shouted on the rim above.
On we jogged. Now there was a roar, and a flash of light. The bastards had rigged the whole canyon! Silano must have guessed we might outfox him and that he’d want to block our escape. An avalanche or rock blasted out by gunpowder sluiced down, and this time I pulled my companions back, all of us ducking under an overhang.
The avalanche thundered down, shaking the canyon floor, and then we were running again through its concealing cloud of dust, clambering over the rubble.
Bullets whined, to no effect since we were invisible.
“Hurry! Before they set off another charge!” There was another explosion, and another deluge of rock, but this time it came down behind us where it would slow the pursuing Silano. We were more than halfway through this snake hole, I judged, and if all the Arabs were on top setting off gunpowder, there wouldn’t be any left to guard the horses. Once mounted, we’d stampede the remainder and . . .
Panting, we rounded another bend in the canyon and saw our way blocked by a wagon. It was a caged contraption of the type I’d seen to transport slaves, and I guessed it was the one we’d seen shrouded near camp that the horses had shied from. There was a lone Arab by it, sighting at us with a musket.
“I’ll handle this,” Ned growled, hefting his club.
“Ned, don’t give him an easy shot!”
Yet even as the sailor charged, there was a whistle in the air and a stone flicked by our ears with nearly the speed of a bullet, striking the Arab in the forehead just as he fired. The musket went off but the ball went wide. I looked back. Mohammad had removed his turban and used its cloth as a makeshift sling. “As a boy, I had to keep the dogs and jackals from the sheep,” he explained.
We raced to tackle the dazed Arab and get past the wagon, Ned in 2 3 4
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the lead, Astiza next. Yet as the man groggily slid down, he released a lever and the back of the cage dropped with a bang. Something shadowy and huge rose and bunched.
“Ned!” I shouted.
The thing sprang as if launched by a catapult instead of its own hind haunches. I had a terrifying glimpse of brown mane, white teeth, and the intimate pink of its mouth. Astiza screamed. Ned and the lion roared in unison and collided, the club whacking down even as the predator’s jaws crunched on his left forearm.
The sailor howled in agony and rage, but I could also hear the crack of the lion’s ribs as the pine club smashed into its side, again and again, the velocity so powerful that it shoved the animal onto its side, taking Ned’s arm, and him, with it. The two rolled, the human shouting and the cat snarling, a blur of fur and dust. The sailor reared up and the club struck again and again even as he was raked by the claws. His clothes were being shredded, his flesh opened up. I was sickened.
I had out my tomahawk, puny as a teaspoon, but before I could think things through and turn tail like a sensible man, I charged too.
“Ethan!” I heard Astiza only dimly.
Another stone from Mohammad sung by me and struck the cat, making its head whip, and the distraction was timed so exquisitely that I was able to dash into the melee and take a swipe at the lion’s head. I connected with the brow of one eye and the cat let go Ned’s arm and roared with pain and fury, its tail lashing and its hindquarters churning in the dirt. Now Astiza was charging too, a heavy rock held high over her head, and she heaved like an athlete so it came right down into the beast’s bloody vision, crashing against its snout.
Our wild assault bewildered it. Against all expectation, the lion broke and ran, vaulting past the wagon cage that had brought it here.
It raced up the canyon and then charged, I now saw, more of Najac’s Arabs coming up to contest our way. Screaming at this reversal of their secret weapon, they turned and fled. The bloodied lion took one of them down, pausing to snap the man’s neck, and then set off after the others and the freedom of the hills beyond.
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The horses were screaming in terror.
We were in shock, hearts racing. My tomahawk’s edge was stuck with blood and fur. Astiza was bent over, chest heaving. Astonishingly, all but Ned were unscathed. I could still smell the cat stink, that rank odor of piss, meat, and blood, and my voice was quavering as I knelt beside the giant sailor. His charge into the lion’s jaws was the bravest thing I’d ever seen.
“Ned, Ned! We’ve got to keep going!” I was wheezing. “Silano’s still coming, but I think the lion cleared the canyon for us.”
“Afraid not, guv’nor.” He spoke with difficulty, his jaw clenched.
He was bleeding like a man flogged. He glowed with vivid blood.
Mohammad was wrapping his turban cloth around the giant’s man-gled forearm, but it was pointless. It looked like it had been shredded by a machine. “You’ll have to go on without me.”
“We’ll carry you!”
He laughed, or rather gasped, a sneezelike chortle between clenched lips, his eyes wide at the knowledge of his own fate. “Bloody likely.” We reached to lift him anyway, but he shrieked with pain and shoved us aside. “Leave me, we all know I’m not making it back to England!” He groaned, tears staining his cheeks. “He scraped me ribs raw, the leg feels like it’s sprained or broken, and I weigh more than King George and his tub. Run, run like the wind, so it’s worthwhile.” His knuckles were white where he grasped the club.
“Ned, I’ll be damned if I leave you! Not after all this!”
“And you’ll be dead if you don’t, and your treasure book in the hands of that mad count and his lunatic bullyboy.
