hard chunks of adobe cascaded from the ceiling and wall. Winded, he slashed feebly as Virgil and Wilemina rammed him again with the table. Jedit crumpled, skidded, and sat down hard, dragging table and pirates on top of him.
'Quick!' bleated the fairykin. 'Slit his throat!'
'No!' Adira shouted as if hailing from the quarterdeck in a hurricane. 'Anyone touches him gets keelhauled! That's Jaeger, I tell you!'
In the hush, people canted weapons and sobbed for air and cast about in total confusion. Questions spilled.
'Why's he look like a barbarian?'
'Why's Jaeger attacking us?'
'Why don't he speak?'
'If he's bewitched, who did it?'
Badger, canny veteran, jumped quickest on the truth. 'Someone sicced him on us!'
In a wink, the mariner, Wilemina, and Simone bolted for the door. Jamming in the doorway, the three looked both ways down the nighttime street. Simone gasped, 'Whoever 'witched him might've run-'
The sharp-eyed archer pointed. 'There he goes!'
'Johan!' barked all three and took off running.
'Wait!' cried Adira but too late. Cursing a blue streak, she limped on her sore leg to tend Echo, who'd dented plaster with her skull. Bidding the ex-clerk to stay seated, Adira saw the rest of her crew was equally battered. Murdoch's nose streamed blood, Hazezon huddled against the wall wheezing, the fairykin Whistledove bore a sprained arm. Adira rubbed her upper lip not to sneeze in all the dust. 'Give us light, someone!'
Virgil and Murdoch and two clerks knelt on the heavy table pinning the prisoner. Picking up the fallen boar spear, Adira tilted the tip against the table.
'Drag it away. Handsomely!' ordered the pirate chief. 'That means slowly, you cockeyed codfish! Brace up to gaff him if-Ten thousand virgins! It is Jaeger!'
'No. Jedit. Ojanen.'
A hulking northman had fallen, but under the table and four people lay a living, breathing tiger. Past the tip of her spear Adira stared into round eyes that glowed an eerie amber-green. The face was a riot of orange, black, and white stripes, and white whiskers jutted from the blunt muzzle. A fourth color was smears of red blood. The eyes were slitted, Adira realized, for the tiger was still furious, eager to spring and rend and kill given half a chance.
'Jedit Ojanen?' Doubting everything, Adira tipped the spear against the prisoner's throat, one strong hand on the haft ready to thrust. 'Same name, so what relation?'
'My father was Jaeger.'
A dangerous rumbling growl. The yowling accent was barbaric and old-fashioned, with words twisted out of shape. Only by concentrating could Adira understand him.
Jedit said, 'You should know the name well, being his most dire enemy.'
A confused murmur arose from Seveners and clerks.
Murdoch blew blood from his nose. 'Someone's cockeyed.'
'Shut up.' Not retracting the spear, Adira fought to think this mess through. 'You've been gulled, tiger-boy. If you've tramped around with Johan, I can swear to it, for that devils' tool never spoke a true word in his life.'
'Johan's back?' Still crouched on the table, the scruffy Virgil huffed. 'Is that what Badger yelled? Our troubles are starting all over?'
'I said, belt up, you lot!' Adira whapped Virgil on the head, he being nearest. If she read an enemy rightly, the tiger was only resting up for another attack. She had to talk fast but should also rouse her Robaran Mercenaries to ferret out Johan. But one menace at a time.
Whipping sweaty auburn curls from her face, Adira snarled, 'Listen to me, Jedit son of Jaeger! Your father fought on our side against Johan! That red-striped fiend and his followers marched down from Tirras to stamp over Palmyra and seize Bryce! It's no secret he hopes to conquer all Jamuraa! We fought like furies just to stay alive, and Jaeger braced us in every battle, never flagging, always faithful! You disgrace his memory to side with Johan, the most treacherous snake that ever crawled out of a dung heap!'
Seconds ticked away. The room might have been frozen but for the flicker of torches. Jedit Ojanen continued to glare, his thoughts unknowable. Once he squirmed, half-crushed by the table and crouching pirates, and Adira stifled him with a pinprick under his white-whiskered chin. Eventually, Jedit snorted through his black nostrils. Near panic, Adira thought. He doesn't believe me. I'll have to kill him!
'If I might say a word.'
Eyes shifted to Hazezon Tamar, hunched over and clutching his ribs. Hovering near Jedit, but not too close, he plied years of political persuasion through clenched teeth.
'Adira speaks the truth, tiger-son. I found your father in the desert and drove away vultures and hyenas. For my rescue, he returned the favor a hundred times. He saved me and Bryce and Palmyra and a thousand others. You needn't take our word for it. I propose to let you go-'
'Haz!' chirped Adira, leaning the spear. 'Have you fractured your skull?'
'Hush, Dira.' Hazezon had no breath for argument. 'Forgive her, friend tiger. Adira would contradict me if I said the sun arose each morn. I propose we back away. You'll be free to go. Leave this room and ask anyone in Palmyra whether Jaeger was our savior and champion. Even the dullest porter or smallest child will sing his praises. Then ask about Johan and sift the answers, if not a fist or spittle. See for yourself.'
As Jedit ruminated, suspicious and sullen, Hazezon added, 'Before you go, tell me something. I recognize certain symptoms. You are lucid now but were befuddled before. Your thoughts swam in a fog within your mind, true? Johan cloaked you in sorcery, arguing Jaeger was unloved here, but then he laid on another spell, did he not?'
'No!' Jedit frowned in concentration. 'No. He brought me to the house of a woman. She… she… I can't remember!'
'That enchantment was knocked out of you.' Hazezon waved for a clerk to bring a stool. Painfully he sank onto it. 'If it consoles you, young Jedit, many are bewitched by the Tyrant of Tirras, whom we call Johan. Let him up, you fellows and girl. Adira, put up your spear. I'll not see the son of Jaeger Ojanen, the fiercest warrior and finest friend I ever knew, mistreated a second longer.'
Carefully, with weapons poised, pirates and clerks backed away. The table dumped over. Framed in flaring torchlight so he glowed orange and black as a stormy sunset, Jedit Ojanen stood up, and up, until he towered over Adira Strongheart, Hazezon Tamar, and their astonished retainers. Black-clawed paws smoothed the tiger's whiskers and tufted mane. Amber-green eyes peered as the muzzle wrinkled. A pink tongue passed over white fangs. Still, the tiger had to lean against the cracked wall for dizziness.
Glaring about, he demanded, 'I am free to go?'
Hazezon Tamar waved expansively toward the door but winced as ribs squeaked. Everyone watched the tiger warily,
A step to one side, a coiling of haunches, then in a flash Jedit Ojanen sprang to the door and vanished into predawn darkness.
Pirates and clerks gaped, astonished by the tiger's lithe speed. They jumped as Adira cracked the spear haft on a table.
'What're you gawking for, you wall-eyed mothers of moon-fish! Find Johan! Rouse the militia! Move!'
As people jammed in the doorway, Adira slumped on a chair and raked chestnut curls off her face. Her arm ached, and her throbbing leg wouldn't support her. She tried to spit but only sighed.
'Dratted weakness! Some freebooter I be!'
'Don't blame yourself. Blame Johan for running his army over you.' Hazezon clutched both arms around his ribs. 'Now another tiger's arrived, bigger, faster, and far more powerful than Jaeger, and more impulsive. Whiskers of Wullab, why do the spirits of the sands mock us so in times of strife?'
'Who can say?' For once, Adira didn't argue with her ex-husband. 'Life is struggle and suffering.'
'Speaking of suffering,' groaned Hazezon, 'might you fetch a leech? And stretcher bearers?'
'Make it two. Echo's blacked out.' The pirate queen dragged off her chair. 'You know, it's just as well Johan showed up. This town's been palling dull lately. But oh, I almost feel sorry for that murderous mage when this tiger-lad pounces.'
