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If she knew how many men would come and what weapons they'd carry, she could plan her attack better. However, all she knew for certain was where they'd land the boats and the time they'd arrive, and she didn't trust Chamtivos to tell the truth regarding the latter.
She checked her small cache of hastily made weaponry. Half dead, with only an eating knife and materials Anhuset had scavenged, Serovek had done an admirable job of arming her and himself with weapons that would be useful in this environment, even against opponents with swords and bows. Archers presented the greatest threat, and Karulin had warned Anhuset there were four among Chamtivos's group who were exceptional. They'd be her first targets to neutralize. She just had to get close enough to them without getting shot full of arrows.
Gods forbid one of them find Serovek. The bramble barrier she'd erected provided some camouflage for him, as did the island's topography. He was an exceptional fighter, especially on horseback, but these were different circumstances with unique challenges, including the injuries he'd sustained from a brutal beating. Anhuset hoped Serovek was as good with that sling as he boasted.
She ran a claw lightly along her lower lip, the memory of the kiss she'd shared with him still making her skin tingle. If they both emerged from this ordeal alive and mostly in one piece, she planned to scratch the itch he'd incited and swive him for days—once he healed, of course. She'd once told him he wouldn't survive her. An empty threat now. She hadn't carried him up a hill to save him only to kill him in her bed. The memory of his teasing her made her smile for a moment. Her humor fled as images of Serovek's battered features replaced the finer memories of his humor and his kiss, and by the time she spotted the pair of boats skimming across the lake at dawn, her fury had turned the blood in her veins to ice.
From her hidden perch atop a steep embankment, she watched the two boats come ashore, a half dozen men in each, with Chamtivos at the prow of one. They disembarked, allowing Anhuset to take stock of their numbers and the weapons they carried. Karulin wasn't among their party. Anhuset was glad for it. He'd betrayed Chamtivos by giving her the knife and decried the warlord's actions regarding the hunt. Anhuset had hoped she wouldn't have to fight him, but she'd been prepared to do so if forced.
She was too far away to hear their words or see their expressions, but their demeanor told her much. The coming hunt excited them.
Anhuset's eyes narrowed. She had never been, and would never be, a prey animal, and forest fighting was a defender's game. “Today is a good day for all of you to die,” she said softly.
The party split into two groups of six men each. Four archers were among them, two in each group. Anhuset wondered if these four were the ones Karulin had warned her about. The rest, including Chamtivos, carried swords, spears, and knives. And one carried a sling.
One group began a hike into the treeline on the side of the island where Serovek waited. The second one traveled farther down the beach in the opposite direction. They were the ones Anhuset followed and would deal with first, starting with the archers and the slinger.
She'd had neither the time nor stamina to build real traps, but she made the appearances of some. Leaves mounded a certain way over half buried tree limbs hastily cut and sharpened, their exposed ends made to resemble hints of pit traps with their lethal spikes that swallowed and impaled their victims. The hunters might investigate them further and discover they were bluffs, but by then the damage was done. They'd be cautious after that. And slower.
The six who tracked her and whom she tracked in return, didn't split off in different directions but hiked through the trees in a short column, with one archer leading and the second one acting as rear guard. They stayed together, no more than six paces apart at any time.
Anhuset targeted the rear guard archer first, hurling one of the spikes at him from behind the barrier of a broad oak. The spike took him in the shoulder, spinning him so that he dropped the bow he held and fell with a pained yelp, clutching the injured spot.
She darted behind the tree again, only to reappear on the other side just as the front archer pivoted and fired the arrow he'd nocked. It struck the trunk close to where she'd stood. He already had a second arrow nocked in place when she threw another spike. It struck him in the hand, and while he lost the shot, he kept his feet and held onto the bow.
Bark shattered next to her ear, pelting the side of her face as the hunter with the sling returned fire with several stones. Anhuset bolted into the trees, using the forest's stately columns of trees and dappled shadow to hide from her pursuers.
The spikes had done their job in disabling one archer and injuring the second. She still had all six men to contend with, but she'd improved her odds.
Broken bark cracked nearby as the hunter with the sling hounded her through the forest. Anhuset sprinted past one of her false traps as she climbed the slope toward the island's peak.
The running footsteps behind her stopped abruptly. Alarmed yelps and expletives echoed through the trees. They'd spotted her trap and momentarily paused in the chase.
She sprinted even harder to put more distance between them, leaving more obvious spoor to lead them higher up the slope. She was far more careful on the way down as she circled back and ended up behind the hunters. She'd neutralized the archers enough that they'd resorted to their swords and knives. One of the spearmen took up the rear guard position now.
Anhuset bided her time, allowing the group to move farther ahead, their movements twitchy, faces grim as they realized they were not only the hunters, but also the hunted.
They paused a second time at the sight of another trap, and it was then she struck, this time to take down the spearman.
He made only a gurgle before she grappled him from behind and snapped his neck. He dropped the spear he carried. She caught it before it hit the ground. His limp body thumped once against hers as the slinger hurled a stone, and Anhuset blocked it with the spearman's corpse.
Anhuset hurled the spear. The slinger fell, still clutching his next round of ammunition.
“And now the hunt begins in earnest,” she told the remaining three in Common tongue.
Her words and the shock of their comrade's swift death sent them fleeing in different directions. Anhuset caught one of the archers before he got far, using her stick to crack his skull open. His body rolled down the slope to disappear in a pile of leaves. She killed the second man in a similar fashion.
The archer with the injured hand was the only one remaining, and she chased him all the way to the island's peak, losing him twice when she had to dodge a clumsily shot arrow and again when he flung his knife at her.
She trapped him on the island's crown with its spectacular view of the dangerous waters below. Later, Anhuset could only guess why her opponent suddenly decided to charge her. Maybe in the hopes of throwing her off the nearby edge, into the water, maybe to tackle her with the idea of brawling to the death. Whatever plan he had, she'd never know it. He raced toward her with a war cry and his sword raised. She'd simply pivoted out the way at the last minute and kicked him in the back. His momentum and her kick propelled him over the edge and into the lake below. She thought he might drown until a long shadow sped toward him as he thrashed in the water.
Anhuset raced back down the slope, angling toward the place where she'd left Serovek, fearful that Chamtivos and the remaining hunters had found and butchered him. A glimpse through the trees at additional boats landing on the shore to deposit yet more armed men sent her heart hurtling into her throat. “Gods' damn it,” she snarled. “Will this never end?”
Serovek would have to fend for himself a little longer while she dealt with this newest problem. She crept closer to the shore, pausing at the sight of these newest invaders, heavily armed and wearing clerics' garb. Anhuset recognized their clothing. Megiddo had worn something similar when he first presented himself to Brishen at Saggara. Nazim monks.
They lingered on the beach for a moment, talking among themselves. Tired of waiting for them to do something other than chat, Anhuset edged out of the forest's shelter far enough for them to see her. She was too far away for them to shoot at her if they proved to be hostile.
Instead there was much exclaiming at the sight of her, though they didn't approach. One monk stepped toward her, hands out in a sign of peace. “Sha-Anhuset?”
