He whipped out his sword.
Blue-gold flames whirled up Dyrnwyn’s length, their intensity glaring after the gloom of the cavern.Neil clung to the sword desperately, holding it out before him almost as though he had some bloody notion what the devil to do with it.
The tiger stilled.
Everythingstilled, as though Neil had stepped into a painting.Pale light painted stone and leaf, tree and flesh.Men hovered at the edge of the cavern with their arrows notched.
Subhas’s brows rose with surprise.Constance’s eyes widened as though Neil had just fallen out of the sky.
Rain sang against the leaves, plastering Neil’s shirt to his shoulders.
Dyrnwyn glowed like a star.
Neil filtered everything out—the branches hanging low over the mouth of the overhang.The damp soaking his clothes.The fact that he could barely see, the world a speckled wash of green, black, and gold, fractured by the water on his lenses.
Only the tiger mattered.
He knew when the animal began to shift, sensing it in the crunch of a paw on dead leaves and the orange shimmer through the dancing kaleidoscope of his spectacles.
Neil swung his blade to the left.
The tiger stilled—and a branch crashed to the ground at Neil’s feet.
He fought the instinct to jump back, keeping his eyes on the cat.He couldn’t risk looking at what had just happened, even as part of his brain wondered wildly why a limb would have fallen when it was still covered in sturdy green growth and he hadn’t felt Dyrnwyn so much as brush against an obstacle.
Neil shoved it all aside.He could worry about it later—once he’d managed to stay alive.
The tiger froze again, its yellow gaze fixed on Neil with unblinking intensity.The sword’s weight tugged at his shoulders as the moment stretched.
He wondered what he would do when the tiger inevitably decided to attack.Could he possibly manage to direct the sword into some sort of defensive thrust?
Neil very much doubted it.
The tiger studied him as though measuring Neil’s worth as a threat… or as a meal.It was planning something—but what?Would it use all that sleek, coiled power to try to dart around Neil?Or bat his sword away with a swipe of a massive paw and bury its teeth in his throat?
Neil had no idea, and he was washed over with the helpless sense that even the sheer madness of charging at a tiger with a flaming sword hadn’t been quiteenough.
Muscle flexed under striped fur—and a dart of light shot past the corner of Neil’s vision.
An arrow pierced the soil at his feet with a softthwack.Flames licked delicately up the shaft.
Another followed, and then a third.
Neil risked a wild look back into the cavern.In the orange glow of the embers, Subhas was framed by his archers, eyes glinting with purpose and determination.
Jignesh swept another cloth-wrapped arrow through the remains of the campfire, then launched the flaming missile at the tiger’s feet.
The tiger took a wary half-step back.
The burning arrows were wisps against the darkness, their light quickly failing against the steady fall of the rain.
The beautiful predator measured all of it.The men in the cavern.The dwindling arrows.Neil.Golden eyes glittered with thoughtful intelligence.
Desperation dragged a ludicrous plea from Neil’s lips.“Would you please justgo?”
The tiger cocked its head as though considering the request—then turned and leaped away into the forest.
Neil stared after the soft crash of its movements, still clinging to the sword as though afraid the wrong gesture would break the spell and bring the animal charging back.
