Tiger Prince

"Then we go after him together."

He nodded reluctantly. "Very well."

They walked in silence for a moment.

"But you are wrong." His gaze went compulsively to the path Danor had made through the trees. "I am not ru

She looked at him inquiringly.

"He is waiting."

"What?"

He whispered, "He is waiting for me."

"And what will you do when you catch up with him?" Ruel asked as he stirred the wood of the fire.

"Shoot him," Li Sung said.

"There can't be many vulnerable spots on an elephant."

"I'll aim for the eyes." Li Sung stared into the flames. "Dilam said that's the only way to assure a quick kill."

"You're not a wonderful shot," Jane pointed out. "And you may not get a second chance."

"I'll think about that when I find him."

"You're not thinking at all. You're just feeling."

"Perhaps." Li Sung's gaze lifted from his coffee. "But it is useless to try to dissuade me."

Jane had suspected this but she had to make the attempt. "I don't understand it. Why?"

"He tried to kill me."

"You're acting as if he set out to do it deliberately. He's an elephant, for God's sake."

Li Sung shrugged and didn't answer.

"That's it, isn't it?" Ruel asked suddenly. "It's because he is an elephant."

Li Sung stared at him impassively.

"Power," Ruel said softly, his gaze narrowed on Li Sung's face. "Tell me, are you going to eat his heart too?"

"What?"

"In Brazil I heard about the men of a tribe who ate the hearts of captured enemy warriors because they thought that by doing so they would absorb their foe's strength and courage."

"And you think I'm privy to such superstition?"

"Are you?"

"I am no fool. I realize that the only thing I'll win from killing Danor is revenge. Sometimes that is enough."

"And sometimes it isn't," Ruel said wearily.

"You surprise me." Li Sung smiled faintly. "I would have thought you would understand my feeling in this."

"Oh, I understand." Ruel glanced at Jane. "No one could understand revenge better than I do. Isn't that right, Jane?"

She sensed beneath the self-mockery in his voice an underlying pain that hurt her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, soothe him. She spoke hastily to Li Sung. "We'd better get some sleep if you intend to start out at first light. Why don't we—"

An elephant trumpeted in the darkness.

Li Sung sat upright, his gaze flying to the path leading west. "Close."

He was right, Jane thought, Danor must be very close, but there had been a puzzling difference in the elephant's cry from the angry trumpeting she had heard that night at the track. It was as if—

Li Sung was on his feet, grabbing his rifle.

"Li Sung, wait until daylight," she said, alarmed. "If he's that close, a few more hours aren't going to make any difference."

"Now!" Li Sung slung a cartridge belt over his shoulder and limped from the campfire. "You wait until daylight. I don't need you."

"The hell we will." Ruel was already extinguishing the fire. "Can't you at least wait until we saddle up?"

"No need." Li Sung's words trailed behind him as the jungle closed around him. "He's close. . . ."

Jane jumped to her feet and ran after Li Sung.

She heard Ruel call her name but she paid no attention.

The elephant trumpeted again. Beckoning. Calling.

Calling Li Sung toward destruction.

"Blast it, Li Sung, wait for me!" Jane called to the shadowy figure stalking ahead.

"Save your breath." Ruel pulled aside a thorny shrub to let her pass. "There's no stopping him. Just try to keep up."

How could Li Sung travel so fast with his crippled leg? He was moving through the jungle at almost a run.

The elephant trumpeted again, closer.

Alarm, uneasiness, and bewilderment tumbled through her. There was something in that cry that bothered her. Of course it bothered her, she thought impatiently. The blasted elephant was drawing Li Sung into danger. "Li Sung!"

Li Sung must have decided to heed her plea to wait, she saw with relief. He had stopped a few hundred yards ahead of them. Then, as they drew closer, she saw he was staring straight ahead, his body peculiarly rigid.

"Is it the elephant? Be care—" She stopped as she and Ruel came abreast of him and she saw what had startled him.

Skeletons.

Gleaming white bones everywhere, covering the vast clearing before them in a macabre blanket. The moon had gone behind a cloud, but the skeletons seemed to give off a chilling shimmer of their own in the darkness.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"An elephant graveyard," Li Sung said. "That must be why they make the trek west."

"I don't understand."

"Dilam said that when an elephant senses he is going to die, sometimes he travels many miles to a place of death." Li Sung's gaze traveled over the bone-littered landscape. "This appears to be such a place."

Jane shivered. "It certainly does."

"But why did Danor come here?" Ruel asked thoughtfully.

Li Sung moved his shoulders as if shaking off the oppressiveness of the sight before him. "How do I know?" He smiled grimly. "Perhaps he senses I'm going to kill him."

The trumpeting sounded again and Jane's gaze flew across the graveyard. At the edge of the trees she could barely discern the massive figure of the elephant, his trunk lifted.

Li Sung made a low sound of satisfaction and started across the bone-strewn clearing.

Jane and Ruel followed quickly, but Li Sung had already reached the middle of the graveyard by the time they caught up with him.

The elephant stood watching them approach.

"Why isn't he charging?" Jane murmured, remembering the elephant's bloodshot eyes and thundering attack at sight of them at the crossing.

"I'd just as soon he refrained," Ruel said dryly.

Li Sung had come within range of the elephant. He lifted the rifle and sighted down the barrel. The elephant did not move.

The moon came from behind the clouds and lit both the clearing and Danor's face with pale clarity.

"Wait!" Jane grabbed Li Sung's arm. "There's something—"

"Let me go." Li Sung tried to shake her off.

"No, not yet. I see something . . ." She ran ahead of him toward the elephant.

"Jane!" Ruel called.

"He's not going to hurt me. Can't you see . . ." She stopped only a dozen yards from the elephant, making sure she was in Li Sung's line of fire. "Don't shoot him, Li Sung."

"Get out of my way, Jane."

"Come here," Jane called, her stare never leaving Danor. She had been right, the moonlight revealed something damp and shimmering on the elephant's face.

"So he can try to trample me again?"

Ruel reached her side. "Dammit, Jane, do you want to get killed? Why the hell do you—"

"Shh!" She pointed to a shadowy bulk on the ground to the left of Danor. "I think he's . . . isn't that . . ."

"Another elephant." Ruel moved cautiously forward, keeping a wary eye on Danor. "Stay behind me. I'll take a look."

Danor lifted his trunk and trumpeted again, this time in warning.