Lora of Two Worlds

They'd been at Highgarden three days. Living conditions were rough, army-style. Men could endure. Women, less so. Sleeping poorly was one thing. But no proper bath? Every day: a small wooden basin of water. Barely enough to wet a cloth. The Doyle River flowed south to the sea here. Through grasslands and forest, the water was crystalline, cold to the bone. That day, scouting salt-pan sites, they'd passed the Doyle. Faye had spotted a place where the bank sloped gently into a bend. She'd pointed it out to Lora, whispering: "Yangyang, let's sneak down to the river tonight for a bath. I've been climbing and walking for days, I reek. Even soaking my feet would be heaven..." Lora agreed. The spot was a natural cove, slow current. Highgarden had hardly any people. Day or night, you'd never meet anyone. Two reckless girls. They went to their respective brothers. Chester Horn had no objection. He'd post guards. Roland wanted to refuse, dark night, river, danger. But his sister was relentless. He had Lyle and Corin check the cove. Water depth, to their waists. Stone bottom. No sinking hazard. The bank was brushy, except at one spot where a natural path led down. Worn smooth, as if someone used it often. "Animal tracks nearby. Otherwise, nothing dangerous." "Animals? Could there be wolves?" "Wolves?" Corin laughed: "If there were wolves nearby, we'd have smelled them already." Settled. Tomorrow Linnie's group would return to Highgarden, and they'd depart. Tonight, one last adventure. They went to the river bend at dusk. Leon and the others tested the water first. Cool, but the spot was perfect. A natural pool, like a stone basin. "Come in. But don't go past the cove, the current picks up outside." Leon watched Lora, eager to enter the water. Then remembered, she was going to bathe. He wished night would fall faster. The two girls didn't dare strip bare. They wore their underclothes and waded in. Cold at first, then they splashed each other, shrieking and laughing. The clean, happy sound made Roland feel the risk was worth it. "Sister, it's getting dark. Come up." Chester Horn suddenly felt a chill, something wrong: "Lord Roland, we should be careful at night. There were bandits " Before he finished, Corin ran up: "Lord Roland, get the lady out of the water. We've found tiger sign." "Tiger!" Roland shouted to the river: "Sister! Get out! Tiger on the bank!" "We're coming!" Lora, hearing "tiger", remembered. This age was plagued by tigers. Massive Siberian tigers. She was pulling on her outer robe when Faye, beside her, stammered in a shaking voice: "Don't... don't move. It's... it's right behind us..." Lora's toes gripped the stone underwater: This cove, this was the tiger's drinking spot! One swipe of that paw, and they were dead. "What... is it doing?" "Staring... at us..." From the bank, Chester Horn called: "Sister! Are you up?" They couldn't answer. A tiger behind them, they didn't dare breathe. The men on the bank heard nothing. They moved. Corin's men lit torches, started toward the cove. A Black Eagle man stopped him: "Don't, the tiger's at the waterline!" Tigers weren't wolves. They hunted alone. One tiger was enough. From the angle, they could see the stripes in the grass. "Bows!" Roland nocked an arrow, ready to shoot. "Aooo~" A roar. Not from the cove. From the darkness beyond. Every man's hair stood on end: This was the tigers' watering hole. The one outside was the male. The one behind the girls, the female. A pair! One was hard enough. Two, a mated couple! The female, crouching in the grass, heard her mate. She turned her head toward his call. In that moment, Lora saw the iron water jug on the bank. Corin's men didn't wait. Half crept toward the male's roar. Half circled behind the female. Leon, Lyle, and the others moved to the female's front-left. Torches ready. They'd light up, startle her away from the girls. The air froze. Corin, in the grass, throat dry. They were in the male's domain, without the male's night eyes. The female flicked her tail, lazy. Her mate was coming. She wanted to share these two frozen morsels with him. Corin drew his bow. Even if the shot didn't kill, it would hurt. The male would come to defend her. And then, they'd face him in the open. And Lora, on the other side, would have her chance to run. "Ha!" Linn's torches blazed, all at once, from the front-left. The fire startled the female. She rose from the grass. Now! Corin's arrow flew, struck her belly.  She screamed. The male, a dark blur of muscle and wind, leapt from the night at the ambushers. He'd seen the danger at the cove. He hadn't charged in blindly, he'd circled. Lora grabbed the iron jug from the bank and pounded it against stone. Some survival blog had said: make noise to scare a tiger. Wrong move. The clanging enraged the wounded female. She forgot the men, whirled, and lunged at Lora. Leon was already there. His fist, gripping the dagger, drove straight into the tigress's open maw. The female froze. She wanted to spit out this creature's arm. She couldn't. She had no strength left to vomit. Her mate fared no better. The Turkic wolf-pack tactics had drawn him into a trap of endless frustration. Each lunge met empty air. Each target shifted. "Aooo!" The male, maddened, charged the man with the blade, "Mo!" The man dropped low, slid forward, under the claws.  Behind him, Jian, flat on his back, blade raised. The tiger's belly met the steel. Blood crawled along the edge. Jian, beneath the leaping tiger, had gutted him. "Fine pelt! Corin, for your mother. She won't be cold next winter." Battle over. The Turkic boys were their cheerful selves again. Corin looked toward the water: Leon dropped the dead tigress on the ground. In the torchlight, Lora saw his entire arm was red. She went white. Dropped the jug. Ran to him, seized his arm. "Where does it hurt? Can you move it?" Leon said nothing. Only smiled at her, frantic, worried, searching his arm for the wound. He rather liked seeing her like this.

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