Grins of excitement to match his own ran up the line, breath coming heavier and puffing white in the chill air. The villagers in the first manor east of here said the tiger was a big male, and it had taken several sheep and a cow; they were terrified that it would be a child next.
That might be simply fear talking. The old man-eaters who'd escaped or been released right after the Change had died out by now, though the memory of them re mained vivid. As humans grew scarce and better armed, stalking natural prey like deer and elk and feral cattle and swine in the burgeoning wilderness became a wiser strategy for their descendants. Those who learned, lived.
Still, nobody wanted to take chances. To a tiger a human looked temptingly edible, just about the size of a deer, and winter was their hungry season too. You had to teach them to avoid men and their homes…
There was a deep stillness, the snow-hush drinking sound, with their own breath as loud as the quiet creaking of boughs under their white burden. He was in Portlander outdoor dress, quilted jacket and stout wool breeches and fur-lined leather boots, his feet only a little cold, but he'd kept his own yew longbow rather than the crossbow they favored.
The shaft on the string had a hunting broadhead, a razor-edged triangle whose ultimate origin had been a stainless-steel spoon. Mathilda was armed Clan style too-she'd grown up using longbows part of the year-and the rest carried hunting crossbows with spring steel prods, the wicked four bladed heads of the bolts glittering when the intermittent sun broke through the clouds. Everyone had a hunting spear too, with a broad razor edged head and a crosspiece below that, standing upright with the buttspikes driven into the ground.
Crack-crack-crackle…
He caught that, and Odard, and Mathilda, then the others. That was the sound of frozen snow laden brush breaking under heavy paws as the great cat moved quickly; Rudi's consciousness focused down to a diamond point, everything growing crisp and clear and slow. Then a call, as the king predator realized there were men in front of it as well as behind.
A moaning mhgh… mhgh… mhgh, building to what wasn't quite a roar, then a deep guttural snarling sound of anger and fear: ouuurrrh… ouuurrrrh…
Mathilda spoke: "He's going to break cover! Rudi and I have first shot!"
The tiger eeled through the brush at the edge of the clearing with a delicacy astonishing in an animal that weighed as much as a pony, and stood looking at them from two hundred yards away.
"Big 'un," Lord Chaka Jones said exultantly, his chocolate-brown face alight with pleasure. "Damned big. Siberian, and pure or nearly."
He was right; it was a six year old male in its prime, with its shaggy winter coat a pale yellow-white between the black stripes.
"Ten feet without the tail," Rudi agreed. "Six hundred pounds, easy, maybe seven hundred."
Seeing them it snarled, a sharp racking sound, bar ing teeth like ivory dirks, ears laid back and golden eyes blazing, tail held stiff and low, twitching slightly at the end. A white puff of breath obscured its head for an in stant. It half turned as if to go back in the woods, but the sound and scent of the hounds brought it around again. The great head went back and forth, looking at the six humans, and then it began to pace forward in a half crouch, belly almost touching the snow.
"Remember, these things can jump thirty paces in a single bound," Odard Liu said.
"Yes, teacher," one of the others grumbled.
At first the tiger moved step by step, placing each foot carefully, just like a housecat stalking a ball of yarn. Then it began a rocking trot… and suddenly it was coming at a flat-out gallop, a series of amazing bounds with a puff of snow shooting from under its rear feet every time it took off and then again when it landed, seeming to float in long gravity-defying arcs.
"You first, Matti," Rudi called.
He bent his bow nonetheless, the yew limbs flexing back into a shallow curve as he drew Mackenzie-style past the angle of his jaw, eyes locked on the white patch on the big cat's chest.
Snap.
The sound of the string hitting Mathilda's bracer was sharp and crisp. The arrow blurred out in a smooth shallow arc, and it met the tiger's latest leap at its peak. The elastic grace turned to a squalling tumble; the tiger landed whirling, trying to bite the thing that had hurt it, and he could see the peacock feather fletching of her shaft against its rear flank. That would kill it… but not quickly.
Then it screamed and charged, belly to the ground now, broad paws churning a mist of snow that glittered in the sunlight.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
He shot twice, Matti once, in the next six seconds. All three arrows struck; her last buried itself to the fletching right in the V at the base of the beast's throat. And still it came on with a roaring coughing growl, blood smearing the snow now as it tensed for the last leap.
Then it collapsed, the fierce grace turning to tumbling limpness, flopping not five feet from Mathilda's boots.
"Streak, 'ware streak!" Odard shouted frantically, try ing to get into position to take a shot without chancing hitting a human.
Rudi pivoted automatically. He saw blurred yellow-and-black, a second tiger just taking off for the final killing bound, its huge paws spread with the claws ready to grip and the mouth gaping for the bite to the neck. He shot once and threw himself forward under the leap, snatching his spear as he went by. That meant landing in an ungainly heap, and the ashwood shaft cracked him painfully on the knee. Rudi forced himself into a shoul der spring, coming to his feet and whirling at the same time.
The tiger landed where he'd been, then turned in a whirling spray of snow and blood and slaver, screaming its challenge. It came up on its hind feet; his arrow had struck it low in the belly, but the wound wasn't crip pling or a quick kill. Now it hunched and drove for him. Massive paws slapped forward with the claws out like giant fishhooks in a left-right-left-right that melded into a single slamming blur of movement, each blow strong enough to crack bone or disembowel.
He screamed a snarl back at it, giving ground but jabbing fiercely at its face, short quick stabs to keep it distracted and make it rear and expose the vulnerable underside. One blow landed on the broad spearhead, numbing his hands but splitting the paw against the razor edge as well. The cat screamed again, recoiling from the pain.
"Haro!"
Mathilda drove her spear into the beast's side with a meaty thump, the blade sinking between two ribs until the crossbar stopped it. A second later, Chaka's hit it a little farther back, with all the burly black nobleman's two hundred pounds lunging behind it.
Rudi poised for a stroke of his own, but the blaze in the animal's sun-colored eyes went out. It moaned, dropped to the snow and bit savagely at the whiteness with red pouring out between its fangs, then went limp.
Rudi paused, panting and grinning. The three who'd made the kill spent a minute thumping one another on the back and asking if anyone had been hurt.
"Not a scratch," Rudi boasted.
"No?" Chaka said, wiping sweat off his face. "Then how come you're bleeding?"
"I am?" Rudi said, then felt the sting.
A probing finger found a tiny patch of skin gone from the outermost tip of his nose, flicked off by a claw. Just a little closer and his whole face would have gone the same way…
He shrugged off a complex shudder and cleaned his spear by jabbing it repeatedly into the snow and the wet earth beneath it, then wiping it down. The air was full of the smell of blood and the rank tomcat musk of the tigers, and their own sweat. His longbow's string had snapped, probably cut by the spearhead, but it was fine otherwise and he slid it back into the carrying loops beside his quiver; there were arrows to retrieve as well.
Then he stooped, leaning on the spear, and touched a finger to the blood, mingling it with his own on thumb and forefinger and touching it to his forehead.