For Krysty and Dean, it was frustrating. All the more so for the young Cawdor as he had dreamed of his mother once more. This time, not being in the state of unconsciousness induced by a mat-trans jump, he was better able to remember the dream when he awakened. And it disturbed him. Where the mat-trans dream had been a fantasy of his parting from his mother, this was more the reality of the situation. They were living in a hovel, on the run from who knew what. His mother had been earning what little money they possessed as a gaudy, but her sickness was making it more and more difficult for her to attract clients. She had taught Dean the arts of stealing from trash and from stallholders and merchants, wherever possible, to try to obtain enough food to keep them alive.
They were living in one room, still on the run from ville to ville, and as he watched, a racking cough seized his mother.
“Got to send you away soon,” she gasped between coughs. “I’m on my way to buying the farm, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Dean replied defiantly. “Who’s going to go and get food when you need it if you’re too sick?”
Sharona smiled at him. “You’re strong, my sweet Dean, but I’ve made plans, to make sure you get away, to make sure you’re safe. I’ll go happy if I know that.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he replied simply.
“Mebbe we’ll be together again some day, who knows?” she said. “I love you, Dean. Always remember that.”
Who knows… The words had grown into a deafening echo around his head, jolting him awake in the middle of the night.
Stuck in jail, there was nothing for him to do but to brood on the dreams. And wonder why he was missing his mother.
“HE GOES THROUGH THE TREES. Swift as he is, the need to thread through them will slow him. Jak, you and Moses take the left-hand path. I and Kami will take the right.”
Without pausing to answer, Jak and the thick-set, stocky man known as Moses set off to the left, skirting around the edge of the dense clump of trees in which the boar had sought to hide itself. The heavy beast could be heard, squealing in fear as it flung itself through the trees, crashing into the trunks, stumbling on the roots. It didn’t have the awareness to realize that his pursuers could predict its path and would take an easier route to cut it off as it emerged.
Jak easily outdistanced the heavier, lumbering Moses, his legs pumping as he covered the ground with ease. The scent of the boar’s fear was in his nostrils and the light of bloodlust was in his eyes. While he was about this task, Jak forgot all about his companions, left to rot in jail. When the beast was chilled, then they would return to his mind.
The albino hunter pulled up as he reached the point where the cluster of trees began to thin, gesturing behind him for Moses to slow.
“Still in there,” the stocky man panted as he halted next to Jak. “You’re lighter, more nimble. You go up into the treetops and get ready to drop. I’ll take the animal from the side.”
“Okay. Careful, boar triple scared and triple pissed off,” Jak said as he began to scale the nearest tree.
“Don’t worry, I’ve been doing this far too long to take unnecessary chances. I’m more likely to thrust my hand into a pit of snakes than take an angry boar head-on,” Moses replied, breathlessly but with good humor. Jak didn’t reply, but allowed himself a grim smile as he attained the full height of the tree. Trying to fight wild boar in this way was probably more dangerous than a pit of snakes. The albino youth couldn’t believe that a four-man hunting team was assigned to bring down the one creature—and at that by chasing and agitating it so that it was scared, furious and fighting mad. Left to his own devices, the albino hunter would have stalked his prey and waited until it was at its weakest before striking. A beast such as a boar was too strong and unpredictable to be taken in full flight. But he had said nothing of this. In the past few days he had soon learned that the islanders of Pilatu had ways of doing things that had been fixed over the generations, and were now immutable. As an outlander—and one who was biding his time until he could help the rest of his companions to escape—he felt it was best to keep his head down and to not make waves…and mebbe try not to get chilled in the process.