Until Dawn by Laura Taylor

Author:Laura Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: australia, apocalyptic, survival, postapocalyptic, feminisim, postapocalyptic adventure, postapocalyptic fiction women
Publisher: Laura Taylor

Aidan pressed himself flat against the leaf litter, holding his breath as he eased forward. He, Whisper, Stick and Rochelle were perched on a small hill overlooking the trespassers Stick had found, and though they’d been on the move when he’d left them, it hadn’t been too hard to work out where they would spend the night. There were only so many rivers weaving their way down towards the ocean, and with the light beginning to fade, there were only two real possibilities that would give the group a supply of fresh water for the night. They’d found the camp at the first of the two options, and Aidan had left the twenty men he’d brought with them in cover while the four of them came to investigate.

“They look like Amazonian warriors,” Stick breathed, the words barely audible.

They certainly did. Aidan did a quick head count – thirty women, all of them as hard and lean as any of his men. They wore buckskin or camouflage gear, with leather armour that looked surprisingly well made.

But finding a tribe of warrior-women crossing their territory wasn’t the only surprise of the day. There were at least thirty horses lined up along the edge of the camp, and Aidan was just about drooling with envy. The three or four horses his men had managed to collect had been stolen years ago, in one of the many raids that had nearly wiped out their tribe, and in a world without motorised transport, the animals were now arguably worth their weight in gold.

But as he looked closer, he noticed there were other details in the camp that told important stories. There was a smear of blood across the flank of one of the horses. Another one had a cut on its foreleg that one of the women was currently bandaging. And one of the sentries had a long, dark streak down the leg of her pants – likely dried blood.

“They’ve come through the Gully,” he murmured to Whisper, trepidation thick in his voice. “They likely made a run for it once they realised what they’d stumbled into, and on horseback, they’d have made a pretty good getaway. But even so…”

Whisper nodded, following his train of thought perfectly. “The slavers aren’t going to pass this up,” he replied. “They’ll be following them.”

“These women aren’t going to take kindly to a surprise visit.” The camp had sentries – four of them, armed with both bows and swords, and if he didn’t have more important things on his mind, Aidan would have taken the time to covet the bows as well. For a skilled archer, they were superb long-range weapons, silent, deadly, with ammunition that was relatively easy to craft.

“No, they’re not,” Whisper agreed, but an undertone to his voice had Aidan glancing sideways at him, then following his gaze to where Rochelle was staring intently down at the camp. “But I think I know a way we can smooth out the introduction,” he added, and Aidan merely raised an eyebrow.

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