Gunnar looked like he’d bitten a lemon. “The territorial governor lives in the schloss outside of Munchen. Everyone knows that.” Then his face cleared. “Even you know that. So why are you saying-?”
“I didn’t say it was the territorial governor’s residence, Gunnar; I said it was reserved for his use. As a preserve.” She prompted a little more directly when she saw the blank look on his face. “A hunting preserve.”
“Oh, shit,” he said.
“Ja,” affirmed Hilda with a sharp nod, reshouldering her rucksack.
Mads was already back in the lead, setting what promised to be a shattering pace for them. “Hilda, do you happen to remember hearing how frequently they run their Hunts out of that lodge?”
Hilda increased her pace, moving past Mads. “Every day.”
The rest, understanding, ran after her.
What none of them anticipated was that, despite being less than forty-eight hours out of decades-long cold sleep, Smith would outpace them handily. Which was probably why he made no effort to break trail at any point; he left a clear path for them to follow. Because that’s what he wants, Hilda thought, ignoring the wind-stitch in her right side, so high and tight that she found herself tilting in that direction as she ran.
Oddly enough, it was Mads-“old” Mads-who was slightly in the lead when, heading east, they crested the Eel’s Spine: a rampart of low ridges that marked the western limit of the rolling expanses of sward and forest that sprawled and undulated northward from Neue Ingolstadt. Although the day was hazy, made so by the approach of the high-atmospheric dust clouds, the land stretched out before them in varied shades of green, hemmed in by the dark, forbidding forest to the north. That distant tree line was the inevitable first flight objective of the humans who served as prey in the kzin Sport Hunts. Few ever made it that far.
Surprisingly, Smith’s trail led down the slope in that direction. Hilda started down-
— and felt herself pulled back by the left shoulder: Gunnar’s hand. She shook it off.
“Wait,” he panted. “Don’t go. No cover. Kzinti will. See us. For sure.”
Mads squinted into the distance, studied the land. Then he pointed, down to where the northern end of the ridge they were on dipped down before reaching the next low rise: a small wooded dale was sheltered in that notch. “He’s heading there. It’s close to the forest and protrudes out onto the plain: he’ll have a clear shot at the Hunters as they cross the open ground.”
Gunnar shook his head. “I thought he was going for the leadership, was going to hit the lodge. Maybe from an overlook.”
Mads shook his head. “Nei. Look.” He pointed in the opposite direction, this time down the southern line of the Eel’s Spine. Far off, so small that it was not much more than an angular brown wart upon the shimmering green grass, lay the squat lodge. “That’s where the leadership is. They don’t come out to help or watch the Hunters. It would dishonor the cubs and undermine the notion that it is a test of personal worthiness.”
Margarethe, who had been silent behind them, sucked in her breath sharply. “So he’s not going after the adults.”
“No,” Hilda said, reversing her steps as she realized the truth of Mads’ conjecture. “He’s going to shoot the Hunters, the young kzinti.” Recrossing the ridge line, she walked back down the westward slope and then turned north again, paralleling the crest and using its lip to shield her against any eyes that might glance in their direction from the flatlands.
“Gott in Himmel,” breathed Margarethe. “When the adults find out, they are going to be blind with rage.”
Mads made his laconic observation from the rearguard position: “That, I think, is exactly what Captain Smith wants.”
Hilda was panting. Sweat had soaked her loose-fitting field-tans to a dull brown-black. Mads pointed a shaking finger down into the wooded dell. “There.”
Hilda squinted, saw a faint bit of motion next to the broad trunk of a ten-meter-high allweather fern: Captain Smith was settling the strakkaker into the crook of a branch protruding from the main stem of the treelike weed.
Margarethe, the only one of the four who seemed to have any physical reserves left at all, stared down the steep switchback that would have to be navigated before getting down to the same level as Smith: “Mads, what do we do? He’s setting up to fire: he must have acquired his target.”
Mads pointed again. “We do nothing. Because you’re right: he chosen his target and he’s going to fire before we can get to him. Not sure he’d cease and desist even if we told him to.”
Gunnar rubbed the forestock of his rifle meaningfully. “That depends upon how we tell him.”
“Stow that crap. I don’t like what he’s doing, but mostly because I don’t know what he’s up to. But we’re not going to start shooting down our own people.”
“But he could-”
Hilda started moving down the trail that would eventually bring them to Smith, but she did so at a leisurely pace. “Might as well start moving.”
Gunnar did not move to follow. “Why not wait here?”
Margarethe almost sneered. “Because, Gunnar, he won’t exit the area by the same path he entered. And the closer we are when he finishes, the less time we spend linking up before un-assing this place. How long do you figure we’ll have before the ratcats are after us, Mads?”
“At least a couple of hours, maybe half a day. If one of their young bucks is late, they’ll presume almost anything-lost scent, tricky or lucky prey, laziness-before they’d imagine that he’s been killed.”
“So we just might get away clean?”
Mads rubbed his chin. “Clean? As in, they have no idea where we went? I doubt that, and I doubt that fits in with the captain’s plans, either.”
“Whaddya mean?” asked Gunnar.
Hilda shrugged and almost lost her balance at the edge of a fifteen-meter sheer drop. “Mads means that Smith probably wants the ratcats to be able to follow our trail. Why else rile them up like this?”
“But that’s insanity, it’s suicide-”
“Whatever it is, it’s happening right now.” Margarethe stopped, pointed. “Look.”
Smith was hunched over the strakkaker. Following along the trajectory implied by its muzzle, they could see a slight perturbation out in the sward, perhaps three hundred meters beyond the edge of the tree- and fernline: a young would-be Hero, tracking his prey. Even at this range, they could see the kzin confirm the scent: he put his head up, an orange-furred protrusion that lifted over the rippling sea of meadow grass, tipped by the twitching black dot that was his nose. Far off, nearly a kilometer to the east, they marked the progress of yet another indistinct rustling in the green: that was the next closest Hunter, and he was moving farther off.
Hilda was able to predict the moment when Smith fired, having spotted for Margarethe, who was a formidable sniper. The wind came behind them from the west, and as it shaped the sward into undulating currents, it made a whispering rustle: nature’s own version of white noise. Also, with the breeze blowing from behind, there would be minimal azimuth drift when the strakkaker fired-
A growling hiss rose up out of the dell when the young kzin put his head up again; the weapon was just barely audible given the distance and the breeze. Out on the plain, the black-tipped orange snout was obscured by a spray of red; the grasses around it seemed to shudder fitfully beneath a less calm and steady force than the breeze. Then silence, stillness.
Hilda had not, however, foreseen what Smith did next: he snatched the weapon out of its support and raced headlong into the grass himself, heading directly for the target he had presumably slain. “What the-?”