As soon as the spell was set around the horses, the rest of us went on, as slow and silent as we could. It hadn’t rained overnight, so the tracks were easy to follow, and a good thing, too, because we couldn’t use magic to find the pride. Columbian sphinxes aren’t just extra sensitive to magic; they also put out magic of their own that hides where they are. It also messes up any magic that their prey might use to tell where they are, and that unfortunately includes most Avrupan detection spells. Even Wash hadn’t sensed the cats that had attacked us until they were almost to us.
Mr. Meyer had us fan out in a line, so that if the cats charged, we wouldn’t all be likely targets. It was a scary feeling, trying to walk real quiet through the empty, open land. There weren’t even any dead trees to hide behind on this part, and the prairie plants were only a little more than ankle high.
Wash and two of the settlement men were a little ahead of us, doing the tracking. The air was warm, just at the point where it’s comfortable for sitting in the shade, but not for digging over the garden in the sun. There was no wind, which was good because it wouldn’t carry our scent to the cats, but it was also bad because it just made everything seem even hotter and there was no breeze to carry away the bugs. No matter how good you are at sneaking, you can’t ever sneak well enough so that mosquitoes won’t find you, and no matter how worried and tense you are, or how hard you are trying to pay attention, you just can’t help noticing when a cloud of mosquitoes comes for you like you’re their first good meal since last fall.
After about ten minutes, one of the trackers pointed off to the left. There was a little cluster of dead trees with some equally dead bushes around and between them. Through the bare twigs, I could just make out a covered wagon, still and silent. My stomach went hollow. As we crept closer, I told myself that the settlers from the wagon must have run across the pride, the same as we had, and left the wagon behind so as to get to a settlement faster. I didn’t really believe it, though.
Suddenly, one of the settlers shouted, “On your left!”
Everyone turned to see two saber cats charging up out of nowhere.
CHAPTER 9
PEOPLE STARTED FIRING. I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LINE AND I didn’t have a clear shot at either cat. Remembering the day before, I turned, and sure enough, there was another saber cat charging from the right, and two more directly behind us. Without thinking, I raised my rifle and shot, pumped the lever to reload, and fired again. I heard a man scream, and a cat snarl. There were more shots and shouts.
Professor Torgeson cast an area spell, revealing the sphinxes. There were three: smaller than the saber cats, black as night. They had bodies like a lynx, but their heads were set higher above their shoulders, and they had a long, thick mane of black hair. If you didn’t pay too much attention to the faces, they really did look a lot like the drawings of the Egyptian Sphinx in my history books.
They were fast, too — even faster than the saber cats. I heard one of the settlers later telling folks back in Bejmar that he’d seen one of the sphinxes actually dodge a bullet. He was exaggerating, I think, but I can’t deny they were almighty hard to hit.
I shot twice more, backing up in between shots. All of the saber cats that hadn’t fallen were in among us by then, and so were the sphinxes. The animals had each been hit at least once, but they were all mad as blazes and wouldn’t go down. It was hard to get a clear shot without maybe hitting someone else. I lowered my rifle and knocked one of the animals back with the spell I’d used before. Someone else shot it.
And then, as quick as it had started, it was over. We’d killed five saber cats and three sphinxes, and three men had been mauled. “Don’t let your guard down,” Mr. Meyer cautioned as everyone took a breath and started toward the three who’d been injured. “This may not be all of them.”
“A full pride is usually seven to ten cats and four to eight sphinxes,” Wash said, nodding. “With the ones from yesterday, we’ve killed seven cats and four sphinxes. We might have gotten lucky and got them all, but best not to take chances.”
“I can’t believe they got the drop on us,” a settler said. “We knew they were there!”
“Quit jawing,” his companion advised, “or whatever’s left of the pride will catch us with our pants down all over again. ‘Scuse me, ladies.”
Everyone reloaded, even the ones who were going to look after the injured. All of the injured men were bleeding pretty heavily from bites and claw marks, and one of them had a shattered arm bone where a saber cat had bitten down hard. One of the men from Neues Hamburg had brought a bag of remedies that their doctor had put together for them; he and the woman from Jorgen split up the poultices and bandages and started wrapping up the bites, but there wasn’t much they could do about the arm.
After a long argument, Mr. Meyer sent Wash and half the able-bodied through the dead trees to check on the wagon. We drew straws for it; saber cats aside, everyone had a fair notion what they’d find and nobody was any too keen on going to look. I was relieved to get a long straw, which meant I’d stay to help guard the injured.
A few minutes later, we heard another round of shots. A while after that, Wash’s group came back, grim-faced. “Two more saber cats, a sphinx, and five cubs,” Wash reported. “We got them all.”
“They had cubs to protect?” Mr. Meyer said. “No wonder they came at us like that!” He paused for a minute. “What about —”
“The settlers?” Wash shook his head. “No survivors.”
“We were lucky,” another man said, and spat. “These cats were still half starved. It can’t have been more than a day or two since they got the wagon; if they’d had more time to feed on the greenhorn’s oxen, they’d have had a lot more of their strength back.”
We stayed on guard until the trackers had circled the camp, looking for signs of any more cats. Once they were sure we’d gotten them all, we had to decide what to do next. With three men hurt (two of them badly enough that they couldn’t ride), we wouldn’t make it to a settlement by nightfall. Half the men wanted to get as far as we could; the rest wanted to stay put and ride out in the morning. They’d all pretty much decided that since the saber cats were dead, they didn’t have to follow Mr. Meyer’s orders without giving their own opinions first. They had a lot of opinions. Then the three who were most set on having things their own way got to arguing with each other, and even when someone pointed out that the longer they argued, the more likely it was that we’d have to stay put, it only made them argue harder.
In the end, we sent five people to get the horses and the guards we’d left with them, and started hacking down the dead brush for firewood. Wash and Professor Torgeson set up the strongest protection spells they could do at short notice, though as Wash said, it wasn’t really necessary.
“A pride of saber cats has been living here for at least three days,” he pointed out. “With cubs. Most of the wildlife has sense enough to stay far away from saber cat territory, if they can.”
“Most of the wildlife?” someone asked.
“Well, I doubt that a steam dragon would be bothered,” Wash said, “but it’s been seven years since one of them got blown out of the Far West into settlement territory.”