Tiger Prince

She felt a tiny flicker of alarm. She had realized how insightful he could be, but he had never indicated he had seen this deeply. "Why should I pretend not to admire something when I do?"

"Perhaps because beauty can hurt as well as please. Perhaps because you consider such a love of beauty a softness that would get in the way of your revered duty."

"That is not—" She stopped, feeling more helpless and unsure than she had since she was a small child.

"No haven, madam." He added softly, "And no mercy."

"I have asked for neither." She glanced away from him. "You did not answer me. Will I need one of those leather aprons you wear?"

"By all means." His smile contained an element of sadness as he reached in the cabinet beneath his table, drew out an apron, and handed it to her. "We must not have you soiling yourself. You clearly have an impulsive nature that leads to such disasters."

 

Screams . . . thunder . . .

Jarred from sleep, Jane jerked upright on her cot.

The scream came again and was followed immediately by the thunder.

"Come!" Li Sung burst into her tent. "Hurry. The tracks."

Li Sung, who was never armed, was carrying a rifle. She threw the covers aside and quickly thrust her feet into her boots. "What's happening? What is it?"

"Elephant."

The scream came again, wild, angry, demonic. "That couldn't be an elephant. It doesn't sound like anything we've heard before." She jumped to her feet and ran toward the tent opening.

"Dilam says it's a rogue."

She caught sight of Dilam ru

Dilam nodded, and the next moment she was beside her. They ran down the tracks in the direction from which the screaming was coming with Li Sung limping as quickly as he could behind.

"What the devil is a rogue?" she asked tersely.

"An elephant that has been cast out from the herd," Dilam said. "Sometimes he goes mad with loneliness. Very dangerous."

The scream came again. Closer.

Then a grinding metallic noise frightened her more than the enraged trumpeting. "Dammit, he's tearing up my tracks!"

They rounded a corner and Jane caught her first sight of the elephant.

He was a huge gray-brown monster with one tattered ear. He stood with a section of a rail in his trunk, and as she watched he hurled it away from him as if it were a toothpick and reached for another. "Stop him!"

The elephant's head lifted and he glared at them with small bloodshot eyes. He trumpeted with rage and whirled to face them.

Jane could feel the blood stop in her veins. He was like a demonic creature from the nightmare depths of hell.

Li Sung muttered a curse as he moved to the side of the track and lifted the rifle.

"No!" Dilam shouted. She reached out and knocked down the barrel of the rifle. "It's Danor."

Li Sung said, "I don't care what—"

The elephant charged toward Li Sung, deadly tusks lowered.

Dilam dove out of the way. Jane pushed Li Sung to the side with such force, they both fell to the ground and rolled out of the way just as the rogue reached them.

The elephant thundered past them.

Dilam grabbed the rifle from the ground where Li Sung had dropped it. "Stay down."

"And let him step on me with those monstrous feet?" Li Sung asked. "I think not. Give me the rifle."

Dilam ignored him, lifted the rifle, and fired over the elephant's head.

The elephant stopped, his trunk weaving back and forth.

Dilam fired two more shots.

"What are you doing?" Jane asked impatiently. "Warning shots won't help. An elephant can't know a bullet will hurt him. You'll have to shoot him."

"No!" Dilam fired three more shots over the elephant's head.

The elephant shifted from foot to foot and lifted his trunk again. Then, abruptly, he turned and lumbered off into the jungle.

Jane let her breath out in a little rush, trying to steady her heartbeat. "Will he come back?"

"Not tonight," Dilam said. She handed the rifle back to Li Sung and bowed politely. "I regret being so rude as to take your weapon, but it was Danor. I could not let you hurt him. He is a very special elephant."

"You said he was a rogue."

Dilam's jaw set stubbornly. "I did not know it was Danor. It is possible he has not gone rogue and, even if he has, he is still very special. I ca

"He almost killed us," Jane said.

"Me," Li Sung corrected her grimly as he rose to his feet. "He charged me. He evidently thought this lowly cripple was the weakest link. I have a desire to show him his error. I'm going after him."

"Don't be ridiculous, Li Sung. The elephant is just plain crazy. How could he know you were crippled? We don't have time right now to go after him," Jane said curtly as she turned to examine the tracks. "And Lord knows what he did to the—my God!"

She gazed with horror at the devastation before her. Kails were uprooted, ties broken as far as she could see. She grabbed the torch from Dilam and began to walk down the track. She was scarcely aware of Dilam and Li Sung following her as she encountered disaster after di-saster.

Chaos everywhere.

"Very bad," Dilam murmured after they had traveled lor some distance along the track.

It was worse than bad, Jane thought grimly. Over two miles of damage to be repaired and that meant losing a full day.

"It can't happen again," she said. "I don't care how special your elephant is. I won't lose any more time cleaning up after him."

Dilam offered tentatively, "Perhaps he'll decide not to do it again."

"Decide? How does a rogue elephant decide anything? You said yourself he was insane."

"That was before I knew it was Danor. Danor has superior understanding."

"He damn well understands how to destroy my railroad." She ran her fingers through her hair. "How did one elephant manage to do this much damage so quickly? We didn't even hear him until fifteen minutes ago."

"Because he didn't want us to hear him."

"What do you mean?"

"He started trumpeting only the last quarter-mile or we would not have heard him. He must have had some reason for wishing to attract our attention."

Jane gazed at her in astonishment. "You're saying he pla

"I do not know, but he is not as other elephants."

"I don't care if he's not like other elephants. I want to know if this will happen again."

She hesitated, troubled. "It is possible. He obviously did not like being interrupted."

Jane had a fleeting memory of deadly tusks lowered to charge. "I noticed that."

"But I will put guards on the track tomorrow night," Dilam assured her.

"You can't put guards along the entire line," Li Sung said. "It is best we hunt him down and shoot him."

Dilam's expression became shuttered. "I will not help you do this."

"Did you see what he did? Those tracks are—" Jane stopped, trying to control her temper. "I wouldn't kill any animal needlessly, but this elephant is vicious. Why won't you help us?"

"He saved the life of my child. It would be dishonor if I destroyed his savior."