"Where—? Oh, that?" Del rode past me, heading toward the huge tumbled boulders lining the merging of mountain with flat area. "It is a shelter, Tiger—it's a little lean-to. The wagon ruts go right past it, but they're deeper by the shelter, as if they stopped here."
I followed. Del was right. Someone had used one of the larger boulder formations for the back wall and had built a rough lean-to out of branches and canvas. The fire ring hadn't been used for a while, but clearly this was a regular camping place. No one would sacrifice canvas in the desert unless he intended to return.
"Halloo the camp!" I called. "We're coming in!"
Del reined in next to the fire ring. "No one's here."
"You never know." I dismounted and drew my sword. Del had done the same. But there was no place to hide in the lean-to; it boasted only two sides, the boulder for a back wall, and a branch-and-canvas roof. It was large enough for possibly three people, if they were very close friends. "Good enough for tonight," I said. "Let's get the horses settled, and then we can think about food."
Del recoiled. Her expression clearly announced she wanted nothing to do with food. Possibly forever.
I disagreed. "You need to eat something. You've only had water all day."
"Yes, and in fact. . ." She turned abruptly and headed toward the hillside strewn with tumbled boulders, sheathing her sword.
"Are you sick again?" I asked.
"No. But I have had a lot of water."
"Ah." Grinning, I strode back to the horses. I decided to be a nice, kind, thoughtful man and untack her gelding. "Hold on, old son," I told the stud. "You're next."
I untied saddlepouches and piled them beside the lean-to, tossed Del's bedding inside. The gelding gazed at me out of mournful blue eyes, peering through dangling bits of fringe.
"You look ridiculous," I told him, undoing his girth. "No offense, but you do." I lifted saddle and blankets off his damp back, set both by the lean-to. "Amazing what we let women get away with, isn't it?" His response was to thrust his head against my chest and rub. Hard. "Ah, hoolies, horse—" In disgust, I stared down at the front of my burnous. "Now I've got black gunk all over me!" Of course, the gelding also had greasepaint smeared all over his face, like an overly painted wine-girl first thing in the morning. Quite a pair, we made.
I heard the rattle of fallen pebbles high in the rocks and glanced up to see Del picking her way down from one of the piles of boulders. You'd think that since we'd been sharing a bed for several years modesty would no longer matter, but Del was fastidious. She always went off to find privacy, and I'd been ordered to do the same. I just never went as far. Men have a certain advantage when it comes to relieving the bladder.
Her arms were spread for balance as she worked her way down. She was concentrating on her path, rope of hair swinging in front of one shoulder. It's difficult to look particularly graceful when clambering down over piled rocks and boulders. Even for my Northern bascha.
I drew in a deep breath, preparing to bellow complaints about her horse. But I lost the impulse the instant I saw movement behind her.
Vashni? No—
Movement flowed down the mountainside, disappeared behind rocks.
I dropped the reins. "Del!"
Then it sprang up onto a boulder, and I saw it clearly.
"Del—" I was running for the rocks, yanking sword out of sheath. Her face was turned toward me.
I'd never make it, never make it—
"—behind you —"
Atop the rock she spun, grasping for her sword hilt, and went down hard beneath the leaping sandtiger.
EIGHT
WHEN in the midst of deadly danger, time slows. Fragments. It is me, the moment, the circumstances.
As it was now.
I saw Del, down. The glint of sun off her bared blade, lying against stone. The spill of white-blond braid. The sandtiger's compact, bunched body, blending into the rocky background as it squatted over her.
I bellowed at the cat as I ran. Anything to distract him, to draw his attention from his prey. Del was unmoving: probably unconscious, possibly dead.
"Try me!" I shouted. "Try me, you thrice-cursed son of a Salset goat—"
The sandtiger growled, then yowled as it saw me. I threatened his prey. For a moment he continued to hunch over Del, then came up into a crouch, flexing shoulders. Jaw dropped open. Green eyes glared.
Everything was slowed to half-time. I watched the bunching of haunches, the leap; judged momentum and direction; knew without doubt what was necessary. My nearly vertical blade, at the end of thrusting arms, met him in midair. Sank in through belly fur, hide, muscle, vessels and viscera, spitting him to the hilt– I felt the sudden weight, heard the scream, smelled the rank breath, the musk of a mature male. Without pausing I ducked head and dropped shoulder, swung, let his momentum carry him through his leap. Over my head, and down.
I was conscious of the horses screaming, but I paid them no attention. I was focused only on the sandtiger, now sprawled on the ground, jaws agape, tongue lolling. For all I knew he was dead already, but I jerked the blade free, then swung it up, over, down, like a club, and severed his head from his body.
Then I dropped the sword. I turned, took two running strides, climbed up into the boulders. "Bascha . . ."
She lay mostly face-down, one arm sprawled across a cluster of rocks. Her torso was in a shallow guliey between two boulders. Legs were twisted awry.
"Del—?"
There was blood, and torn burnous. I caught the tangled rope of hair and moved it aside, baring the back of her neck to check for wounds. She had not had time to face the cat fully. His leap had been flat, then tending down. Front paws had curled over her shoulders, grasping, while back paws raked out, reaching for purchase.
He had leaped at her back, intending to take his prey down from behind. But Del had moved, had begun to turn toward him as I yelled, had begun to unsheathe her sword, and he'd missed his target. Instead of encircling her neck with his jaws, snapping it, piercing the jugular, the big canine teeth had dug a puncture and furrow into her right forearm and the top of her left shoulder at the curve of her neck. The main impetus of the bite had fouled on harness and sheath.
I planted my feet as firmly as possible in the treacherous footing, then bent, caught a limp arm, and pulled her up. I squatted, ducked, levered her over one shoulder, head hanging, braid dangling against my thigh, while her legs formed a counterweight before me. I rose carefully, balancing the slack-limbed drape of her body. Teeth clenched, I made my way slowly down the boulders, found level footing on the flat, sandy crown of the bluff, and carried her to the lean-to. I had tossed her rolled bedding there while unpacking the gelding; with care I slid her over and down, arranged her limbs, set her head against the bedroll. Then, lock-ing my hands into the front of her burnous, I tore fabric apart along the seam, exposing her body in its sleeveless tunic.
Exposing arms and legs, and the sandtiger's handiwork.
"All right, bascha—give me a moment here . . ."
Almost without thinking I unbuckled the harness, worked the leather straps and buckles over her arms and out from under her body. Tossed it aside in a tangle of leather and brass. Yanked my knife free of its sheath, cut swathes of her burnous, and began wadding it between torn flesh and what remained of the tunic's high neck. Claws had cut through it, into the flesh beneath, baring the twin ridges of collar bones. One claw had nicked the underside of her jawbone at the angle beneath her left ear, trickling blood across her throat.
More fabric was sacrificed for her right forearm as I bound it tightly. Then I worked my left arm under her back, lifted her, tipped her forward against me. Her head lolled into my shoulder.