my target.
An instant after I twitch the trigger, the glass in the upstairs room cracks and the man within falls to the ground. I swing the scope round to watch the reaction of the others. The three deserters in the garden sit up like Meerkats, looking up at the window. They probably think a stone has been thrown through the glass.
I pull back the bolt again, feeling the resistance of the spring mechanism, and with a fractional movement of my finger, one of the three men in the garden topples over.
Meanwhile the two men out front are running round the back. What can be happening?
They move too fast for an accurate shot, until they stop to talk to their surviving compatriots, who have hidden themselves behind a tree and a table as they figure out what is happening.
The two new arrivals dive for cover as they are swiftly filled in, but not before I catch one of them through the shoulder. There is a spray of red and he spins round to land exposed in the middle of the garden – a killing ground. One of the other bandits tugs at his boot, slowly trying to pull him into cover without exposing himself.
I scoop up the expended shells for later recycling, then slide backwards away from the tree and disappear into the wilderness.
When I next catch sight of the men, they have retreated inside the building and have their weapons about them. Two of the targets are visible. One holds his crossbow down by his side as though daring to hope it is over, the other peers out the window, hoping to see their enemy; he is too exposed, for the attack is not yet finished. I sight him up carefully, adjusting the scope, and a bullet catches him in the face, making him fall out of sight.
As the bolt grinds backwards once more and snaps into place, the other man drops behind the wall and peers round the corner, staying flat and mostly out of sight. This much I recognise from their training.
If they are falling back on the learning they have deserted, they will have been looking for the muzzle flash and if they saw it, will now plan to circle in on my position. So I move again, a little shift this time, to a point where I can watch both the building and my second vantage point.
Around my waist I wear little bags like a free climber. But in these there is not flour, but differing camouflage paints for different environments. I daub myself to match a nearby tree and lay behind it, amongst the roots, pulling fallen leaves over the back of my legs to further disguise me from casual eyes.
I cannot see the bandits when I next look. They are either hiding well away from the windows or sneaking out the far entrance. This concerns me, but is not unexpected. So I put the gun away and swing it onto my back, rising on my haunches to sneak a few more metres away.
An hour or so later I have attained a much removed position. They are still not in view, so I hide myself in the landscape, making a hole in the ground and lying in it under a blanket of detritus. I will not be discovered now unless someone actually stands on top of me.
Another hour passes and I think I catch a man’s voice on the wind, but I do not act. I am a creature of infinite patience now.
In the dark, the deep blue minutes before dawn, I guess the men must have gone to bed. Perhaps one of them is on watch. I cautiously emerge from my lair and painstakingly make my way to yet another sighting position.
I lie down for a long wait and sleep with one eye open.
In the late morning, one of the men cautiously walks outside. They have seen nothing for some hours; no attack came in the night. Perhaps it is over?
They are wrong. I drop the man with a shot to his knee; he lies screaming for help in pain from his wound. Without thinking, without realising this is a trap, another man runs out to assist, courageously crawling into the open, keeping his profile low, but not low enough; my bullet pierces him through the top of his head.
Now the bandit with the wounded shoulder runs out, arms raised above his head in surrender and it is over.
I let the survivors limp away, grateful that some mercy has been granted them which was not accorded their victims.
After my rescue, the sniper led me back to civilisation, not down the roads that I had followed to get there, but by the secret tracks and back roads of the wilderness.
On the way, we had plenty of time to get to know one another and it seemed he took a shine to me. As we got closer to our destination, he started to give me little tips, titbits of arcane knowledge; what particular tracks told you about the state of the animal that had made them, which plants were edible and which were not.
It was still a surprise when he made the offer. We had reached the nearest of the army towns and I was just about to step out onto its streets.
He called me back and suggested I follow him, learn the ways of the sniper. A day later I did. Having made my decision, I wandered out into the woods, where he found me and led me away into the ways of shadow.
After a few months I was ready to practice for myself and we parted ways. Sometimes I think about him. I guess he is still somewhere out there. Snipers don’t often meet in the wilds. Sometimes there is a trace of one in passing, a part of the art that you recognise, perhaps a fallen branch that to others was just brought down by the wind, but to the initiated is part of an almost forgotten craft…
Maybe someday I will take an apprentice myself. Until that day I will remain a creature of shadow and legend, wandering the secret ways of the wilderness alone and in time with nature.