In Enemy Territory - Shannon West Page 0,61
there, and he wrote down the stories of how he survived. It’s really interesting reading—especially for a hunter, like myself. Hunting is such a noble sport, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Chasing after animals with weapons and killing them for sport?” Ryan made a face. “Hardly noble. More like savage and heartless.”
“You’re wrong!” The general vehemently shook his head. “With an intelligent animal, the sport can be quite challenging. Even dangerous and deadly. Unfortunately, I’ve hunted many animals in my time, and they all lost their appeal in the end. It was when I remembered my ancestor’s stories that I hit on the idea of hunting humans. So much more interesting and challenging.”
He gestured toward the jungle. “I do it here with my prisoners. Some of them give me quite a challenge. Others, like those tonight, are so weak and pathetic they don’t offer the same thrill of the chase. I allow my people to finish them off.”
“This is sick.”
“But your own husband’s people led the way on the idea, and I’m simply doing the same as they did. With a few twists of my own for my own amusement. After all, I’m an assassin and in the business of killing people. Don’t you know the full story of the Hunt?”
Ryan simply stared at him with disgust.
“I’ll tell you then. You see, after a human captive survived the ordeal of the “Ring” as they called it and was chosen as the ‘nobyo’ of one of the Tygerian oppressors, they had one more ordeal to overcome before they could be made a Tygerian citizen.
“Their so-called mate had to transform into his tiger and hunt them through a large park set up for just such a spectacle. Barbaric, isn’t it? It was a sport to the people of Tygeria, and they cheered when one of the big tigers hunted down and slaughtered a human. The whole thing was televised on the old-fashioned camera technology that used to exist on Tygeria. It was broadcast all over the planet. Only a very few of the human captives were lucky enough to survive. My ancestor was one of them, but he was mauled badly by his Tygerian when he fought the damn thing. His leg later had to be amputated. After that, the Tygerian traded him in a prisoner exchange, and he finally got to return home to his wife and family, but he was terribly scarred, both physically and emotionally.”
“I-I’m sorry that happened, but it has nothing to do with Mikos or the king now. That’s ancient history.”
“Not exactly ancient, but a long time ago, yes. I know that, of course, but I began to think about it, you see. And I began to wonder, what if it wasn’t only history? What if I wrote a new chapter?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
"The gods are capricious, my boy. They make some men kings. Others are made paupers. As for me—the gods made me a hunter. I’ve loved the sport of it all my life, and I’ve been hunting since I was a child. I became a soldier and rose through the ranks to be a general. I later joined ARes when that debacle of a war was over and when ARes failed, I decided to go back to my first love—hunting. Only I would be a hunter of men. An assassin, though my real interest has always been the hunt itself. The excitement of choosing your prey, of stalking them and finding a way past their defenses to defeat them. That’s the real sport for me. I have hunted men for the past few years since ARes began to fail, and I and the ones I chose to help me did their job too well. No one even noticed! Especially the poor, stupid victims themselves. They offered me no sport, no enjoyment. Even the Tygerian officials, who should have known better, thought the deaths were accidents or suicides. Can you imagine? It was all beginning to become boring to me in the extreme. Then recently I had the most wonderful idea.
“I remembered all my ancestor’s old stories of the Hunt. And I thought, well, why not? Only this time it would be the Tygerians who were hunted. Such delicious irony! Finally I would have a quarry with which I can match my wits."
“You’re insane,” Ryan said, his voice horrified.
The general’s bewilderment showed in his face. “But why? Tygerian tigers are fierce and have courage and cunning. Most exciting of all is the fact that because they