“Go,” she said finally. “Just take care of yourself.”
In spite of the dire circumstances, Simon grinned. Saundra didn’t like to hunt, but he did. And the wounded Cape buffalo was a danger he didn’t want to leave out in the wild.
Cautiously, Simon made his way through the brush. He angled around the kill site where the poachers concentrated on the condition of their vehicle, then took up the trail of the wounded animal. A few minutes later, he found the first few bright crimson splatters on leaves where the Cape buffalo had vanished into the scrub.
Judging from the amount of blood, the animal had been severely wounded. Left to its own, it might die anyway. But that might take days. Wounded as it was, it was also dangerous.
Simon slung the hunting rifle over his shoulder and took up the trail.
Two
T he Cape buffalo stood in a stream and drank noisily. Two hyenas cowered in a tangle of broken rock and brush. Blood pulsed down the buffalo’s chest, but from his position behind a thick-boled acacia tree Simon could see that the wound had slowed.
He felt badly for the animal. The wounds would never heal properly in the wild. Infection would settle in around the bullet and turn gangrenous. He focused on the fact that it would have a hard death ahead of it if he didn’t kill it.
Of course, there was also the possibility the buffalo would kill him.
That made Simon smile, and he knew if Saundra had seen him she would have taken him to task for it. So would his father.
But that bit of uncertainty to life was what drove Simon. It had been that draw to the daredevil side of his nature that had made him the skateboard champ he’d become for a while. With the LiquidBalance technology available to the boards, he’d gone faster and higher—especially since those boards had limited hover ability—than anyone had before.
Then his father and the Templar Grand Master had made it plain that extreme sports weren’t going to be in his future. Too many people had come around asking too many questions. Then there’d been that base-jump from Big Ben. He’d done that one after getting in trouble for doing the one from the Tower of London. Just to throw it in their faces before he left London. If the police had caught him, Simon would have served time for that one. He’d gotten out of London just in time and made his way down to South Africa.
Quietly, smoothly, Simon slipped out of the rifle sling and the backpack. He laid both to the side.
For the last hour, he’d tracked the buffalo, watching as the blood trail had thinned but had never completely gone away. For all he knew, the poachers might have gone, or they might not have noticed a round going off somewhere else.
On the other hand, they might be only a short distance behind him and might wonder if he’d seen them killing the elephants. Especially since he was trying to kill the Cape buffalo one of them had wounded.
He reached into his backpack and took out one of the expanding punching daggers he’d bought shortly after he’d arrived in South Africa. The daggers were deadly weapons, modeled on the Indian katar, also known as the Bundi dagger.
Collapsed, the weapons were easily stored, but the segmented blades sprang out of the forearm brace and provided twenty inches of razor-sharp steel. The Roman army had conquered the world with eighteen-inch blades.
Simon strapped the punching dagger onto his right arm, took a final quiet breath to focus his mind, then eased through the brush toward the Cape buffalo. He moved in a crouch, like a tightly coiled spring.
The old bull wasn’t foolish, though. It had gained experience over the years, and—wounded as it was—it was especially wary. Shoulders rippling, the bull swung about just as Simon emerged from the brush.
Simon froze. The punching dagger hung loose and ready at his side.
Beneath the rocks and brush, the hyenas laughed in anticipation, as if they knew they were going to be eating in a few minutes one way or the other.
Breathing easily, Simon stood his ground. He locked eyes with the buffalo, wondering if it was simply going to run away again. He didn’t want to have to chase after it.
Without warning, the bull charged. Its hooves tore into the earth, cutting free clods that sailed in its wake. Tremors raced through Simon’s feet and legs. He waited till the last instant, then dove and rolled to the side.
The Cape buffalo’s horn sliced a groove in the ground only inches from Simon. Pushing himself to his feet again, Simon whipped around, seeing only then that the huge animal had spun on a dime and was once more right on top of him.
This time Simon launched himself into the air, barely getting over the bull’s horns. Tucking himself into a roll, he landed on the animal’s broad back for just a moment, then slid off its glossy hide. He dropped to his feet, finding his balance only just in time to save himself again.
Spinning, seeing that the bull was faltering now from its exertions and that the wounds had opened up again, Simon gave chase to the animal. When he closed to within a few feet of it, he vaulted onto its back.
The bull went insane, throwing itself into the air as it sought to rid itself of the unwanted passenger. Simon tried to hold on with his knees, but the thick expanse of the Cape buffalo’s back was too broad to properly manage. He knew he was going to fall; it was only a matter of time.
He threw himself forward and roped an arm around the bull’s neck as far as he could. He strained to hang on, to keep his balance. As he watched, the radio came free of his thigh pocket, landed on the ground, and was crushed
