At this range, without having time to aim properly, it was next to impossible to hit his target. He could only hope to draw Munokhoi closer. He counted his remaining arrows—three—and decided he didn’t have enough to play this game with Munokhoi.
A booming noise echoed through the forest, and something heavy crashed into the stump, knocking great holes in the wood. Bark pelted Gansukh, and like a startled deer, he sprinted away from his hiding place. He dashed through a clump of spiny bushes, branches clawing at his bow and clothing, and slid to a stop behind an aged spruce. His heart pounded in his chest, and the echo of the thunder still rang in his ears.
Smoke came through the trees, a gray haze that drifted slowly downslope. The upper portion of his previous hiding place looked as if it had been clawed by a giant bear; ragged strips of bark poked up from the crown of the stump like crooked fingers.
There was no bear. Gansukh had heard nothing prior to the sudden boom, nor had there been any subsequent sound of a large animal crashing through the underbrush. It could not have been a lightning strike either. The sky was clear of clouds, and no fire had been started. It had to have been Munokhoi, but what sort of sorcery was it?
Gansukh remembered the night of the Chinese raid. When he had been chasing Lian, he had heard similar booming noises. Afterward, some of the Torguud had spoken of a Chinese weapon, a portable cannon that used fire to hurl shards of metal and pottery with incredible force.
Looking at the wreckage of the stump, Gansukh imagined what such a weapon would do to him. His armor would offer no protection. But the handheld cannon had to be cumbersome to wield, otherwise Munokhoi would have used it when he had first attacked. He wouldn’t have waited until Gansukh had been hiding. In fact, Gansukh theorized, he had only used it because he hadn’t been able to get a clear shot with his bow. I would have done the same, he thought, risking another glance. If your target is obscured, make him move or make his hiding place no longer safe.
Munokhoi had both bow and fire thrower, and Gansukh had only three arrows. He was at a disadvantage, but he thought he knew what Munokhoi was thinking.
An arrow struck the trunk of the tree above Gansukh’s head, and he didn’t flinch. He glanced at it, noting its angle and orientation in the tree, and rose to his feet, mentally reversing its flight path as he drew his bow back and loosed an arrow. It disappeared into a thicket to the right of the last tendrils of drifting smoke, and as he ducked back behind the tree, he noted movement in the brush.
He had to coax Munokhoi close enough that the ex–Torguud captain would try to use the Chinese weapon again. Gansukh suspected it would take Munokhoi some time to ready the weapon—his attention would be devoted to that task. That would be Gansukh’s opportunity to get a clear shot. He had to have time to aim his arrows. He had to see his target without being seen.
Gansukh poked his head out once more, and another arrow hissed past. He darted in the other direction, up slope but still away from Munokhoi. He paused behind every large tree—varying the time spent in cover so that Munokhoi couldn’t anticipate when he would emerge again. He kept looking for a suitable hiding place, and finally spotted a fallen tree that had lodged between two other trees. The trio of trees made for excellent cover—he could stand upright and still be hidden from view—and the long trunk of the fallen tree provided him the means to crawl away from cover without being seen.
He made it to the other side of the barrier without being hit by an arrow, and he caught his breath before he carefully poked his head out for a quick peek. He saw no sign of Munokhoi, and he shifted to the center of his cover. Grabbing onto the thick bark of the fallen tree, he hoisted himself up to risk another look. An arrow skipped off the bark, not far from his head. It vanished into the forest behind him as he dropped back down.
Munokhoi was still coming. Gansukh didn’t have a lot of time with which to accomplish his ruse. He dropped to his belly and began worming his way along the ground. When he had gone several body lengths, he got to his knees and slowly rose to a half crouch, peering over the dead tree. He had chosen a spot where a leafy fern had spouted from the trunk, and he was confident he wouldn’t be seen.
His ruse had worked. He could see Munokhoi clearly, kneeling behind a large bush. His bow lay on the ground beside him, and he was busy stuffing something into an iron tube held cradled in one arm.
Gansukh nocked one of his two remaining arrows and, holding the bow sideways so that he wouldn’t reveal himself prematurely, he drew back the string. Rising slowly to a standing position—his thighs quivering at the glacial pace of his motion—he aimed carefully. Munokhoi sensed his presence right before he let go of the bowstring, and Gansukh had a brief glimpse of the ex–Torguud captain’s wild eyes before he ducked back down behind the log.