Read Online SGA-13 Hunt and Run by Aaron Rosenberg - Free Book Online Page B

do the opposite. You’d turn toward the sun, using its glare to dazzle your pursuit so you could duck away and sneak up on them more easily.
    Ronon turned toward the sun. Even through the thick canopy above the sudden light made him blink, and he ducked behind a tree as he waited for his eyes to adjust. Then he glanced around —
      — and noticed a faint sheen to the bark on the tree beside him, a handspan or so below his eye level.
    He broke into a slow grin. Nekai had done the same thing he’d just done, stepped behind a tree while his eyes got used to the increased light. That tree. The sheen was where Nekai’s shoulders had rubbed against it, staining the sensitive outer bark ever so slightly. Ronon stepped away from his own protective trunk and glanced at it. Sure enough, he’d left a similar sheen. There was no way to conceal that — rubbing at the bark would only make it worse — but at least now he knew he had chosen correctly. Nekai had gone this way, and had turned at exactly this point, two hours in.
    Which meant the other man was somewhere ahead of him, and just beginning the process of sneaking back around to strike at Ronon.
    But Ronon was ready for him. He stroked the pistol at his side. This time, he was going to teach his mentor a thing or two about hunting. Mainly that sometimes a good thing was simply too good to be true. .
    *   *   *
    Ronon cursed. And for good reason. He was currently hanging upside down. His left foot was trapped within a vine loop he’d triggered by stepping into it, and the pressure of his weight had knocked loose the counterweight and jerked the vine and the branch holding it — which had been bent downward and pinned in place — up rapidly, yanking him from his feet and upending him to hang here trussed like a fatted calf.
    Just waiting for a hunter — or a Wraith — to stop by and finish him off.
    A faint rustling caught his attention, but it was behind him and Ronon couldn’t exactly turn around. Still, he wasn’t surprised when a voice cut through the silence of the forest a second later.
    “I thought I’d trained you better than that,” Nekai commented as he emerged from the bushes. Even listening hard, Ronon could barely hear his footsteps as the stocky Retemite came closer, pistol raised and leveled at Ronon’s chest. “You were doing so well, too — picking up on my tracks, avoiding my snares, covering your own traces well.” Ronon was sure the other man was shaking his head now. “Then you got careless.”
    “Must have,” Ronon admitted. “I’ll do better next time.”
    “What makes you so sure there will be a next time?” There was no humor in Nekai’s tone, and Ronon felt a chill run down — or up — him.
    “What’re you saying? That I failed?”
    “I don’t know,” the other man admitted quietly. “I really am surprised by you. I thought you’d do better than thi — ”
    The rest of Nekai’s words were cut short as his foot came down among a clump of wet leaves — and they shifted beneath him. Ronon had managed to twist and sway enough that he could see his mentor off to the side of his vision, so he had at least a quick glimpse of the shock on the other man’s face as Nekai realized what was happening. Then Ronon’s snare had closed around his ankle, the counterweight had fallen, and the Retemite was being hoisted into the air. The sudden force of the ascent knocked the stun gun from his hand, and it fell to the leaves below as Nekai hung there, swinging from the built-up momentum of his rapid rise.
    “How?” he sputtered as Ronon bent his left leg, pulling himself higher. Then he bent and reached up with both hands, grasping the vine just above the loop. The added pressure above the knot forced it to loosen and he pulled his foot free, then swung both legs down and dropped easily to the ground. His own pistol was securely in its holster, and he drew it now, covering Nekai even as he crouched and collected the fallen Wraith