Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 112: Hunting the Hunter

The major saw the prince’s fingers making some kind of unusual movement, and that’s what saved him.

As the two girls shifted a few inches to the right, Delphi’s dagger flew towards the soldier holding Ruby hostage, striking him through the eye.

He dropped from the saddle and hit the ground, leaving Ruby sitting up there alone, hands still tied behind her back.

Pittman flinched just in time and Alton’s dagger flew past him, close enough to nick his ear. Feifei took the opportunity of his distraction to leap from the horse and run towards Delphi.

Niko, Brenner, Opal and Han rounded the corner and sprinted through the gates. Han started shooting and immediately took out two of Pittman’s men.

They were heavily outnumbered now, with only five of them left alive.

"Retreat!" shouted Pittman.

He kicked his horse and galloped out of the gardens, leaving his four remaining men to fend for themselves.

"Typical bloody assassin," muttered Alton, "in the end, they’re all lone wolves. Niko! You’re on first here. Take them all down. Look after Feifei and Ruby."

"On it, Sir!"

Alton ran for Maback. By the time he was in the saddle with his crossbow, he looked over and saw that Delphi had already mounted up on Miro and was holding her crossbow and sword.

"If you think you’re going after that psycho without me you’ve got another think coming," she winked at him.

Good grief! he thought. It wasn’t worth arguing while precious seconds ticked by with that vicious killer escaping their clutches. He tilted his head towards the gates and both of them rode out.

"Blue!" Delphi shouted, "with me! Feif! Keep an eye on Bogden for me? Don’t let him follow me." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Feifei nodded and gave her the thumbs up, now that her bindings had been cut.

"Give me something you’re wearing that that sicko touched?" Delphi asked Feifei. "I need his scent for Blue."

Feifei stripped off her t-shirt and threw it across to Delphi.

"Thanks girl!"

As they ran out the garden gates, Baer, Niko and Brenner were engaged in sword fights with three of the soldiers and Kai had shot the fourth.

"Blue!" Delphi called. "Follow this guy," she let him sniff Feifei’s t-shirt. "Not Feifei, the strange man."

The dog took off down the road, baying.

"These guys could probably track him by his smell too you know," Alton called, indicating their dragons.

"Probably, but they’re not as good as Blue, and I’m not willing to take any chances on letting Sir Little Dick get too far."

Alton snorted with laughter. "You had to provoke one of the nastiest trained assassins alive today, did you? You have no idea what that guy had in store for you."

That was why Alton was so determined to kill him himself. If Pittman escaped, he would definitely return to make Delphi pay for humiliating him. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at night while the man was at large.

"He’s got no idea what I have in store for him, so that makes two of us," she said fiercely.

A little bit more fear would serve her well, he thought. She was taking unnecessary risks given how devastating losing her would be to the Rebellion... and to him...

Within minutes they were riding down the old Wimmera Highway.

"He’s heading west," said Delphi. "Not sure what’s out this way that he thinks will help him. It’s not the way home that’s for sure."

"He knows we’re riding dragons, so we’ll be faster than he is on a horse. He’ll be heading somewhere he thinks he can lose us. What’s past Natimuk? Maybe Mount Arapiles?"

"That’ll be it! He’ll be thinking he can hide up in the rocks," she said. "Good luck to him getting there before we catch up to him. The hunter becomes the hunted..."

Sure enough, it was not much further down the long flat highway before they saw Pittman riding in the distance.

"Go faster Miro," Delphi urged him, and her dragon picked up the pace, Maback mirroring him.

Blue let out a howl, and Pittman stopped and turned his horse, spotting them on the road behind him.

"Blue, shh," said Delphi. "That’s not very helpful now he’s seen us coming."

Blue looked very shamefaced and whimpered.

"Don’t worry boy. It really doesn’t matter," she reached out to scruff his ears. "He would have seen us coming anyway. Look how flat it is."

"What’s he doing?" Alton pulled out his binoculars from his saddle bag. "Oh shit! It looks like he’s sending a messenger pigeon!"

Alton could see the Major writing something with one hand and holding a pigeon with the other.

"Go Miro!" Delphi spurred him on. "Get as close to him as you can, right now!"

Both Delphi and Alton nocked an arrow in their long-range bows and got ready to fire off a shot. Alton kept obsessively checking what was happening through the binoculars.

"He’s let it go!" he shouted.

They both peered up at the white pigeon, but it was much too far off, even for the long-range bows, just a tiny speck in the distance.

Alton followed the bird’s course with the binoculars.

"It seems to be coming back this way," he said with rising excitement.

Delphi peered into the high blue sky and sure enough, the little white speck, which was the pigeon, was getting larger. Soon, it was within range of their bows.

Delphi and Alton both took careful aim, waiting a few for more precious seconds to be sure they had the shot. They couldn’t afford to miss and frighten it away.

Before either of them let their arrow fly, a huge wedge-tailed eagle soared in from the south and captured the little white bird in its talons.

Delphi lowered her bow in surprise and looked at Alton uncertainly.

"Do you think it’s okay to let it go, or should we shoot the eagle just to make sure the pigeon’s dead?"

"With the amount of feathers that fluttered down after that eagle took out a hit on the messenger bird, I think we can pretty safely say that pigeon’s not going to recover and fly back to the Island."

"Alright then. That was a surprise. But a pretty good one. We must keep that in mind with our pigeons Alton. They have a long way to fly past a lot of hungry birds of prey."

"Mmhm," he agreed with her, "that’s why I’m hounding Han to get us ham radios ready for mission comm’s. Pigeons are very unreliable, and you’re right, we’re a very long way from the capital here."

"After the bad man again Miro!"

She wondered if Pittman knew that his bird hadn’t made it... She hoped he did.

Within fifteen minutes, they were close to Pittman and closing in.

"He’s a very dangerous man Delphi," Alton warned. "I don’t want you going anywhere near him. The minute he’s within crossbow range, we’re shooting him. There’s not going to be any more of your pleasant chitchat with him."

Delphi nodded, "you won’t hear any argument from me on that front".