The rocks stabbing in to Vance Higgins’s back brought the young soldier back to consciousness. He blinked his eyes open to find himself surrounded by a net made of some unknown fiber as a marep dragged him through the underbrush.

Higgins tried to struggle free, or at least away, but the net just drew tighter. The marep ignored his struggling and continued to walk towards parts unknown, at least for Higgins.

He tried to pad himself as well as possible from rocks, branches, and various other hazards. He didn’t have much luck, so he began to search his person for anything the mareps might have forgotten and more importantly, could help him find away free.

His eyes went wide as he felt the pocket knife in his back pocket. How could their captors have missed such an obvious weapon? Unless—

What if they didn’t know how the pocket knife worked? What if they didn’t know it was a knife at all?

Higgins opened the blade and began to work on the strange ropes beneath him. The continual jogging as the marep pulled him along made him almost stab himself multiple times, but outside of a nicked thumb, he managed to continue his progress unscathed.

Sudden movement to his left drew Higgins’s attention that way. The other net bounced around as Evans struggled to break free.

“Calm down, Evans,” Higgins said as loud as he was able. “You’ll only make the tangle worse that way.

“Try checking your pockets instead.”

Evans looked surprised as he realized just how much of his gear the mareps had left on him.

“Work on getting yourself free,” Higgins said. “We have to find a way to get Ahni and get out of here.”

Evans shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Vance. We may have to cut our losses and go when we have our chance.”

“I’m not leaving without her, Teddy. And no arguments. I am your superior.”

Evans paused from his cutting to glare at Higgins. “Honestly, Corporal, this isn’t even our fight. We need to escape, find a way back to the surface, and rejoin our unit.”

Higgins pulled his net open beneath him. “We save her first. We’ll worry about finding our way out later, if we even can.

“You ready to move?”

Evans gave Higgins a thumbs up.

“Hit them fast and hit them hard.” Higgins dropped from his net and fell back away from the mareps.

Evans slid out of his own net, and immediately came up, knife in hand. The marep guard who had up to a few moments before had been dragging him turned back, just in time for Evans to bury his knife blade in the creature’s eye. It cried out in pain.

The marep holding Higgins’s empty net turned to see Evans pull his knife free, a mix of blood and pus flowing behind it. Higgins slammed in to it from the side, but his tackle did little more than cause the creature to slide a few inches.

The marep’s clawed arm came out and Higgins flew back at its blow. The marep hissed and bared his fangs as he raised its rod-like weapon to strike.

Higgins looked up as the creature brought the rod within inches of his forehead. He scrambled backwards on his hands and knees but the creature moved with great speed and closed on him in seconds. Higgins cringed as he looked up at the beastly grin and malicious yellow eyes of his former captor.

The yellow eyes went wide as the creature suddenly stumbled forward. Higgins slid back just enough to avoid the marep’s body as it crashed to the ground. He could hear a hiss and a crackle as the monster landed on his own baton. A dagger protruded from the marep’s back, and Higgins looked up and past it to see Sun Li drop from a tree only feet away.

“Get to Evans,” she yelled. Less than a second later, Evans cried out as the marep’s leader pounced on him.

The lead hunter stood a head taller than his dead compatriots, and the beast lifted Evans from the ground with one clawed hand. He boxed him across the torso with his other claw. The blow sent Evans spinning through the air, a trail of blood splattering from the wound opened by the monster.

The creature reached to a belt around his otherwise naked waist. From it he pulled what looked to Higgins like a small pair of dumbbells with an end cut off. He raised them in front of them and a flash of light shot from the end of each. Higgins moved to duck, but the light glowed only about two feet above the handles. Each formed the shape of a scimitar blade. They hissed in the air as the creature swung them as he closed with Higgins.

Higgins stepped backwards as he held his pocket knife at the ready. He strongly suspected the marep’s weapons would cut through his own like paper. He stepped back again just as Sun Li shouted a warning.

It was too late. Higgins foot caught on the side of his marep captor’s corpse and he stumbled across it.

The marep bared his teeth in a monstrous grin as he closed on Higgins. Higgins scrambled to flip over the dead marep’s body. If he could get to the baton, he might have a chance.

But the beast was too much dead weight. Higgins could barely budge it, let alone get under it. The hunter raised his scimitars of light above his head, ready to strike as he took the final few steps toward Higgins.

The first blast caught it in the back of his clawed foot. The marep stumbled back as the second blow caught it in the arm. He roared in pain and dropped his weapons. The scimitar blades vanished as they fell to the ground. The third blast caught the beast in the side, and the marep spun in a half circle before dropping to the ground.

Higgins saw Sun Li again as the beast fell, this time holding a baton. She rushed forward and bounded over the marep’s limp form in one jump. She reached one hand out to help Higgins back to his feet.

“Are you all right?” she said.

Higgins nodded. “You saved me. Twice. After everything I—“

“You have been rude and vile, but you’re far better than the mareps ever were.” She turned and looked in to the low grass. “Come. We must check on your friend.”

Sun Li rushed off towards Evans. Higgins stood stunned for a moment at the ease at which the woman had forgiven him. He could never let off someone that easy, especially not someone who had done nothing but ridicule him. Amazing.

Higgins shook off his momentary stupor and rushed off behind her to find his friend.