The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (78 page)

He smoothed the hair from her
face.

“Can you walk?”

She nodded and rolled off him so
he could cut the other leathers before helping her to stand. Unfortunately, it
had been her will talking, and she could no more stand than a newborn kitten,
and she sank to the ground, covering herself with bloodied hands.

He remembered the fabric, pulled
it out from within the folds of his robes. It was a shift, a simple woolen
shift, so he held it out for her, watched as she slid herself inside its
straight-cut frame. He reached down and picked her up and she his her face in
his hair as he lifted her like a child (for she was as light as one) and
carried her toward the door.

There was a black mare waiting.

***

“Bring the lion,” roared Khan
Gansuhkhan and a shout went up from the pack. The Alchemists behind him shifted
nervously. It had been a marvelous plan and killing the Captain an absolute
necessity, but now, as the reality of it drew near, it felt very wrong. A
betrayal of all things good and strong and pure and true about the Kingdom and
its people. As if they had let something slip out of their fingers and were the
lesser for it. Jet barraDunne especially, for he was the orchestrator of it
all, and as he stood, dressed in his robes of silver and black, he wondered at
the cost. There was no Ancestor to be had, little chance of finding him now,
and he would be returning home with nothing to show for it but a new king in a
rival kingdom. It tasted bad in his mouth.

He stepped forward.

“No,” he said firmly to the new
Khan, placing a hand on the man’s arm. “Do not bring the lion.”

The dog once named Rush turned
his gold-clad head, his long profile silhouetted against the fire. “We
are
bringing the lion.”

“You are Khan now. There is no
need to kill him.”

“I am not Khan
until
I kill him.”

barraDunne was smooth. He always
had been. His tongue was as silver as his pelt. “And who there is to enforce
that rule, oh great Khan?”

Rush narrowed his eyes.

“I
am
Khan.”

“Yes, Lord, you are.”

“I do not need to kill any cat to
prove myself.”

“Spoken like a king, Lord.”

The Khan turned now, head cocked
as if studying his face, reached out a stub-clawed hand to touch his hair, the
long silken braid that ran down the length of barraDunne’s back. And suddenly,
the tiger realized what he had just done and cursed his bad, bad Kharma.

“I do not
need
to kill any cat,” said the Khan. “But I
can.”

The curved blade flashed before
embedding itself in black and silver, and the white eyes grew round. Cheers
rose up from the pack at this, and the Khan drew the Alchemist in very close,
twisting the blade as he did so. barraDunne gasped, trying to draw a breath but
his own heart betrayed him, as did his lungs. The Khan stepped away, allowing
the man to sink to his knees. The blade reappeared, dark with blood, and
flashed yet again, and the silver braid came off in his hand.

He held it high to wild cheering
now.

“Bring me the lion!”

***

The dog was good. He was a
soldier, used to fighting all manner of creatures, from rats, to leviathans to
bears, even other dogs, but in his short life, he had never once fought a cat.
Certainly never a lion, and most certainly, never a lion with a katanah.

Kerris, for his part, was rather
motivated.

The blades sang and sang again,
as steel met steel in the dance of warriors. First one pelt then the other let
blood, but a katanah is very long and doubly sharp, and the lion had an angel
on his side and when the blade swung first low then high, the dog sailed in
different directions.

It had been so easy.

Kerris forgot about it
immediately and turned to the figure out-stretched in the center of the gar.

The sword which had just saved
his life had suddenly become heavy.

It was wrong. It was all wrong.
He wanted his death back, if it meant he wouldn’t have to see this.

A wild shout rose from outside
the tent and set his heart racing, so he snatched up the sword one last time,
cut the leathers that bound the bloodied wrists, hoisted the body over his
shoulder and rushed out the white door, where a mountain pony was waiting.

***

Kerris owed his life to
Alchemists. Many times over.

For if those four cats standing
behind the Khan had not bolted at the death of the First Mage, the dogs would
not have pursued, as each member of the Legion now wanted a taste of feline
blood. Even the beta sent to fetch the lion paused to watch the show, as
black-clad runners were chased down and slaughtered several dogs apiece. The
screams rose and fell as the curved swords flashed in the firelight, down and
down and down again. They went after the horses as well.

For the 112
^th
Legion
– now the First – this night simply could not have gotten better.

The beta smiled, shook his head
and turned back to the tent. Odd, he thought to himself. There was a small
horse standing by the white door. It was not black, it wore no saddle, and he
wondered if it were wild. He pulled his own sword and moved toward it,
fascinated at how its large eyes rolled at him. He wondered what they felt
like, alive. Whether or not a dog could ride one as a cat did. He took another
step but was interrupted as a figure emerged from the gar, carrying a body.

Another lion.

This one gasped, stepped back,
its light eyes wide, and it made a sound that seemed to translate quite clearly
in both languages.

“Shite.”

It was too rich. The beta turned
to face him, anxious for his own curved blade to taste feline flesh tonight.
Neither it, nor he, ever got the chance, as the beta was struck off his feet
and to the ground by the little horse and it pummeled him with its tiny hooves.
The new cat threw the body across its back and swung himself up behind, before
galloping off into the shadows of the camp.

“Breach!” he howled, his voice
barely heard over the roaring from the pack. As if an echo, another cry of
“Breach!” rose out from the third tent, but both were lost in the sounds of
celebration and slaughter.

It was only the sharp eyes of the
Khan who spotted the chaos, for he had the best vantage point in all the camp.
He swung his stub-clawed hand toward the tents, ears flattened against his
head.

“Breach!” he cried, and this
time, everyone heard, and the whistling arrows began to fly.

***

It was a sound he would remember,
the sound of arrows whistling as they whipped past his head, and he ducked low
in the saddle, clutching the Major to his chest. Her claws dug into his neck as
she clung fast and made herself very small in this mad gallop toward the
fire-ringed perimeter of the camp. Black trees could be seen ahead but those
trees by no means guaranteed safety, as the dogs could track them by smell
alone for days. But at least, the trees might stop the arrows.

The mare jerked underneath him
but still she ran. He could feel her take another bolt, and another, but as
they approached the fire, she stretched out her neck and sailed over it, and he
got the briefest impression of flying. She landed hard, and he almost came off,
but the Major pulled him upright and he ducked lower as the stand of trees
loomed before them.

And suddenly, they were in the
trees, weaving and dodging and leaping over fallen trunks and he felt a wash of
relief drain from his muscles, when a last and final impact pushed him forward,
then back. Again, the Major clung fast. Heat burned from his back through to
his chest, and a great weight seemed to settle onto his shoulders, pushing him
deeper down into the saddle. But at least, they were in the trees.

He leaned lower, drove his heels
into the black mare’s side, and rode on.

***

There was chaos in the camp.
Betas barking orders, arrows slicing the air, whipping past tents, past trees,
past soldiers themselves. But as the foot soldiers rushed towards the trees to
follow, the ring of fire which encircled the camp glowed a bit brighter before
bursting to life. Suddenly, it was no longer a ring but a wall, the flames
reaching higher than the height of the tallest dog, roaring with heat and
energy and light.

The soldiers skidded to a halt,
unable and unwilling to cross.

“Do not follow,
sidi,”
came a voice from behind, and the
Khan whirled round to see a figure robed in black, a sizzling ball of light in
her long, strong out-stretched hand.

The Khan snarled, whipped his
curved blade from the sheath at his hip. He could have sworn there had only
been five, and quickly he cast his eyes to where their bodies lay. This one was
female, there was no mistaking her shape, and the light in her hand flickered
across her face beneath the shadow of the hood.

He would hack her to pieces
nonetheless.

She stepped back and the fire
erupted in her other palm. “Call them off,
sidi.
Or you all will burn.” She was fluent in the Language of the People.

He glanced to the ring, where a
trio was attempting to muffle the flames with water-soaked blankets. Another
group was using their hands and swords to shovel clods of earth across the
ring. They were resourceful, his men. He turned back to the woman.

“Your friends will be dead by
morning,” he grinned. “You can greet them.”

The curved sword flashed, the
woman brought her hands together, and the entire camp erupted in flame.

***

He found it comforting to know
that at least the night sky hadn’t changed. The constellations were the same in
Turkey as they had been Belgium, and then Switzerland before he went down. He
could barely remember Aukland. They would have been different there.

He slid his eyes over to look at
the tigress.
Tigress.
She was a
tiger. A cat. A cat
person.
Amazing
what the IAR had done. And what was even more amazing was the fact that right
here, right now, it seemed normal. Understandable. Natural.

By God, they were a beautiful
people.

They sat, side by side, on the
hood of the Humlander, leaning back against its shatterproof windshield,
watching the stars and wishing things had gone very differently.
She was very quiet and he was surprised she
wasn’t crying. He’d figured her for a crier. But then again, he wondered if she
hadn’t done her fair share of crying on this crazy adventure he’d taken them
on. Right now, they had no idea where they were going, had no idea if any of
the others were alive, and if so, where they might be.

Yes, he wished things had gone
very differently.

He saw her wringing the white tip
of her tiger’s tail, and realized that body language was the same in all manner
of people, human, feline or otherwise.

“So, uh, you and Kerris…?”

She shrugged, dropping her eyes
to study her tail. “Maybe. We were. Kind of. I ruined it though. I want too
much. I’m hopeless.”

“Hm.”

There was little to be said, less
to be heard. He had forgotten what such a big, open, empty space sounded like.
There had been few places left like this when he went down.

She cleared her throat. “So, um,
what about you? Do you have a wife or something?”

“Yeah.” He grinned sadly. “I did.
She died, though. One of the last plagues. I thought we were safe inside. Damn,
but it was virulent.”

“Virulent?”

“Killed a lot of people.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

He closed his eyes, leaned his
head back, breathed deeply the cool night air. Actually, it
was
cool. If he figured correctly, they
were nearing the end of October, and while Turkey was a Mediterranean country,
it still got cool at night. It amazed him how much useless information was
bottled up inside his brain.

What the hell was he going to do?

“What’s that?” she asked, and he
opened his eyes. She gestured to his left, beyond a ridge of mountains covered
in the forests of cedar and pine. He squinted, but she was right. There was a glow,
like lights from a distant city. “It looks like a fire.”

“A damn big one,” he grunted.
“But this thing’s fireproof and hey, we’ve got nothing better to do…”

“Can I drive?” she asked.

He grinned as he scrambled down
the side of the huge vehicle and into through the open door. Cats wanting to
drive.
Could his life be any stranger?

“Not tonight, kitty.”

***

She dreamt she was falling.

Sliding, falling, hitting the
ground hard, the weight of someone on top of her and she scrambled out of the
way with curses in her mouth and claws at the ready.

All she could hear was her own
breathing.

It was very dark, even for her
sharp sharp eyes, and the waning moon was hidden by mountains of silver clouds.
Quickly, however, she could make out the silhouettes of trees, reaching like
outstretched arms to the night sky, followed them down to the forest floor, and
her pupils grew large, taking in all the moonlight available. There was
movement to her left, a crunching sound through the branches. It was the mare.
She was moving slowly, erratically, puffing and grunting with head low to the
ground. Finally, she released a great breath and her forelegs buckled, and she
sagged to the forest floor. The Major allowed her eyes to roam over the
creature’s body, black against the blackness of the night, saw four shafts
sticking out at unnatural angles, four rivers of sheen below. With a heavy
heart, she watched as it thrashed once, twice, and quietly grew still.