Only two young men did not hear him—or chose not to heed. Their home was near the storehouse, and they moved quickly. They managed to tackle a pair of escaping prisoners. The prisoners, both hunters, paused a moment to break their attackers’ necks, then fled on. Raiders and ex-prisoners combined to dispose of the few Garkohn who got in their way. Then they left the settlement, carrying their own dead and injured with them.
The dead Missionaries were brothers, Kyle and Lee Everett. Alanna had known them. One of her few friends among the Missionaries had been their sister, Tate, who had been taken by the Garkohn over a year before. It occurred to Alanna that the memory of their sister might have been what spurred the two men to run so recklessly into danger. They would have been infuriated at seeing the Tehkohn escaping since, like most Missionaries, they had still believed that the Tehkohn were responsible for all the abductions. Jules had not dared to risk the chaos that might follow a general announcement of the truth.
And, Alanna thought unhappily, Jules had been right. Just as she had been right not to try to convince the prisoners that the Missionaries were not their enemies, and thus should be handled gently. The prisoners would not have believed her and more important, the Garkohn might have overheard. Her fear of the Garkohn and Jules’s fear of the temper of his people—their temper and their guns—had killed Kyle and Lee, but had doubtless saved many others.
Most Missionaries did not realize that anything had happened until early the next morning when Natahk arrived with an army of hunters. The First Hunter was as angry as Alanna had expected him to be. He and Gehl came straight to the Verrick house. Natahk was luminescent yellow in his fury. He stood looking from one to another of the three Verricks until his eyes came to rest on Jules. “I have heard that you were sick, Verrick, confined to your bed for days.”
He stopped, clearly waiting to trample any defense Jules made. Jules said nothing.
“Was it your sickness that prevented you from hearing the Tehkohn who came raiding last night? Were you asleep in your bed while they slaughtered my hunters and freed the prisoners?”
“I heard them,” said Jules. And his tone caused Alanna to turn and look at him with apprehension. He sounded the way he had the night before when he stood over the bodies of the Everett brothers—the way he had when he stopped blaming himself and began blaming the natives. All the natives.
“You heard?” Natahk feigned surprise. “And you did nothing? Called none of your people to the aid of my outnumbered hunters?”
“To what purpose?” demanded Jules. “So that the Tehkohn could be diverted to killing Missionaries while your hunters escaped?”
Natahk’s luminescence seemed to intensify, probably because Jules had guessed exactly right.
“Would you like to see the bodies of the two men who did try to help your hunters?” asked Jules.
Natahk struck him openhanded across the face.
Jules reeled back against the wall and fell, upsetting a small chest that contained Neila’s cooking utensils. The chest spilled its contents over the floor as Natahk spoke.
“What do I care for your two men—two fools who gave their necks to the Tehkohn—when I have lost twelve hunters!” He went to the dining table where a bowl of meklah fruit still sat—for Neila and for guests. He took a piece of fruit, turned, and threw it hard so that it half smashed against Jules’s chest. “Eat, Verrick.”
Alanna saw Jules’s hand move to where Neila’s large butcher knife had fallen out of the chest. He grasped the knife, his body hiding the action from Natahk. Then in a single motion, he rose to his feet and lunged at the Garkohn.
Alanna had quietly placed herself between Jules and Natahk, off to one side. Now she moved as Jules did, hit him with her full weight before he could reach Natahk. She caught his right wrist with both her hands and twisted it as they fell. He released the knife and it went skittering across the floor to the wall.
Jules jerked free of Alanna and thrust her away from him. She got up, looked at Natahk, who had not moved, then looked at Jules, who glared back at her. Neila, frightened and confused by the brief incident, now started to Jules’s side. But she stopped when she saw his expression. Alanna offered him her hand.
He got up, ignoring the hand, and faced Natahk. There was no change in the Garkohn’s seemingly placid face, but his coloring was still bright yellow.
“You will eat,” he said softly.
Jules must have known the threat behind the gentled voice. Containing his humiliation somehow, he went to the table, took a meklah fruit, ate it. Behind him, Neila began to cry.
Natahk went to where the knife had finally come to rest and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, then spoke to his second-in-command. “Do we not have hunters with us who know the locations of all the Missionary weapons?”
Gehl flashed white in a luminescent Kohn nod.
“Tell them to collect the weapons.”
“Oh, God, no!” Jules spoke more to himself than to the Garkohn. Then, “No, Natahk! There will be killing!”
The Garkohn leader glanced at him and Gehl stopped to see if there would be a change in her orders.
“Natahk, my people will fight to keep their weapons. There will be pointless carnage.” He seemed to have to force the next words out. “Take my weapons if you wish. I’m the one who threatened you. But leave my people alone.”
Natahk hefted the knife again and smiled humanly. He spoke to Gehl. “Tell them not to worry about these.” He indicated the knife. “An adult hunter who cannot overcome a Missionary armed with this deserves to die. But see that they collect the others. The strange ones.” He meant the guns.
Gehl flashed assent again and went out.
Neila approached Jules again and the two exchanged looks of apprehension. Jules started toward the door, then stopped, and in what must have been a painful gesture, looked at Natahk.
No longer smiling, the Garkohn flashed a nod—a dismissal.
