“We retreat and come up with a plan. There’s nothing we can do at the moment,” Saul said, loathing every word. He longed to attack. To save his men and Tara, but it would serve no purpose. They’d die for nothing, and Tara would be lost forever.
Together, the two men retreated deeper into the jungle. From a high vantage point, they watched the proceedings in the camp below with gritted teeth.
The villagers showed no mercy. Tara was yanked to her feet, screaming with terror. Her attacker hit her with a fist in the jaw, and she cried out in pain. Another blow caused her lip to split, and blood dribbled down her chin. She fell to the ground, and he booted her in the ribs, shouting at her to keep quiet. She didn’t understand the language, and he kept kicking her until Mokoena roared in anger. “Leave the doctor alone!”
Three men fell on him, their clubs raining down on his head. The brutal beating continued for several minutes until he lay unmoving in the dust. Blood gleamed on his skin, thick and viscous. A couple of the other men tried to intervene, and they all received the same treatment.
Tara’s instincts for self-preservation had kicked in, and she lay curled up on the forest floor in a huddled ball. One hand was pressed to her bleeding lip, and the other to her bruised ribs. She was silent, no longer crying, and got to her feet without protest when prompted. She knew Saul was out there, and he knew she counted on him. I have to save her. I have to save them all.
The leader of the villagers, a hulking brute with a scar across his cheek, had noticed by now that the two men were missing. Most notably, Saul. He interrogated the other soldiers, but they refused to tell him anything. Frustrated, he shot two of them at point-blank range. He then sent out a search party to look for Saul and Johannes, but after an hour, they returned empty-handed.
The leader sneered. “Cowardly dogs, the lot of them. They must have run away and abandoned their people. If they come back, we’ll be waiting.” He examined the surviving soldiers and Tara with greedy eyes. “At least, we still have this lot. The woman will make a good wife. I wore out the last one.”
Raucous laughter met his words.
It took every ounce of self-control Saul had not to storm into the camp and shoot everyone in sight. Instead, he watched the scene with intense focus. His gaze traveled across each member of the opposing force, noting their features, build, and weapons. He’d need the information when he moved in on them later.
The villagers laughed and joked once their victory was established. They tossed all the weapons and supplies onto a pile and secured the soldiers with rope. Tara’s hands were tied behind her back, and a noose was looped over her head. The leader held the loose end in his hand, treating her like a dog on a leash.
Saul watched as they marched away, waiting until they had all gone back to the village. On swift feet, he ran to Mokoena and the other soldiers who’d been left behind. There were five bodies in the clearing, and he ran to the nearest. With two fingers, he checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
He moved to the next.
Also nothing.
Johannes checked two more.
“Anything?” Saul asked.
“They’re dead,” Johannes said with a sorrowful shake of the head.
Saul had left his second-in-command for last. A faint beat of the heart met his touch, and his hopes soared. “Mokoena! Are you still alive?”
Mokoena mumbled something through his smashed lips.
“Help me, Johannes,” Saul ordered, moving the man closer to the dying embers of a nearby fire.
Johannes stoked the flames while Saul scrounged around for a piece of cloth. He found a discarded blanket and cut a square from the corner. He wet the material with water from a flask in his pocket and washed away the blood that coated Mokoena’s face like a second skin. “Can you speak, Mokoena?”
Mokoena’s left eye fluttered open. The other was swollen shut. “I’m here, Sir.”
Saul sighed with relief, but his hopes faded when Mokoena dissolved into a fit of coughing. Bloody froth foamed on his lips, and Saul looked at Johannes with despair. They both knew what it meant.
Johannes shook his head and mouthed the words. “Punctured lung.”
It took three hours for Mokoena to die. Three hours in which Saul and Johannes took turns to sit with him. The rest of the time, they scouted out the village where a wild party was in full swing.
The attackers had been greeted like conquering heroes, and a huge celebration ensued. A bonfire burned in the middle of the village square while drums formed a steady beat. The women passed around gourds of home-brewed beer, which the men drank by the gallon. Luckily, the prisoners were forgotten for the moment, tossed aside to await their fate — all except Tara.
She sat at the leader’s feet, and he treated her with cruel contempt. Now and then, he’d yank on the rope, laughing when she choked as the noose cut off her air supply. After a few seconds, he’d loosen the line, allowing her to breathe again.
“Just hold on, Tara,” Saul muttered. “I’ll rescue you or die trying. That’s a promise.”
Saul was there when Mokoena breathed his last, and white-hot rage flushed through his veins. “Time for payback.”
He joined Johannes at the village perimeter, and together, they formed a plan. Johannes would create a distraction then circle around to free their men. Saul was in charge of getting to their weapons and freeing Tara.
“Ready?” Saul asked.
“I’m ready,” Johannes said, fading into the night.
Saul waited for the signal. It came when a cluster of nearby huts went up in flames. It didn’t take much for the thatch to explode into a raging furnace, and screams sounded as people panicked. Women and children tossed buckets of water onto the flames
