"Star," Tafir called, "run the other way, and I'll circle around to pick you up."
Tossing the clumsy bow, the cadet yanked the black's head over and kicked hard. The horse laid back its ears and ran. Star wondered where the huge lion had vanished, but now it pounced on the spot Tafir had just vacated. The long bird arrow had been plucked from the lion's shoulder, probably by grass stalks, leaving four leaking holes.
Star then blinked as all three lionesses, with no prey at hand, spun their heads and stared at her. Golden eyes glowed like six unwinking lamps. Gulping fear, Amenstar scuttled up and ran. Grass whipped and stung her face, cut her hands, arms, lips, and tugged at her tangled corn-rows. She had no clue where to run, for she saw only grass and sky. Dashing, she almost twisted her ankle in a hidden hole. She recovered and pounded on, breath rasping in her lungs, burning.
Suddenly Tafir's black horse, foam-sweaty, loomed ahead, its dark eyes rimmed with white.
Tafir called, "Keep running! They're close behind!"
Gasping, Star charged faster, then clutched at horse and rider like a drowning woman lunging at a boat. The strong cadet leaned, grasped the back of Star's baggy trousers, and hauled hard to dump her across his saddle. Trying to encourage his mount, or trying to scare the lions, he bawled and whooped nonsense. Belly down, facing more grass, and unable to breathe, Star felt the horse balk, perhaps stumbling in another hidden hole. Tafir cursed and kicked. Gheqet shouted from far away.
An electric tingle like lightning burned Star's calf. For a frozen moment, she wondered what happened. Pain flashed through her leg and spine, and she shrilled out her last breath.
Tafir hollered as the horse regained its footing, set four powerful hooves, and launched through the grass. The rhythmic banging, thumping, and pounding wouldn't let Star catch her breath. The world dimmed at the edges, and she blacked out.
"Star! Wake up!"
The samira fell, instinctively grabbing for support, but Tafir and Gheqet caught her and laid her onto low, wiry bushes. It felt wonderful to breathe freely, the princess thought, until her left calf brushed a bush and a splinter of agony made her yelp.
"Easy," Gheqet crooned. "Here, roll over."
"That big lioness tagged you," Tafir explained.
Both young men inspected the wound. Splitting her trouser leg, Gheqet picked cotton threads from the wound, but even that gentle motion made Star clench her teeth.
"Not bad," the cadet grunted. "Like a pink from a practice sword."
"It feels like…" the samira moaned,"… like I've been disemboweled and set afire."
"This wound will inflame," Gheqet said. "Cats' claws are filthy." He wrapped his dusty apron around her calf and tied it lightly with the strings. "Good thing we've got one horse left."
Star realized the lions must have cut down Gheqet's brown mare first. The architect's apprentice had been lucky to escape with just a scalp wound. Hers throbbed like a kettledrum.
"Get me home, you two," she said, "and quickly."
The two citizens raised their eyebrows at the command.
"We just saved your life, Samira Amenstar," Tafir said icily. "Even wounded, Gheqet distracted the lions by jumping and yelling so I could ride in and grab you. That's why only one lioness raked you, instead of all three pouncing on both of us."
"That's all very well," Star snapped, "but it's your civic duty to protect your sovereign's life. You, Tafir, as an army officer who took a sacred vow, and Gheqet, as a nobleman and citizen of the realm. All Cursrahns must keep the welfare of the royal family uppermost in their minds."
They were embarrassed and angry by her rudeness and ingratitude, but gentle Gheqet shrugged and told Tafir, "She's upset. She'll go into shock if we don't hustle her home."
"We'd do that anyway," Tafir snorted. Together they hoisted Star onto the saddle, made sure she was secure, and rushed off through the scrub.
"Can't complain, but it's not the life I'd choose," Tafir droned, "rising before dawn to stand on a cold parade ground, having superior officers scream orders in my face then having to scream the same orders at sergeants, who all resent me being so young so they scream at the troops, who barely understand a word because so many are barbarian mercenaries. There's the same food day in, day out, marching aimlessly across the plains just to keep busy…"
The men talked while Star sulked and nursed her pain. Gheqet held the horse's bridle in one craggy hand.
"What would you do if your parents hadn't enrolled you in the army?" he asked Tafir.
"I've no idea," Tafir groused, "but I wouldn't be a soldier. I hate it, Gheq. My best hope is for my parents to die young so we inherit, though my brother's and sisters' debts will eat up most of that money anyway."
Low hills unfurled before their tired feet. A bright blue sky beamed. Most of the scenery was covered by tough grass. Distant herds of zebra and antelope grazed. Lonely, parasol-shaped acacia trees dotted the horizon. In pockets fed by tiny springs thrived myrtle trees and dark green cedars. Occasional outcrops of barren rock and sand were ringed by wiry scrub bushes that only goats could eat.
Country dwellers carried warnings to the marketplace that the yellow sand was expanding, that springs and pools dried up seasonally. The land had been changing ever since the Era of Skyfire fifty-two years back, but few city dwellers cared about the wilderness beyond Cursrah's skirts.
The vast grassland was populated by a few. Shacks and tents belonged to herders and hunters. Travelers lurched and swayed on camels and plodding donkeys, and a patrol of the bakkal's cavalry rode under a brilliant red pennant.
The one striking structure in this country was a long channel of stone sunk into the ground like a road that undulated to both horizons. Greenery lined both sides of the stone "road," living on its damp breath. The three adventurers joined the dusty path alongside it for a while then clopped over a raised stone bridge. They heard water gurgling below.
"Cursrah's greatest architectural accomplishment," Gheqet said, smiling as if he'd built it personally.
The "road" was actually an underground aqueduct roofed with large, irregular slabs of gray stone. High and wide enough inside for three men to walk upright, the aqueduct rambled for miles across the sun-drenched wilderness, all the way from the distant River Agis to the shallow valley that Cursrah called home. Fine-grained stone had been quarried by dwarves in the Marching Mountains, ferried through the air by genie-slaves, carefully fitted by genie miners, then magically sealed leak proof by marids. Teams of masons patrolled the miles-long aqueduct, inspecting roof stones, clearing weeds, and ensuring no water escaped or was illegally siphoned off. The penalty for stealing "the lifeblood of Cursrah" was to be buried to the neck in sand then left to die in full view of the public. Some citizens argued the inspection teams were a waste of tax money, because Great Calim himself had tasked a magical protector to guard the waterworks. Even the inspectors were unsure how much protection a near-mythical and mysterious marid provided.
"I know how you feel about the army, Taf," Gheqet said, resuming their conversation. "I didn't want to be apprenticed to a mason, either. Granted, my family's not as high born as yours, but my mother's grandmother was the Second Sama's favorite lady-in-waiting. She was made a rafayam so we receive yearly greetings and a stipend from the palace, but that's all the nobility we can claim. I'll spend the rest of my life working with my hands; inspecting tunnel shorings, building walls, carving gargoyles…"