Max dropped to one knee and studied the tracks. Depth. Stride. Pace. They were moving slowly under full load and searching carefully.
Search-and-rescue. Or a containment team. In a place like this, the difference was not large.
If they found the settlement, there would be a bloodbath. Soldiers would not stop to sort out who these armed women were. The first arrow would bring automatic fire.
“Get everyone up,” Max ordered, rising. “Full alert. We don’t let them reach the gorge.”
“We meet them in Dead Hollow.” Dead Hollow was a narrow, deadfall-choked draw about half a mile south. Ideal for an ambush.
Narrow entrance. Steep sides. Blind spots. Better ground was hard to imagine. Forty minutes later, thirty trained hunters were in position.
Max placed them exactly as he had taught. No straight lines. No direct engagement. They broke into three-woman teams.
Their fields of fire overlapped. Their traps were set. Max himself took position on a fallen cedar in the center of the planned kill box. His face was smeared with mud. In his hands was a bow and ten arrows tipped with bone.
They still had no firearms. But in thick woods at twenty yards, a silent bow in trained hands can be more dangerous than a rifle. They waited.
The forest went still. Even the wind died, as if the land itself were holding its breath. The sound came about an hour later.
First the crunch of dry branches. Then muffled male voices. Then the metallic clink of sling swivels and gear.
The point element appeared between the trees. Two soldiers in camouflage with rifles at the ready. They moved professionally, scanning sectors, but to Max they might as well have been walking under spotlights.
Twenty yards behind them came the main body. About fifteen men. Among them a radio operator with a large set on his back and an officer carrying binoculars.
They were looking for him. The missing serviceman. If he stepped out now, they would take him home.
But then they would see the hunters. They would see the hidden settlement. And this isolated world would cease to exist.
It would be erased, studied, absorbed. The women would end up in institutions, fenced compounds, or museums of anthropology. Dara would not survive it. Radmila would die fighting.
Max made his decision. He could not save them by leaving. He could only save them by making the outsiders turn back for good.
The point men reached the first line of concealed traps. The soldier on the left took one careless step and caught a thin line hidden in the grass. A dry click sounded…
