Dune_ House Atreides - Brian Herbert [231]
The rocks stood above them and to their right like the knobbed spine of a starving lizard, casting shadows, muffling sounds. The kulon plodded along, sniffing the ground for something to eat. Frieth, who carried the baby boy without complaint, suddenly froze. Her blue eyes grew wide, flashing from side to side. She cocked her head to listen.
Kynes, weary and hot, but with a spring of eager anticipation in his step, went for five meters before he noticed that his wife had paused. “Husband!” she said in a quick, harsh whisper. Frieth looked up into the blue-white sky, as if trying to see through the mountainous barricade.
“What?” he asked, blinking.
An armored scout ’thopter thrummed over the ridge and rose high from the other side of the mountain wall. Kynes stared up at it, standing out in the sunlit open path. He noted the sandstorm-scarred Harkonnen markings, the scratched paint of the blue-griffin symbol.
Frieth clutched the baby close and scrambled for cover. “Husband! This way!” She tucked their baby into a sheltered cranny of rock far too small for either of the adults, then ran back to get Kynes before he’d managed to react. “Harkonnens—we must hide!” She grabbed his stillsuit sleeve.
The two-man ’thopter circled around close to the cliffside. Kynes realized they had been seen; he and his family made obvious targets on the exposed ridge. Harkonnen troops often made sport of attacking lone Fremen, hunting them down with impunity.
Weapons emerged from the snub nose of the craft. The plaz side window slid open so that one grinning soldier in Harkonnen uniform could extend his lasgun rifle. He had room to swing the stock and take aim.
As his wife passed the desert ass, she gave a bloodcurdling shriek and slapped the kulon hard on its hindquarters. The startled animal brayed and bucked before galloping off up the winding path, spraying loose rocks with its hooves.
Frieth turned the other way and ran downhill, her face hard and intent. Kynes did his best to follow. They stumbled back down the slope, dodging boulders, seeking shadows. Kynes couldn’t believe she had left Liet alone, until he realized that his young son was far more protected than either of them was. The baby folded into the shadows, instinctively falling silent and remaining still.
He felt clumsy and exposed, but Frieth seemed to know what to do. She had been raised as a Fremen and understood how to melt into the desert.
The ’thopter roared past them and targeted on the panicked kulon. Frieth must have known the Harkonnens would pick off the animal first. The side gunner leaned out of his open window, his sunburned face smiling. He fired a near-invisible bolt of white-orange fire from the lasgun, which sliced the desert ass into slumping hunks of meat, several of which tumbled down the steep cliffside, while the head and forelegs lay steaming on the path.
Then lasgun explosions began to track down the rock wall, sparking chips of stone that flew off. Barely able to keep their footing, Kynes and Frieth ran pell-mell. She threw him against the wall behind the barest protrusion of lava rock, and the lasgun bolts ricocheted off, missing them by centimeters. Kynes could smell the fresh ozone and stone smoke in the air.
The ’thopter came closer. The side gunner leaned out, aiming his weapon, choosing this kind of sport rather than letting the pilot target them with the heavier weaponry built into the craft itself.
At that moment Kynes’s guardian troops opened fire.
From hidden battlements in the camouflaged cliff wall near the cave, Fremen gunners shot the armored hull of the ’thopter. Brilliant lasers dazzled the cockpit viewport. One unseen defender used an old-fashioned artillery launcher, shoulder-mounted, to fire small explosives obtained from smugglers. The artillery shell struck the underbelly of the scout craft, making it lurch and rock in the air.
The sudden jolt knocked the precariously balanced side gunner from his seat. He tumbled out of the craft, screaming, and fell through the air to shatter in an explosive spray of red