The Feline Wizard (35 page)

Balkis couldn't help herself; she cried out, and the white-horned unicorn whirled, saw the danger, and bleated warning.

The male lion roared in anger at the spoiling of his ambush and paced toward the trio, but the black-horn charged and the lion swung aside. The unicorn turned its horn, though, and raked a trail in the lion's side as it passed. The beast roared in pain, but the other two whirled to surround it, thrusting with their horns, one skewering the lion in a foreleg, one catching it in a ham. Baffled and outraged, the lion leaped back in among the trees. One of the unicorns stayed on guard against him while the other two turned to meet the lionesses' charge.

Faced with two long, sharp horns, the lionesses aborted their attack, leaping aside and roaring in frustration. Then followed a few minutes of standoff with lioness and unicorn circling one another, watching for an opening. A unicorn saw one and charged, horn lancing the lioness' flank. She tried to leap aside, and certainly saved her heart, but the tip of the horn came away reddened as the unicorn sprang back out of reach.

The other lioness roared with anger and charged the unicorn who dared stab her sister—but the unicorn whirled to attack from the side and the other unicorn stabbed. The wounded lioness leaped in to join the fray, but the third unicorn left sentry duty long enough to stab at her eyes, and she leaped away, coughing in confusion. The other lioness leaped away, too, both limping back in among the trees.

The unicorns shied away from the woods, too wise to venture in where a lion could spring from a branch, and came together again in a ring, hindquarters in, horns out, watching and waiting.

“They are wondrous!” Balkis breathed. “Who would have thought a unicorn could best a lion?”

“I would not want to go up against one of those horns,” Anthony whispered back.

Quiet though they were, they still made enough sound for the unicorns to notice; the beasts looked up, horns half lowered, but when the humans made no threatening moves—no movement at all, really—the unicorns slowly lowered their heads to graze again. The companions watched, spellbound, until the grass-eaters had filled their stomachs. Two of them sauntered off into the woods, side by side, wary and watchful. The third lay down about ten feet from the trunk of a huge spreading oak, under the shade of its broad canopy, curled its head into its forelegs and fell asleep.

Then Balkis sank her fingers into Anthony's forearm, pointing with her other hand.

“I see,” he whispered, wincing.

The male lion came silently out of the underbrush, creeping between the unicorn and the tree. As Balkis and Anthony
watched, horrified, it roared. The unicorn sprang up, still half asleep and confused. It saw an enemy and charged.

The lion sprang aside at the last second. The unicorn was going too fast to stop. Its horn struck deeply into the trunk of the oak with a meaty sound. It set its heels and yanked back, yanked again and again, but the horn wouldn't come out. Unable to free itself, the unicorn thrashed about in panic, bleating for help.

The lion closed in for the kill.

“This must not happen!” Balkis cried and thought of the grass higher than her head, of how the meadow must smell with the mingled scents of lion and unicorn—and the world went out of focus as the grass and trees seemed to shoot upward, swelling to giants.

The lion, alarmed by her shout, turned to defend itself, but saw only a puny human who was rooted to the spot. It didn't see the little brown cat at his feet, saw only prey that would wait, and turned back to finish the unicorn.

Balkis sprang up from the grass at its feet and tried to speak in the limited language she had learned from other cats, something to the effect of felines needing to stand together, tales of better food only a day or so away. The lion gave her a cough of contempt and a swat of its huge paw. Pain exploded all through Balkis' side; the grass and trees reeled about her as she shot through the air, spinning.

“Beast!” Anthony shouted, and ran to pick up his cat.

The lion growled in anger and swatted. Anthony shot into the air and landed on the ground, hard. The lion advanced on him, roaring. He struggled to sit up, hand on his dagger, but the lion swung a roundhouse blow and knocked him down, then put a huge paw on his chest and opened its cavernous jaws to bite.

Balkis had wanted to save the unicorn, but not this badly! She started to recite the protective spell with a feeling of despair, knowing it would be too late, that Anthony would no longer be able to speak by the time she finished her part of the verse…

Something small and bronze-colored shot out of the trees, moving so fast it was a blur. It leaped upon Anthony.

“Anthony, roll!” Balkis screamed in her cat-voice. He heard and rolled without asking why as the lion's head plunged and its jaws closed—on the metal-hard body of the giant ant.

The ant turned its head and sank its mandibles into the lion's neck. The lion dropped it with a roar of pain, then swatted at it with a huge paw—but the ant danced aside and shot in to tear flesh from the lion's leg. Then it danced back to bolt down the delicacy, for though the hunting had been better recently, it was still famished.

With a bellow of pain, the lion collapsed on one side.

Balkis dashed over to Anthony and started changing back into a woman.

The ant charged in. The lion swatted at it with its good paw, but the ant danced aside from the blows and fastened its jaws in the lion's throat. The beast reared back, bellowing in pain and swatting at the small creature that plagued it, but the ant was still hungry and chewed as it held on. Finally a blow from a huge paw connected, sending the ant spinning, but it rolled, came up to its feet, and charged back in for more dinner.

Balkis caught Anthony under the arms and started dragging him toward the cover of the forest.

The lion reared to swat at the ant but lost his balance when the creature struck and fell onto his back. The ant sank its mandibles into whatever flesh was nearest, which happened to be the lion's deep chest. It raged with pain, drawing its huge hind legs up to rake and claw. A piece of the ant's carapace went flying, then the whole ant itself—but with a piece of lion-flesh in its jaws. Bellowing with pain, the lion tried to roll up to meet its next charge, but the ant dodged between its swatting blows and followed the scent of blood to sink its mandibles in where it had begun. They grated as they broke through ribs, then sank deeply under into the heart of the lion itself. The beast gave one last rattling cough, its body spasming, legs pulling in and kicking in one last blow—and tore the ant's body from its head. The jaws went on chewing for a few seconds more, as though the insect were not aware that its body was missing, that it was itself dead. Then the jaws tightened in the realization of death, its body ten feet away stopped
kicking even as the lion did, and the two lay silent in the stillness of mutual murder.

But Balkis didn't notice; it was another murder that concerned her. “Help!” she cried, forgetting all caution. “Whoever can hear, come and aid! My love is dying!”

She knelt over Anthony's unconscious, bleeding body, weeping and pressing her hand over his heart, feeling the erratic beat, beside herself with terror as she realized too late that she really did love him.

“What a deal of nonsense!” said a grating voice.

Balkis broke off her lament and looked up, staring.

“I have seen dead fish, dead rats, and dead lizards, damsel,” the voice said, “and I assure you that the man you bewail is none of them—neither fish, rat, nor lizard, nor, for that matter, dead.”

Balkis could not stop staring, for the one who spoke to her was a bird.

“As to him being your love,” the bird said, “why, that is only an excuse for insane behavior. It is something of which we birds are blessedly bereft, but I have seen something of its effects on you silly wingless folk and know that it makes you all fools.”

It was a very striking bird, though, very brilliantly colored, for it was green with a large curving red beak, red feet, and a red band around its neck. Balkis gave herself a shake—after all, if she could talk as a cat, why should not a bird talk as well? “What could you know of love, avian?”

“Enough to know that if you love him, you should mate with him and be done with it!” the bird answered. “Really, such a deal of fuss over something so simple!”

Balkis blushed and looked down at Anthony—but sure enough, his heartbeat had steadied, and he was blinking. There were four long slashes in his chest, though, all oozing blood, and the side of his face was darkening with a huge bruise—all for love of her! Frantic with fear for his life, she reached under his shirt to press and see if any ribs were broken.

“Ah, she paid attention!” the bird croaked. “Even now she begins to caress him.”

Balkis blushed even more deeply and snapped, “Mind your own affairs, birdbrain, and leave humans to theirs!”

“Is it only an affair you shall have with him, then?” The bird cocked its head to the side. “Really, maiden, you should hold out for marriage!”

“Be still!” Balkis' face felt so hot she was sure she must be crimson. “You speak nonsense, gaudy crow! Be silent unless you have some notion how to save my love!”

“I thought you would never ask,” the bird said, amused. “Of course, I have only a bird's brain, so I cannot really know much—but if you were to help the unicorn wrest its horn free, I doubt not it would be willing to carry your friend where help awaits.”

“The unicorn?” Balkis looked up, distressed. “The poor thing! But how can I leave my Anthony to tend it?”

“Oh, he will live,” the bird said carelessly. “Your concern is in restoring him to health, maiden, not to life. I would be far more anxious for your heart than for his health.”

Balkis bit back another retort—rude though it was, the bird seemed to have some sense and might even know where she could find help. Anthony showed bleeding enough on the outside, but she was even more worried what the lion's blows had done to his organs. Still, with the worst of her concern for him abated, she had time to learn what she might need, if the bird proved to be more interested in mocking than in helping. “What manner of bird are you?”

“I might as well ask what manner of woman
axe you
, who can appear and disappear in the midst of a fight!” the bird said with an acid tone.

“One who is adept at hiding,” Balkis answered, wondering how much of the fight the bird had seen. “I am a woman who is as much a cat as a lass.”

“Alas indeed!” the bird lamented. “Well, I have known many women who made better cats than lassies.”

“Knowledge for knowledge,” Balkis reminded. “A name for a name.”

“I would not say that you had really given me your name,” the bird retorted.

“Know, then, that I am Balkis, and tell me a word for what you are!”

“There is indeed a word for what I am, one that your kind have called me many times, but I would hesitate to speak it into such young and tender ears. Naetheless, the one that fits best is ‘sidicus.’ Think not to use it for power over me, though, for it is not my name, but a term for my kind; I am a sidicus bird.”

“A ridiculous bird would be more apt,” Balkis said tartly. “Well, I shall do as you suggest and hope I shall not regret it.”

“Be it on his head, then,” the sidicus told her, “and on your heart.”

“It shall be on your neck, if harm comes to him.” Balkis wondered from where this bad temper had come, then remembered how cats felt about birds. Certainly she would be irritated by a lunch that talked back! “Guard him well, sidicus bird, for if he dies before I return, I shall dine upon roast fowl!”

“Then your dining should be foul indeed.” But the bird sounded nervous.

They were past the valley and crossing a barren plain when Matt saw the three men walking northward below them. “More local lore available,” he told Stegoman.

The dragon sighed, circled down, and landed behind an outcrop of rock. Matt hiked around it to the road and arrived just as the three men came up.

They were hulking young hill men, dressed in dun-colored tunics and bias-hosen, looking sullen and arguing as they came closer.

“Hail, friends!” Matt held up a palm.

They looked up, startled, and Matt realized they had been so busy arguing that they hadn't seen Stegoman come in for a landing. “Hail, stranger,” one of them said, but he didn't raise his hand and looked about as friendly as a bulldog on guard. The other two rested their hands on the clubs in their belts.

Matt turned so his sword was showing and rested his hand on its hilt. “I'm a traveler from the north, seeking a friend who has gone before me. Can you tell me if you've seen any strangers here?”

“Not a soul on this road,” the dark-haired one said. “We're on a search like that ourselves. Have you seen our little brother?”

“Littlest,” said another. “Moti stayed at home.”

“Be still, Philip,” the dark-haired one snapped. “He's almost as tall as I am, stranger, and has yellow hair and a stupid look about him. Have you seen him?”

With a description like that from his own brother, Matt understood why the youngest had hit the road. He shook his head. “Haven't seen anyone like that. Some traders, some very odd travelers, but none young and strapping.”