“Shit!” shouted the captain of the archers. “After him!”
Sprinting through territory as familiar as his own back terrace, Max hurdled tree roots and obstacles with the grace and ease of a gazelle, heading deeper and deeper into the woods.
“Wait.” Orbilio’s voice was calm. His authority stopped the men in his tracks. “This is his ground, we can’t hope to either catch or outwit him. Soldier!”
A burly archer stepped up. “Sir.”
Orbilio relieved him of his dark yew bow and weighted it in his hands. Carefully, he plucked an arrow from the quiver. Sweet Janus, the white tunic was now barely a dot!
“Marcus,” breathed Claudia. “Leave this to the archer.” So many trees in between, it needed an expert!
“This,” said Orbilio, notching the arrow into his bow, “is for Soni.”
Claudia felt her heart thump. “I’m just as much to blame as you are,” she said. “I know you put him up as a plant, but it was my urging that bought him his grave.”
The bow lifted.
“This,” he repeated, “is personal.”
With a hiss, the arrow departed. Silence descended on the clearing – the men in the cart, the soldiers, Claudia, Marcus – watching as one as the arrow took flight. No-one breathed.
In front of them, the white dot grew smaller. Then, with a cry, Max fell forward. No-one spoke. Not even when Max hauled himself to his knees, then his feet, and then began running again…
The colour drained from Orbilio’s face. “I winged him,” he gasped. “Only winged him.”
The arrow, they could see now, was lodged in his shoulder. Painful. But hardly life-threatening.
Orbilio wiped his hand over his face, as though the gesture might turn back time. Give him one more chance to make good.
Then-“Look!” Claudia pointed. Marcus followed her finger.
In the distance, a huge bristly boar came charging out of the undergrowth, tusks lowered. His furious snorting could be heard in the clearing. As though in slow motion, they watched as he lunged at the figure in white. They watched, too, as Max tried to duck, turn away, but the wily old boar had been there before.
This was the mating season, remember.
He had sows and a territory to protect…
MR STRANG ACCEPTS A CHALLENGE by
“The apparent conclusion – that all A’s are B’s – does have a certain allure, a kind of appealing logic.”
Mr Strang blinked myopically, his wrinkled face resembling that of a good- natured troll. Then he whirled, and his chalk drew a large screeching X through both sentences.
“Of course,” he snapped, “it’s also dead wrong. Its error can easily be verified by substituting ‘teenager’ for A, ‘ostrich’ for B, and ‘two-legged’ for C in the original premises. Thus, all teenagers are two-legged, all ostriches are two-legged, and therefore all teenagers are ostriches. I doubt you’d accept that conclusion.”
“I dunno,” guffawed a voice from the rear of the room. “Melvin’s a teenager, and he looks like an ostrich.”
Laughter, in which Mr Strang joined. The student’s comment hadn’t been spiteful, simply an attempt to inject humour into a period of intense mental activity.
Mr Strang’s elective class in Logic and Scientific Method was one of the most popular courses in Aldershot High School. It was also one of the most difficult in which to enroll. Those students finally accepted – invariably seniors – had risen to the top of the academic ranks like cream in fresh milk. With these students, a teacher could pull out all the stops, being not so much an instructor as a participant in a free give-and-take of theories and ideas.
The politeness of the members of the class was tempered by their scepticism. They were willing to weigh and consider the most heretical hypotheses, mercilessly rejecting what they believed to be sham, hypocrisy, or incompetence. After each period Mr. Strang felt exhausted, yet exhilarated – somewhat like a runner who has just broken the four-minute mile. In teachers’ heaven all classes would be like this one.
“Let us, then, consider the logical fallacy of undistributed middle,” he went on. He drew a large circle on the blackboard with two smaller circles like staring eyes inside it. “If the large circle represents category C, and the smaller ones are A and B-”
He paused. In the far corner of the room three students had their heads together and were whispering earnestly. “We seem to have a rump session meeting over there,” said the teacher. “Mr Cornish, Miss Doyle, Mr Lockley – what is it?”
There was a moment of embarrassed silence. “I yield to the gentleman in the maroon sweater,” Mr Strang said. “What’s going on, Jerry?”
Jerome Lockley was tall, black, and beautiful. As he slowly uncoiled from his seat it seemed as if he wouldn’t stop until his head hit the ceiling. Looking down from a height of over six and a half feet, he bestowed a sly grin on the old science teacher.
“Well, Mr Strang,” Jerry began. “You understand we all dig the way you teach this class. I mean, you keep us hopping, but it’s kind of fun. Like basketball drills. And you’re a right guy personally.
