Jeffery A Ping
Copyright Jeffery A. Ping 2013
24,460 words
This is a story set in a Post Apocalyptic World. I could have just written a story about primitive cave people but I wanted the option of a cannon or a submachine gun being introduced. I hadn't decided the cause of the apocalypse when I started the story. Nukes were the best bet and easiest but viral could have worked too. I guess you’ll have to wait and see if the characters can determine what the cause to have been, just like originally I did.
TRACKER
CHAPTER 1
My name is Remy. I am a Tracker from the three rivers region. Trackers are trained to fight and trained to survive in the outlands without supplies or companions for months at a time. This training allows us to travel light and fast. Our work is normally offered as an assignment from the Trackers Guild. All of the major trades have guilds. Dealing with a guild house guarantees you are getting a qualified person be that a builder, mason, or whatever trade you may need.
My preferred assignments were to track down raiders and kill or capture them. But sometimes we were hired to guide a group of raiders or traders and defend them. On occasion we were even assigned the task of assassination.
For this particular assignment, I had been contracted to track down a small raiding party and recover the items they had stolen. The thieves were to be captured and returned to the offended party or killed.
I had been tracking my current prey for five days and I was now getting close to them. I would occasionally catch voices on the wind and I was finding tracks and fresh trace. I knew I was closing in on them.
As I walked, I surveyed the terrain ahead of me. I noted traces but saw no one. I followed their trail to a dry creek bed. I slid down the bank and into the creek bed. Following the tracks, I started walking upstream.
During the winter rains and during spring, the snow runoff would cause the small streams and gullies to turn into raging torrents. This creek bed was slowly working its way into the foothills. Every couple hundred yards, it was gaining a foot or two of elevation. So, although I was walking in a creek bed, I was slowly going uphill making my way into the foothills. Up until now, I had been gaining elevation of 20 to 25 feet per mile. Soon the elevation would be four times that and the going would be much more difficult.
I was tracking nine looters who had raided a farm group in the old township area of the central valley. In the raid, they had killed two people at a farm and stolen a water pump and several other ancient items. I was assigned the task of tracking and capturing or terminating them and then returning the stolen goods to the farm.
I could see from the disturbed creek bed they were no more than 15 minutes ahead of me. Continuing to walk, I shifted my spear to my left hand. I used my right hand to pull my sling from my side pouch. I draped the sling over my shoulder and checked my ammunition. In the pouch I felt around and found plenty of the half inch metal spheres I used as sling ammunition.
I broke into a trot. Straining my eyes for any sign of the raiders, I finally spotted them trekking up the creek bed about 400 meters ahead of me.
I climbed out of the creek bed and struck a path about a 45 degree angle away from the creek bed. After a few hundred meters, I changed my direction so that it would intersect with the creek bed ahead of the raiders. My goal was to get ahead of the raiders without being seen and set up an ambush.
About 45 minutes later, I stopped beside the creek bed. The dry creek bed was now a channel about three meters deep. After a slight turn to the left, it ran straight for 50 or 60 meters. This would do nicely I thought. I leaned the spear against a tree, loaded a metal sphere into my sling, then stepped behind the tree and waited.
The raiders continued toward me. When they were halfway between me and the jog in the creek, I whirled the sling and sent the first projectile toward the lead raider. I stepped back behind my tree shield. I heard the raider cry out. Throwing his hands over his face, he dropped to his knees and fell forward onto his face.
One of his companions rushed up and turned him over. He examined the round hole in the fellow’s forehead. By now I had unleashed the second sphere at the group. It struck the raider kneeling by my first victim. The projectile struck him in the side of his head just above his right ear. Without making any sound, he fell forward over the first body.
The remaining raiders hadn’t detected me yet, but were frightened and confused, realizing they were under attack. They scrambled while looking for their attackers. I fired the third metal orb. A raider grabbed at his throat. A gurgling scream alerted the others of his distress. He also slumped to the creek bed.
I called to the raiders, "You are surrounded. Drop your weapons and loot or we will kill everyone."
One of the raiders called back, "Come take my spear if you want it."
The raiders had not located me yet. I spun the sling and stepped out to unleash a fourth slug. The sphere hit a large man in the right shoulder. He let out a loud yelp and dropped his spear.
I stepped back out of their line of sight. I picked up my spear and staying shielded from their view by the bank, I raced down the creek toward them. When I was directly above their location, I stepped to the edge of the bank and threw my spear.
A woman in the group was struck in the chest and with the metal tip of the spear protruding from her back she dropped to the creek bed without making a sound.
A voice from the creek bed called out, "We give up. Take our weapons."
I walked back to the edge of the bank. "Drop your weapons, packs, and cloaks." I yelled.
When they had complied, I told them to get on their knees, put their hands over their heads, and face the far bank. When they had done this, I dropped down into the creek and one by one I tied their hands behind their backs.
Using my dagger, I retrieved the metal spheres from the dead raiders. This was a messy job, but the metal spheres were very valuable. Next, I turned to the large man who had been hit in the shoulder. After a quick inspection of his wound, I told him,
"I will let a healer remove yours."
I searched each of my prisoners. On one of the women I found a dagger. I hit her in the head with the pummel of my sword. She dropped to her knees but remained conscious.
"The next weapon I find will mean death. Are there anymore?" I asked the group. No one said anything. I continued to search being rougher and more thorough.
When I was convinced there were no more weapons, I started searching their packs. I located several ancient metal items I thought had been stolen from the farm village. There were also several items I couldn't identify.
I reloaded the packs. By eliminating most of their personal gear and clothing, I was able to combine the valuable items from all nine packs into six packs. These I would distribute to the remaining five raiders and I would carry one myself.
"Is anyone here a good enough healer to keep this man alive for three or four days?" I asked, indicating the large man with the shoulder wound.
One of the women told me that she was a healer so I untied her hands. She led the big man over to the bank and examined his wound.
"I will need to remove the projectile." she said.
I motioned her aside. I tied her and the man's feet with about a foot of slack then untied his hands as well. They could walk but couldn’t run or fight very well with their feet tied this way.
The woman said she would need a fire and a knife. I built a small fire using dry dead wood for minimum smoke. I returned one of their daggers to her, which she placed in the fire.
There were many things that were forgotten from the ancient times, but infection causing germs were not one of them. No one might kno
w what a germ looked like, but all good healers knew they existed. I extracted my flask of grain alcohol and handed it to her.
I moved up the bank where I could watch her work and keep look out at the same time. First, the woman used the alcohol to clean around the wound. Then she removed the slug from the large mans shoulder. Finally, she sterilized the wound with more of my alcohol. Then making an herb poultice from items I had discarded from her pack she bandaged him.
I climbed down and took the dagger from her. I re-tied the woman’s and the man’s hands behind them. I told them to rest because in the morning we would start our trek back to the farming community they had raided. I retrieved the sphere she had removed, and then I moved back up the bank to keep watch.
That night I caught snatches of sleep but was awakened by every little sound I heard. But this was normal for me. Before dawn I rousted everyone awake and told them to ready themselves for the trail. I gave each of them a strip of jerky. This was all they would get to eat until we stopped for the night.
At first light we started back down the creek. I maintained a swift force march back to the farm where they had committed their crimes. The trip that had taken five sunrises to get this far, would be made in less than four on return.
I force marched everyone the first day. On the second day, I spotted and killed a small deer in the late afternoon. I cooked a haunch for our meal and cut the other haunch into strips and dried and smoked it the rest of that day and all night. I sat apart from my prisoners and assigned the fire keeping to the woman who had performed healer duties. The next day about evening meal time we arrived back at the farm.
The living area of the farm community was an area of about 300 paces by 300 paces and was surrounded by a low stone wall. Inside the walled area were about 15 one room single story buildings made of mud bricks and wooden poles.
There were also several animal pens and grain storage buildings. In the center of the farm area was a larger single story building of stone and logs that was used for meeting hall and group gatherings.
The larger building also housed the farm manager and his family. It was into this building that I marched the prisoners in order to turn them over to the farm manager. The farm manager met with me and he sorted thru the prisoners packs. After the farm leader finished his inspection of the loot I had retrieved from the captured raiders, he agreed to full payment for my services plus a bonus.
The prisoners might be kept as slaves, sold, beaten, or executed. The victimized community would determine punishment. Because of the value of the stolen metal items and the deaths of farm personnel during the raid, I was told the prisoners would probably be executed within a week of their trial.
The prearranged payment to me would be made in the form of crops or goods to be delivered to my guild house after harvest time. My share was predetermined by my guild at the time of the assignment. Bonuses were normally paid this way as well, but they were mine to keep, not the guilds.