The Dog Master (44 page)

Below him the lion came out of the undergrowth, sniffing the ground as if puzzling where Mal went. Then she looked up. No, she knew where he went. Knew it and was trying to figure out how to get to him.

The eggs!
Mal wanted to shout.
Take the eggs!

The lion was not concerned with the eggs in the pouch. She was interested in the living prey.

His torch would not burn all night. When it flickered out, the lion would come up to get him.

 

FIFTY-ONE

He was trapped, unable to ascend without using both hands, but safe only as long as he held the torch.

Below him the lion made another low moan, and to Mal's ears it sounded less like frustration than satisfaction.

The thing to do, Mal decided, was to throw the torch up onto the ledge overhead, then pull himself up there as swiftly as possible and pick it up again. If the lion tried to scale the rock wall she would find herself poked in the face with flames: any luck and she would tumble to the ground.

Mal swallowed. The lion was actually sitting and staring at him, the very tip of her tail twitching. She seemed to be thinking about climbing up after him, despite the small fire he carried.

Time to move. Breathing raggedly, Mal swung the torch out and flipped it up toward the ledge. The throw was high and wide: a second later the flames were coming right at him, sparking when the torch hit the rocks. He dodged it and then, with a flash of heat, the light fell past.

Mal took only an instant, less than a second, to see the lion spring away from the falling flames, and then he was groping for his handholds, hauling himself up on the ledge. Without hesitation he kept climbing, hating the noise he was making, inadvertently glancing down when his frantic scrabbling sent a shower of small stones bouncing to the ground.

The torch had fallen into the rocks. The lion's frantic retreat had lasted just a few seconds—now, with the flames impotently flickering in a crack between two stones, she was emboldened. She came forward and seemed to lock eyes with Mal before her shoulders bunched, ready to leap.

Gasping, he struggled to ascend as quickly as he could, lunging for holds he knew were there and thrusting with his good leg at every opportunity. Moonlight now guided him. This was taking too long; he was going too slowly! He folded himself over the lip of the bluff and that was when he heard it: the sound of claw on rock, coming fast. The lion was in pursuit.

He was on the flat area at the top of his cliff. In the time it took him to stand and dash for the hole that led down to the wolf's den, the lion scaled the rocks. With a clatter it was at the top, and Mal knew it would close the distance to him in an instant. When he reached the dark mouth of the crevice he leaped, aware of the lion right behind him, and then he was falling, desperately reaching for a handhold to break his descent.

When his fingers found a crack he was yanked to a stop with enough force to jar his entire body, but then he was out of danger. He clung to his handhold, gazing up at the circle of moonlight at the top of the chimney.

The lion was standing there, face completely obscured as she stared down at Mal.

The lion knew where he lived, now.

*   *   *

Dog virtually tackled him when he landed on the cave floor, but Mal's focus was on one thing: snatching up his fire horn, he blew flaming embers out into the circle of rocks that held the twigs and grasses he had assembled that morning.

The lion could always decide to follow him down the crevice.

When the fire was snapping and popping and smoke climbing up to the sky, he allowed himself to fall back and accept Dog's licking. They wrestled together, but Mal's heart was sick. The food he had brought back to his wolf was outside where he could not reach it.

“Lions hunt in the evening,” Mal told Dog. “Tomorrow morning I will fetch my pouch.” But he thought he saw real desperation in Dog's eyes—she was waiting for him to provide food,
trusting
he would do so. “Oh Dog,” he said mournfully.

After a time, he remembered when he was a young boy and some of the older children, making fun of his leg, held him down and forced him to swallow mud and grass. As he had turned away from them, on his hands and knees, and dug the obstruction out of his throat with a finger, he had brought up the contents of his stomach. Each time he had tried to clean out his throat, he had retched up more, while all the other children laughed at him.

Mal pushed his wolf cub away from him as he sat, smiling softly when she came right back, climbing on his leg. “All is good, then,” he advised her. He turned and stuck his finger down his throat, gagging a few times before his egg meal emerged and landed on the cave floor. Mal wiped his mouth. “Now you eat,” he told Dog. “Eat.”

*   *   *

At last the hunt assembled itself to go out. Calli observed them while trying to appear as if she were too distracted by other matters to pay any attention, biting her lips in impatience when their unconcerned pace of preparation put the hunt far enough behind that Urs decreed they would allow the day to pass, so that it was yet another morning before the men bade good-bye to their wives, sternly charged the older boys with guarding camp, and gathered on the men's side to leave. Calli busied herself with preparing a soup from pieces of reindeer viscera, internally pleading with the men to just
leave
.

She sensed Valid's quiet approach behind her and turned, his expression faltering when he saw her face. Lately he had come often to the communal fire, always with a clear reason, such as asking if it were yet time to gather the late-summer berries or to remark that her rabbit stew had been particularly delicious, but usually they just stood and chatted pleasantly. She enjoyed their conversations, but was not in the mood for idle talk today.

“What is wrong, Calli? You seem unhappy.”

“No, all is good. I am just concerned that the hunt delays its departure.”

He regarded her oddly. It was an unusual observation for a Kindred woman to make, and for a moment Calli felt that Valid was peering right past the mists and shadows and knew exactly why she wanted the men to leave. Indeed, the spear master glanced up and over at Palloc for a moment, then back at her.

“Spearmen! Make ready!” Valid called without turning from her gaze. Calli drew in a breath. The spearmen hustled to close ranks on Urs, who nodded, taking their movement as impetus. Within moments Mors summoned the stalkers, and Valid turned away from Calli with just the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Valid
did
know.

At midday, while the women and children of the Kindred ate, Calli was hastily packing her pouch with meat, and she left with the knowledge that she was far from unnoticed. She did not care; her anxiety was like a suppressed scream within her, a fear as strong as any she had ever felt as she ran to where she had promised Mal she would meet him, so many days ago.

He was not there. Calli looked to the sky, trying to convince herself she was earlier than they had arranged. All was good, her son would be here any moment, she just needed to linger a bit longer.

She waited. After a time she went to the stream and waded in, letting the cold water make her as numb as her thoughts. She simply would not allow herself to contemplate what would happen if Mal did not come.

It was here, right here, where she had clutched Urs to her. Everything had been clear and bright for them then, a future easy to see, a life welcoming them. What had happened? How could it be that here she was, all but a widow, with a son dead, and another driven from her?

“Mother.”

She spun and stared at her son. He carried a club in one hand and spear in the other. He was cut and scratched along his arms and face, smears of dried blood mixed with dirt in his hair. His ribs pressed hard against his skin, his eyes were dull, his lips swollen.

Yet it seemed he was comforting
her,
when they embraced. She clutched her bony, starving boy and it was he who had the strength to keep them from toppling over.

“All is good, Mother,” he murmured to her. “Did you bring food?”

He snatched the pouch from her when she offered it, and his first few bites of reindeer steak were feral and wanton. He closed his eyes, swooning with how good it tasted. Then he pulled back, gaining some control. He actually offered it in her direction.

“Would you like some?”

She shook her head wildly, laughing. “Oh no, Mal, no. It is all for you.”

He took another bite, chewing more slowly, and then went to the stream for water.

“Mal, you look—”

“I am well, Mother,” he interrupted. “All is good.”

She stared at him. All was, of course, not good, but there was something different about him, stronger, some sort of determination in his gaze she had never seen before.

She told him the hunt was out, and explained why she had not been able to come before. Mal was not surprised to hear that his father had prevented Calli from coming upstream. “He is probably right. There is danger up here,” Mal acknowledged.

Calli could hardly believe Mal would say such a thing. “You are not suggesting I not come!”

Mal gave her a rueful smile. “No, I am not suggesting that,” he admitted. He told her he had managed to raid some birds' nests, leaving her with the impression he had been up in the trees and not high on the cliffs. “But the eggs were very small and the birds took offense. Would you mind if I kept this pouch? I have lost mine—it was not where I left it last night.”

*   *   *

That evening Mal lay on the flat ledge halfway up his rocky cliff from the ground. Next to him, her legs trussed with the rope Lyra had given him, his little wolf puppy was very unhappy, her whimpering growing louder as she realized she could not escape her bonds.

Mal had let pieces of his mother's reindeer steak fall down the rocks below. Now he lay in wait, his woman's hand, his strongest, clutching his club. Sitting right nearby, propped where he could quickly snatch it, was his spear, the chiseled stone head lethal at the tip. From where he lay he could see the dense growth along the streambed, and straight below was the clearing.

Mal thought he had seen a bit of movement in the bushes a few moments ago, though there had been nothing for a little while. But Dog's cries were getting louder—if the lion were near, she would soon hear them.

Mal hoped the scent of the reindeer and the distressed calls of the wolf puppy would be tantalizing to the lion, who could easily bound up the near-vertical slope to where Mal waited in ambush. The first thing to clear the ledge would be the lion's head, and Mal intended to put all his strength into his club strike, crushing the lion's skull before she could react. If the lion were still alive when she fell back to the ground, Mal would impale her with the spear—he could hardly miss at such close range.

A good plan, as long as he did not consider that if anything went wrong he and Dog would be trapped on a narrow shelf of rock with a gigantic, furious killer. Mal's hand shook as he gripped his club, and he glanced at the spear for at least the tenth time, mentally rehearsing the weapon exchange in his mind. If he hit the lion but did not kill her, the spear would be their only chance.

There was the movement again. Mal focused, seeing the shadows resolve themselves into the sleek profile of the massive lion.
Oh yes,
she knew Mal was there. But human flesh was lion food, the same as wolf puppy. She knew Mal was there and she wanted to feed on both of them.

Dog was staring at Mal in distress and finally began crying in earnest, a trapped, wounded wail that was unmistakable to any animal. His heart ached when he looked at her little trusting face, so unhappy, beseeching him to come rescue her.

The lion reacted to the infant distress call, easing out of the underbrush. She crept forward cautiously, the unique circumstances making her unsure. Mal dropped his head as low as he could, behind some rocks keeping the beast in sight. She was an enormous creature, a
monste
r
,
with gigantic, wickedly sharp claws and a mouth full of lethal, frightening teeth. He pictured those teeth tearing into him and briefly shut his eyes. They said when the lion attacked Hardy, it closed its jaws on his
entire head
.

“I do not want to die, I do not want Dog to die,” Mal whispered out loud, his pulse giving his voice a weak, throbbing quality. But there was no living here with the lion remaining close enough to be summoned by Dog's cries. They were trapped. The lion would eventually kill them both if Mal did not kill her first.

The lion sniffed suspiciously at a piece reindeer that had fallen to the ground, eventually eating it.

She raised her eyes. Mal lowered his, ducking all the way down and breathing hard. He could feel her down there, thinking. The baby wolf's cries were so loud he was worried he might not be able to hear the lion's ascent—it was critical he knew when her head was going to be within striking distance. It all came down to the timing. If the lion made it onto the ledge, they were finished.

The lion was adding it all up, Mal knew. The blood smell. The trapped infant. The man. Prey. Just up there in the rocks.

How long would it take the lion to climb up here from the ground? He pictured her nimbly leaping from rock to rock. When he heard her coming, that was when he would swing his club.

 

FIFTY-TWO

Mal waited, his club ready, holding his breath. The puppy wailed. There was no sound from below. What was the lion doing? Was she coming? Should he risk taking a look?

And then the lion's head appeared over the ledge,
right there
.

“Ahhh!” Mal screamed in surprise. The lion's front paws gripped the lip of the rocks and Mal swung his club and hit the lion on the side of the head and the lion
did not fall
. Still screaming, Mal swung again and the lion snarled, reaching out and snagging the club with her claws and wrenching it from his grasp, batting it aside. It bounced against the rocks and vanished over the ledge. The lion took just a moment to glance at the cowering puppy and Mal thrust his hand out to his spear and had it up and there was no time to throw so he just lunged, aiming for the neck.