Stories by Elizabeth Bear Part 47

I would give anything to have remained so ignorant.

Three of the beaters did not come out of the woods, nor were their bodies found.

A search until nightfall failed to turn up the men-or, in fact, any trace of a second tiger. Reluctantly, we reunited and turned for the camp, our beaters muttering in dissatisfaction. We resolved to resume the hunt in the morning, and hopefully find traces of the victims and whatever cat had taken them. Dr. Montleroy did get a lucky shot at a leopard, and brought it down, so we had two trophies: the elderly tigress, and a beautiful spotted cat perhaps seven feet in length.

Dinner that night was a somber affair, despite the excellent food: bread of a flat sort stuffed with potato, vegetables curried with tomato and onion, mutton spiced and baked in a clay pot. It was a great relief when the Lithuanian Count pressed Miss Adler to entertain us by singing, and she obliged. Even without accompaniment, her contralto was superb and much relieved our heavy hearts.

My sleep, when it came, was troubled by the sounds of a quiet argument nearby-the voice of Miss Adler demanding, "But you must give it back to me!" And a male rumble-stubborn, I thought-replying. A lovers' quarrel, perhaps.

I am not sure what brought me from my cot, other than the sort of prurience that a man does not like to admit. I wondered what he had of hers, of course, and a gentleman does not leave a lady alone in a tight spot, even when that lady is an adventuress.

It was Kolinzcki whom she argued with, for I recognized his voice as I moved closer to the wall of my tent, feeling my way barefoot in the unrelieved darkness. He switched languages, and she followed. I was surprised to be able to understand them somewhat, for I speak no Lithuanian. But the disagreement they conducted in low tones was in Russian, and that language I have a fair command of.

"It was not yours to take," Miss Adler whispered, urgency resonating in her trained voice. "Do you know what you'll be unleas.h.i.+ng?"

"It is unleashed already," Kolinzcki replied. "I merely bring our n.o.ble friends the means to control it."

She sighed, the harsh Russian tongue taking on a certain fluidity when she spoke it. "It is not so simple as that, and you know it. It will be a great embarra.s.sment for my friends in Prague if I cannot return their property. If it seems they are cooperating with the Tsar, it will go hard for them."

He was silent, and she continued in a voice I barely heard under the sawing of insects. "Have I not done everything you asked?"

It was obvious to me that the Count was blackmailing the lovely singer, and I made up my mind to intervene. But as my hand was on the tent flap, I heard again the low, resonant throbbing that had so startled us in the afternoon. Outside, Miss Adler gave a little cry of surprise, and as I came around the corner to confront them, I heard him say in English, "And that is the reason why I cannot oblige you, my dear, as well you know. Perhaps when we are back in civilized lands, we can discuss this again."

She stepped close to him and laid her hand on his arm. "Of course, darling."

Then perhaps a lovers' quarrel after all, and already made up for. Silent in bare feet, I returned to my sleepless bed, unaccountably disappointed, and harboring suspicions I did not care to address. Who was I, a Norwegian, to care what alliances and wars the Tsar and the British Queen make against and upon each other? They seemed determined to tear Afghanistan in two between them, in their so-called Great Game: an endless series of imperialist intrigues and battles. A game, to my eye, whose chiefest victims were simple folk like my Rodney. The best the rest of us-I thought then-could manage was a sort of detached distaste for the whole proceedings.

The morning found us all awake early and unsettled. It was bold young James Waterhouse who sought me out before we mounted our elephants. "s.h.i.+kari," he said-they had picked up the usage from von Hammerstein and thought it delightfully quaint. "Did you hear that noise again last night?"

I hesitated. "The drumming? I did indeed." I said no more, but he must have noted my frown.

He pressed me. "That wasn't an animal noise, was it? I heard it when we killed the tiger."

It had absorbed my thoughts through the night, when I wasn't distracted by the implications of the argument between the Lithuanian-or perhaps not Lithuanian-Count and the fair Miss Adler. It wasn't quite exactly a drumming: it was more a ... heartbeat. It was true; it didn't sound like an animal noise. But it didn't sound precisely like a human noise either.

"I don't know," I answered uncomfortably. "I haven't heard it before." I turned to aid Miss Adler in climbing the rope ladder to our elephant. Truthfully, the count required more a.s.sistance, and as I helped him up, his waistcoat gaped and I noticed the golden hilt of a dagger secreted within it. Great-grandfather's hunting knife, no doubt: too showy, but not a bad precaution. He rose a bare notch in my estimation.

There were some clouds on the horizon, and I thought the wind might carry a taint of moisture. I was eager to find the second cat and travel deeper into the jungle, perhaps to seek a third. We were past due for weather, and monsoon would mean the end of our hunt.

My party were on edge, made nervy no doubt both by the loss of the beaters the day before and by the close call with the tiger. Still no sign had been found of the missing men-even of a scuffle-and I found myself tending toward the explanation that they had deserted. Conrad seemed spooked, and I permitted the brothers to ride my elephant while Miss Adler and her escort traveled with Mr. Waterhouse.

Instead of skirting the forest, we resolved to plunge into it, and search among the bamboo and the sal trees for the second man-eater. I found myself eager as a young man, and by the time we broke for luncheon we had covered some miles into the thicker part of the forest. We found a little clearing in which to enjoy our cold curry and venison with the native bread. I sat beside von Hammerstein, while noting that Miss Adler had taken a place some distance from her Count. I wondered.

I kept the Egyptian close to hand, in case our man-eater should be drawn out by the scent of food or prey, but lunch pa.s.sed uneventfully. We resolved to take a short siesta on the gra.s.s in the appalling heat of the afternoon with some of the beaters standing guard.

I again caught a glimpse of clouds ma.s.sed on the horizon, but they seemed no closer than they had been in the morning, so I determined that we should press on after resting, but I must have dozed. I was awakened with a start by the sound of cras.h.i.+ng in the brush-something sprinting straight for us. I scrambled to my feet, clutching my rifle. I noticed that the rest had dozed as well-except Miss Adler, who was on her feet, straightening from adjusting the Count's jacket, and loyal Rodney, who was chatting with one of the beaters in their native Hindi.

I brought my weapon to bear on the sound. The beaters moved rapidly out of the line of fire, and I did not spare a glance for the others.

It was no tiger that broke the screen of trees, but a man, ragged and hungry looking, on the verge of exhaustion, bare feet bloodied as if from some long journey. He did not look Indian but rather Arab-Afghan, perhaps? I cautiously lowered my rifle, and he collapsed at my feet with a cry.

He babbled a few words in a tongue I did not understand. I again s.h.i.+fted my estimation of Count Kolinzcki, as I noticed it was he who first came to the man's side, bending over him. I watched warily for a moment. The Arab seemed no threat, however, and I gestured Rodney to bring water as I crouched beside him as well. My bearer had just begun to cross the clearing, leaving his post at my shoulder, when the eldest elephant threw up her trunk and trumpeted in alarm.

A stray breeze brought a whiff of scent to my nostrils: char and hot metal. I cast about for any sign of smoke and noticed the elephants rocking nervously. It seemed obvious to me at that time that they had scented fire, for I knew then of no beast that could so disturb them.

I was both right and wrong.

"Mount!" I cried. The Waterhouses began immediately to move toward the elephants while Dr. Montleroy and von Hammerstein helped the beaters grab up our possessions. I reached down with some thought of a.s.sisting the prostrate Arab, but Kolinzcki was already dragging him to his feet.

The Arab grabbed Kolinzcki by the collar, and the fat Count knocked his grubby hand aside. And then, looking startled and sick, the Count pressed his right hand to his breast, with the expression of a man who realizes that his watch has gone missing from his waistcoat.

I remembered the argument of the night before, and Miss Adler bent over his supine form as he slept, but the rush of events did not permit me to inquire.

I barely caught a glimpse of it before it was among us: it came silent as a wisp of smoke, disturbing the vines and brush not at all. It glowed, even in the incandescence of the afternoon, with a light like a coal, and across the back it bore stripes like char. It possessed the rough form of a tiger, but it stank like a forest fire and its maw was a lick of flame.

It sprang to the back of the smallest elephant with an easy leap, transfixing Conrad Waterhouse with its burning gaze. Even as the elephant panicked, he froze like a bird charmed by a snake. The Creature's blazing claws scorched down her sides, leaving rents in her thick hide that I wouldn't have credited to an ax. She screamed and reared up, ponderously reaching over her shoulder in an attempt to dislodge the predator. Her panic knocked Conrad from his feet, and I did not see him move again. His brother lunged across the path of the Creature to s.h.i.+eld the fallen boy with his body: a brave and futile gesture.

The Creature avoided the elephant's wild blows contemptuously, plunging to the soft earth like a cannonball as all three of our mounts stampeded and the injured elephant's foot struck James.

The beaters and mahouts scattered. The Creature casually disemboweled the closest man: it never even turned its head, already gathering itself for another pounce. Even as I leveled my weapon I knew it was hopeless. I squeezed the trigger and the rifle hammered my shoulder once, and again. Rodney sprinted back to me, my Purdey clutched in his hand. He had two cartridges between his fingers, drawn from the loops on his vest, and he had the rifle broken, loading both barrels simultaneously as he ran.

The good doctor stood rooted in shock. I heard the report of von Hammerstein's gun and, a second later, that of Miss Adler's. I released my empty weapon as Rodney, spitting fragments of words in his excitement, smoothly handed me the replacement. Mr. Waterhouse was turning to cover the beast with shaking hands, unable to fire as long as we stood behind it, craning his neck in an attempt to see both the quarry and his two sons.

The animal stalked forward, opening its flame-rimmed maw, and I heard again the sound I had compared to the pounding of drums or the throb of a mighty heart. The roar went on and on, and my heart quailed and my hands shook as it slunk one pad-footed step forward.

I readied my useless weapon, determined to die fighting, and Miss Adler loosed her second shot. The bullet ruptured the hide of the beast and a ripple shuddered across its surface as if she had tossed a rock into water. A few spattering droplets of fire shot up, falling to the gra.s.s, where they smoked and vanished.

Count Kolinzcki staggered back, down on one knee in fright and despair, his hand dropping from his breast to fumble with his weapon. Von Hammerstein held his fire. I knew he would be waiting for a shot at the eye-a forlorn hope, but the one I clung to as well.

The thunder of hooves spoiled my aim. I raised my gaze from my gun sight to witness the arrival of the proverbial cavalry. A lathered bay gelding-of Arab stock, to guess by its small stature and luxurious mane-charged out of the bamboo in full flight. Its flanks heaved and blood-flecked foam flew from its bit. On its back was a mustachioed officer, who hauled up short on the reins and virtually lifted his mount into the air.

It was a prodigious leap: the little horse's hindquarters bunched and released, and it sailed up and over the back of the Creature. The tigerlike thing twisted in a fruitless attempt to score the horse with its claws, and then recoiled as the rider hurled some sort of pouch at its face. Whatever it was, it hurt! The Creature throbbed again, searing the depths of my ears, and turned and bounded away.

The officer hauled his horse to a stop and whirled it about on its haunches-an unequaled display of horsemans.h.i.+p. The little bay half reared in protest of the hard handling, and then settled down, pawing and snorting.

The officer gentling it with a hand on its neck was a man of middle years, his hair iron gray as was his copious mustache. He had a high forehead and a sensual twist to his mouth, and his eyes glittered still with the excitement of the hunt.

At the appearance of the officer, the Arab turned as if to flee, and almost ran directly into me. He still wove on his feet, and I detained him easily enough.

"Sir," Miss Adler said, first in command of her wits, "we are indebted to you beyond any repayment."

"Miss," he replied, "it is my privilege to serve. And now we must be away, before it returns."

I identified the British insignia upon his uniform. "Colonel, I thank you as well. I am Magnus Larssen, these good people's guide. We have wounded." The beater who had been disemboweled by the Creature was dead or dying quickly, but I could see James picking himself up painfully, his father crouching beside him with an expression of terrible grief. Dr. Montleroy was already trotting to their side.

"Colonel Sebastian Moran, Her Majesty's First Bengalore Pioneers," he said. I noticed that in addition to a sidearm and saber, there was an elephant gun sheathed on his saddle in much the fas.h.i.+on that the Americans carry their buffalo rifles.

Von Hammerstein and Rodney were crouched where the Creature had been. Rodney held up a burst leather water bottle: the object that the colonel had thrown in its face.

"There's no spoor, sahib," Rodney said. "It leaves no marks in the gra.s.s. Like smoke. There are"-a silence-"specks of molten lead." Bullets, he did not say.

I felt a cold, thickening sensation in my belly: fear.

"s.h.i.+kari," began the colonel, but then he hesitated with a glance to the grief-stricken father, and began to dismount and unlimber his gun. "The young man looks well enough to ride. Have him sling the boy over my saddle. We must make it to the river by nightfall."

He spared a glance for the Arab, and another caress for the exhausted horse. "This man is my prisoner. I pursued him from the border, and I will be bringing him back with me."

Kolinzcki, rising to his feet, seemed about to protest, but something in the glitter of the colonel's eyes silenced him. For myself, I merely nodded, and went with von Hammerstein to collect the casualties.

The events of that afternoon return to me now only as a heat-soaked blur. We walked only when we could run no longer. Waterhouse clung to the stirrup of the colonel's horse, trotting alongside it as he steadied his sons. Conrad still breathed, but he had not regained consciousness, and I believed James was suffering an internal injury: he grew ever whiter and more silent, and most of our water went to him.

I knew the Creature stalked us, as wounded cats will, for every so often I caught a taste of its red scent upon the breeze, and the gelding was hot-eyed and terrified. I feared the poor beast's wind was broken: it wheezed through every breath and staggered under its double burden, but it kept up gamely.

The colonel had bound the Arab's hands before him with a leather strap. Through this means, Moran contrived to keep the prisoner upright and moving, although he was staggering from exhaustion.

I came up beside him when we had not been moving long and leaned into his ear. "The Arab is a Tsarist agent?"

"Of a sort," he said, one wary eye on the individual in question. "A tribal shaman. A personage. And an Afghan, not an Arab." He raked me with a sidelong glance and I nodded to encourage his discourse. "He was traveling to India with an entourage. We stopped the rest at the border, but this one got through. Fortunately, I've apprehended him before ..." His voice trailed off. "What are your politics, Larssen?"

"I haven't any."

He grunted. "Get some." And walked away.

My especial burden was the fat Count, who staggered along in our wake and complained. Miss Adler kept along nicely, bearing her own distress very well, despite suspicious looks from the Count. Almost, I thought he was about to break into open argument with her, but he directed a hard look at Moran and kept his comments to the heat.

Finally, in the haze of heat and despair, Moran turned on the Count. "If you don't stop whining, I'll send you back in pieces!" he snapped, shaking his gun for emphasis.

The Count halted. "A common Englishman does not call me a fool!" he replied sharply. "I am accustomed to a dignified pace, and if this Norwegian idiot had not led us into the lair of monsters"-a rude gesture in my direction-"we'd all be bathed and fed by now!"

The colonel's prisoner chose this moment to break in, gesticulating and seeming to berate the Count, shrieking in anger. The Count listened for a moment, and shook his head. He glanced around in appeal. "Do any of you understand this barbarian?" he asked, glancing from one to another.

None answered, but Moran's eyebrow rose in silent speculation.

Night came on more quickly than I could have imagined. My feet were b.l.o.o.d.y in my boots, and sun blisters rose along the length of my nose where my helmet did not shade it. I grew deaf to the hum of insects, the chatter of monkeys and birds. The sole promise of relief was the black storm front piling up on the horizon: the long-overdue monsoon, racing northward to greet us. Whenever I found the strength to raise my head, I glanced at those bulging clouds, prayerful, but they never seemed closer. As if some invisible army held them besieged, they roiled and tore, but could not advance.

Dr. Montleroy sought me out as the afternoon waned into evening. "I'm going to lose James unless I can get him to help, and quickly. I may anyway, but there's still time to try."

"What does his father say?" I croaked.

"He knows," Montleroy answered, with a glance over his shoulder to the white-faced man. "It is one son or neither."

I nodded once. "Take all the water. Go."

We pulled Conrad down off the exhausted gelding over James's feeble protests, and the good doctor swung up behind. Moran poured water for the horse into his hat, and the animal sucked it up in a single desperate draft. "Go like the wind," he said to it, and slapped it hard across the flank. It startled and bolted, Montleroy and James bent low over its neck.

"G.o.dspeed," said Miss Adler from beside me. I glanced around in surprise. It was then that I noticed that the Count was missing.

No one had seen him fall behind, and we could not turn back. Mr. Waterhouse, von Hammerstein, and I took turns carrying Conrad, who drifted in a fever. He mumbled strange phrases in a language I had never heard, but which seemed to discomfit Moran's prisoner greatly.

The prisoner attempted to speak to me, but I could only shake my head at his foreign tongue. He tried von Hammerstein as well, to equally little avail, and Moran did not interfere. I had the distinct impression that the colonel watched out of the corner of his eye, as if observing our faces for any sign of comprehension, but the chattering of the monkeys meant more, at least to me.

With her paramour gone, Miss Adler stalked up to the front of the group. It was she who first identified the clearing where we had killed the tigress. We paused for breath, and the prisoner threw himself down in the long gra.s.s and panted.

"Two more miles to the river," she said, in a flat and hopeless tone, resting the Winchester's stock on the ground. Moran glanced from her to the rapidly darkening sky and grunted. Waterhouse's face clenched in terror and I knew it was not for himself that he feared.

"We could try to run it," offered von Hammerstein. He s.h.i.+fted the still form of Conrad Waterhouse on his shoulder and stared out toward the gra.s.slands, a calculating look on his face. "Could you keep up, miss?"

The woman frowned. "I daresay." She bent down to unlace her boots while Rodney held the Winchester. She stepped out of them and knotted them over her shoulder.

The monkeys fell silent. The prisoner started up, eyes staring, and he cried aloud-"Ia! Ia Hastur cf'ayah 'vugtlagln Hastur!"-and then, in mangled Hindi, "The burning one comes!" His eyes s.h.i.+mmered insanely. His voice was exultant. I wondered why he had not spoken Hindi before, at least to myself or Rodney.

"Run," Moran shouted, yanking on the leather strap, and we ran.

The six of us, Moran dragging his captive, pelted out of the sal and down the slope of the land toward the riverbank. Around us the gra.s.s burned from gold to b.l.o.o.d.y in the light of the sunset. An enormous...o...b.. already half concealed by the horizon, lit the scene like the plains of h.e.l.l.

I ran with my hand clenched on my rifle, heedless of clutching gra.s.ses. Rodney darted ahead with one hand on von Hammerstein's arm, nearly dragging the laden man. Conrad bounced on his back, voice raised in a peculiar shriek, raving a string of words that pained my ears.

The ground blurred under my feet, and as I pa.s.sed Miss Adler I caught her elbow and dragged her along-she was running well, but my legs were longer. Ahead of me, I saw Moran give an a.s.sisting shove to Waterhouse and turn around to yank the leather strap again. His prisoner simply piled into him, swinging his hands like a club, teeth bared to bite.

"The dagger!" he shrieked in broken Hindi, foam flying from his teeth. "You fool, or it will have us all!"

Moran moved with the speed of a man half his age. "Go on," he yelled at me as I moved to help him. He ducked under the prisoner's swing and brought his gun b.u.t.t up under the man's jaw. As I pelted past, the Arab tumbled boneless to the ground, and Moran raised his weapon.

I flinched, expecting a shot, but Moran snarled as he hauled the prisoner to his feet.

I caught my breath in my teeth. It hurt. "Not ... going to make it," Miss Adler groaned between breaths.

A lone tree rose before us as I stole a glance over my shoulder. We were less than halfway to the river, and I could see the red glow of the sunset matched by an answering inferno only yards behind.

Von Hammerstein and Waterhouse had reached the same conclusion, for as we drew up we saw them crouched in the gra.s.s. Rodney stood just behind them, his eyes very white and wide in his mahogany face. He clapped my shoulder as I pa.s.sed him, and I realized that he was younger than Conrad Waterhouse, over whose raving form he stood guard.

"Good lad," I said to him, which seemed wholly inadequate, and I came and stood beside him. I remembered that we had given all our water to James, and nevertheless I found my fear lifting. I was resigned.

Moran came up to us and took in the situation with a nod. We turned at bay, the devil before us and the sunset at our backs.

It let us see it coming-a glowing specter in the darkness, a demon of flame and fear. It leaped through the tall gra.s.s toward me-a bound of perhaps forty feet. I caught a very clear view of it as it gathered itself. Flaming eyes glittered at me with unholy intelligence in the moment before it leaped.

I felt something rise in my heart under that regard, an antique horror such as I had never known, and I heard Waterhouse whimper-or perhaps I myself moaned aloud in fear. Words seemed to form in my mind, words of invocation that I both knew and did not know, powerful and ancient and evil as maggots in my soul: "Ia! Ia Hastur ..."

I emptied the .534 at it, to no effect. Beside me, I heard von Hammerstein's gun choke and roar twice. He reached for a second one. The reek of powder hung thick upon the air.

The beast was in midair-it was among us-Conrad had risen to his feet with madness on his face and thrown himself at Rodney. Waterhouse caught the blow, staggered, and bore the boy over onto the ground, kneeling on his chest and bearing his hands down only with great difficulty. Rodney never flinched.

I dropped the empty weapon. "Boy. Gun!"

Rodney snapped the Purdey into my hand, and I aimed along the barrel with a prayer to Almighty G.o.d on my lips. Moran was distracted from his prisoner, shaking his weapon loose and raising it in a futile and beautiful gesture. His luxurious mustache draped across the scrollwork on the gun as he sighted, and he placed two shots directly into the beast's eye as it lunged.

The flaming paw hurt not at all. It struck me high on the thigh, and I felt a distinct shattering sensation, but there was no pain. I lost the Purdey, and I saw poor Rodney hurled aside by a second thunderous blow. He fell like a broken doll, and he did not rise. Mr. Waterhouse started up to defend his boy, and was knocked backward fifteen feet into the tree before its next blow crushed von Hammerstein against the earth. I felt the impact from where I lay.