“I’m sorry too.”
We could have lingered for hours, trading stories and philosophizing on life, but Marion seemed anxious to get this over with and maybe I was too.
She scooted a little to one side and patted the ground next to her. I stood and donned my leather gloves, trying to hold it together for her sake. I’d fall apart after, no need for her to feel guilt over something she couldn’t have prevented.
I sat behind her and angled her body so that it was bracketed by my own. I’d held Kitten this way countless times before, when we’d sit around the campfire or when he’d drowse for a bit in a grassy meadow and I’d try to count the individual lashes on his eyelids. I could almost smell his strawberry-scented hair.
“There you go,” Marion said softly and patted my hand. “You can do it.”
I unsheathed my hunting knife, and the foreboding was back, the sense that we were being watched. I almost asked Marion if she felt it too, but then her horse began snuffling and stomping its hooves, the way prey does when a predator is nearby.
“Are you sure it was Rabids that attacked you? Did you actually get a good look at them?”
She considered it for a moment. “It happened so fast and they attacked me from behind, but what else could it be?”
Just then there was a flash of movement from beyond the dying fire. Something leapt out of the brush and landed on the horse’s back, sinking its fangs into the beast’s neck, then riding the horse’s flank while it stomped and tried to shake the thing off.
Not just a thing, not even a Rabid. It was a fucking tiger, larger than a man, with massive paws that dug deep into the horse’s flesh as it dragged the animal to the ground. Marion and I sat there, frozen with fear and the shock of something so unexpected. The tiger’s teeth were still lodged into horseflesh, and it cradled its kill possessively, its sharp, predatory eyes daring us to challenge its claim.
The horse’s whinnies of pain subsided and its body went limp at last. Using the strength of its hindquarters and its powerful jaw, the tiger yanked its kill backward into the brush, dragging it in great, heaving thrusts until both had disappeared entirely from the clearing and there was only a trail of blood left in its wake.
“Holy fucking shit,” I said, so relieved by this revelation that I could cry.
“Will wonders never cease?” Marion murmured.
TWENTY-TWO
KITTEN
We campedinside the outer wall of Promised Land for three days, in the pastures with the cows, each of us trying to pretend that everything was normal and fine while members of the Fellowship kept us watered and fed.
Macon invented a game that was a cross between hot potato and dodge ball–bruises all around–and Teresa taught me how to weave a daisy-chain crown. Gizmo paced a lot and commandeered the pavilion as his temporary workshop, though he found it difficult to concentrate, and Artemis organized our gear. Even with all of these distractions, my vigil at the outer gate continued as I prayed for Cipher’s safe return. He hadn’t communicated with us since the beginning of the second day, but that only meant he was out of range, not that he was in danger. Not that he was hurt or…
He was fine, and he’d be home soon.
It was the middle of the night when we heard the lookouts call down, followed by the stubborn groan of the gate doors opening. Cipher was there, pale as a ghost in the moonlight, carrying a woman who looked to be dead or close to it in his arms. Brother Larry and several others were on them before the outer doors had closed behind him. The Fellowship loaded the woman onto a stretcher and rushed her inside the interior gates. Cipher, having just passed the woman to the medics, waved off their attention, and by that time I had bullied my way through the crowd and thrown my arms around him.
“Cipher,” I called, nearly tearful with joy and relief at seeing him.
“Hi, baby,” he replied and buried his face in my hair.
“Are you hurt?” I asked because he was leaning on me heavily. I looked him over. Other than dirt streaked across his face and the sweat and grime from three days in Rabid Country, he appeared to be okay.
“I’m fine, Kitten, but I’m so tired. I haven’t slept since I left. Can you make everyone go away for a few hours?”
The girls helped me guide him into our tent where our bedding was already arranged. Once inside, I stripped off his clothing and then his leg because he said it was killing him after such a long hike. Teresa brought me a cloth and a bucket of water warmed by the fire, and I scrubbed him thoroughly, in the way he would want me to, removing all traces of sweat and dirt from his body.
“Whose blood is this?” I asked about the streaks across his chest.
“Marion, the midwife.”
“Was she attacked by Rabids?”
“No, sweetness, a tiger.”
“A tiger?” I exclaimed and wondered if the woman might have been mistaken.
“I wouldn’t have believed it either, but we saw it attack her horse. It was a beautiful, terrible thing.”
