toward the horde, where burned a fire 'Musata! Musata, wake up!'
Strong paws caught the shaman, dragged so her feet and tail trailed in dirt. More paws whapped her body painfully, rolled her in dirt, beat her.
Groggily she complained, 'Leave me be! Stop hitting- Oh!'
The shaman's eyes pried open with difficulty, as if gummed shut. Bright yellow flames leaped and surged against a black night. Her sensitive nostrils smelled charred dust and green leaves and old burlap. Rubbing her face made her eyes sting. Her paws were sooty black. She hurt, the fur of her neck and muzzle scorched.
'What-?'
'That cursed fire.' A young tigress named Zellig and others propped Musata up. Other tigers brought water in curled leaves and gently swabbed her charred fur. Now Musata realized the long common hut blazed from end to end. Flames licked at the night and withered green leaves in teak trees overhead. The glare was painful to watch.
Zellig explained, 'The night watch heard you cry out, inside. We know not to disturb you when the door flap is down, but all that smoke worried us. Good thing we peeked. You fell facedown in your own fire!'
'Ah. Terrent Amese bless me!' Oddly, though burned so badly her pink skin leaked fluid, Musata was unafraid. Buming to death was another risk shamans took. This effort had been worthwhile, for she'd seen Like a thunderbolt, she remembered her dream.
'None, One, and Two! The coming of prophecy!'
'What?' asked several tigers.
'Ancient prophecy. I know, it's one of many, but I saw this from high above. A black gap for None, and mountains for One and Two. 'When None, One, and Two clash, only Two will remain to usher in a new age.' '
Bewildered striped faces stared. Musata didn't see them. She looked inward, at her son, and the mysterious stranger Johan, the eye of a hurricane…
'What?' Instantly awake, Jedit roared, 'You knew my father all along? You lied?'
'A tiny lie.' Johan didn't shift where he sat against a tree in the dark night. He didn't even raise his hands. Instead he drew from an inner pocket the calming crystal to toy with it. 'Once I sniffed the wind, I thought it best not to mention Jaeger's name in the village. You seemed in enough trouble already.'
Johan watched Jedit's anger evaporate as if he'd been doused with a bucket of water. The tiger even looked as if he'd doze off again. The cat mumbled thickly, 'You didn't… All right, I see the sense of curbing your tongue. But you've had months of travel to tell me, us, before tonight!'
Johan flipped the milky stone to his forehead and rubbed furiously, as if cooling his brow with ice. These half-human tigers had skulls thick as oxen. Enchanting them was hard work.
'Be calm, my friend. Let's talk like reasonable beings… That's better. You're right. I failed to mention your father before tonight. To speak of Jaeger is difficult for me.'
'How so?' Again calm as a snake, Jedit sank to his haunches to listen. Hestia hovered over him, one soft paw clutching his thick shoulder.
'I met Jaeger only briefly.' Johan's voice was a soothing balm. '1 was a minor magician in the army of, uh, Lance Truthseeker of Tirras. Lord Lance assembled a mighty army and journeyed down the River Toloron. Of all the northern lords, only he dared wage war against the evil armies led by Hazezon Tamar and Adira Strongheart.'
Johan talked at length, garbling facts, spinning pure lies. He was careful to steer toward a goal, though.
Jedit and Hestia listened, rapt, but the tiger warrior finally snarled, 'Enough history! Where walks my father in all this human fumbling?'
'Your father was a magnificent creature,' pontificated Johan. '1 was proud to meet him. When he learned of strife in the Sukurvia, he knew instinctively who was right and joined Lord Lance's army. As said, I was a minor mage. Naturally I wanted to question a talking tiger never seen before. We talked briefly of his homeland here in Efrava. He spoke of you, Jedit, with the utmost pride.'
'Hmmm.' Mollified and flattered, charmed without knowing it, Jedit preened. Hestia, however, squeezed Jedit's shoulder so hard her claws drew blood. Jedit flicked her hand away.
'Came the last battle.' Johan spun more lies in the night as mosquitoes droned. 'I can't say what happened. Jaeger was always at the forefront of our army, battling savagely, giving heart to our lads and lasses. Some said he was the heart of our army! But sometimes heart isn't enough. We were outnumbered and betrayed. Hazezon and Adira knew every dirty trick of war and were pitiless with helpless prisoners. They stacked skulls to the sky and pitched dead babies atop! They broke soldiers at the wheel and set them afire to scare their own troops into battle!' Johan listed more atrocities, some actually committed by his own troops. 'Yet our campaign was doomed. I don't know if your father survived. I believe nothing could still his fine ferocious heart, but I never learned the outcome. As a humble apprentice mage, I rode a drake above our freedom fighters. I was chased by some of Adira's flying contraptions and fled east. Once aloft, my drake panicked, so I kept onward, blown by the breath of the gods. Then I realized whither I steered, toward the homeland of the incomparable Jaeger Ojanen. Perhaps, I thought, this was a heaven-sent opportunity to help our cause. Could I but find Jaeger's people and appeal for help, we might defeat the hellish hordes of Hazezon and Adira.'
'My father…' Jedit stared unseeing at darkness. 'At the forefront, charging a superior force… Imagine!'
While Jedit and Hestia pondered, Johan plied his conjuring crystal like a spider plucking the strands of its web. Johan, Tyrant of Tirras, Emperor of the Northern Reaches, and Would-Be Conqueror of All Jamuraa, had indeed met Jaeger, but always in combat. The tiger warrior and a dozen other stalwarts had opposed his march of tyranny from mountainous Tirras into the southlands. Johan had assembled an army of thousands of humans, dwarves, barbarians, fairykin and others, and they carved a swathe of blood. Yet Johan had run afoul of a creaky alliance cobbled together by Hazezon Tamar, governor of Bryce, other coastal cities, and Adira Strongheart, chief of the Robaran Mercenaries and mayor of Palmyra.
More than any, Adira and her accursed bodyguards, the Circle of Seven, had balked Johan at every step. And among the Circle had loomed Jaeger Ojanen, the mysterious tiger-man who'd crawled from the desert and eventually died attacking Johan, falling victim to a sand wurm.
So had fate served Johan. Fleeing the final battlefield, Jaeger's blood warm on his hands, Johan had flown west, following his karma, and had crashed almost into the maw of another sand wurm, only to be rescued by Jaeger's son. How the gods favored him, Johan thought smugly. True, his initial assault had failed, but only for lack of preparation. Huge losses had only hardened Johan's determination to punish his enemies and seat himself upon a throne of immovable granite, Emperor of All Jamuraa.
Yet, if the gods bestowed favors, so might they rescind them. Johan bore many thorns in his side, and the tigerfolk were the worst, though he didn't understand why.
Jaeger's final words had been, 'Even if I fail, there will come another.' Who but his son Jedit? While this young warrior was brash and inexperienced, he would learn. In addition, Johan was haunted by the prophecy of None, One, and Two, another mystery that vexed him sorely. Yet he knew these cat warriors were somehow key. To master the prophecy, Johan had to master these striped savages.
The she-cat Hestia spoke. 'Why now, Minor Mage Johan? For months you've surveyed our land from root to branch. Why tell us this night of Jaeger's glory?'
'Because I'm afraid.' Johan sounded so meek that, despite her suspicions, Hestia wanted to cuddle him for comfort. 'I'm not a brave man. Tomorrow we enter your village. I fear for my life, or at least my liberty. If your tribe demands I remain a prisoner, or even be executed-'
'They won't.' Jedit cut him off. 'We're going west, you and I. No one will stop us.'
The attack was cold, calculated, and effective.
One minute Jedit, Johan, and Hestia threaded a game trail descending a thicket, and the next, rope nets whisked to box them in. Striped bodies hurtled from bushes and dropped from trees. Jedit was slammed in the back by two tigers and driven muzzle-first into the quivering net. The warrior snarled and slung fangs and claws, but within seconds he was cocooned in layers of rope.
Johan was shoved hard by furry hands and dumped to the ground. Inwardly the tyrant seethed to be touched by commoners, and animals at that, but he was wary of their feral tempers, so sat meek and unmoving while they
