“I’ll tie him, Max. You must get away. You must hide. I saw another three men. They have come for you!”
Fauvre was already binding the man’s arm, using the length of turban, but no sooner had he warned Max than a whoosh of flames sucked air into the storeroom and spewed out a fireball of burning straw.
Max got between Fauvre and the fire, pushing him to safety as another tongue of flame licked out into the night. They beat burning embers from their hair and clothes. Soot streaked Max’s face-he looked like a commando on a night raid.
“I can’t hide, Laurent. We can beat them! They won’t be expecting a fight. Abdullah and his man are here somewhere. We outnumber them.”
Fauvre looked past his shoulder and shouted-a guttural mixture of French and Arabic. Max spun round. Aladfar snarled, his body crouched in fear by the roaring grain store. The mayhem of the night’s terrifying sounds of gunfire and the scent that only men give off when they hunt had confused the big cat and he had run back to the one man who had ever commanded him.
Fauvre’s extended hand and his words held Aladfar’s gaze. Like a domesticated dog, the tiger slunk to the shelter of the stone wall.
“Where’s Sophie? Have they taken her?” Max shouted above the roar of the fire.
“I don’t know. She could have outrun them.” A father’s anguish caught hold. “Find her, Max!”
Max moved, but not before Fauvre’s iron grip caught his arm. Once again the man spoke rapidly to Aladfar. Urged him, caressed him with a language that soothed the animal’s fear.
Gunshots and screams, yells of confusion and threats, echoed across the Tears of Angels. Hunting dogs yapped, big cats roared and monkeys screamed as the ear-bashing siren continued to throw its noise across the desert. Aladfar was on his feet, eyes searching the night, jaws open, panting with excitement. Fauvre reached down and picked up the chain.
“Take him and find my daughter,” he said to Max, pushing the leather grip into his hand.
Max grasped it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have a three-hundred-kilogram tiger on the end of a chain in the middle of a night attack by ferocious Tuareg.
The store was an inferno; sparks leapt upwards to join the stars. Max and Fauvre coughed from the acrid air. Before Max could answer, Fauvre turned his wheelchair, leaned down and grabbed the warrior’s knife.
“I’ll get help!” Then he was gone.
Five meters of lightweight chain joined them. Max ran and the chain tightened as Aladfar kept pace with a boy who ran like an animal-a loping gait, nowhere near full stretch, but ready to respond to unexpected danger.
In the flitting shadows Max saw Abdullah fighting one of the Tuareg. The big man grappled with the attacker, grabbed his clothing, lifted and half turned him, then slammed him into the ground-a powerful wrestler’s throw that knocked the man unconscious.
Three down-one to go.
He was wrong. The sounds of fighting had reached the remaining two horsemen on the other side of the wall, and as any warrior wants nothing more than to join the conflict, one of them scaled the wall into the compound.
Max and Aladfar ran across a stone causeway, a small bridge that separated different animal pens. A nightmare figure ran screaming at them from the darkness-a shrouded warrior hurling himself forward, a curved sword in one hand, a flaming torch in the other.
Abdullah heard the man’s battle cry, turned in alarm and saw the determined attack on Max. His bellowed warning was swallowed by the siren. He had seen another warrior drop down from the wall and cut in from Max’s flank, running silently, sword held above his head, ready to slash down and kill.
Max heard a heart-stopping roar. Aladfar attacked, leaping meters towards the first charging warrior. The force of the tiger’s lunge pulled Max off balance just as the second man came at him from his blind side.
Thrown onto the ground, Max was twisted around by the tiger’s power as he gripped the chain. The sword, a shimmering blur, swung with enough force to sever an arm or leg, smashed into the stony ground. A moment of slow motion saw Aladfar trying to smother and rip the first attacker, but the man had miraculously rolled clear, his clothes shredded, blood running from Aladfar’s claws. With a fearful scream he threw himself across the nearest parapet to escape the final killing bite. Max knew the attacker had been lucky more than once. He’d escaped Aladfar and dropped down into the safety of the monkey pit. These images flashed through Max’s mind just as the chain went slack. Aladfar had turned.
Another roar.
Fear struck the attacker’s eyes. He had time to slash backwards and kill the boy-it was a practiced skill-but instead he felt the veil drop from his face, knew that his belief could kill him, because evil would strike into his heart through his exposed mouth and nose. That roar had come from this boy, from this changeling shadow that loomed up before him like a massive creature. Was it the raging fire that distorted everything?
Aladfar scuffed and jigged, wanting to strike for the kill, but the man was being beaten by this other creature that held the chain that bound him. Finally, it was no punch but a sweep of Max’s arm that felled the man and threw him to the mercy of Aladfar.
The tiger sprang.
Max made a noise, a sound he didn’t understand. He had sucked in the night’s inferno and turned it into something that resonated with authority and command.
The sixth sense Aladfar had experienced earlier with this boy returned. He backed off, felt the chain tighten-another bond that held him to this creature of the wild.
Max’s mouth was as dry as sand. He looked up, taking in the scene around him. He was on his knees, pressing into the unconscious warrior’s back, while his hands bound the attacker with the cord that held the man’s clothing.
The siren slowed, reluctantly giving way to silence. Max saw Abdullah in the distance, the big man lumbering towards him, dirt and blood streaking his once-spotless djellaba.
Fauvre called out to him as he emerged from the smoke and Abdullah pushed the battery-driven wheelchair towards Max.
“Her room is locked from the outside. She’s not here,” Fauvre said.
Max lifted his head and stared into the amber eyes of the massive cat, which sat less than two meters away-watching. Slowly, deliberately, it blinked its eyes. A cat’s expression of contentment-that all is well.
It was over.
Max, Fauvre and Abdullah, and the other men, felt the aftermath of the fight. Muscles cramped and ached, cuts and scratches irritated. Hot, sweet tea helped ease them into the new day as dawn lit the night sky, the moon giving way to her brother the sun. Minor wounds were treated and the animals calmed, fed and watered, as their routine demanded. Max had washed quickly in a water trough; he needed to talk to Fauvre and look at Sophie’s room for any clue as to how involved she might have been in this attack. But first he needed other information-once Fauvre got off the phone.
The police could not reach the town until later that day. The dust storm had blown between it and the city, they were undermanned, and it was not the first time the crazy Frenchman had had intruders into his animal sanctuary. They would get there when they could. In the meantime, Fauvre would keep the prisoners under lock and key.