Chapter 2

Sir Bornly's staff found me a local taxidermist to take care of my trophy. He will do whatever one does and ship it off to my home. If I am lucky, I will never have to look at it again.

Having found a hunting trophy, the pressure was off, and I could start my investigation. I left Sir Bornly's estate the next morning in the direction of the wild territory, but I changed course as soon as I was out of detection range. I wanted to talk to some of the neighbors to find out what they thought of Sir Bornly and his latest antics.

My first stop was at Sir Horgi's estate. According to the intelligence service, he was the one most pressed by Sir Bornly. Specifically, he had a daughter who would inherit the estate at Sir Horgi's death, and whoever married the daughter would get it from her as a kind of dowry. Sir Bornly was putting pressure on Sir Horgi to allow Sir Bornly's youngest son to wed the young girl. Sir Horgi, his wife, and the girl were all against it, but subtle and not so subtle pressures have been applied.

It seems that Sir Bornly has bought up some of Sir Horgi's debts and has started pressuring him for payment. Sir Horgi's problem resulted from massive medical bills caused by his wife's breast cancer that had spread. Her life was saved, but it put Sir Horgi into backbreaking debt. Dammit, I couldn't let them suffer so much! I arranged to pay Sir Horgi's medical bills as soon as I left their estate. Yeah, I knew that I could not do that for everyone, but I was carried away with sympathy: I could afford the charity, so I did it. Only my family was going to know who paid the bills.

I paused in my flight back to Sir Bornly's estate to send the message to pay Sir Horgi's bills to Sir Bornly. I wondered what would happen when Sir Bornly got the message. Later that evening at dinner I got the answer to my question: Sir Bornly was in a real snit. He was grumpy to everyone, and he even snapped at me a couple of times. By tomorrow, I was sure that he would regret that. After all, one does not speak sharply to anyone higher on the social list. I could not help laughing to myself.

I took the time to visit several other estates, and they assured me that Sir Bornly was a bit of a bully and not really a threat as long as the rest of the neighborhood had the backing of the king. I assured them of that, and I left with a feeling that Sir Bornly was mostly a case of hot air.

The next morning, I figured that I had better head back for some more hunting. I sure did not want to blow my cover. This time, Sir Jerlets, Sir Bornly's eldest son insisted on accompanying me. I could not get out of it, so I let him join me, but I did force the issue and take my own flying machine. I didn't want to chance being cut off from escaping if I needed it.

My flier looked like a standard sort of civilian vehicle, and the Gatling gun was well hidden, so I was not worried about my passenger seeing it. Sir Jerlets climbed aboard with an array of weapons that left little chance to the prey. His main armament consisted of a four-barrel shotgun with the barrels arranged in a combination of side-by-side and over-and-under arrangement that had to be so heavy that it required a strong man to carry it, much less to use it as a weapon.

Of course, he also had his sword, shield, and fighting knife, but they were more on the order of decoration than utilitarian. Every man of Horurie knew how to fight with a sword, so I had to grant him that, but his sword and shield looked to be in pristine condition. On the other hand, my sword and shield were well used and looked it. Oh, well, I was not in a contest with him, so I did not worry about it.

We landed on a different pad from the one I had used on my visit of two days ago. On the way in, I noticed some smoke rising from a clearing about two miles from the pad area, and I wondered what it was all about. Sir Jerlets was in such a hurry to begin hunting that I let the subject of the smoke go, but I did not forget it. By the way, I had some new hunting leathers to replace those lost to the liongrith two days previously.

Sir Jerlets took his shotgun, and I took mine. I did not ask him what he was using for his shotgun load, but I still had the solid 10-gauge slugs in mine. I also had some 10-gauge buckshot loads with me if they were needed. We started out on a path cut by men, and I was immediately annoyed with Sir Jerlets. He fired his shotgun at any noise we heard in the bushes, and then we were delayed as he had to look at what he had shot at. This day was a little windy, and I think that the wind caused the noise and stirring that he shot at.

After the fourth wasted shot from Sir Jerlets, I told him that I was not going to continue with him if he continued to waste shots at every little stirring in the woods. I pointed out that the noise of his shots was bound to scare off any game that we might get close to, and we would never find anything to shoot at if he kept that up. He was surprised at my complaint, but agreed to let me determine what was worth a shot from then on.

We continued to walk for about a quarter-mile and came to a wide place in the trail. Actually, this was a meadow covered with low grass, and it surrounded what was obviously a waterhole for the denizens of the forest. We surprised several moderate sized herbivores drinking at the pond, and they took off at a dead run the moment we showed up. I did not put much stock in that at the time, but I think that was a stupid oversight on my part.

What I did recognize was that this was a good indicator that we could find a predator somewhere nearby. All we had to do was to be alert, and we should get a shot at one before long. I think that this was when Sir Jerlets really decided to follow my lead. In any case, he seemed to be paying more attention to me after the herbivores ran away.

I directed us toward one of the game trails that had obviously been made by the passage of animals. I thought that would be more likely to produce a predator than if we stayed on the man-made trail. I had Sir Jerlets walk a couple of steps ahead of me because I was not completely sure that he would not panic and put a shotgun load into my back if I led the way.

The result was that Sir Jerlets was the one who received the bullet shot in our direction. Fortunately for him, the bullet only went through the first layer of his hunting leathers and did not penetrate through to his skin. Nevertheless, the sudden surprise of the impact of the bullet did cause him to fall to the ground, and that saved his life.

Immediately behind that first shot came a fusillade of additional shots that all passed over him without striking him. Luckily, my old reflexes took over for me and I dove to the ground at the sound of the first shot. Given a moment to think about it, I realized that all of those shots, about 10 or so, must have come from the single-shot pistols common outside of the military. I said, "Sir Jerlets, I have no idea why, but we have been ambushed. They may be bandits or they may be assassins after one of us in particular. I have had considerable experience in dealing with this sort of thing, so follow my lead, and we should escape with our lives."

My former military experience during the War of Yankee Aggression told me what to do, plus my bounty hunting experience following that should be enough to get us away from the ambushers. I said, "Stay low to the ground as I do and follow me. We need to get back to that clearing as soon as possible."

What I had in mind was to cross the meadow and wait in ambush for the ambushers as they tried to follow us. I wanted to shoot them as they tried to cross the meadow. Sir Jerlets obviously did not know what else to do, so he crawled after me toward the meadow. We managed to reach it without drawing any more fire, so I figured that we could stand up and run to the other side of the clearing. I said, "Run side-to-side as well as straight ahead. That will make you a much more difficult target. Just follow my lead."