“All right, I’m impressed,” the bald man admitted. “But I wouldn’t let it out without a leash.”
Some of the other men chuckled. Most still held their weapons cautiously.
A swirling breeze stirred the air.
Suddenly the dog whipped its head toward the jungle, staring directly at Abeke. It let out a rumbling growl. Some of the men glanced in the direction the dog was staring. Abeke resisted the urge to immediately retreat. If she moved while their eyes were on her, she would give herself away for sure. She had to rely on the leaves and the shadows.
The dog’s growl built into a series of vicious barks.
“What is it, Admiral?” the hooded man called, following the animal’s gaze.
The huge dog barked more fiercely.
“No, no, no,” Abeke whispered.
The dog began to savagely ram the sides of the cage. The men were shouting to each other, but Abeke couldn’t make out their words under the noise. Barking and thrashing, the dog went into a frenzy. The cage shuddered violently. The dog began bashing the roof, and the wood began to crack and splinter.
Abeke felt sharp teeth on her arm. Uraza was gently biting her. Once Abeke noticed her, the leopard slunk back deeper into the trees. Abeke joined her retreat.
The wild clamor continued behind her, and then there was a violent crack. Glancing over her shoulder, Abeke saw the enormous hound crash through the roof of the cage, the bars falling away in all directions. Ignoring the men, some of whom made halfhearted jabs with their spears, the monstrous dog raced straight toward Abeke, spewing sand with each massive stride.
Uraza broke into a run with Abeke sprinting beside her. All pretense at stealth abandoned, Abeke tore through the jungle, wishing she had brought more weaponry than a knife. Then again, what good would any weapon do against the savage dog?
The animal stampeded behind them. Ferocious barks and growls impelled Abeke forward. There was no time to strategize — she ran with everything she had, driven by pure terror. The same terrain that had permitted her to creep alongside Uraza now tripped her up. Branches lashed her body, roots grabbed her ankles, and the uneven ground was treacherous. She stumbled to her knees several times and fell flat once, but always rose as quickly as she could, clawing at the vegetation, half running, half swimming through the leaves.
The gigantic dog was gaining rapidly. Any moment, those teeth would seize her. She had lost sight of Uraza. The dog was nearly upon her. Determined not to be an easy victim, Abeke drew her knife and whirled.
Her senses abruptly sharpened. She saw the overgrown canine coming and shrank into a comfortable crouch. As it lunged, she sprang sideways, swinging her knife. The tip of the blade scratched the brute’s flank as the beast blurred past her.
Abeke put a tree between herself and the dog. It struck the tree with enough force to shake the jungle, but the trunk held. Abeke raced away, but the frothing dog pursued her relentlessly. She tripped, rolled onto her back, and held up her knife in desperation. The dog surged forward, mouth gaping, teeth huge in the darkness.
With a screaming roar unlike any cry Abeke had ever heard, Uraza hurtled out of the night, her jaws closing on the side of the dog’s neck. The impact broke the dog’s rushing attack. Leopard and dog tumbled together in the darkness, narrowly missing Abeke, snarling and spitting, teeth flashing, claws slashing.
Abeke’s first instinct was to run. Her second thought was to help Uraza. But then she got the distinct impression that she should climb. The notion came so strongly that she leaped to the nearest tree, embracing the trunk with arms and knees. There were no branches to grip, but she pulled with her arms and clamped with her knees, somehow heaving herself higher and higher.
At last she found short limbs where she could rest. Behind her, she saw Uraza had taken to a tree as well, a red wound marring her magnificent pelt. Below, the frustrated dog barked and bayed and finally howled. Abeke’s tree shook as the dog rammed it with manic tenacity. She held tight. She had lost her knife. Her only hope was to outlast her attacker.
Something caught the dog’s attention and it ran over to another tree. Dimly, in the leaf-filtered moonlight, Abeke saw a figure high in the branches. It held a bow, and was launching arrow after arrow down at the dog.
The huge dog leaped and barked and growled. It clawed futilely at the trunk. No matter how many arrows found their mark, it didn’t seek cover. Finally, with a slow inevitability, the arrows did their job. The creature sank back, took two wobbly steps, then collapsed on the forest floor with a plaintive whine.
The figure climbed down from the tree. He paused beside the rapidly shrinking dog, then came to the base of Abeke’s tree. “Come down, Abeke,” a hushed voice called. She knew the voice. “It’s dead. Come down — we need to go.”
Hugging the trunk, Abeke shinnied down the tree and dropped to the ground. “Shane! How did you find me?”
“Did you think I’d let you roam the jungle alone at night?” he replied.
“You followed me?”
“Not so loud,” Shane warned, looking away through the trees. “I’d rather the men on the beach not find us.”
“The men,” Abeke said, lowering her voice. “They made the dog into a monster! They fed it something.”
“I know about them,” Shane said. “I didn’t know they were here tonight until it was too late. Otherwise I would have steered you away.”
“How far back were you?”
“Too far. I try not to make my presence known, although I’m sure I never fooled your leopard.”
“What were those men doing?”
“They’re trying to find a replacement for the Nectar. They try out their concoctions in secret.”
“The Nectar doesn’t create monsters!”
“These men are testing different substances,” Shane said. “I don’t know all their goals. It would not end well if they caught us. We should go.”
Uraza prowled into view, her side bleeding. Crouching beside her leopard, Abeke flung her arms around her neck. “Thank you,” Abeke murmured. “You saved my life.”
9 vision
IN A LOFTY ANTECHAMBER, DAYLIGHT STREAMED THROUGH A stained-glass window, splashing colorful patterns across the floor. Briggan explored the area, sniffing the corners and the furniture. When the wolf passed through the tinted light, dappled hues glossed his gray-white coat. Conor had lost track of how long they had waited. It frustrated him that even though he was no longer a servant to Devin, he was still stuck inside a castle all the time. He could tell that Briggan didn’t love being cooped up either.