him. 'The lioness will get you too!'
Jim jackknifed his body forward and as his feet struck the earth he used the power of both legs to boost himself high and swing one leg over Drumfire's back. Balancing easily to the stallion's run, he snatch Keyser's pistol from his belt and cocked the hammer with a single movement.
To your right, Somoya!' Bakkat's voice receded behind him, but he picked up the warning just in time. He saw the movement as the lioness broke from cover and streaked in from his right. She was ghostly pale in the faint moonlight, silent, huge and terrible.
He lifted the pistol and leaned forward. He tried to steer Drumfire with the pressure of his knees, but the horse was far beyond any restraint. He saw the lioness get ahead of them and crouch down, gathering herself to spring. Then she rose from the earth, launching herself straight at Jim. There was no time to aim. Instinctively he pointed the muzzle into her
face. She was so close that he could see both her front paws, reaching for him with great curved claws. Her open jaws were a black pit. Her teeth shone like porcelain in the moonlight, and the graveyard stench of her breath blew hot into his face as she roared.
He fired the pistol at the full reach of his right arm, and the muzzle flash blinded him. The weight of the lioness's body crashed into them. Even Drumfire reeled at the weight, but then he gathered himself and galloped on. Jim felt the lioness's claws rip into his boot, but they did not hold. The huge carcass dropped away, tumbled slackly across the hard ground, then lay in an inert pile.
It took seconds for Jim to realize that he had come through the attack unscathed. Then his next care was for Drumfire. He leaned forward and clasped him around the neck, calling to him soothingly, 'It's all over, my sweetheart. Whoa! There's a good boy.'
Drumfire's ears twitched back as he listened to Jim's voice. He slowed down to an easy trot, and at last to a walk. Jim steered him back up the slope. But as soon as he smelt the lioness's blood, he started mincing and dancing, throwing his head nervously.
'Lioness is dead,' Bakkat called out of the darkness. 'Shot through the mouth and out the back of her skull.'
'Where is the lion?' Jim shouted back.
As if in reply they heard the lion roar near the top of the mountain, a good mile off. 'Now she is of no further use to him, he has deserted his wife,' Bakkat sneered. 'Cowardly and thieving beast.'
It was with difficulty that Jim coaxed Drumfire back to where Bakkat stood beside the dead lioness. He was still skittish and nervous. 'I've never seen him so terrified,' Jim exclaimed.
'No animal can stay calm and brave with the smell of lion's piss or blood in his nostrils,' Bakkat told him. Then they exclaimed in the same voice: That's it! We have it!'
It was long after midnight by the time they reached the ridge overlooking the enemy camp. Keyser's watch fires had burned low, but they could see that the sentries were still awake.
'Just a small breeze from the east.' Jim held Drumfire's head to calm him. The stallion was still shivering and sweating with terror. Not even Jim's hand and voice could soothe him. Every time the carcass he was towing behind him slithered forward, he rolled his eyes until the whites glared in the moonlight.
'We must keep below the wind,' Bakkat murmured. The other horses must not catch the scent until we are ready.'
They had muffled Drumfire's hoofs with leather booties, and wrapped
all the metal pieces of his tack. Bakkat went ahead to make sure that the way was clear as they circled out round the western perimeter of the enemy camp.
'Even Xhia has to sleep sometime,' Jim whispered to Bakkat, but he was unconvinced. They closed in slowly and were within half a pistol shot of the perimeter where they could see the enemy sentries outlined against the faint glow of their fire.
'Give me your knife, Somoya,' whispered Bakkat. 'It is sharper than mine.'
'If you lose it, I will have both your ears in exchange,' Jim muttered, as he handed it over.
'Wait for my signal.' Bakkat left him, in his disconcertingly abrupt fashion, seeming to vanish into the air. Jim stood at Drumfire's head, holding his nostrils closed to prevent him whickering at the smell of the other horses so close to him.
Ee a wraith Bakkat drifted closer to the fires and his heart leaped as he saw Xhia. His enemy sat on the opposite side of the second fire, his kaross wrapped about his shoulders. Bakkat could see that his eyes were closed and his head nodded on the verge of sleep.
Somoya was right. Bakkat smiled to himself. He does sleep sometimes.
Nevertheless he kept well clear of Xhia, but he slipped almost contemptuously within touching distance past Corporal Richter who was guarding the horse lines Keyser's grey was the first animal he came to. As Bakkat crept up to it, he began to hum in his throat, a lulling sound. The grey shifted slightly and pricked its ears, but made no other sound. Bakkat took only a moment to sever three strands of its halter rope. Then he moved on to the next horse in the line, still humming his lullaby, and drew the blade carefully across the rope that held it.
He was half-way down the line when behind him he heard Corporal Richter cough, hawk and spit. Bakkat sank to the earth and lay still. He heard Richter's booted footsteps coming down the line and watched him pause beside the grey's head to check the halter. In the darkness he overlooked the unravelling strands of the fraying rope. Then he came on and almost stepped on Bakkat. When he reached the end of the line he unfastened the fly of his breeches and urinated noisily on the earth. When he came back, Bakkat had crawled under the belly of one of the horses, and Richter passed without glancing in his direction. He went back to his place by the fire, and said something to Xhia who grunted a reply.
Bakkat gave them a few minutes to settle again, then crept on down the line of horses, and dealt with each of their halter ropes.
Jim heard the signal, the soft liquid call of a night bird so convincing that he hoped that it was indeed the little man and not a real bird that had uttered it. 'No going back now!' He swung up on to Drumfire's back. The stallion needed no urging, his nerves were raw, and as he felt Jim's heels he started forward. The carcass of the lioness, half disembowelled, her reeking guts hanging out of the cavity, slithered after him and Drumfire could stand it no longer. At full tilt he tore into the sleeping camp, and on his back Jim was howling, gibbering and waving his hat over his head.
Bakkat leaped out of the darkness on the far side grunting and roaring at an incredible volume for such a small frame. It was a perfect imitation of the beast.
Corporal Richter, half asleep, staggered to his feet and fired his musket at Jim as he charged past. The ball missed Drumfire but hit one of the horses tethered in the lines, shattering its front leg. The animal screamed and plunged, snapping its weakened halter rope, then fell and rolled on its back kicking in the air. The other troopers woke and snatched up their muskets. The panic was contagious and they blazed away at imaginary lions and attackers, shouting challenges and orders.
'It's the Courtney bastard!' Keyser bellowed. There he is! Shoot him! Don't let him get away!'
The horses were bombarded with shouts and screams and roars, by blasts of gunfire and, finally, by the terrifying scent of lion blood and guts. On the previous night they had been attacked repeatedly by the lion pride, and that memory was still vivid. They could stand no more. They fought their head ropes, kicking, rearing and whinnying with terror. One after another the ropes snapped and the horses were free. They wheeled away and thundered out of the camp in a solid bunch, heading downwind. Close behind them rode Jim on Drumfire. Bakkat darted out of the shadows and seized one of his stirrup leathers. While Drumfire carried him along, Bakkat was still roaring like a ravening lion. In their dust ran Keyser and his troopers, bellowing with rage and firing as fast as they were able to reload.
'Stop them!' Keyser howled. 'They have got the horses! Stop them!' He tripped over a rock and fell to his knees, gasping for breath, his heart pounding as though it were about to burst. He stared after the fast vanishing herd, and the import of his predicament struck him with full force. He and his men were stranded in tract less mountainous terrain, at least ten days' march from civilization. Their supplies were severely depleted even those they would not be able to carry with them.
'Swine!' he shouted. 'I will get you, Jim Courtney. I will not rest until I see you swinging on the gibbet, until I see the maggots filling your skull and dribbling out of your eye-sockets. I swear by all that is holy, and may God be my witness.'
The runaway horses kept bunched together, and Jim herded them along. He cut the rope on which he was towing the lioness, and left her carcass behind. Glad to be rid of his odorous burden, Drumfire calmed down at once. Within a mile the running herd dropped from a gallop to a canter, but Jim kept them moving steadily. Within an hour he knew that none of the troopers, shod as they were and carrying their weapons and equipment, could overhaul them. He slowed down to a steady trot, a pace they could keep up for hours.
Before the attack on Keyser's camp, Jim had sent Zama and Louisa on ahead with Trueheart and the mules. They had had several hours' start, but Jim caught up with them an hour after sunrise. The meeting was emotional.
'We heard the gunfire in the night,' Louisa told Jim, 'and feared the worst, but I prayed for you. I didn't stop until a minute ago when I heard
