Read Online The Limping Man by Maurice Gee - Free Book Online Page B

enclosed by trees, but she found a flat boulder in the middle of the stream and waited there, eating a haunch of rabbit she had saved from the night before. He would find her easily enough, and perhaps fly low. She lay resting on the warm rock, and saw the wide sea in her mind – Hawk’s view – with a small sailboat foaming southwards in the wind. He swooped down until she had a picture of the person at the tiller. Blossom. She waved at Hawk.
    He turned away. Hana was pleased. She did not want to see Blossom, and did not want Blossom seeing her. She found a seat lower down the boulder and rested her feet in the water. Hawk knew where she was. She felt safe.
    Suddenly another picture pushed into her mind, making her jump and scattering her thoughts. Hawk was close, for she saw part of the stream she had followed, then bony hills above the trees enclosing it, the hills that had forced her to descend; and there, crossing them, two men. Hana looked for somewhere to hide. She wished she could question Hawk. What sort of men? Where are they going?
    Hawk circled, keeping watch. The men found narrow strips of shade among boulders and sat to eat. One lay down and gazed at the sky. She saw with Hawk’s sharp eyes: he was a boy. She shuddered as he stretched out his arms – one was chopped off at the wrist. His colour was reddish-brown, like her own. That was all she could see. Hawk was too high. The other man – was he a man? He was not a Dweller. His beard hung down to his waist. He wore a knotted cloth about his loins. She could not see a weapon; but saw with a shock of fear that he limped as he moved to a wider strip of shade. A limping man. But he was unlike her limping man – the Limping Man. No robes, no coloured headdress, no carved stick, no pink face. He was browner than the boy, no red in his skin. Although he dipped as he walked on his twisted leg, he moved easily. He lay down in the shade and seemed to sleep.
    Hawk, she whispered. He went lower. And suddenly Hana felt watched. The man’s eyes had opened – clear blue – and although he could not see her she felt he was looking through Hawk and finding her. She shifted quickly; splashed off the boulder into the stream; and suddenly Hawk’s cry, far away, rang in her head – a cry she had not heard before but understood instantly: danger. A new picture sprang into her mind: herself, tiny, in the stream, and two men on the banks in front of her, and a third, thigh-deep, coming behind.
    Hana slid down the silver rope that bound her to Hawk. She saw with her own eyes, which brought the men close as though they had jumped at her. A black man, a white man, dressed in leather jerkins with the Limping Man’s emblem scratched on the front. One had the two lines tattooed on his forehead. Burrows men – she knew it from their grunting at each other, and from their smell as they came close. Behind her, the third man was city – he was smoother, white-skinned and used to command. Yet he held an iron knife, balanced in a way that showed he knew how to throw. Hana was used to running and hiding. But there was nowhere to go, upstream or down. The men on the banks carried crossbows. They grinned at her, waiting for her to move. The water slowed her legs and stones rolled under her feet. If she could get into the trees it would spoil their aim. She dived sideways, clawing at the bank.
    ‘Shoot her. Shoot,’ cried the man with the knife. She wriggled sideways and heard a bolt thud into the bank. She clawed her way past it, almost to the top. Then she heard Hawk scream and she flung herself round in time to see him swoop at the second bowman and rake his face open with his claws. The man sprayed blood but kept his hold on his bow and swung it upwards. Hawk hovered for a second dive. The man released his shot. Hana felt the pain. The bolt took Hawk in the wing, puffing out feathers and making him lurch towards the stream. Somehow he kept himself in the air, losing height,