The wind! It would carry his scent… Even as he thought it, the herd grandmother snorted, head coming back around to peer at him. She snorted again at the rank scent of carnivore and bellowed, the booming cry echoing from the canyon walls. The others in the herd answered. Ponderously the beast started toward him, her momentum building. Others moved with it; the herd was charging. Pouncer turned and sprang into a run. Fire burned in his legs, already spent from the zitragor chase, but the growing rumble behind him was reason enough to ignore it. Bellow after bellow shook the air. He leapt over the same trunk the zitragor had in its flight, breath coming now in gasps. Behind him the rumble grew to thunder. He risked a glance backward and saw the herd bearing down on him like a living avalanche, half obscured in its own dust. He had enough of a lead to escape, perhaps, if he could run until the charge ran out of momentum. Ahead of him the canyon narrowed and the vegetation thickened. That would slow him down but not the herd. Exhaustion weighed on his legs, but he drove himself forward, angling toward a clearer corridor. Behind him the pounding feet drew nearer, the herd grandmother bellowing in rage. They had his scent, and they weren't going to stop until they overran him. At the head of the canyon large rocks had fallen from the cliffface, too big for a tuskvor to tumble, too high for them to gore him. If he could get on top of one of those he would be safe, if he reached them with enough strength to leap to the top.
He risked another look back, saw the herd-grandmother's narrowed eyes fixed on him. If he reached them at all… The herd had noticeably narrowed the gap. Saplings snapped like twigs as they came to the heavier vegetation, and thick bramblebushes were pounded into the dirt.
Nothing survived a herd charge, it was common knowledge. Nothing a kzin could carry could take down a tuskvor, save for a lucky head shot, and a herd held eight-cubed of the beasts.
The body follows where the mind leads. Guardmaster's training ran through his brain. Pouncer's legs were spent but he ran on, inexorably slowing. He came on the stream where he'd waited so patiently for the zitragor and leapt it without hesitation, putting everything he had into it. On the far side a rock rolled under his foot and he tumbled, slamming hard against the rocks as he fell, just as the herd-grandmother bellowed in rage. Pain flared in his hip as he came to his feet. They were almost on him and he could run no farther.
“Sire!”
His head snapped around at the shout. A gravcar! Guardmaster! It swooped down ten leaps ahead of him and he put every sinew into one last burst of speed, ignoring the pain, feeling the ground trembling under the herd behind him as they splashed into the stream. He leapt for the car's open back, Guardmaster's paws pulling him inboard even as the pilot lifted out. The car jolted sideways as the herd-grandmother's tusks slammed into it in a vain attempt to wrench her quarry from the sky. One paw slipped free and for a moment he dangled, not enough strength left to keep himself from falling into the churning mass of flesh below, then he was grabbed again, hauled bodily into the vehicle to lie panting on the floor. Concerned eyes looked down into his.
“Myowr-Guardmaster!” He could barely get the words out. “Thank the Fanged God!”
“Sire! Are you injured?” His mentor's worry was clear.
“Only my pride.” Pouncer panted, recovering himself. He ran a paw down his side to his hip. Pain flared again but nothing seemed broken.
“Only a fool stalks tuskvor.”
“It was a zitragor, but it knew where to run for safety.” Pouncer breathed in heavy gasps. “I owe you my life.”
“Meerz-Rrit would end my line if I let his eldest son be trampled.”
“Where is my father?”
“He made his kill. He's returning to the Citadel. I was coming to let you know that.”
“Fortune is with me in your presence.”
“You shouldn't hunt alone. Not even here, much less the jungle.”
“You know about that?” Pouncer had thought his private expeditions to the dangerous jungle verge were his own secret.
Guardmaster rippled his ears in amusement. “I know everything. I was once my father's eldest.”
“Hrrr.” Pouncer grimaced. “Then you know my thoughts on Patriarchal hunts.”
Guardmaster rippled his ears again. “Second-Son does not share your reticence.”
“Black-Stripe yearns for the strakh of the Patriarchy. If he felt the burden of its responsibility he would be less eager.”
“It would not hurt you to practice your diplomacy. Balancing the factions is vital.”
“When I am Patriarch I will outlaw factions. I want no one currying favor with me.”
Guardmaster's whiskers twitched, and he turned a paw over to contemplate his claws. “Some things even the Patriarch cannot command.”
The older kzin turned to give direction to the pilot, and Pouncer looked out over the side as the gravcar slid over the hills, south toward the Hrungn valley. The tuskvor herd had eaten a huge swath through the savannah and into the foothills where they had started their charge. From that point forward the ground was churned, vegetation and everything else crushed into the dirt. Pouncer looked away. It could have been him down there. It would have been him, save for blind luck. Some things not even the Patriarch could command.
The Great Prides require a great master.
Stkaa-Emissary paced restlessly, impatient and nervous at once, waiting in the Patriarch's quarters for the Patriarch to get back from his hunt. Occasionally he stopped to take in the vista. He had never been to Kzinhome before, but everything about it, the smells, the colors, the very air, told him he was home, home in a way that even his native W'kkai had never been, much as he missed it. Still, the panorama gave him no pleasure. The Patriarch's Tower was the tallest structure in the Citadel by design and the tallest on the planet by decree. Its windows gave him a panoramic view of the vast fortress and the rolling countryside beyond it. Surrounding the Citadel were small groups of low buildings built of stone and stonewood, the homes and shops of smallholders and crafters who served those who served the Patriarch. Farther out he could see great expanses of ripening fields, hsahk and meeflri for the grazing meat beasts. The vista was broken up by the huge tracts of forestland that marked the hunt parks of the Lesser Prides of Kzin, whose smaller strongholds were scattered across the plain like children's toys. Everywhere the riding lights of gravcars sparkled like flashflits in the early dusk, shuttling between the splashes of light that marked communities and enterprises big and small. On the eastern horizon the last rays of the setting sun glinted from the steady stream of freighters shuttling to the spaceport called Sea-of-Stars from the orbital dockyards invisible overhead. At regular intervals sat the domes of space-defense weapons, firepower enough to rip a fleet from orbit. Eight-to-the-sixth kzinti and eight-to-the-seventh slaves occupied half a continent here, churning out products from wine to warships. The Plain of Stgrat was the single greatest concentration of military and economic power in the Patriarchy.
To Stkaa-Emissary it seemed insignificant. He had been to Earth.
The doors opened and he spun around, expecting the Patriarch's advance guard. There was only a single kzin, followed by a buzzing Whrloo slave and a floating servitorb.
“Where is…” He began, then caught sight of the crimson sash and the sigil on it. “Patriarch! I abase myself.”