The Steppes of Central Asia Affair: Act 3
The Steppes of Central Asia Affair
-a Man from UNCLE slash fanfic by Taylor Dancinghands
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin; Characters: Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin
Genre: slash, h/c, BDSM, A/U: His Dark Materials Universe
Warnings: none
Rating: Mature/PG 13
Beta:gevr
Act 3: "...you'll hear them long before you see them."
"No! Saphina!!" Napoleon's cry was one of visceral terror. Instinctively, he tried to rise, and would have hurled himself against the back window had Illya not caught him and stopped him. From Illya and Pasha's standpoint, this was a potentially useful development, as the fall would surely have broken open the cage and Illya's daemon could move freely, miles away from his human without difficulty. Illya and Pasha, however, were among the 57% of Russian Imperial Security Service trainees who had endured the separation training given to new recruits. Napoleon and Saphina never had, as UNCLE (as well as the US military) determined such training to be dangerous and inhumane. They weren't wrong, Illya had to admit, but at this very moment that lack of training placed Napoleon in horrific peril.
At no more than a few dozen yards separation from his daemon, Napoleon would experience a searing anxiety, profound enough to do permanent psychical damage in mere minutes. Of the 43% of Russian Security Service trainees who could not complete the separation exercises, Illya knew, a full 12% suffered permanent mental damage -a fact that the Czar's government constantly strove to sweep under the rug. Illya had seen those casualties for himself, and knew that there was nothing that he would not do to spare Napoleon from such a fate. But how could he? What could he do?
As his partner moaned and curled into an agonized ball, Illya cast about desperately for something that could help. Rendering him unconscious, he already knew, would not help and there was nothing here in the back of the truck that could be used for anything else. Was there anything on their persons that the Thrushies had not confiscated? Illya immediately thought of their shoes, both pairs of which had small hidden compartments in the heel.
Forcing his fingers to steadiness, Illya carefully pried the heel off his own shoes to take stock: there was a small, folding scalpel, a garrotte, sealed packets of antiseptic and morphine capsules. Napoleon's, which Illya had to removed from his shaking partner in order to open, contained two packets of matches, a tiny syringe of an experimental truth serum, and four 'cufflink' charges of explosive.
Beside him, Napoleon gave a wordless cry as the truck struck another hole in the road. This was wrong, Illya thought, and the wrongness of it burned in him. He found himself filled with rage at how his partner's dignity had been stripped from him. Not even Thrush would do such a thing on purpose; it was unthinkable, even for them. The carelessness, however, that was typical.
There must be something he could do. How, Illya asked himself, had he survived his own first separations in that horrible training so long ago? Even as he asked himself the question, an idea began to form in Illya's mind. Seizing the tiny syringe of 'truth serum' from among the items in Napoleon's shoe compartment, he read the advisory on the package, confirming what he recalled. The drug in the syringe mainly worked by making the subject extremely suggestible and compliant. Once injected, you might then be able to make an enemy believe that it was fine to tell you all his secrets… or make your partner believe that he could bear unbearable pain.
Gripping the syringe carefully in his teeth, Illya took hold of his partner by the shoulders, lifting him and steadying him so that Illya could meet his eyes.
"Napoleon! I need you to look at me," he spoke intently. "I need you to open your eyes and look at me, and listen to what I say."
"Illya…" It was a terrible effort for the man to speak, he could see, but he spoke nonetheless. "I… I can't… Gods help me, I can't…"
"Sshh, Napoleon," Illya shook him, just a little, even as the truck shook them both. "Listen to me. I'm going to help you, but you have to trust me. You do trust me, yes?"
"Yes… I do trust you… I do," Napoleon replied.
Illya didn't bother explaining, but simply opened Napoleon's jacket and shirt, exposing his arm. Napoleon watched, breathing harsh and rapid, as Illya tied off his partner's arm with a shoelace, found a vein and injected the serum. It went to work quickly, and by the time Illya had done up Napoleon's shirt and jacket again his pupils were already open and dark.
"Are you listening to me, Napoleon?" Illya demanded.
"I am," Napoleon answered. "I am listening… please, I need my Saphina… where is she?"
"Do you trust me?" Illya asked again.
"Yes… Illya, you know I do," came the answer.
"You will believe what I tell you," Illya pressed.
"Yes, I do… I'll always believe you," Napoleon said.
"Then you must believe me when I tell you that Saphina is coming for you," Illya said urgently, grasping his partner's shoulders tightly. "She is coming as fast as she can."
"S-Saphina is coming?" It twisted something in Illya's guts to hear his partner's voice so broken.
"She is coming, Napoleon," he reiterated. "I am telling you the truth."
"She's too far…" Napoleon spoke so softly Illya could hardly hear him over the noise in the truck. "Too far… it hurts so much…"
"I know it hurts," Illya said, and that was the Gods' honest truth. "But that doesn't matter now, because she's coming… She's coming for you."
"How long…?" Napoleon's body was wracked with pain, so that only Illya's arms were holding him up. "How long, Illya…?"
"Soon," Illya promised, knowing this to be sheerest fantasy. "Soon, I promise, Napoleon."
Indeed, if the cage had broken open enough for Saphina to escape immediately, she'd be breaking speed records to get back to Napoleon's side, and might even truly be here soon. There were too many other variables, however, and too many things that could go wrong to make his promise valid. As long as Napoleon believed it to be true, though, he might hold on to his sanity a little longer, and that was the best that Illya could hope for.
The truck came to a stop a little while later, having left the road and driven across yet more featureless country for five minutes or so. There was no building or any other distinguishing landmark here that Illya could see, but the five Thrush horsemen were there waiting for them, so there must be some purpose to stopping at this place. Illya watched for some reaction to the discovery of the missing daemons, and there was some gesticulating and shouting, possibly about the poorly fastened cage, but no further consequences seemed coming. That was a bad sign, Illya thought. He waited for their captors to open the truck and reveal their intentions, but instead the men on horseback dismounted and began to dig a small trench just behind the truck with shovels they'd evidently gotten from the truck's cab.
Illya did not connect the dimensions of the trench to the concrete beam they were attached to until the back of the truck was opened and two of the horsemen, remounted, fastened ropes to each end of the beam and dragged it, along with the two UNCLE agents, out of the truck and onto the ground. The beam settled into the trench so that it lay level with the earth and there was no way that two unaided men would be able to drag it any distance. The Thrush man with the hawk daemon now came to stand over them and explain why they'd been secured thusly.
"The Windriders will be driving their herds this way in about an hour or so," he said. "They'll be coming from that direction," he pointed past a low hill to their left "so you'll hear them long before you see them, but they'll only see you after you've been run over by at least half the herd. Nergui has promised that they'll be running at full speed by the time they cross this stretch, so perhaps your deaths will be relatively swift and painless."
Illya ignored the man's gloating and the pitying looks from the other Thrush men and their daemons, gathering his half-insensible partner into his arms with no regard whatsoever for what they might think. If he and Napoleon were truly about to die then it made no difference, and if they survived then these men would pay the full price for everything they'd done. Seeing as they would be getting no further reaction from the UNCLE agents, the Thrush men packed up, mounted up and drove or rode away. Within minutes all was still save the relentless, keening wind.
Beside him, Napoleon shuddered and moaned his daemon's name and Illya's fury burned hot in him again, that his partner might meet his end in such an undignified manner.
"Where is Saphina, Napoleon?" he reminded Napoleon of the promise he'd made, hoping against hope that the drug's influence would hold until… until it wasn't needed anymore.
"Sh-she's coming," Napoleon drew out with great effort.
"And when is she coming?" Illya reiterated.
"Soon. She's coming soon," Napoleon sighed, almost plaintively.
"That's right, lyubov," Illya murmured, bending his head to kiss his partner's forehead. "That's right." He felt his rage melt in the warmth of affection he felt for his partner and felt as well the strange tranquility that often came over him in the face of death.
As they sat still and quiet in the tall grass, the native denizens of the steppe came to move around them as if they weren't there. A mother bird, some kind of quail or grouse, Illya thought, followed by a handful of spotted chicks, came to scratch at the seeds and grains knocked onto the ground by the horses hooves. They came close enough to touch as Illya sat unmoving, then the shadow of a hawk flicked across them and in a flash the mother and her brood had vanished into the grass so that not even Illya could make them out.
Napoleon would grow restless from time to time, but when Illya made him repeat the dialogue he'd established with the drug he would quiet again. At least, Illya consoled himself, that chances were that Napoleon would never know what hit him, and perhaps it would be easier this way. Illya's partner had never had that fatalistic ability to face death as if it didn't matter the way Illya did. Napoleon would insist that it was natural to his Slavic nature, and perhaps it was.
If he were in his right mind now Napoleon would surely be testing their shackles, bloodying his fingers trying to loosen the bolts, repeatedly standing up to see the herd coming and to try to make then veer off. Napoleon would agree with Illya that these actions were all likely futile, but he would be as powerless to stop himself from doing them as he was to stop himself asking for his daemon now. Even Illya had to refrain from standing when he felt the first tremor telegraph itself through the concrete beam to which they were fastened. He knew that he would be able to hear the approaching herd long before they would become visible, and that he would feel the earth shuddering beneath those hundreds of pounding hooves before that. He felt it now, laying his hand flat on the rough concrete to confirm what he felt. Not much longer then, at least, he thought, drawing his partner… his lover, into his arms, to wait out the last.
"Illya," Napoleon murmured as Illya pressed his lips to his partner's eyes.
"Sshh, lyubov," Illya spoke into his ear. "Not much longer now."
"Illya… she's coming," Napoleon said, insistent. Illya could hear the thunder now, like real thunder in the distance but unceasing and growing steadily closer.
"I know, Napoleon, I know," Illya assured him, but instead of quieting, Napoleon struggled to sit up, hands gripping Illya's arms.
"No, Illya, she's coming," Napoleon said, eyes wide and… Illya now realized, clear -the pupils pinpoint sharp in the bright sun. "I mean she's really coming!"
"What!?" Illya exclaimed, looking around wildly, even as he felt within himself for the connection to his own daemon… and found him not far, and getting closer. "Yes!" he cried then, sensing something further from Pasha. He was not alone.
"Pasha too!" Illya said. "And I think he's bringing help."
"That's… good to hear," Napoleon replied, voice sounding strained, but oh so much better than a minute ago. "I sure hope they get here soon…"
"They must," Illya said, grasping his partner's hand. "Surely they must." Even as he spoke the words, Illya winced at the senselessness of them. Nothing in the real world of cause and effect guaranteed that their daemons would reach them before the horses he could hear growing ever closer, and furthermore, there was no guarantee either that they or their allies would be able to turn the living juggernaut of a stampede aside. Napoleon's hand squeezed his for a moment, communicating in that single gesture that he, too, understood that they were far from rescued yet.
They could hardly be said to be men of faith, either one of them, yet that was all they had at the moment. Faith, Illya would have once said, had never accomplished anything, and yet had it not been faith that had kept Napoleon sane these last few hours? Much about daemons remained inexplicable to modern science, Illya knew, to his frustration. Yet might faith not have a role to play in what daemons could do as well?
Maybe it was the drug, or maybe it was just that they thought far too much alike at times, but now Napoleon laid his hand on Illya's shoulder, gripping it in resolve.
"She will com in time," he said. "And she will stop them."
"Yes she will," Illya affirmed, laying his hand over Napoleon's.
They both struggled to their feet, turning and face the sound of the approaching herd. The dust cloud thrown up by their countless hooves was visible now, and the sound all encompassing. In moments the horses at the forefront became visible through the dust, short legged and long maned, they had their own majesty, Illya had to admit, even if, at the moment, they still represented a deadly force, rushing directly at them. He reached out an arm to pull his partner close, and found Napoleon reaching back to do the same.
The dust was already thick enough to make Illya blink his eyes when he thought he saw a lightning streak of inky black come at the herd from the right. Beside him Napoleon drew in a sharp breath and the inky streak materialized halfway between the two men and the approaching herd. It had something like a feline form now, though she seemed larger than Illya remembered, and surely he had never seen Saphina ever do what she did next.
Rearing up and lunging towards the lead horses, Saphina became the living embodiment of the most deadly nightmares, all midnight fur, teeth and claws. And then she screamed. Illya had read accounts of the hardiest of explorers being unmanned by the sound of a panther's scream. It had always struck him as a bit of writer's hyperbole, but now Illya was beginning to think that no writer could describe the terrifying effect of that banshee cry.
Even Napoleon went a little pale and the leading horses in the oncoming herd screamed in panicked reaction. Wheeling with terror, the whole first rank of the herd split, some to the left and some to the right. The momentum of the herd was such that not even Saphina's spectre of horror could stop it, but it could, at least, swerve to avoid hazards. The herd came on, parted abruptly at Saphina, who remained, threatening and yowling menacingly from time to time, and thundered past Napoleon and Illya to their left and right.
Illya felt his partner slump with relief just as he did the same. It was several minutes before the herd passed, in part because they finally began to slow once a little more than half the herd had gone by. When it was clear that the mass of horses had essentially lost its momentum Saphina dropped back down to all fours, shook a cloud of dust from her fur, and then turned to race for Napoleon.
She leapt into his arms with enough force to knock him flat if Illya hadn't been supporting him. Then Napoleon was down on his knees, face buried in her silky black fur as he wept with relief. Illya dropped down beside them, laying an arm over his shoulder, even as he wondered where his own daemon was. The answer came a moment later, as he heard the sound of an approaching motor.
NEXT
-a Man from UNCLE slash fanfic by Taylor Dancinghands
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin; Characters: Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin
Genre: slash, h/c, BDSM, A/U: His Dark Materials Universe
Warnings: none
Rating: Mature/PG 13
Beta:gevr
Act 3: "...you'll hear them long before you see them."
"No! Saphina!!" Napoleon's cry was one of visceral terror. Instinctively, he tried to rise, and would have hurled himself against the back window had Illya not caught him and stopped him. From Illya and Pasha's standpoint, this was a potentially useful development, as the fall would surely have broken open the cage and Illya's daemon could move freely, miles away from his human without difficulty. Illya and Pasha, however, were among the 57% of Russian Imperial Security Service trainees who had endured the separation training given to new recruits. Napoleon and Saphina never had, as UNCLE (as well as the US military) determined such training to be dangerous and inhumane. They weren't wrong, Illya had to admit, but at this very moment that lack of training placed Napoleon in horrific peril.
At no more than a few dozen yards separation from his daemon, Napoleon would experience a searing anxiety, profound enough to do permanent psychical damage in mere minutes. Of the 43% of Russian Security Service trainees who could not complete the separation exercises, Illya knew, a full 12% suffered permanent mental damage -a fact that the Czar's government constantly strove to sweep under the rug. Illya had seen those casualties for himself, and knew that there was nothing that he would not do to spare Napoleon from such a fate. But how could he? What could he do?
As his partner moaned and curled into an agonized ball, Illya cast about desperately for something that could help. Rendering him unconscious, he already knew, would not help and there was nothing here in the back of the truck that could be used for anything else. Was there anything on their persons that the Thrushies had not confiscated? Illya immediately thought of their shoes, both pairs of which had small hidden compartments in the heel.
Forcing his fingers to steadiness, Illya carefully pried the heel off his own shoes to take stock: there was a small, folding scalpel, a garrotte, sealed packets of antiseptic and morphine capsules. Napoleon's, which Illya had to removed from his shaking partner in order to open, contained two packets of matches, a tiny syringe of an experimental truth serum, and four 'cufflink' charges of explosive.
Beside him, Napoleon gave a wordless cry as the truck struck another hole in the road. This was wrong, Illya thought, and the wrongness of it burned in him. He found himself filled with rage at how his partner's dignity had been stripped from him. Not even Thrush would do such a thing on purpose; it was unthinkable, even for them. The carelessness, however, that was typical.
There must be something he could do. How, Illya asked himself, had he survived his own first separations in that horrible training so long ago? Even as he asked himself the question, an idea began to form in Illya's mind. Seizing the tiny syringe of 'truth serum' from among the items in Napoleon's shoe compartment, he read the advisory on the package, confirming what he recalled. The drug in the syringe mainly worked by making the subject extremely suggestible and compliant. Once injected, you might then be able to make an enemy believe that it was fine to tell you all his secrets… or make your partner believe that he could bear unbearable pain.
Gripping the syringe carefully in his teeth, Illya took hold of his partner by the shoulders, lifting him and steadying him so that Illya could meet his eyes.
"Napoleon! I need you to look at me," he spoke intently. "I need you to open your eyes and look at me, and listen to what I say."
"Illya…" It was a terrible effort for the man to speak, he could see, but he spoke nonetheless. "I… I can't… Gods help me, I can't…"
"Sshh, Napoleon," Illya shook him, just a little, even as the truck shook them both. "Listen to me. I'm going to help you, but you have to trust me. You do trust me, yes?"
"Yes… I do trust you… I do," Napoleon replied.
Illya didn't bother explaining, but simply opened Napoleon's jacket and shirt, exposing his arm. Napoleon watched, breathing harsh and rapid, as Illya tied off his partner's arm with a shoelace, found a vein and injected the serum. It went to work quickly, and by the time Illya had done up Napoleon's shirt and jacket again his pupils were already open and dark.
"Are you listening to me, Napoleon?" Illya demanded.
"I am," Napoleon answered. "I am listening… please, I need my Saphina… where is she?"
"Do you trust me?" Illya asked again.
"Yes… Illya, you know I do," came the answer.
"You will believe what I tell you," Illya pressed.
"Yes, I do… I'll always believe you," Napoleon said.
"Then you must believe me when I tell you that Saphina is coming for you," Illya said urgently, grasping his partner's shoulders tightly. "She is coming as fast as she can."
"S-Saphina is coming?" It twisted something in Illya's guts to hear his partner's voice so broken.
"She is coming, Napoleon," he reiterated. "I am telling you the truth."
"She's too far…" Napoleon spoke so softly Illya could hardly hear him over the noise in the truck. "Too far… it hurts so much…"
"I know it hurts," Illya said, and that was the Gods' honest truth. "But that doesn't matter now, because she's coming… She's coming for you."
"How long…?" Napoleon's body was wracked with pain, so that only Illya's arms were holding him up. "How long, Illya…?"
"Soon," Illya promised, knowing this to be sheerest fantasy. "Soon, I promise, Napoleon."
Indeed, if the cage had broken open enough for Saphina to escape immediately, she'd be breaking speed records to get back to Napoleon's side, and might even truly be here soon. There were too many other variables, however, and too many things that could go wrong to make his promise valid. As long as Napoleon believed it to be true, though, he might hold on to his sanity a little longer, and that was the best that Illya could hope for.
The truck came to a stop a little while later, having left the road and driven across yet more featureless country for five minutes or so. There was no building or any other distinguishing landmark here that Illya could see, but the five Thrush horsemen were there waiting for them, so there must be some purpose to stopping at this place. Illya watched for some reaction to the discovery of the missing daemons, and there was some gesticulating and shouting, possibly about the poorly fastened cage, but no further consequences seemed coming. That was a bad sign, Illya thought. He waited for their captors to open the truck and reveal their intentions, but instead the men on horseback dismounted and began to dig a small trench just behind the truck with shovels they'd evidently gotten from the truck's cab.
Illya did not connect the dimensions of the trench to the concrete beam they were attached to until the back of the truck was opened and two of the horsemen, remounted, fastened ropes to each end of the beam and dragged it, along with the two UNCLE agents, out of the truck and onto the ground. The beam settled into the trench so that it lay level with the earth and there was no way that two unaided men would be able to drag it any distance. The Thrush man with the hawk daemon now came to stand over them and explain why they'd been secured thusly.
"The Windriders will be driving their herds this way in about an hour or so," he said. "They'll be coming from that direction," he pointed past a low hill to their left "so you'll hear them long before you see them, but they'll only see you after you've been run over by at least half the herd. Nergui has promised that they'll be running at full speed by the time they cross this stretch, so perhaps your deaths will be relatively swift and painless."
Illya ignored the man's gloating and the pitying looks from the other Thrush men and their daemons, gathering his half-insensible partner into his arms with no regard whatsoever for what they might think. If he and Napoleon were truly about to die then it made no difference, and if they survived then these men would pay the full price for everything they'd done. Seeing as they would be getting no further reaction from the UNCLE agents, the Thrush men packed up, mounted up and drove or rode away. Within minutes all was still save the relentless, keening wind.
Beside him, Napoleon shuddered and moaned his daemon's name and Illya's fury burned hot in him again, that his partner might meet his end in such an undignified manner.
"Where is Saphina, Napoleon?" he reminded Napoleon of the promise he'd made, hoping against hope that the drug's influence would hold until… until it wasn't needed anymore.
"Sh-she's coming," Napoleon drew out with great effort.
"And when is she coming?" Illya reiterated.
"Soon. She's coming soon," Napoleon sighed, almost plaintively.
"That's right, lyubov," Illya murmured, bending his head to kiss his partner's forehead. "That's right." He felt his rage melt in the warmth of affection he felt for his partner and felt as well the strange tranquility that often came over him in the face of death.
As they sat still and quiet in the tall grass, the native denizens of the steppe came to move around them as if they weren't there. A mother bird, some kind of quail or grouse, Illya thought, followed by a handful of spotted chicks, came to scratch at the seeds and grains knocked onto the ground by the horses hooves. They came close enough to touch as Illya sat unmoving, then the shadow of a hawk flicked across them and in a flash the mother and her brood had vanished into the grass so that not even Illya could make them out.
Napoleon would grow restless from time to time, but when Illya made him repeat the dialogue he'd established with the drug he would quiet again. At least, Illya consoled himself, that chances were that Napoleon would never know what hit him, and perhaps it would be easier this way. Illya's partner had never had that fatalistic ability to face death as if it didn't matter the way Illya did. Napoleon would insist that it was natural to his Slavic nature, and perhaps it was.
If he were in his right mind now Napoleon would surely be testing their shackles, bloodying his fingers trying to loosen the bolts, repeatedly standing up to see the herd coming and to try to make then veer off. Napoleon would agree with Illya that these actions were all likely futile, but he would be as powerless to stop himself from doing them as he was to stop himself asking for his daemon now. Even Illya had to refrain from standing when he felt the first tremor telegraph itself through the concrete beam to which they were fastened. He knew that he would be able to hear the approaching herd long before they would become visible, and that he would feel the earth shuddering beneath those hundreds of pounding hooves before that. He felt it now, laying his hand flat on the rough concrete to confirm what he felt. Not much longer then, at least, he thought, drawing his partner… his lover, into his arms, to wait out the last.
"Illya," Napoleon murmured as Illya pressed his lips to his partner's eyes.
"Sshh, lyubov," Illya spoke into his ear. "Not much longer now."
"Illya… she's coming," Napoleon said, insistent. Illya could hear the thunder now, like real thunder in the distance but unceasing and growing steadily closer.
"I know, Napoleon, I know," Illya assured him, but instead of quieting, Napoleon struggled to sit up, hands gripping Illya's arms.
"No, Illya, she's coming," Napoleon said, eyes wide and… Illya now realized, clear -the pupils pinpoint sharp in the bright sun. "I mean she's really coming!"
"What!?" Illya exclaimed, looking around wildly, even as he felt within himself for the connection to his own daemon… and found him not far, and getting closer. "Yes!" he cried then, sensing something further from Pasha. He was not alone.
"Pasha too!" Illya said. "And I think he's bringing help."
"That's… good to hear," Napoleon replied, voice sounding strained, but oh so much better than a minute ago. "I sure hope they get here soon…"
"They must," Illya said, grasping his partner's hand. "Surely they must." Even as he spoke the words, Illya winced at the senselessness of them. Nothing in the real world of cause and effect guaranteed that their daemons would reach them before the horses he could hear growing ever closer, and furthermore, there was no guarantee either that they or their allies would be able to turn the living juggernaut of a stampede aside. Napoleon's hand squeezed his for a moment, communicating in that single gesture that he, too, understood that they were far from rescued yet.
They could hardly be said to be men of faith, either one of them, yet that was all they had at the moment. Faith, Illya would have once said, had never accomplished anything, and yet had it not been faith that had kept Napoleon sane these last few hours? Much about daemons remained inexplicable to modern science, Illya knew, to his frustration. Yet might faith not have a role to play in what daemons could do as well?
Maybe it was the drug, or maybe it was just that they thought far too much alike at times, but now Napoleon laid his hand on Illya's shoulder, gripping it in resolve.
"She will com in time," he said. "And she will stop them."
"Yes she will," Illya affirmed, laying his hand over Napoleon's.
They both struggled to their feet, turning and face the sound of the approaching herd. The dust cloud thrown up by their countless hooves was visible now, and the sound all encompassing. In moments the horses at the forefront became visible through the dust, short legged and long maned, they had their own majesty, Illya had to admit, even if, at the moment, they still represented a deadly force, rushing directly at them. He reached out an arm to pull his partner close, and found Napoleon reaching back to do the same.
The dust was already thick enough to make Illya blink his eyes when he thought he saw a lightning streak of inky black come at the herd from the right. Beside him Napoleon drew in a sharp breath and the inky streak materialized halfway between the two men and the approaching herd. It had something like a feline form now, though she seemed larger than Illya remembered, and surely he had never seen Saphina ever do what she did next.
Rearing up and lunging towards the lead horses, Saphina became the living embodiment of the most deadly nightmares, all midnight fur, teeth and claws. And then she screamed. Illya had read accounts of the hardiest of explorers being unmanned by the sound of a panther's scream. It had always struck him as a bit of writer's hyperbole, but now Illya was beginning to think that no writer could describe the terrifying effect of that banshee cry.
Even Napoleon went a little pale and the leading horses in the oncoming herd screamed in panicked reaction. Wheeling with terror, the whole first rank of the herd split, some to the left and some to the right. The momentum of the herd was such that not even Saphina's spectre of horror could stop it, but it could, at least, swerve to avoid hazards. The herd came on, parted abruptly at Saphina, who remained, threatening and yowling menacingly from time to time, and thundered past Napoleon and Illya to their left and right.
Illya felt his partner slump with relief just as he did the same. It was several minutes before the herd passed, in part because they finally began to slow once a little more than half the herd had gone by. When it was clear that the mass of horses had essentially lost its momentum Saphina dropped back down to all fours, shook a cloud of dust from her fur, and then turned to race for Napoleon.
She leapt into his arms with enough force to knock him flat if Illya hadn't been supporting him. Then Napoleon was down on his knees, face buried in her silky black fur as he wept with relief. Illya dropped down beside them, laying an arm over his shoulder, even as he wondered where his own daemon was. The answer came a moment later, as he heard the sound of an approaching motor.
NEXT