Slater stopped listening, watching Dinçer saddle two horses. While Talha explained the remaining rules, Dinçer brought Salik to the yard, then thrust him up on one animal. Taking the remaining horse, they galloped west, disappearing in the woods.
Slater’s chest heated with anticipation, he hooked the hissing sack with a long stick and rushed after the horses.
ONE HOUR LATER, when Dinçer abandoned the kneeling Salik in the middle of a small forest glade, Slater glanced at the sun. It froze between the forest and zenith, and Slater thought that it must be around ten AM.
Following Dinçer’s instruction, Salik counted to sixty before he removed his blindfold. His upper lip curled as he squinted at his surroundings, at the sky, then down at his khaki pants. Getting to his feet, he rushed west.
Entering the glade, Slater hummed as he examined the tracks. Trampled down grass was quickly recovering, suggesting that the trail would disappear within twenty minutes. Following Salik, he jogged to the outskirt where grass thinned out and discovered a clear footprint. Without thinking, he stepped over the print and pressed. Removing his foot, he squatted. The sole of his boot, a fraction bigger than Salik’s, crushed the original print, but his experienced eye picked up the outlines of two feet. Still, it was better than nothing.
“Let’s make the odds even, shall we, Master?” Stomping as hard as he could, Slater rushed in the opposite direction. Reaching the stream, he followed it down for a mile, before returning to the glade to start over again, but this time going north.
By the time the sun reached its zenith, Slater returned to the glade, happy with the result. About a dozen trails led from here in every direction; and he hoped that his efforts were enough to confuse Talha’s people, at least for an hour. Picking up Salik’s footprints, Slater followed him step by step, making sure he reprinted the trail with the texture of his military boots.
NEXT TIME HE SAW a small group of Talha’s people, the sun had traveled over the sky for another twenty degrees. Five men. Slater recognized their faces, but he couldn’t remember their names. At any other time, the group wouldn’t catch his interest as Talha wasn’t in it, but the horses trotted through the forest following Salik’s trail. According to Slater’s estimation, if they kept going, they would catch up with Salik within twenty minutes.
The familiar throbbing sensation settled in his fingertips, urging him to touch the comforting coolness of a knife. He could already imagine the beauty of the scene with so much blood in it that the green moss would turn red. He could stick their heads on spikes, draw some meaningless symbols on the ground, maybe even fill their stomachs with snakes, to add to the picture. His head filled with imaginary screams of terror, sending a rush of endorphins down his spine. His fingers curled and a warm throwing needle fell into the crook of his palm.
The seconds ticked, yet he didn’t throw the needle.
‘Do I need to explain what would happen if one of my men dies?’ the ice of Talha’s words cooled him down. Reluctantly, Slater inserted the needle into the sheath and clicked his tongue.
“Nah-nah-nah, not so fast. I can’t kill you yet, but… What fun would it be if the game is this easy?” Fetching a simple Y-shaped stick out of his backpack, he picked a stone, aimed, and struck the leading stallion under the tail. The horse reared, kicked the second-in-chain horse in the muzzle, before throwing the rider off and galloping away. Slater hoped that the noise created would be enough to reach Salik and speed him up or, at least, make him more careful.
Messing with tracks, he kept breaking branches and leaving misleading footprints in obvious places, making Talha’s people bump into each other over and over.
At some point, he spotted a wasp hive which he cut off a tree along with the branch. Earning a few stings, he carefully mined the buzzing ‘bomb’ on a path of one group before retreating.
A poor horse, stomping on it, freed the angry swarm. Even from seventy feet away he could see the black swarm rushing from one man to another, cocooning the riders and the horses. Chin resting on his fists, Slater observed the panic evolve into bedlam, and people galloping in every direction. Losing his interest in the deserted scene, Slater jogged into the woods.
DESPITE HIS EFFORTS, stupid Salik was a hair's breadth of being captured at least twice during the day. The idiot made too much mess and was too loud. Slater considered killing him, but his curiosity to see a real, one on one hunt overpowered. Whenever the distance between Salik and the hunters reduced, Slater had to drag attention to himself. It was troublesome, tiring.
By the end of the first day, the number of people capable of continuing the hunt shrunk to thirteen. Night fell, merging the groups for camping, and once again, despite his efforts, they picked up Salik’s trail. Such a huge group was complicated to approach. Slater caught himself thinking that murdering them would be easier now when they were all snuggled around the fire.
Splitting them without causing serious damage was troublesome, but Slater still wavered. Despite the irritation Talha caused, there was something about the man that attracted him. Slater wasn’t sure if it was his patience, or the way he took care of people around him, or something else. Whatever it was, it didn’t let him break the last link.
The smell of food permeated the air. His stomach grumbled; mouth watered from the aroma of grilled meat. He would have killed for a piece of warm, juicy, red steak. Slater looked around. He could have eaten lizards, and he had snakes too, but the raw meat didn’t appeal. Setting up a fire would certainly attract attention on such a clear night. Giving a hateful glare to the people around the fire, he plucked a pack of caramelized nuts out of his backpack and stuffed his cheeks.
When the night progressed, the people had prepared the horses for the night and put up tents, Slater ghosted toward Salik. Never encountering anyone during the day, the man slept propped up against a tree, making Slater wonder if the lack of a proper chase bloated his ego to the point where he’d stopped treating Talha’s people seriously. If he was the chased one, he wouldn’t be sleeping at all.
Toothless needs some lessons and exercise. Slater smirked. Arrogance was one of his favorite human traits, yet, Salik’s arrogance didn’t excite him. Tomorrow, I’ll make you sweat like a pig.
Working on a plan, Slater returned to the camp. The snakes in the sack were troublesome. They hissed, they bit, and he had to use a long stick to carry the sack around. Wanting to get rid of them as soon as possible, he clambered up in a tree to watch.
The glowing orange light, coming from the fire, now barely reached the outskirts of the glade. The round hills of the tents created enough of shadows and blind spots for him to kill everyone without anyone noticing.
Talha’s people were careless. If Slater was the hunted one, they all would have already been dead, and the night guards Talha put on the first shift wouldn’t have saved them.
Two hours later, Slater noticed a pattern. Two of the night guards used the same place as a toilet. That gave him an idea. Jumping down, he darted toward the camp.
Digging a quick hole in the ground on the way to the toilet, he imprisoned common vipers in it, using a net of branches as a grate; strong enough to keep the snakes inside but still flimsy enough to break under human weight.
The result came quickly. A howl of pain and terror was music to Slater’s ears. Perching on a branch of a massive pine tree, he surveyed the camp in small detail. Unfamiliar with the poor bugger who stepped on his trap, he didn’t feel guilty for sending one of the walī of the slain home.