«Riyannah!» he shouted, waving furiously. She turned. «Come here!» As she hurried toward him, he pulled a magazine out of his pack and picked up her empty rifle. Then he shoved the magazine into place, snapped on the safety, pulled out the bayonet, and locked it on to the rifle's muzzle. By now Riyannah was back in the camp, looking curiously at him. Before she could say anything, he held the rifle out to her.
«Here, Riyannah. Take this. It is yours.»
Riyannah stared at it as if he'd slapped her, grabbed for the rifle, and missed. It fell to the ground with a thud. She knelt to pick it up, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't grip it. Her eyes shut, squeezing out tears which washed paths through the soot on her face.
«Why?» she said, in a voice so strangled that Blade could barely understand her.
«There are dangerous animals in this forest. I did not think there were any, but now I know I was wrong. You must have a rifle and ammunition, to defend yourself against the animals.»
«You did-I-«, then a wordless choking noise. For a moment Riyannah seemed too stunned and confused even to cry, let alone speak.
«I do not want you to be killed by the animals,» said Blade, smiling. «Why should I? That would make me stupid and cruel, like the soldiers.»
Slowly, as if all her joints were rusty, Riyannah stood up. Her fists were clenched and her eyes were open but staring blindly. Then she stepped forward, tripped over the rifle, and nearly fell into Blade's arms.
He held her gently and kissed her on the forehead and on the eyes until she stopped shaking. At last she straightened up and he let her go. She stepped back and nearly tripped over the rifle.
Blade laughed. «Riyannah, the first thing you must learn about this rifle is not to jump up and down on it.» She laughed in turn, bent down, and picked it up.
«You will teach me how to shoot the animals?» she said. «I know this gun, but only-«She fumbled for the words, then went through a pantomime of firing it from the hip on full automatic. «Is that good for the animals too?»
«No. With the animals, you must fire one shot at a time. But I will teach you that, and other things as well. Then you will be safe from the animals as long as we are in the forest.» This was the first time he'd even hinted they might sooner or later be moving on.
«What if there are more animals than there are shots for the rifles?»
«Then-«He hesitated, then decided to take the risk. «Then I suppose we will have to go somewhere else, where there are no dangerous animals. Do you know such a place?»
Only a trained eye like Blade's could have detected Riyannah's little gasp and the slight stiffening of the slender body. She licked her lips three times, one fist still clenched. For a moment Blade could have sworn she was going to answer, «Yes,» and perhaps say even more.
Then the moment passed. She frowned and slowly shook her head. «I do not think I know such a place. Do you?»
«No.»
«Then we must make this place safe for both of us. Is that not true, Blade?»
This time he reached out and drew her to him with one arm, to kiss her on both cheeks. She did not protest, but smiled up at him until he let her go.
Chapter 8
Blade and Riyannah went out into the woods for a little target practice. Blade fired five rounds at a tree fifty yards away to show Riyannah how to aim. Then he watched as she fired ten rounds herself. On the eleventh round the tree fell over, cut completely through.
Blade decided that was enough practice. Riyannah wasn't going to be another Annie Oakley, but she could aim the rifle and didn't freeze on the trigger. Blade knew trained soldiers who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn unless they were standing inside it or firing on full automatic. Riyannah could certainly put at least one bullet into anything the size of a bat-cat before it could get to her. With the heavy slugs the rifles fired, one should be enough to stop a bat-cat or anything else smaller then an elephant.
Blade also told Riyannah, «Do not go out of the camp alone if I am close enough to be called. If you must go out alone always take your rifle. Leave the safety on, but keep looking upward and be ready to fire if you see anything suspicious.»
Blade still didn't know if the bat-cats would be a menace or only a nuisance. He thought of strengthening the shelter, then decided against it. Before he could build anything able to resist the bat-cats, he and Riyannah would probably be on the move again.
Giving Riyannah her own rifle and ammunition made it very clear he trusted her. That display of trust had wiped out much of her suspicion of him. She'd already been on the edge of revealing something important. Next time she might go ahead and reveal it, and then what? Blade didn't know, but he suspected it would mean leaving the wilderness.
The prospect of facing bat-cats didn't change their daily routine much. Blade built bigger fires at night and made his morning trips shorter. When they bathed, they bathed one at a time, the other sitting on the bank with rifle in hand and eyes on the sky.
The trees around their bathing place grew thinly, leaving more open sky than Blade liked. On the other hand, the next nearest place for bathing was two miles away, and the path to it led through several large clearings. Unless bat-cats could land on a dime, they were safer where they were.
Certainly the beasts were prowling the forest. Three nights in a row Blade awoke to their screams and growls. They were never as close as they'd been the first night, and he never bothered looking for their victims. He wondered what was bringing them into this part of the forest all at once. The nights seemed to be growing colder. Was the change in the weather causing a migration of the wildlife so that the bat-cats had to follow their food supply? If so, how thickly would they gather? Too many carnivores in any one area would eat the forest bare of game. Unfortunately it wouldn't take too many bat-cats to make the area of the camp unpleasant for Blade and Riyannah.
On the tenth night, the screams of the bat-cats and the wild cries of their victims were louder than ever before. Either they were hunting closer to the camp or it was a larger pack. Blade not only woke up but found it uncomfortably hard to get back to sleep. He finally dozed off again as the forest outside began to turn gray.
He awoke to find Riyannah curled up snugly against him, her own blankets lying rumpled and discarded in her corner of the shelter. She was naked, and for such a slim woman she gave off a surprising amount of warmth.
Blade took Riyannah gently by the shoulders and kissed her even more gently. He had to fight to keep his lips and hands from moving on down her body, or even to pull them away. As he crept out from under the blankets, she turned over with a gentle sigh, blinked, then went back to sleep.
She didn't wake up until Blade was fully dressed. Then she rolled out from under the blankets, pulled on her own clothes, and smiled at Blade. As usual, the smile turned her face into something warm and appealing. It also hinted that she'd known exactly what she was doing when she crawled under his blankets.
Half an hour later, Riyannah was naked again. She climbed out of the stream, raising both hands to wring out her hair. The motion lifted her breasts and formed the rest of her slim body into a graceful curve, like a bent bow. Her nipples were hard and dark in the chill of the morning and beads of water stood out on her skin.
Her skin was a shade darker than before, from weeks of soot and grease no cold-water scrubbing could remove. It hadn't lost any of its beauty, though. Her silver-white pubic triangle stood out like a beacon. The sunlight shining through the trees overhead turned the drops of water on her skin into sparkling jewels and threw moving patterns of light and shade on her throat, shoulders, and breasts. Riyannah might not be at home in the wilderness, but she certainly looked enough like a wild creature of the forest and the waters.