It had been ten years since that summer, and Chloe had sworn off horse riding on an ideological basis many years ago, but the memories of riding horses on the ranch came flooding back to her the instant she mounted the tiger. The position was completely different, of course, but she guessed that the fundamentals were close enough.
‘Just like riding a fuckin’ bike,’ she muttered, grabbing a fistful of his orange and black ruff and gripping it as if it were a short rein. ‘Just like a goddamn bike.’
34
ESCAPE PART II
Once the teens were all mounted the beastwalkers took off at a spirited run. Of the beastwalkers, Njinga was the fastest in her animal form, followed by William and then Lightning Bird. Zakaria was by far the slowest, but the advantage he held was in his opposable thumbs, and his ability to operate a firearm while in his animal form. The beastwalkers had made contingency plans for a situation like this, and Zakaria, as the slowest moving of them, was to serve as the rear gunner, covering their retreat.
‘Hang on tight, kid,’ Njinga said to Jun, via mind-to-mind communication. In response he dug his skinny knees into her tawny flanks and wrapped his arms around her neck, pressing his chest into her shoulders, his position almost like that of a jockey crouching low on a galloping racehorse. Jun had never even ridden a bicycle before, and both he and Njinga understood that there was little he could do but hold on; if they encountered any threats, he would hardly be able to counterattack, which would also have been the case if he were on foot, given how poorly he’d performed in firearms training, and how much of a struggle it was for him to hold, let alone aim an AK-47. Njinga prayed that she could rely on her speed and agility to get them out of trouble, and that William could keep up with her as well; Chloe had turned out to be a crack shot, which had surprised the girl as much as it had any of the others, and this, combined with her prior experience in riding horses, made her the most effective of the armed riders.
Njinga raced off at speed, with William storming after her. Jun clung in silence to the puma’s back, his whole body a tight knot of anxiety, every muscle clenched with frightened tautness. William was sprinting along few body lengths behind Njinga and Jun, but Chloe’s reaction to the ride was quite different to her friend’s. She let out an involuntary whoop of exhilaration, recalling with a thrilling glut of adrenalin-laced memories just how much she had once enjoyed riding horses. Riding a tiger was something else, though; being much lower to the ground than a rider on horseback made the heady sensation of speed even more potent and immediate, and this was coupled with a feeling of primal power, enhanced, she felt with a stab of guilt, by the fact that she had an assault rifle hanging from her shoulder. Behind her Lightning Bird ran, thundering along with Daekwon clinging to his furry back, and bringing up the rear was Zakaria, who was quickly falling behind, unable to run nearly as fast as his friends.
All around them, adding to the sense of unfolding anarchy, birds of all sorts were tearing like a blind machine gunner’s bullets through the air in all directions, and panicked deer and other creatures were stampeding through the forest; erratically moving obstacles that the beastwalkers had to dodge and evade.
There was an overgrown trail heading north-east from the cabin up to the peak of the forested mountain they were on, but the beastwalkers had not planned on sticking to its winding passage; the enemy would surely have reconnoitred the area via satellite prior to their attack, and would be covering every trail with troops. To avoid them, the beastwalkers stuck to the areas where the undergrowth was thickest. One thing they at least had on their side was the fact that they were running away from, rather than into, the setting sun. The low rays, combined with their uphill path, would give them a measure of visual cover by making it more difficult for their enemies to see them clearly.
Njinga streaked on ahead, slaloming at a blistering pace around trees, hurdling with ease over thick shrubs and fallen logs alike, and leaping over small gullies and watercourses. William wasn’t far behind her, his feline speed and agility, combined with his prodigious strength, enabling him to make the same jumps that she did. Lightning Bird, though, soon started to fall behind; even though he could run almost as fast as the big cats, he couldn’t jump nearly as well as them, and had to scramble through the gullies and ditches, although when it came to shrubs and bushes, he was able to plough straight them like a tank. As for Zakaria, what he lacked in outright speed he made up for in agility, and he was able to use low-hanging branches to his advantage, gripping them with his free hand and swinging over obstacles and holes in the ground, or vaulting over large rocks and fallen logs.
Njinga was the first to sense an immediate threat, although she smelled it before she saw it. The Huntsmen soldiers had tried to obfuscate their human scents by applying pine scent hunting spray, but while this might have fooled a wild animal into thinking that nothing was amiss, it only served to further warn the beastwalkers of the imminence of danger. Carving through the chilly air at speed, Njinga caught a suspiciously strong scent of pine on the rushing breeze, tainted with a subtle lick of artificiality and chemicals, and knew at once that there were troops close by. With her ears pricked as she
