The lion stopped several feet away and sat. His tail flicked, but he gave no indication of understanding. I jabbed a finger at the ground. “Wait here, Sher-sah.”
After ducking into the wagon to light a lantern, I tugged on my trousers, laced up my boots, and collected my knife. I dashed into the night, tossing my Thunder Cloak over my shoulders to ward against the evening chill. “C’mon,” I said to the lion as we headed for the wagon ring’s perimeter. “Help me find her.”
Whether he truly understood me or not, the lion followed me to the cart where Genevieve and I had stowed our horses. Both Mika and Adaleiz greeted me, but there was no sign of the princess. “Where could she have gone that you didn’t know about?” I asked. “Where would she have gone without her horse—”
A sudden, distant cry—more like the shriek of a far-off wind—cut through the quiet. Sher-sah let loose a low growl in reply.
“Was that her?” But I already knew the answer. The lion shoved his shoulder against me and lowered into a crouch—the same crouch he adopted when allowing me to climb on his back. “You want me to ride?”
He growled again and rolled his shoulder in what seemed like an impatient gesture. Taking his hint, I threw a leg over his back and knotted my hands in the ribbons around his neck. I hung on as he sprinted into the darkness, leaving the wagon train behind. He found the road, and wind tore at my loose braid as the lion galloped along the winding path, charging in the direction from which the scream had come.
Sher-sah ran and ran, and I clung to him like a tick. Before long, his pace slowed, and he eased into a soft-footed trot. Without the wind roaring in my ears, I could hear the cause for his change in pace: distant horse hooves clip-clopped on the dirt path, accompanied by creaking stirrups and saddles. The breeze blowing past us carried scents of horse sweat, leather, and manure.
After cresting the rise of a short hill, the road sloped through a wide-open plain. A blue glow from two floating lights illuminated a pair of horses and their masters, riding thirty or forty yards ahead of us. The floating lights seemed familiar, and so did the girl hunched over the cantle of one rider’s saddle. Genevieve was wedged in front of the larger figure of a man who kept one hand on the reins and the other cinched firmly around her waist.
The lion’s mechanical bits moved with clicks, ticks, and tocks, but the clatter of the horses concealed his approach, or so I hoped. With uncanny stealth, Sher-sah left the road and redoubled his pace, winding around trees and occasional roadside shrubbery and boulders until we trotted parallel to the riders. Upon closer inspection, the blue light revealed the princess of Bonhemm had been gagged and bound, and her kidnappers wore the distinct uniforms of the empress’s royal guard.
Bloody Shadowlands, I swore under my breath. If I’d had full control of my powers, I wouldn’t have hesitated to confront the men. Without my lightning, though.... “What am I supposed to do?” I whispered to my companion, realizing I hadn’t thought things through before agreeing to climb on his back and ride into the darkness. “I can’t defeat two grown men, two trained guards, on my own. I have no weapons other than a boot knife.”
A low growl rumbled in Sher-sah’s brass body, and it vibrated through my bones. Again, he kicked up his pace. Sprinting forward, he outran the horsemen by several dozen yards. After stopping by a copse of short shrubs sprouting near the roadside, he crouched and shrugged in a movement that nearly dislodged me from his back. I scrambled to hold my place. “Was that a hint?” I asked. “Do you want me to get off?”
The lion growled again and repeated his gesture. I let the momentum of his massive shrug shake me loose, and the thud of my heels hitting the hard dirt jarred my joints. Crouching between him and the bushes, I turned toward the approaching riders. “All right, I’m off. Now what?”
Sher-sah hissed and readjusted his posture, his gears clicking and whirring as he readied himself for what, I presumed, was an attack. Idiot, I said to myself. Of course you have a weapon. You rode it all the way here. The lion’s tail whipped left, then right, and the moment the horses reached our position, he pounced.
“Sher-sah, don’t kill them,” I yelled at his retreating backside.
One of the mean screamed. So did the horses. From my hiding place, I watched Sher-sah tackle the lone rider to the ground, roaring loud enough to rival my best thunderstorms. The rider holding Genevieve reined his horse around and raised his hand toward the lion. Blue lantern light gleamed along the barrel of his gun, and the explosive report of a firing pistol ripped through the air, but the bullet ricocheted off Sher-sah’s ribs.
A quick drop of relief pulsed through me, but my dread returned when I saw the princess, struggling against her captor. Without a thought of whether I might be doing more harm than good, I dashed from my hiding place and lunged for Genevieve. Catching hold of her ankle, I tugged and she toppled from her seat. Distracted by the lion’s attack on his companion, the princess’s captor was slow to respond. Genevieve and I fell in a heap, but I scrambled to my feet, yanking her behind me before the horse could trample us.
“Stop!” The guard threw his arm out again, aiming his pistol at me. The princess lurched, positioning herself between us as a shield.
Grabbing her arms, I tugged her against me as I stumbled away from the horse, anxious to escape the floating lanterns’ revealing glow. “Do you really want to be responsible for shooting the empress’s sister?” It was unlikely the guard understood me, speaking in Inselgrish, but I hoped he understood the urgency in my tone. “Put down the gun, you idiot.”
Sher-sah roared again, and the princess’s captor flinched. He whirled in his saddle, but he was too slow. The glimmer of blue light on Sher-sah’s metallic hide gave him an otherworldly, monstrous glow as he hurtled at the mounted guard and slammed him off his perch. The two hit the ground with a bone-wrenching crunch.
“That lion’s not big on diplomacy, is he?” Genevieve asked.
I glanced at the princess, assessing her for signs of injury, or shock. Her gag had fallen loose during the commotion, and she stared at the lion, her mouth twisted in a wry grin. “He takes his guard duties seriously,” I said.
“I rather appreciate his efforts on my behalf, but I suspect Tereza won’t be so pleased.”
I approached the two guards who were cowering at the side of the road under Sher-sah’s bright glare. The blue lanterns bobbed over our heads, giving light to the scene. One of the men was kneeling, supporting the shoulders of his partner whose leg jutted at an unnatural angle. Probably broken. A sympathy pain scuttled down my spine. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse.
Genevieve stepped beside me and bobbed her chin at the soldiers. “What do we do with them?”
“I take it they’re Tereza’s guards. I recognize the uniforms and those peculiar lights.”
“Otokar’s inventions. Half magic, half science. He makes a lot of things that way.”
“Will your sister send more guards if these don’t return?”
“I think that’s a safe bet.”
“Then I say we leave them.” I pointed at the injured soldier. “They won’t be going anywhere very fast, wounded as they are, and we’ll be long gone before they find their way back to your sister’s castle.”
She frowned but nodded and spoke to them in Bonhemmish. The kneeling guard sneered but said nothing. “I told him we were leaving them here,” she said. “But that we’re taking their horses.”
“We can’t take care of their horses. We don’t have enough room or feed.”
“We’ll release them once we’re farther down the road, then. Those horses are valuable. Whoever finds them will consider themselves fortunate.”
I heaved a sigh and knelt in the grass beside the road, taking a moment to process everything that had happened. Sher-sah sat as well, keeping close to his two victims. He raised a paw and began the tedious process of grooming himself. The guardsmen watched us both with wary eyes.
I shook my head at the sight of a mechanical cat giving himself a bath. “How does he not know how ridiculous he is?”
Genevieve shrugged and squatted beside me, her bound hands hanging between her knees. “I get the distinct impression that he has no idea he isn’t really a lion. I’d say the same thing about Ynnua, too.”
“And about Ajej.” I reached for my boot, withdrew the knife I’d stashed there, and slashed Genevieve’s bindings. “It scents the air with its tongue like a real snake.”
We sat in silence while the lion raked his brass tongue over his metallic paw and rubbed himself behind his ears and under his chin. The wounded guard shifted and coughed a raspy groan. While I couldn’t have let Sher-sah kill them, I refused to feel guilty for planning to abandon them. They were soldiers, not innocent, helpless civilians.
I drew in another deep breath and held it a moment before letting it out in a whoosh. “I don’t know what made you run away, but I believe you when you say it was something terrible. If you really don’t want to return to Prigha, you have my full support, and apparently that of Sher-sah’s as well. We can stand up to a pair of guards, perhaps, but what if she sends an army for you?”
The princess rubbed her arms, removing the last of her bindings. She wiped her nose against her shirtsleeve. “I don’t know, Evie. I was hoping she wouldn’t figure out where I’d run off to.”
“Otokar has a scrying spell for finding people.”
She flinched and blinked at me in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“I asked him to help me find the Fantazikes. He used a spell that discovered their general location. If he spotted you at the circus using that same Magic, it wouldn’t have taken long for the guards to catch up to us.”
She clicked her tongue. “I should have known better. Why did I think I could ever get away? Otokar’s Magic is insidious, and whatever Tereza asks of him, he gives to her. No matter how malicious or sinister.”
I heaved myself up, grunting as my already exhausted muscles protested. Genevieve took my offered hand, and I hauled her to her feet. The guards silently watched our every move. “Let’s get back to the camp,” I said. “We’ll figure out what to do about Otokar and your sister in the morning.”
“Falak said he wouldn’t come between me and Tereza. He didn’t want that kind of trouble. If she comes for me, he’ll make me go with her.”
“Or you could run again,” I said. “I’m sure there are other circuses.” Her face crumpled into an ugly scowl, but I waved her off before she could curse me. “Otokar would likely find you again, wherever you go, unless you know a way to counter his Magic so he couldn’t see you in his scryings.” An idea flared to life in my head. “And I might have a solution for that.”
She blinked at me. “Really?”
“I’ll tell you about it after we get away from here. Would you mind gathering the horses?” While Genevieve collected the horses’ reins, I faced the lion and bowed low, careful to swallow my sarcasm, and swept an arm across my chest. “I’m wondering if you’d be inclined to return me and the princess to the circus, Sir Lion. It’s late, and we’d like to go to bed.”
Sher-sah seemed to study me for a silent moment before he flicked his tail, rose to all four feet, stretched a few times, and crouched in the posture indicating he was ready for us to climb aboard. The soldiers scowled at us, but neither of them made a move to stop us. I took my seat on the lion’s back before offering a hand to Genevieve. After she’d settled behind me, still clutching the horses’ reins, the lion returned to the road and kicked up his pace. The horses trotted behind us, their hooves pounding a steady rhythm against the path. Genevieve snugged her arm tighter around my waist, and we held tight as Sher-sah carried us home.
Chapter 17
