Chapter 71

It had been a month since that night and I was no longer at the resort or Oak Hall or anywhere on that other Earth. Instead I was in Africa. To be precise, I was in southern Africa on the east coast and I had been there for almost a week.

I was alone now. I had left my mates and my friends behind me and I had returned to wandering like I had done the first few weeks of my time on Game World. Like then I was on foot and I was armed only with what Victoria's people had given me. I had no horse to ride and I certainly didn't have any firearms. Those I had put away back in Oak Hall with instructions not to use them unless it became absolutely necessary. I had found out the hard way how quickly firearms upset the balance of things when the other side was similarly armed. I'd lost a woman that I'd loved and a friend because of firearms and I had lost a lot of men who might have lived if things hadn't escalated the way they had.

So far things had been easy for me here in Africa. The weather was warm but not hot and the days had gone by quickly. I had gotten back into the joy of living off the land and walking everywhere. As for encounters with wild beasts, they had been few and far between. With game a plenty in the region, animals like lions and hyenas kept far away from humans such as me. That left me the freedom to enjoy myself without too many worries.

Eventually all good things do come to an end and that had happened that morning. I'd broken camp at daybreak and I had set out once more southward. I had kept the ocean on my left and the savannah on my right. An hour or so after heading out I was forced to halt. I found my way barred by a river.

It wasn't a huge river. It was only a few hundred feet wide and I knew I could easily swim across it, but I really had no desire to do so. The main reason against swimming was crocodiles. I saw several of the brutes lying on the far bank sunning themselves and I had no desire whatsoever to try my luck with them.

Instead of trying to swim across I turned southeast and headed towards the coast. I'd seen smoke in the distance and I figured that where there was smoke there would be people and if I was lucky, perhaps they had a way across the river that didn't include me swimming. Naturally, with my long legs and the pace I set for myself it didn't take long for me to find the source of the smoke. It turned out to be a small village sitting on a rise of land that overlooked the river that I wanted to cross.

I decided to be cautious in my actions and instead of just walking in and introducing myself, I found myself a blind from which I could spy out the village and the surrounding landscape before I made first contact. It turned out to be a good idea on my part.

My blind was in a thicket of trees and brush that sat atop a bluff that was a mile or so north of the village. From there, with the use of the binoculars that I'd taken from Oak Hall, I could see everything that there was to be seen about the village. The village was small in size. By my count there were only a couple of hundred people living in it. The village was surrounded by a woven fence that stood barely five feet high. It had a single gate that opened towards the river. While the fence enclosed roughly forty to fifty small thatched roofed huts, it didn't really offer much protection to the village. It looked to be more for keeping in the local livestock than it was to keep out anything that was dangerous. I was certain that a big cat could go through that wall without a problem.

By all appearance the villagers were locals of African decent and they all appeared to be farmers and fishermen. The village was only a few hundred feet from the river and I could see a couple of reed boats bobbing about on the river with men in them casting nets and pulling them in. The sight put a smile on my face for I was certain the craft could carry me across the river in relative safety. What wiped the smile off my face was what I saw in the village. I spotted white men who were obviously outworlders and from their behaviour, I was certain that they weren't overly friendly.

There were eight men in all and they were all armed with swords and spears and leather armour. Compared to the local men and women they were giants. The locals were mostly in the five foot two category whereas the outworlders were between five-ten and six feet and they certainly weighed a lot more as well. The local men were lightweights compared to the eight outworlders and it was clear from the first moment I spotted them that the outworlders made use of that difference to intimidate the locals.

I spent a day in my hide watching the bastards dominate the locals. While I sat there observing, my mind started to pick up clues about who the men were. Victoria's people had briefed me thoroughly on every bad guy on Game World and now that knowledge was filtering up out of my subconscious. By the end of the day I knew exactly who I was up against.

The leader of the eight men was Dieter Howell. According to what Victoria's people had implanted in my brain, the man had been an infamous criminal on his own Earth. He had trafficked in human slaves, selling less than fortunate women and children into prostitution. He had also killed people including law enforcement officers and anyone else who had gotten into his way. Accordingly he had a reputation as being a sadist and from what I had witnessed that day I believe it. I had watched the man torture a boy who had accidently dropped something on Howell's foot. The boy didn't survive the experience. I also witnessed the man publicly rape a woman just for the fun of it. As for the men with him, they were all members of his old gang. They had been arrested and sent to prison back on their own Earth. Sahara Networks had liberated them all a couple of years ago in the hope of spicing things up in this region. It had worked for a while like always, until Howell and his people had settled down here. After that Sahara Network had found somebody else to watch.

The question that came to my mind was what to do about these eight men. I knew that I could just walk into the village and face the men down. They might outnumber me but they certainly couldn't outfight me. I'd been up against greater odds before and I'd survived. The problem was that I was feeling a little gun shy. I wasn't worried about me but I was worried about the locals. With my mind on possible collateral damage, I decided that a different tack was in order. That left me two other options. One was to go through the main gate after dark and then creep into the dwelling that the men were using for their homes and deal with them one at a time. Going through the front gate would alert the locals that I was there but I had a feeling that nobody was going to run off and tell Dieter and his boys that I was there. My second option was a slight modification on the first. Instead of going through the front gate, I'd breach the wall surrounding the village and then do the same thing as before. The only difference would be that the locals wouldn't see me. In the end I chose breaching the wall. I figured it would be the safest thing to do. It would ensure that none of the locals got involved in what I intended to do and therefore it eliminated the risk of any collateral damage.

Patiently I waited until well past nightfall. By the time I was ready to move it was at least midnight. I left my pack behind and my bedroll and anything I figured might get in the way of things. I even left my bow and my two quivers of arrows behind. For this fight I wouldn't need them. Taking my time I walked down off the bluff and then I slowly worked my way over to the village wall. While the land around the village was open there was enough shape to the terrain to offer me some cover during my approach. More importantly while there was a moon in the sky, at the time I was moving towards the village it was hidden by clouds. I made good use of that fact and it took very little time for me to cross the fields and to reach the wall. I decided I'd breach it at the point furthest from the gate into the enclosure. The spot was the village midden and I figured that I wouldn't run into anyone back there.

It took almost no effort at all to breach the fence. It did however take time as I had no desire to damage the fence too much. After all the villagers would have to fix it once I was gone. I did however make the hole big enough to fit my shield through. I hadn't left that behind.

The bad guys controlled a number of huts near the centre of the village. The leader had one to him and the women he kept. His men shared four other huts. All the huts stood on the far side of the communal fire pit and they all backed on where I was entering from. Thus, once I was through the fence and clear of the miden I headed directly towards them.

Naturally I moved as quietly as I could. Once I was outside the hut where Dieter and his women lived, I took off my sword belt and I laid aside my shield. I left them in the shadow of hut's wall and moved onward towards the next closest hut. As I moved I drew one of my throwing knives from my bandoleer.

I took a quick look about and then stooped down and slipped into the darkness of the hut. I knelt there for a few minutes to let my eyes adjust to the dim light of the interior of the hut. The moon had been high and full in the sky above the village and the clouds that had obscured it during my approach were now gone. As I'd noted earlier in my observations the hut had a smoke hole in its roof. Some of that moonlight filtered through the hole and aided me in my mission.

I found only one man and a woman in this hut. The woman was sleeping towards the inside wall of the hut. The man was spooned behind her with his hand thrown over her body. Both were sleeping with their heads facing the doorway where I was kneeling. The man was actually within arms reach of me. Noting this I acted quickly. Turning ever so slightly so that I could move if necessary, I thrust my blade into the back of the man's exposed neck. The man jerked in response, but made no sound other than a long exhalation of air as his final breath escaped his lungs. His movement did however wake the woman sleeping with him.

As the woman stirred I pulled my blade from the back of the man's neck. Instinctively the woman glanced over her shoulder to look at the man. Her eyes grew wide with surprise as she saw me kneeling there. As realization started to filter into her muddled mind her mouth started to open.

"Speak and you die," I said in English to the woman. As I said this I brandished the blade in the woman's face. That shut her up immediately.

When I knew I had her full attention, I had her get up and move towards the back of the hut. I did this with pantomime and words although I was fairly certain that the woman didn't understand a thing I was saying to her. All I really wanted her to realize from the sound of my whispers was that I was not one of the men who ran her village. Once at the back of the hut I had the woman kneel down facing away from me. Once she had, I sank my bloody blade into the packed earth of the hut's floor. Then I quickly bound the woman's hands behind her back. Thankfully the woman didn't resist.

The woman was not really a woman; she was more a girl than anything else. She was naked and even in the dimness of the hut I could tell that she was fairly young. Her breasts were very small and her body didn't have any sign of womanly curve to it yet. If the girl was fourteen, I would be surprised. I tried to ignore that fact while I finished what I had to do within the hut. Before letting the girl be, I convinced her to talk to me.

While it had been a while since I had relied upon the language bank that Victoria's people had put into my head, it still worked. After a few muttered words by the girl I understood her. Her language was a distant abstract of Swahili and it took me only a second or two to grasp it. Once I did I had a quick chat with the girl. I told her why I was there and what I intended to do. I also told her that I meant her no harm but I did want her to stay where she was and to remain quiet until I had finished my work. I explained that if she did as she was told, that she would survive the night; however I did warn her that if she made one peep I would kill her as well. The girl promised and I left her be as she was without even gagging her. I really wasn't worried about her making a stink, especially after what I did next. Before leaving the hut and moving on to the next one, I pulled my hatchet from my belt and I lopped off the head of the man that I had just killed. With a smile to the girl and a bloody finger to my lips to remind her to be quiet, I bade her good evening. The last thing I did was to recover my throwing knife from where I had left it.

The second hut proved to be just as easy as the first hut. I left the head I had chopped off out side and then I slipped inside to carry on with my mission. After a moment of waiting while my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the interior I found two men and two women sleeping soundly on the ground. Like the other hut the woman was sleeping up against the interior wall while the man slept towards the inside of the hut and the centre pole in it. Finding the same situation awaiting me there, I did the same as before. I drove my blade into the back of the neck of the first man and then waited until he had stopped jerking about. The woman woke like the other girl had, but this time I spoke to her in her own tongue and told her to be quiet. As she nodded her head in acknowledgement, the second man let out a loud snort that surprised both of us. The girl yipped at the sound and the man started to stir. He never got to awaken though. In a flash I pulled my dirk out of my boot top and I quickly drove it through the man's sleeping eye, driving it into his brains and scrambling them. The man tensed for a second and went rigid but he too said nothing. All that was heard from his lips was a half strangled gurgle as his life slipped away. Of course his death woke the woman lying beside him.

I had no problems with either woman. I quickly told them the same thing as I had told the first girl. I did tie them up just to show them I meant business about not wanting to be interfered with, but I did leave them without a gag. Once I had recovered my weapons and I had chopped off the heads of the two men, I knew neither of them would make a sound until after I had liberated their village.

The next two huts proved to be just as easily attended to as were the first two huts. I didn't kill all the men with my knives. One man woke while I was killing the man who shared his hut and he rolled away from me when I went for him. He didn't get too far though because there really wasn't anywhere to go. The man did grab for a short sword that had been lying on the ground at the foot of his pallet in the hopes of using it. I just stepped towards him while he scrambled to pull the blade out of the scabbard and cleaved his skull in two with my hatchet. That put an end to things with him. As with the other three I had killed before I chopped off his head and his hut mate's and I did the same to the last two men I killed. Then I took all the heads out to where the central fire pit was, and I got to work setting up a surprise for Dieter Howell.