“My lord, your head wound is graver than I thought. Do you know me? Do you know where you are?” asked Egrin.
“You’re Egrin, Raemel’s son, the warden of the Household Guard. I am Odovar, marshal of the Eastern Hundred. I’m sitting on my arse in the grass, and I smell like I’ve rolled in manure.”
Egrin grinned. “Yes, sir. Can you rise?”
“If the sun can do it, so can I.”
Without help, the bleary nobleman got his feet under him. Egrin snapped his fingers at Tol and pointed at Odovar’s mount. Tol fetched the chestnut horse. After a few steps the horse snorted and stopped, head bobbing, eyes rolling.
“Come on boy, stop dawdling,” Egrin said gruffly. “I thought farmers’ sons knew how to handle beasts.”
The other horses began to stir, and one of the warriors said, “It’s not the boy, sir. They’ve gotten wind of something.”
Egrin drew his curving saber in a single swift motion. Though shaky, Lord Odovar bared his weapon too. The mounted men formed a circle around them, facing outward with their spears presented.
The night around them was still. The red moon, Luin, was low on the southern horizon, pouring sanguinary light under a shelf of high clouds. Wind rustled the tall grass briefly, then died.
A low, gurgling snarl reached them.
“Panther!”
Egrin dismissed Tol’s fears, saying a wild cat would never stalk ten armed and mounted men, but he ordered one of the men to make a fire, so they could better see their surroundings. Wielding iron and flint, the Ackal warrior soon had a modest blaze going.
Tol heard a sharp intake of breath behind him. He turned and saw two wide red eyes, low on the ground, highlighted by the fire. The eyes shone from an ill-defined black mass.
“My lords!” he cried, leaping back.
“Suffering gods!” exclaimed the man who’d made the fire.
The intruder was a huge panther, black as soot and coiled in a crouch.
Quivering in every limb, the horses reared and plunged, prancing to put distance between themselves and the panther. The men still mounted had to drop their weapons and concentrate on keeping in the saddle.