Chapter 21: Rubina's First Hunt

It was a fine sunny day with little wind when Rubina was released for her first hunt. This was not surprising as Kobekistani weather was usually fine and dry; the only variation was the occasional sandstorm in the summer and a week or two of fearsome rain in the spring and autumn. She was released at ten in the morning and told that the hunters would follow in one hour when she heard the gun. Two hours after that, at one o'clock the gun would sound again and the hunt would be over. If she had still not been caught at this juncture she would be free to go wherever she chose and a small pension would be paid to her for the rest of her life. If she was caught the hunters would be free to use her as they pleased to celebrate the 'kill'. She was left in no doubt that rape and sodomy would be part of the use to which she would be put, and a certain amount of pain would also be inflicted.

She had studied the map and Ramzy El-Najjar's tales of the hunts in past years, both successful and failed, and had developed with him a plan. It was a good plan, based on the successful ploy of getting behind the hunters and then following them. This made the dogs almost useless because their own and the horses' scents would conceal hers where she managed to stay close to them. While they were following the trail she had laid down earlier she would try to stay close behind them. The only risk was if they suddenly turned back the way they had come.

Off she went at a brisk trot up the main path to the ford where she crossed the stream and continued up the smaller northern branch of the path which wound behind some low hills before swinging east to a dead-end beside the northern swamp. She cut across the swamp on foot, knowing that the horsemen and the dogs would not be able to follow her through that and then came out onto the main path just as it turned north to go into the hills. Passing a few yards along the path she came to the north-western end of the tunnel through the hills. She quickly passed through this the "wrong" way. Most quarry who used it went through the other way as a methods of gaining time on their pursuers, for neither horses not dogs could pass through it. Her hope was that with her scent would be picked up and the hunters would assume she had passed through in the normal way, thus setting the hounds heeling away in the wrong direction.

As she came out of the tunnel she heard the guns fire for the start of her pursuit and this galvanised her to sprint south down a small part of the main path, keeping straight on into the swamp where the path itself veered west. After crossing the small swamp she was in the smallest of the three woodland areas and she took to the branches, swinging from tree to tree so as not to leave a trail for the dogs. In the distance, comfortably far away, she heard the challenge as the dogs led the hunters up the northern path towards the swamp. Reaching the southernmost tip of the woods she came to what she thought was the most dangerous part of the hunt. Here she had to cross the river in full view of the main path. Timing was everything. If the hunt were all in the north a mile and a half away, she could slip across unseen. If they were coming back to try to find her drag on the main path she would be seen.

Quickly she swam across the river and into the woods on the other side. Nobody had seen her.

Now she would swing into the trees of this, the largest woodland, secure on the far side of the river from the hunt and from everywhere that the dogs might draw her. She was not going to risk trailing the hunt, but was relying on the hunt misinterpreting her drag until it was too late. Settling in a tree in the heart of the woods she tried to calm her nerves and to sit as still as she could. It would be a long wait but there was nothing more she could do now.

The hunt, meanwhile, had followed her trail to the swamp and then had worked its way carefully along the southern edge where the swamp met the low hills until it rejoined the main path. Some of them went one way and some the other, but quite soon the hounds gave tongue as they found her trail on the main path where she had run from the tunnel to the small swamp. Exactly as she hoped the hounds took off heeling along her trail up to the tunnel entrance. Knowing the hunt and the hunted as they thought they did, one young huntsman was despatched through the tunnel to flush her out if she was hiding in there, whilst the rest of the hunt high-tailed it round the mountain to the other end. When they got there the hounds again drew and took off down the path, unfortunately heeling again, but were brought up short at the swamp. Then the penny dropped and the hunt did what they always did when half the time was gone and they had lost the scent; they panicked.

Several of them rode off back to the ford and started working both banks of the river on foot with dogs. While there were several spots where the dogs checked, the only firm scent was the one they knew about on the path between the swamp and the tunnel. When they reached the pool at the foot of the waterfall they turned back and retraced their steps, somewhat despondently. Then one of the hunters decided to be a little more careful in his search for her trail and did something few people ever do in any circumstances, he looked at the trees above his own head height. This is an interesting phenomenon, but it is true that people rarely look up as they walk. That is because they learn as children that things on the ground can trip them up; banged heads happen less often so nobody looks up.

As he passed along the southern bank of the stream on foot, he saw some broken twigs about seven feet off the ground on two trees. Moving into the woods a little deeper, he followed a trail of such small snapped and recently damaged foliage where the quarry had swung along in the trees. In spite of all Ramzy El-Najjar's training she was still quite heavy and the trees could not really take the strain of her swinging like a monkey through the branches. It was when he was almost through the trees and out to the path towards the desert a small movement caught his eye and he froze. Minutes passed and then the movement came again and he spotted her.

Calling "View," as loud as he could he tried to climb up to her, but she swung across to another tree as he crashed to the ground when his efforts at climbing were rewarded by a branch breaking. She swung away again to the north-east and soon came to the edge of the trees where they thinned out to a small patch of swampy ground and the artificial desert. Running after her on the ground he just managed to catch up with her as she decided to abandon the trees and to run across a patch of very lush grass to the stream. At this point she knew it was all up for her and that now she had been spotted she would inevitably be caught, but still she tried to outrun him.