Lovers in the Woods (6 page)

Sajitar had seen lumberjacks with more than
just an axe walk into the wood, afraid of their own shadow. He had
seen fear in their eyes and heard stories of giant monsters
attacking in the dark. Some exited mute and apathetic, afraid of
sleeping in the dark. That was considered one of the milder
illnesses. He knew of people who had gone mad and tried to shoot
their wives, shouting they were beasts that had to be killed.

Though sometimes and partly true, the reasons
did not justify murder.

He wondered why corporations
were so eager to plunder the woods even if it meant losing men.
Maybe this would change if the heads of the corporations were
forced to set foot in Emerald Green.
And that
, he thought,
might lead to less and less
exploitation
.
And
new heads for corporations, too.

The Horlyn vanished without a sound between
the trees in the semi-darkness.

Sajitar pointed
to the right, saying without words that being cautious not to cross
the Horlyn’s way was better than following its trail.

Rayenne whispered, “How did you know the
beast would just walk away? It had smelled us, hadn’t it?”

“
I can’t say.” Sajitar grimaced. For more
than an hour, his left side hurt as if a thick wooden splinter had
stuck in his skin. He reached for his flagon to take another
swallow. “Maybe it wasn’t out for dinner yet.”

“This is no joke, you know.”

After putting away the flagon, he turned to
inspect his jacket. There was a hole with seared edges the size of
a button right over his left hip. The shirt beneath had the same
hole. Breathing hard suddenly, he found his skin penetrated, too.
He probed it and flinched at the pain.

“Shit.”

“What’s up?”

“
I knew something hit me,
but I didn’t realize…
ouch
!”

“Shall I take a look at it?”

He wanted to say
yes
,
but saw something move on the left side of the crude path. He
dropped the jacket.

“Hey, who goes there?”

Rayenne turned in the saddle, alarmed and
ready to shoot.

From the shadow behind a tree a tall,
slender man appeared and lifted his hands to show he was unarmed.
His face was weather-beaten, his eyes small with overhanging
eyelids. His shoulders sagged, and it was hard to tell if he was
forty or even sixty years old. He walked with a limp, slow and
labored. In his dark red worn-out pullover and baggy pants, he
looked the role model for all miserable lumberjacks working on
Belthraine for too long and for too little money to ever get
away.

“Didn’t mean no harm, missy,” he said when he
was close enough. His voice rumbled and he cleared his throat to no
avail. “Nice B-horses you got there. Pretty. Fast, I suppose,
ey?”

“Yes.” Rayenne still had a hand on the butt
of her gun. “Who are you?”

“Doyakis. People call me Yak, can’t tell you
why.” While his eyes stayed wary he opened his mouth for a
smile.

Sajitar wished he hadn’t. The man’s teeth
were only stubs, yellow and darker than that. He could not tell how
long this man had been in the woods, but he knew for certain that
he had not seen a doctor or a dentist for a decade.

“What ya doin’
here?” Doyakis wanted to know, inclining his head as he squinted at
the strangers. He spat at the ground. “No one’s gotta business out
here except me. Not in these parts of the woods, anyway.”

“And what’s your business, Doyakis?”

“Trees.” The
old man cackled which turned into a cough. “Searching for the best
trees. Did you think dragons? Or fairies? Maybe you’re out for that
here, ey?” He wiggled his gloved fingers at them. “Ah, I know.
Looking more for a quiet place to—”

“Are you alone?”

“Miserable and alone, yep. Worse off than you
two, obviously.” He pulled up his nose, thought of spitting and,
when he saw Rayenne’s disgust, let it be. “But if you want to I’d
share my hut with you tonight. See, there’s nothin’ around here and
the weather’s gonna change in a few short hours. I know that. And
you?”

Rayenne nodded to Sajitar.

“I feel the rain coming, too. Wouldn’t be too
bad to be protected.”

“And your—”

“Lead the way, Doyakis.”

“
Oh, call me Yak. It’s okay. Not so
formal.” He smiled again and, twitching his brows, added, “You
haven’t been out here for long, have you? You look so…clean.”
Another cackle followed. When Rayenne and Sajitar did not reply he
shook his head and turned to the edge of the forest. His limp on
the left side made him sway more than walk. “You two, are you
together? I mean, really together?”

“No,” Rayenne hastened to reply. “We are… We
took a shortcut through the woods.”

“Ah.” Doyakis did not believe a word. “That’s
why. I see. I see.”

Sajitar was certain the old man
had noticed the officer’s uniform.
Why doesn’t he comment on it?

“Have you been out here for long?”

Doyakis glanced over his shoulder, telling
without words that he took the young man to be one brick short of a
load.

“Don’t I look scruffy enough for you, laddie?
I’ve been out here for longer than anyone lives. Well, maybe the
Horlyns live longer, but in their circles, and they don’t celebrate
their birthdays with me, ey. I can tell ya, I met some of those
beasts as lads who are old by now. They don’t fly anymore.”

“You know how to differentiate between single
beings?” Rayenne’s astonishment brought a return of undisclosed
anger.

“You don’t? Now, missy, if you had been here
longer than a few short hours, you’d understand that there’re a lot
of signs and patterns among these beasts. It’s not like you know
one you know them all.”

Sajitar’s uneasiness rose. He checked the
surroundings.

“Did you meet other people around here,
today?”

“Have you missed a party or what, laddie?
Maybe with your fairies, ey? No, for the sake of my peace in these
woods, there’s not been a soul around here for weeks.”

Sajitar was off the saddle in one fluent
motion, had his knife out and at the old man’s throat so fast that
there was no resistance. Yelling, the old man went down, flailing
his arms. Pressed hard against a tree trunk, all air was driven
from his lungs. He tried to cough but couldn’t.

“You bugger! Leave me alone! Help!”

Sajitar pressed the blade against Doyakis’
throat. His words were clipped.

“Tell me, old man, who pays you for
this?”

He stared at him, wild-eyed.

“Pay?”

“
Stop this
I’m-innocent-babble
. I know you work with them! So spit it out! Where
do they wait for us?”

“I…I…There’s no one! I swear!” The old man
lifted his arms and dropped them in surrender when Sajitar pressed
harder, penetrating his skin. A single drop of blood trickled down
his throat. The old man wailed. “Please, don’t kill me!”

“Saji, leave him be,” Rayenne said before she
returned to scanning the area, gun at the ready. “Probably he had
no choice.”

“He’d sell us for some credits to Sanjongy!
Tell me, you bugger!”

Doyakis swallowed with an effort, then cast
his eyes down.

“They said they’d come after dark.”

“To your hut?”

“Yes.” Doyakis tried to flatten his back
against the trunk to get more air, but Sajitar expected the move.
“Don’t kill me! I beg you!”

“How many men?”

“Three. I don’t know if there were more!” he
added fearfully when Sajitar cocked his head, disbelieving.

“What did they promise you?”

“Credits.”

“Lots of credits?”

“More than I’d ever see now.”

“Are there more like you? What did you
hear?”

The old man shook his head. Sweat poured down
his temples.

“You can’t outrun them for long. They’ll look
for you everywhere.”

“Bounty hunters, ey?”

There was a twitch in his brows and his voice
even weaker than before.

“Who knows? I’m just one and I swear I didn’t
want this to happen.”

“Do they have tattoos?”

“How shall I know? Doesn’t everyone have one
today?”

Sajitar pulled back the knife and used the
haft to hit on his head. Doyakis slumped against the tree,
unconscious.

“He won’t betray us again.” He got up again
and put the knife away in a practiced movement.

“How did you know?”

Sajitar checked the surroundings, then
mounted the B-horse again. He panted and shivered at the same time.
Looking at Rayenne, he realized that his sudden action had
surprised her, to say the least.

“
You wear a uniform.” His
voice was rough. The happenings, starting with this morning’s death
of a police officer, got to him and he wanted
out
—just call it quits and leave. He shook his head, running a
hand through his sweaty hair. Pain made him shiver. “There’s no man
in this corner of the world who wouldn’t comment on a woman in a
police uniform, believe me. Or they’d want to stay out of your
path. And he came right at us. So very friendly. Didn’t you think
he was suspicious?”

Rayenne glanced at him, raising her brows
while a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

Sajitar nodded. “You knew.”

“I did. I would’ve preferred him to take us
to his hut.” She turned her mount as she put away her gun. “So no
one is nice to a police woman, hmm?”

“No, not around here. No one.”

“Are there wild animals around?”

Sajitar snorted.

“He’ll be up and about in a short while and
tell those men that we got away once more. Don’t worry, he’ll be
his old grumpy self.”

“Who’s worried?”

He huffed, his glance wild and angry.
“Have you ever thought of changing clothes while we are
fleeing?”

“No.”

“Do it.”

Chapter
Three

“Where did you get the knife?” Rayenne asked
when they had crossed another three miles deeper into Emerald
Green. The branches hung low and she had to duck down onto Bunty’s
withers frequently. “I had you searched.”

“I have special places.”

“Show me.” She waited for him to produce the
knife with a sly grin. “That’s my knife!”

He shrugged.

“
You took mine away, and I needed one, as
you see.”

“You stole it!”

“I borrowed it. Gimme back mine and I’ll
trade it for this one. Mine’s much better balanced.”

“When?”

“Earlier. Your B-horse was close to mine and
your knife…” He let the sentence trail off while the knife danced
over his fingers.

Rayenne blushed. How she hated that he had
duped her!

“What else did you take?”

“What do you want to get back?”

“
What?
”

He sighed and put away the
knife, ignoring her demanding stare.
“Unless you shoot me, Ray, which I’m quite
sure you won’t do, we are partners. You can try and treat me as a
prisoner, but that’ll do you no good. I know some things about
Emerald Green. I know about life here. You don’t. And we know now
that you can’t run back to the street to contact HQ unless you want
to have a meet-and-greet with Sanjongy’s gunslingers. What’s your
decision?”

Rayenne looked away, embarrassed. She had
been proud of her independence, of her abilities. Out here, the sum
of her knowledge was less than what Sajitar had collected through
the years of just being a small criminal on this planet. It was
frustrating.

She took a deep breath, composing her wits.
It was fruitless to be angry.

“
I’m not into ridiculous games, Saji. We
both want to get through the woods alive. I agree, you know more
than I do, and I promise it will be to your benefit that you helped
me. But that’s all I can do.”

“I guess I can live with that for now.”

Rayenne looked
back at the withers of her B-horse, not knowing if she wanted to
interpret his reaction. Her job was to bring him safely to Belson
Park, no matter whether he was a criminal or just a witness.

On one hand, and much to her surprise, she
enjoyed the ride through Emerald Green. There was no such wood
where she came from. The landscape of her home planet consisted of
forests, swamps and dense vegetation that changed with the
temperatures. Sometimes reading tracks was hard work, sometimes you
could follow a man over hundreds of miles without stopping.

Her whole family—more than forty
people—had long specialized in tracking criminals on planets
throughout the quadrant. They had made a brand name out of
Whiteclaw
. Now her father, uncles and brothers were known for their
excellent work in finding escapees where the police had
failed.

On the other hand, she wanted the danger to be over. Unlike
one of her brothers, who thrived on dangerous situations every day
and boasted with his heroic deeds, Rayenne had become a police
officer to bring a little bit more justice to worlds that were
sunken in crime. So far she had not had much impact, and it nagged
her that the simple transport of a prisoner to Belson Park had
developed into an adventure with an unknown outcome. If she told
her father and brothers, she’d be laughed at. She could already
hear all the comments and the mocking laughter.
We told you before. Stick to tracking only. There’s nothing
more criminal than the police of a retarded
planet
.

Finally Sajitar broke their
mutual silence.
The first drops of rain hit their faces. “We need shelter
for the night.”