t continued following him. Then he slowed his pace to watch for signs. Scuffed dirt. Broken branches. Disturbed leaves.

Nothing.

While he hadn’t been fostered in the countryside of Narone in his teens, Shane had dodged raiders after one of his brothers had arranged for a malfunctioning speeder to dump Shane in the Badlands once. He could avoid others when he needed to.

He sure needed to now.

Cats most readily accepted humans. No one was sure why. Thousands of offworlders queued through the cats’ screening center on the Seskeran moon every mating cycle, and dozens of species had made the cut to be inserted into one of five arenas on Mariket. All were hunted. No other offworlders won the Hunt as frequently as humans, though, which put one hell of a target on Shane’s back. That the cats pounced on and toyed with humans most was unnerving. Add the ferocity of other species desperate for a victor, and the harrowing odds against humans usually persuaded those tempted to enter the Hunt to reconsider. Winning was too horrible to contemplate. Remaining on Mariket, hidden among the cats? Rarely if ever to be seen again? Regardless of the cats’ widely reported pampering of victors, most humans stayed away.

Shane hadn’t enjoyed that luxury. He needed to compete. His brothers’ attempts to kill him had forced him to the one spot in the galaxy impregnable to uninvited offworlders—Mariket. If he managed to impress the cats and convince them to accept him in trade negotiations after the Hunt concluded, he would become too valuable to his home planet to waste. Narone wouldn’t tolerate losing Shane to petty family squabbling. He would finally be free of his murderous kin. And safe.

If he didn’t fuck it up by mating a cat.

He must compete well. Very well.

Just not
too
well.

Rather than pondering the perilous dance of his Hunt, Shane concentrated on scouting for berries, nuts, and anything that looked edible as he jogged. He’d made
not
thinking about the Hunt and the cats his mission inside the arena. That mission would be more successful if instead of freaking out, he narrowed his focus to what was immediately necessary. Escaping his hovercraft’s group of competitors before his bruised and bloodied body became the stepping-stone of a victor? Necessary.

Shane squinted at pea-sized purple berries in the highest limbs of the bushes ahead.

Finding something to fill his cavernous stomach and show off his self-sufficiency?

Vital.

Sweeping his surroundings for predators, Shane slid his pack off his aching shoulders at what must’ve been well past midday. Hard to tell with the gloom, Mariket’s sun hidden by the forest canopy. He unzipped his pack and retrieved one of the few personal items the cats allowed—his flatscreen. Unlike many competitors, Shane hadn’t been driven to the Hunt by poverty, so his screen was security coded to power up in the palm of his hand alone. Stomach gurgling, he waited while the device read his handprint and decided that a dirty, sweat-streaked Shane was still indeed Shane. The screen glowed to life. With a few taps of his fingers, Shane was thumbing through a plant identification guide he’d loaded into the handheld device.

He smiled moments later when the leaf arrangement on the stems, the shape and color of the berries, and even the dark fertile soil indicated he’d discovered a meal that wouldn’t poison him. He shut down the screen to conserve battery life and returned it to his pack, trading the device for a collapsible cooking pot.

He circled the bushes, picking berries at chest height. Other forest scavengers had already stripped fruit from that point down. No matter how his stomach grumbled, he harvested a thin band along that watershed mark so he wouldn’t leave obvious signs of his presence. Luckily he spotted wild mushrooms beneath the lowest branches that his screen once again assured him would not kill him. Between the berries and the mushrooms, he filled his pot.

That should increase his odds with bookies taking bets across the galaxy. Another step closer to becoming too valuable for his family to kill.

Carrying the pot so he could toss bites into his mouth, he moved on. The berries burst tart and juicy on his tongue. The mushrooms were bland and unpleasantly rubbery, but he’d been able to harvest more of them so the volume pacified the yowls of his stomach.

He veered off his current heading when half the berries and mushrooms were gone. The gods must have blessed him, because the sound of gurgling water guided him to a pond the size of his sleeping quarters back home. Ordinary lilies floated on the surface. Insects buzzed, and their wings snapped. While he finished his supper, he crouched behind giant ferns and studied the tracks in the mud surrounding the water source. No claw marks, which was both warning and relief. Nambians and other taloned competitors hadn’t visited the pool. But neither had the cats. Maybe they were all too busy fucking to care about one lone human roaming their hunting ground.

When he felt the cool night creeping near, he set out again. He needed to be far from a water source and hidden by the time the forest gloom deepened to pitch-black.

The cats were nocturnal. Mostly.

Shane hiked as long as he practicably could, but this time his luck gave out. He wanted a pile of rocks, a hill not built by biting insects, maybe a cave. He found none. Fallen trees that might’ve provided a camouflaging shelter had been markedly absent during his journey through this section of the arena. The forest was the forest was the forest. There were towering trees and random clusters of bushes and then still more trees and bushes. In some areas predators could survey the forest floor from above virtually unimpeded.

Damn cats didn’t play fair.

When the shadows of dusk began darkening the woods, Shane couldn’t wait anymore. Others would stalk the arena once daylight fled. Fellow competitors would exploit species adaptations that made the inky black their home. Without weapons and blind at night, Shane would be worthless and his strength too wasted from running. He had to hide.

Though vanishing inside a shroud of thorns made his nerves jangle, finding a shallow trench in which to bury himself under a blanket of forest detritus felt too much like a grave. A thicket heavy with leaves was his best bet. He crouched and retrieved the standard-issue sleeping bag from his backpack, hoping the thin material was warmer than it looked. Tamping down shrieking unease, he wriggled under a cascade of greenery and unfurled his bed for the night. He twisted to tug his pack into the claustrophobic space to serve as his pillow. He unzipped the sleeping bag so he could squirm inside, squeezing into the tight cocoon. Hands shaking, he arranged the lowest branches of the thicket to hide him and fastened the sleeping bag to his chin. He considered pulling the drawstring tight around his face so he wouldn’t lose as much body heat, but he wanted to hear anything nearby.

No cat or competitor would be able to see him.

That was bad. Very bad. Competitors who disappeared made for a boring Hunt, which might prod wardens to flush him into the open if the fighting at the landing pads had tapered.

And the surrounding brush haunted him. Eerie. Too creepy.

Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d hiked so much. He’d certainly never run so far. His overtaxed muscles burned, the sting at his feet promising blisters he’d been too rushed to check at the pond. Exhaustion weighed him down. Willing his body to relax, he closed his eyes.

They popped wide at the distant rustle of branches in the tree canopy overhead.

Just birds.

The arena was full of them, not to mention the millions of small animals he’d spotted as well as the tracks they’d left in damper soils. Shane had camped in the Badlands enough to understand jumping at every sound would result in a restless night that robbed his body of sorely needed sleep.

He’d never been hunted, though. Not like this. The whisper of leaves and every scrape of phantom twigs set his heart to pounding. The cats weren’t on his trail yet. Shane had been smart, conservative, devotedly applying the tips he’d learned at the screening center. Why would the cats go after him when much more entertaining targets like the Nambians were so thick on the ground? He’d never followed reports or betted on the Hunt because the violence of the chase spooked him, but even he knew the first days were dominated by sexual gluttony. The real Hunt started days from now when the cats grew weary of mindless fucking. Once the fog of arousal faded, and the cats had spent their lust on the most readily available prey, only then did the cats play.

Shane trembled anyway, fear growing as the black of night swallowed him whole. If he lifted his hand to his eyes, he wouldn’t see his fingers. Not in the arena. Maybe not anywhere on Mariket. The tree canopy blocked the glow of the Seskeran moon and smothered starlight. With his eyes deprived of information, his sense of hearing sharpened. His stomach clenched at the faintest, most innocuous sounds.

No cats were here. That scratch to his far left was twigs rubbing in the breeze, not claws skittering over tree trunks and limbs. He was safe.

He shivered, though, because he didn’t feel safe.

He felt like he was being watched.

Cats were unlikely to be nearby, but wardens were rarely far. Nothing mattered to them except orchestrating the most productive Hunt that would attract more competitors for the next mating cycle. They couldn’t physically touch Shane. Hunt rules forbade that, but they could steer cats and competitors in any direction they wanted. Toward safety. Or danger.

Making an enemy of the wardens by vanishing had been a colossally dumb idea.

When he jerked in his sleeping bag at the chirp of an insect near his cheek, he disturbed the thicket. Shane silently cursed. His competitors and the cats wouldn’t need to go to the effort of hunting him. Shane’s nervous stupidity was as good as a clarion alarm. At least the cats were too busy fucking Nambians to press the advantage of his embarrassing lapse, and he had this first night to correct his mistakes.

Although he’d been right about the bush concealing him, it wasn’t the best choice for shelter. Nearby wardens would drag him out and into the open. Darkness increased his claustrophobic paranoia, and the sensation of being trapped in the brush made him too jumpy, tricked him into small nervous tells that pinpointed his location anyway. If he sat and leaned against the tree near the tangle of briars instead, where he could use some of the prickly branches as cover, he would be partially exposed to the night, but steadier. Less prone to anxious twitches. He’d also pacify wardens disgruntled with him for disappearing.

He might even manage some rest.

He just needed to slither from the thicket without alerting the entire arena. Since moving quietly at night was a skill he must master to succeed in the Hunt, he might as well start practicing while the cats enjoyed their whores elsewhere.