"Jump!"
The fireball screaming toward them fired reflexes honed in a hundred battles and brawls. Simone, lithe as a panther, bunched her legs and leaped in the air. Skinny Wilemina flopped flat, face in the dust. Only Badger hesitated, panting and fretting. He'd nearly drowned a few months past, and his lungs creaked from all this dratted running. Too, being older, he kept a fatherly eye on Adira's hotheaded youngbloods. So, when he should have leaped or dodged to save himself, instead he flung out both hands, one to knock Wilemina flatter and another to boost Simone higher, assistance neither woman needed.
In a second's fatal hesitation, the spiked force-sphere caught him. Badger had barely twitched aside when the sizzling death clipped his brisket and hurled him against the wall. The ball of ectoplasm streaked out of the alley and smashed a house front across the street, punching a hole big as a bushel basket and instantly igniting paint, lathes, and timbers. The householders dashed outside as someone yelled to form a bucket brigade.
Badger was down, feebly thrashing and slapping at his clothes. His shirt and vest burned and smoked, his formerly hairy chest was seared pink, and now his hands and even beard were scorched from licking flames. He could scarcely breathe. Simone and Wilemina whisked out the flames, then tried to stretch Badger flat to check his wounds.
Angry, sobbing, his hard hands beat them away. "Never mind me! I'll live! Get after Johan! Don't let him escape!"
Both women objected, but a sturdy kick sent them scampering in pursuit. The sailor crawled painfully to his knees and scrubbed his face with gritty hands. Sticky fluid gummed his eyes, and rubbing his wounds made them flare in agony, but he forced his eyelids open. Thank the stars, he wasn't blind. The pre-dawn world was dim and hazy.
A rumble like thunder over the horizon asked, "Are you all right?"
"Eh?" The sailor squinted painfully. The blurry figure wore some red- or orange-striped robes. Whoever he was, he was tall as a monox and seemed to steam in the chilly air. Badger was glad this was no enemy.
"Uh, yes. The women went after Johan."
Like a whisper in the night, the stranger was gone.
"Fish and follies," Badger asked himself, "who was that?"
At the mouth of the alley, Simone and Wilemina peeked around for their prey when a rapid padding rang behind. Nerves taut, they spun-and almost fell down. A whirlwind of orange and black stripes charged down the alley like a juggernaut. They barely jumped aside as the tiger-man blew past.
Both yelped, "Jaeger!". Jedit didn't contradict them or explain. He'd leave it to Johan to answer a thousand questions, even if Jedit had to skin the man alive.
Dawn cracked the eastern horizon. There were only two ways to go. To the left, the street joined a wider thoroughfare. To the right, it jinked-for no street in Palmyra ran straight- then widened and rose toward the marketplace.
"Likely he went that way, Jaeger! Into the market!" said Simone. "The other way offers tittle shelter!"
In a crashing hurry, Jedit leaped to all fours as if pouncing on a rabbit. His flat black nose and whiskers snuffled dirt. Launching into space, he landed ten feet farther and sniffed again, then took off running, with the women hard-put to keep up.
In the early morning market, shepherds and melon farmers and leatherworkers greeted neighbors, sipped mint tea, stacked wares, propped awnings, cooed to chickens and lambs, and warmed up singsong calls.
Every eye turned as someone blurted, "It's Jaeger!"
"Jaeger!" echoed a hundred voices. Palmyrans gawked at the towering figure who appeared as if by magic in the street. "Look! It's Jaeger! Hurrah!"
Intent on the hunt, Jedit Ojanen jolted to a halt. The chorus of calls and cheers confused him utterly.
Simone and Wilemina crept up beside the tiger-man. Gently the blonde archer touched his furry elbow. "Jaeger, what's wrong?"
"These people…" murmured the tiger, gazing at the cheering crowd. "They chant his name like a hero's."
"Eh?" Simone gazed at her companion, equally fuddled. "Of course. You're a hero to everyone in Palmyra."
Jedit's mind reeled. It was true. As that older mage had urged, ask anyone in Palmyra and learn Jaeger was revered. Arrested by new evidence, Jedit fought to work it out. If Jaeger were a hero to Palmyra, he must have been an enemy to "Johan!" The tiger roared the name like thunder crashing. People stumbled back in fear. "Where are you, you lying monkey?"
No answer. Frustrated, Jedit gazed at the gathering crowd, a hundred people or more of all sizes and colors: dark-bearded nomads, sleepy-looking barbarians, tiny brown-clad leprechauns, goose girls, solemn Keepers of the Faith, Palmyran city guards in yellow smocks painted with red crescents, black-skinned freighters, hawk-nosed desert elves, dusty dwarves, and more. All jammed around a maze of wares stacked in heaps, piled on carts, hung from racks. Somewhere among them was Johan.
"Impossible! Impossible for the eyes! And the ears!" Jedit Ojanen hissed to himself like a kettle boiling. Coming from the sheltered valley of Efrava, he'd barely adjusted to one human being, then small groups, before he was catapulted into a goggling, gabbling mass of humanity. Furthermore, his rage, never far submerged, had built steadily at the man who'd lied, who must know his father's fate, who might have killed his father.
Ignoring all else, Jedit again dropped to all fours. Snuffling a wide circle, eyes closed, Jedit sifted a thousand scents, old and new in his mind, and concentrated to find the smell he'd known in weeks of crossing the desert. Whiskers to the ground, dust tweaking his nostrils, Jedit smelled dogs, elephants, cats, rats, goats, and people, hundreds of them.
There. The snake-dry musky tang of Johan leaped into his nostrils, fresh and strong.
Eyes closed, still on all fours, Jedit charged.
Palmyrans screamed and scattered as the tiger careened into the crowd like a raging bull. People newly arrived to the marketplace were bowled over by slung blankets and saddles, or else they turned to run and careened into more arrivals coming to see the ruckus. Havoc hit the marketplace as Jedit Ojanen plowed a furrow like a tornado with his nose glued to the ground.
Behind Jedit clattered Simone and Wilemina, one dark, the other fair, both panting.
Wilemina gasped, "I never saw Jaeger bull past citizens before!"
"I'm not sure that is Jaeger!" rasped Simone. "Does he look bigger? And more orange?"
"Orange?" asked the archer and promptly tripped over a watermelon for not watching her feet.
On the tiger pressed, now in five- and eight-foot bounds like a wolf spider that bowled aside people and wares. The marketplace only got thicker, more crowded, more frenzied as people rushed in every direction. In seconds, Jedit had covered fifty feet of the marketplace, sifting and discarding a thousand smells to follow Johan's. Palmyrans jabbered and hurled insults and questions as the tiger raised his head from the invisible trail in the dirt. He sneezed hard enough to snap a man's neck.
"Can you sniff him out?" asked Simone. She and Wilemina had caught up. The tiger gave off heat in palpable waves. As the sun topped buildings, the two pirates scanned the marketplace.
Jedit's eyes were slits of amber-green. Ignoring yells and curses, scampering livestock and spilled fruit, he growled, "His scent is close, yet I don't see him! Is this more human witchery?"
"With Johan, damned likely," agreed Simone.
"He must be disguised!" chirped Wilemina. "He's notorious for that!"
"Disguised?" Yes, Jedit had forgotten in the heat of the chase. Diving once more, snuffling a circle with quivering whiskers, Jedit suddenly bunched his legs to pounce. People shrilled and split like a covey of quail.
All but one.
Directly before Jedit stooped an old woman in once-red robes. Unkempt white hair straggled over her hunched back, her rheumy brown eyes were buried in wrinkles, and her lips crawled over toothless gums. She carried a frayed basket woven of palm leaves. Despite her foreknowledge, Sister Wilemina shrieked for the crone to move or be killed. Simone the Siren, however, ripped her cutlass from its scabbard.