It did not matter, for the Bakwaniri leapt to their feet and with clubs raised, rushed toward the strangers.
The Bakwaniri hunters now numbered 12 in all, but they moved quickly through the brush toward the men. A great roar rocked the jungle and a plume of smoke leapt out as the white man gestured with his weapon and one of the Bakwaniri fell down dead.
But the others were close upon him, and inspired perhaps by their exchange with the dead ape, they ran at these strangers with abandon. Thunder rocked the jungle again, and another masked man dropped dead before the white man’s smoking weapon...
...but too late, for the others fell upon the interloper with their clubs.
His companion swung his axe inexpertly as three Bakwaniri avoided its blade to close and swarm at all sides.
In moments he was down, while the big white man swung his fists. One after another of the masked men dropped, but the Bakwaniri, despite their degenerate nature and health, were ferocious in their fighting, and soon the white man collapsed beneath clubs that rose and fell and would not stop.
Once, the white man fought his way back up onto his feet and with a Bakwaniri held before him like a battering ram, he smashed his way out of the surrounding fighters and ran to the ironwood tree.
To Harkon’s dismay, the big man looked up into the branches, and a change came upon the bloody face that told her he had seen her. She shrank back against the trunk of the tree as far as she could but knew that if any of his assailants looked up, they could not fail to see her.
But the white man fell unconscious beneath the Bakwaniri clubs before he could respond or draw attention to the huntress in the tree.
The Bakwaniri dragged him back to the others where they tended to their injured and stripped their dead, before tying the white and black strangers to poles cut from surrounding saplings so they could be carried.
The Bakwaniri then collected the ape’s head and hung it from the pole to which they’d tied the black man.
Harkon watched them head back to the east, wondering why the men had been taken captive, but understanding they would likely die struggling in the Bakwaniri cooking pits.
She considered going north then, to hunt down the other group of her enemies, but decided to follow these masked men and their captives. Harkon was not sure whether she should assist the strangers, since every story about white men she had heard ended with black people dying—and despite their slightly darker and mottled skin, did not the Bakwaniri have faces like white men too?
She had heard stories of noisy weapons like the white man’s but she did not think she would like such a thing—efficient though it seemed. It had not the style or grace of her spear, or even the Bakwaniri bow and arrows she had pillaged from her victims.
And she could never hunt in stealth with such a thing.
Still, this white man had been in the company of a black man, so perhaps he could be trusted. Now that both were enemies of the Bakwaniri, Harkon thought freeing them might gain their aid in releasing her own people—and her son.
Northeast of the huntress, Virginia came out of a light doze to see the mid-afternoon sun had pierced the canopy at an angle that illuminated her verdant surroundings. She lay on a broad, moss-covered branch over which another stout limb grew to form a sheltering roof a few feet above her head. Ivy trailed down from this to either side and formed leafy drapes that allowed only the gentlest of breezes through to her while colorful orchids festooning the green cascade added their fragrance.
The shelter was six feet across and followed the angle of the upper limb for about 15 feet. With the thick tree trunk at her back, Virginia could look out of this triangular opening to where the branches continued dividing and narrowing down to myriad slender leafy limbs that waved in gaping space.
Her forest angel had deposited her in this nest, and gone away for a time as Virginia napped on her bed of moss, reveling in the nature that abounded, and as the day progressed she slipped in and out of dreams.
She had been surprised to find those dreams comforting, filled with thoughts of her new friend, and not nightmares of the beast that abducted her, and she attributed this to the wild man’s potent presence.
It was impossible for her to feel fear around him, and the look he’d given her before he left had promised she would be safe in this arboreal shelter.
In fact, his concern for her had seemed to blaze in those piercing eyes.
“Wild man” was how she had come to think of him, and if it had been God’s hand that imbued him with his superior powers, then they had been shaped by the Lord’s green nature that swept away in all directions from her perch.
She could not determine her wild man’s age, so profoundly virile was his form and masculine his features, but she thought it between mid-20s to early 30s.
He wore a black, fur loincloth, leathery belt and knife. Upon his ankles and over each bicep were crude metal bands or bracelets decorated with primitive depictions of skulls and bones. His long hair was tied up with a band, but much of it fell over his face.
The wild man’s cheeks were defined by thick, black sideburns that grew down to follow his jaw line, and around his neck a medallion hung on a metal chain. It was decorated by some inscription, but was impossible to decipher where it nested in the shadowy space between hairy pectoral muscles.
All of his adornments spoke of some level of humanity and civilization. He was not utterly savage. So Virginia understood that he was not a
