FULL NOVELXO Chapter CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Flight of Rogues
Into the night stole the two fugitives, hoping only to make their way through the wild darkness and out into the comparative civilization beyond. Owls hooted, and the night noises of the woods sent chills down the backs of both men.
After awhile, Abdul noticed the gleam of yellow eyes behind them. They kept a respectful distance, but the pair of eyes kept following. When next he looked, there were several pairs of eyes! Such was the gloom in the forest, the spectral glow of those yellow eyes was all that he could see. There was no moon this night.
Tyrone was oblivious, walking along noisily, constantly talking and swearing. “Dis mo-f-uh woods, man, it sucks! How far you think, huh?” The sweat started out on Abdul’s skin, as he noticed the yellow eyes not only multiplying in number, but actually starting to ring around them from the back. Glancing about, he counted at least a dozen pairs of glowing amber eyes.
He wanted to tell Tyrone to be quiet, but it was actually too late for that now. Less than an hour into the forest, and already they were being hunted! Curse this loud fool he was saddled with- Tyrone was a liability here, a lumbering beacon to every feral hunter in the forest. Suddenly, he got an idea.
“Let’s stop and eat some of this food,” he said. “We need to keep up our strength if we mean to keep going all night.” He sat down cross-legged in the Eastern fashion as he spoke, and opened his pack.
Without comment other than a brief curse or two, the black man also fell to the forest floor, opening his pack as well. Tyrone had never been one to plan or do anything other than to follow his urges of the moment. He was almost always hungry, and so that was the current urge he went with.
Abdul searched the forest, assessing the advance of the beasts of the yellow eyes, continually amazed that the obtuse Tyrone had still sensed nothing. Instead, he dumped all of his food on the path, and was shaking his pack upside down.
“Where the m-f-go-dn- be my knife?? Yo got yo’s, huh?” He looked over at the desert chief, thinking that somehow they had both been cheated by those Indians. He filled his mouth, chewing with an open mouth as he spoke, looking at Abdul as if he would commiserate with him that they had been cheated. “The man said we each get a knife! And here we be wit none-”
He broke off, his terrified eyes shining whitely in the darkness as he saw a knife in each of Abdul’s lean fists. He lunged away, and got half-way to his feet. But the Arab was quick, an accomplished knife fighter of a hundred desert battles, and slashed at the black’s hamstrings just behind the knee as he moved. The tendons in his left leg were severed; he could no longer walk, as blood flowed down his pants legs and pooled on the pine needles covering the forest path.
Abdul stood to his full height, and smiled down at his unwanted companion. “Enjoy your meal, at least as much as you can before your guests join you!” He gestured about him, and at last Tyrone saw the dozens of yellow eyes that were all about them. They were closing in, smelling the food from the pack, and more important-fresh blood. “No,” said Tyrone in a weak voice. “We be partners, man!” He sounded near tears, strange for such a rough and tough gang banger.
The desert terrorist laughed, something he did but rarely, usually in just such a situation of bloodletting. “Partners? You creature of Western decadence, we are not even the same species!” And with that, he was off, running fleetly, a knife in each hand. Two coyotes from the large ring about them stood in his way, and he cut at one, and then the other with quick efficient strokes. There were two yelps, and then the pair leaped aside to join their fellows in the attack on the easier prey, the weaponless one that could not walk. Carrion eaters, the coyotes were all about helpless prey…
Abdul ran on, feeling almost euphoric. He had rid himself of a burden, and also of a real threat of attack with one quick ruse! Surely, he was the Fox of the desert, as his followers had long described him! He had food, two weapons in the use of which he was an expert, and a clear way before him. He ran on nearly effortlessly, in the lean desert man’s stride that covered miles with great efficiency.
He heard the loud voice of the black man raised in profanity behind him, and the loud yipping and snarling of the many coyotes. He heard one yelp of an animal in pain, then a loud scream of pain and fear- and then nothing, nothing but a small tearing and crunching sound that receded as he moved rapidly away.
Grinning widely, he was sure that he had, once again, lived to fight another day! Oh, how those natives, and that white-skinned barbarian would suffer when he returned- with an army of the Jihad!