Tree of Life

Book II Chapter 08

Sergeant Blackfoot whispered back, “The tracks lead here, sir. You see that bush up there?” He pointed. “Just before the trees break?”

Brian saw the one he meant. He nodded.

“I saw movement.”

The bush was about fifty feet away and just big and thick enough to hide two people behind it. If Brian had to pick a spot to conceal himself, and then wait for enemies to walk through the tree line and out into the open so he could ambush them, this was the spot he would pick. No doubt about it.

Brian straightened up. Turning, he faced his men who were crouching a distance away behind him. He began speaking to them in hand signals.

[First ten. Take your positions. Last ten. As discussed. Now.]

Nine of the men and Sergeant Blackfoot moved forward to form a front. They lifted their dart pistols, the ones loaded with Brian’s super-ethanol, and held them at the ready. Brian stayed where he was, a few paces off to the side.

Brian signalled to them again. [First volley. On my mark.]

Brian gave the command.

The men fired off their darts in a wide spread covering the entire bush and also a good twenty feet all around it.

From behind and above, arrows shot out.

The guns were hit and knocked from the men’s hands.

All at once. From all ten men. Now they were broken pistols and useless.

Brian went to turn around but shouted over his shoulder first, “Back ten!”

Brian had planned for this. The rest of his men had been facing the other way.

Now they fired off their rounds at the source of the arrows, on a perch in a tree high above them.

The sound of bowstrings.

Arrows flew.

All the darts had been intercepted in mid-air and knocked to the ground.

Arrowhead to dart-tip. All at once. All ten darts.

It took this long, but Brian was fully turned around now and glaring up into the trees.

Julian.

On a branch.

Eighty feet above with his back against the sun, piercing through a gap in the canopy, glimmering in the light. It was Peter Pan. Robin Hood. Artemis, Apollo, Lord of the hunt.

“Reload…” began Brian.

The men hadn’t waited for the command. They were already reloaded and were just lifting their guns to take aim.

This time, Brian saw how he did it.

Julian lobed ten arrows into the air just slightly above him. As the arrows drifted downward then, they fell into position on his bow and he shot them away, one by one, almost like the mechanism on a machine gun, but only faster. It was so fast, in fact, the arrows appeared to have been fired and hit all of their targets at the same time. So in the same instant, even before the men had a chance to fire them off, all the pistols had been knocked from the hands of the back ten and onto the ground.

“Dammit!” Brian turned his gaze back up to Julian.

Julian jumped.

The men threw what they had at him—knives and other weapons.

In the air, Julian twirled once and brushed aside the shots with his bow.

He hit ground.

And then he was off.