But when Keera turns, Heldo-Bah has already disappeared. She worries for an unreasoning instant that her noisy friend has been taken silently by the panther, for the great cats are more than capable of thus picking apart a group of humans: without ever being heard or seen. Soon, however, Keera hears grunting from above and sees Heldo-Bah, his deerskin sack slung over his shoulder, scaling the straight trunk of an ash, one of many trees that, due to the thickness of the forest canopy, have no lower limbs to offer a panther an avenue of pursuit. “By the Moon!” Keera murmurs. “Up the tree before I’ve given the word!”
“Waste your explanations on your fool brother,” the squirming Heldo-Bah hisses, by now some twenty feet up. “I’ll be no cat’s dinner!”
Veloc and Keera quickly follow Heldo-Bah, using their powerful feet and legs to climb two neighboring trees. Once lodged in the closely clustered aeries provided by the extended branches of their protectors, the three Bane watch expectantly — but the dreaded panther fails to appear.
“You’re certain it comes, Keera?” Veloc whispers quietly to his sister.
Keera lifts her shoulders in confusion. “Ordinarily, I would say that the fire might be keeping him away — but this cat was close enough to both smell and see the flames, yet he continued to venture nearer …”
“Likely it’s deciding what order to eat us in,” Heldo-Bah hisses, clutching his sheathed throwing knives with moist hands. “But I’ll—”
Keera raises her hand; and then a resonant growl can be heard outside the hemisphere of light created by the fire below. “At last,” Keera whispers, allowing a small smile. “You almost made me look a fool, cat …”
The panther rumbles; but it is a confused sound, neither aggression, nor pain, nor any other noise that so experienced a tracker as Keera can understand. Her smile quickly reverts to an aspect of consternation.
And then he appears: his great paws of the darkest gold padding against the Earth of the clearing, the panther enters† the light of the camp. He is young, but large (well over five hundred pounds) with short tufts of hair about the neck and shoulders.‡ The dark spots and stripes on his nine-foot body are pronounced, giving the animal a distinctly masculine coat. This is significant: the Moon faith teaches that uniformity and richness of color in a panther’s coat are signs of divine favor, and certainly of mature (and usually feminine) wisdom. Though lacking such, this animal yet displays evident power in his long, thick muscles — which makes his interest in the diminutive foragers more mysterious, for he could easily take down a stag or wild horse, or even one of Lord Baster-kin’s shag cattle, any one of which would be a better meal than a human.
As the newcomer circles the camp, he shies, yet does not run, from the fire, which would ordinarily keep the majestic beast at a safe distance: but this male has an apparent purpose that emboldens him. With each step, his thick muscles cause the rich, iridescent fur to ripple ever more splendidly in the firelight, as though he is attempting to intimidate a rival or display his power for a mate. Yet Keera is right about the complexity of the panther’s behavior: for the amber eyes are glazed with passion, and, along with the quick panting of the tongue and mouth, they create an impression of consternation that belies the purposeful body.
“What is it, cat?” Keera says softly. “What agitates you so?”
As if in reply, another form slowly enters the light of the fire: two feet taller than even Veloc, it is a young woman, her seemingly flawless body moving easily inside a black silk robe edged in red velvet.†† Visible through slits up the sides of the garment are long, beautifully formed thighs and calves, the movements of which mirror those of the panther’s four legs, as he paces on the opposite side of the fire. Sheets of black hair fall to the woman’s waist, and her eyes — which glitter an alluring green in the torchlight, a green the color of the best emeralds the Bane have been known to bring out of Davon Wood — are fixed on the amber orbs of the panther, which already betray some sort of enthrallment.
“A woman of the Tall,” Keera whispers. “In Davon Wood!”
“And one of rare form,” Veloc adds with approval, his gaze lustful. “She’s no farmer or fisherman’s wife, and no whore, either.” But then Veloc’s attention turns from the woman’s flesh to her raiment; and his stare becomes quizzical. “But — her robe. Heldo-Bah, am I mistaken, or—”
Heldo-Bah shows the black gap in his vicious teeth. “You are not.”
Keera looks at the gown. “What is it that he is so correct about?”
Heldo-Bah’s whisper takes on a killing tone, without either increasing in volume or losing its air of delight. “She is one of the Wives of Kafra.”
“A Wife of Kafra!” Keera nearly slips from her branch with the news, although she, too, keeps her voice from rising. “It can’t be. They never leave the First District of Broken—”
“Apparently, they do.” Heldo-Bah holds a knife by the blade between the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand, judging carefully the distance to the ground. “And by the Moon, this is one that won’t get back again — not tonight, at any rate.”
Veloc looks uneasily at his friend: the dim light and the shifting shadows of the leaves are transforming Heldo-Bah’s face into an exaggerated mask of delighted bloodlust. “You would murder a woman, Heldo-Bah?” Veloc whispers.
“I would murder a panther,” comes Heldo-Bah’s answer. “There are better uses for the women of the Tall — and not the kind you’re thinking of, Veloc. Or not merely that kind. She could also bring a ransom such as we have never demanded: weapons that the Tall have always refused us—”
“Stay your blade,” Keera whispers urgently, putting a hand before Heldo-Bah’s arm as he lifts the knife. “You’ll murder neither woman nor panther — not unless the cat attacks us. They are possessed of powerful souls, and I want no such enemies—” Her lecture stops short. “Hold …,” she says, more perturbed than ever. “What sorcery is this?”
The Wife of Kafra keeps her eyes on the panther’s as she squats before the animal, her long legs angling out through the slits in her gown. The great beast begins to growl again, and to shift from side to side nervously — but just then, as if seeing the fire and the stew pot for the first time, the woman glances about quickly, beginning to hurry her apparent ritual.
“Has she seen us?” Veloc asks, withdrawing deeper into the leaves of his tree with no more sound than a flitting thrush.
“Steady.” Heldo-Bah, too, nestles further into his perch, looking even more pleased. “She’s seen nothing — but we, apparently, are going to see a great deal …”
The Wife of Kafra quickly unties a golden cord that gathers her robe at the waist. With impressive confidence, she strides directly to the panther, as ever staring into his eyes intently; then she kneels, and puts her nose to the throat of the beast.
“She invites death!” Keera says. “Unless she is a sorceress …”
The foragers grow silent once more. The woman’s long hair falls in front of her breasts as she moves her cheeks against the cat’s face in long strokes. The panther growls, but the noise soon fades into a loud purr: the beast, still confounded, is now completely enthralled.
“Oh, Moon,” Keera whispers. “This is sorcery, indeed.”
“If she persists,” Heldo-Bah cackles, leaning forward eagerly, “what that cat will do to her will be anything but sorcery …”
As the panther continues to purr and only occasionally growl, the woman begins to run her long fingers through the thick golden fur as she might a human male’s hair, coaxing the animal to fold his forelegs; and then, with a swiftness that startles the Bane foragers but not the cat, she slides onto the animal’s back, looping the golden cord that girdled her waist about its thick neck. When the woman pulls back on the cord with authority, the panther stands; and when she tightens her knees on the cat’s shoulders, he starts forward slowly.