Chapter 175 Another Glutton

"An — an — elephant!"

Nansen got it out in fits and stutters.

Corin dropped low, one arm spread out, backing the whole party off. Now he had seen the world, and no mistake: this beast stood half a body taller than he, its ears went on fanning and slinging mud in every direction, its body was caked with the stuff — and the tusks, for all that, still gleamed that white.

"Elephant! Back — back, it's coming this way!"

"Lyle — scout round for the rest of its family! Everyone else, back to the path!"

"No good — it's charging! Scatter!"

The elephant broke cover into the open before Lora and the rest of them, and the men came out with their sabers all round. In daylight they could see it plain: that wrinkled hide was thicker than a wild bull's — an arrow would do it no hurt at all, only provoke it the faster.

"This is a young bull — seven years old at the outside, more likely less."

"Would its mother be somewhere near?"

That was the question Leon cared for, because he had already seen it: a smear of blood in the grass off a little way. Every one of their own people was accounted for — so what had died here, man or beast?

"No telling. He may be a straggler that lingered to play. Only — whatever happens, no one hurts him. Elephants reach each other on sound bands we can't hear, and they hold a grudge like no beast alive; bring the herd back down on us and we'll pay for it."

"Blood!" Nansen had already sung out.

Lora looked over the smear and let her breath go easy: "A cow has calved. Nobody's been killed."

"So the herd isn't far off after all..."

The young bull looked fretful. It had just checked its pace when the smell of blood on the wind seemed to goad it — up went the trunk, high, and one ear-splitting "Awr!"

"Done for — he's calling his father, sure as fate!" Nansen stood with both blades crossed before him, and they had all but backed onto the path.

But once out of the trees, all those bared sabers goaded the jangled beast harder yet. It actually came for them, trunk swinging.

Perhaps its herd had been hurt by saber-men before; the pace of it picked up, and slow retreat was over. Leon seized Lora's hand and ran flat out for the path.

The others scattered wide. Lucy had been at Lora's back — and now, with the elephant on top of her, her legs went to lead, nailed to the ground; she meant to back away and sat straight down instead.

Norton had already gained the path with Leon and Lora. Seeing Lucy hadn't come, he turned back for her — and saw that the elephant had already squared up with her.

Ruth, quick as a cat, had been hauled off by her father a full thirty paces back; the men scattered every way, and even Old Whelan and his son had run well wide.

Before the elephant there was only Lucy.

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But its feet slowed.

A bull elephant isn't grown till past ten; this one stood just now at that age of ours — seven, eight, nine: too much for any dog to abide. It too was weighing: should it make contact with this bladeless two-legged beast sitting on the ground?

It swung its trunk, walking slowly toward Lucy.

"Lucy — I'm right behind you. Get up and run backward!" Norton said it soft as breath.

Lora called from her own distance: "Lucy — the pickles in your bundle! Hand them out to it!"

Lucy, shaking all over, dragged her bundle around — but the elephant's trunk came swinging down again, and without a thought she flung up her arm, centered the hand-bow on it, and pressed the trigger. One little bolt flew.

The elephant didn't know what the thing was. The trunk flicked after it, the bolt rang off and dropped.

Now it knew: this bladeless one wanted to hurt it too!

"Awr!"

An elephant teenager, all impulse, broke into a run. Norton gave up everything else, hauled Lucy up off the ground and swung her behind him, and stood with his saber up.

And before Lora's eyes flashed the other scene — Norton stepping in front of her, taking that arrow for her. She flung herself forward without a thought for anything, and snatched the bundle off the ground.

Pickles inside. Pickles were salt. Weren't they come hunting salt?

She worked a pickle loose, held her arm out straight, and gave it a shake in front of the elephant. It was taken — she could see it taken.

An elephant's nose is keener than a hound's. It had the salt-smell already.

"Norton — put the saber away. Let me. Leon, I know you're back there — you fall back too. Trust me: he's only a greedy child."

Lora said it without once taking her eyes off the elephant's small eyes.

She gave the pickle another shake.

The elephant gave Norton up, sure enough, and reached its trunk out toward Lora.

"Here — one leaf to try... too salty, I wonder..." As she spoke she stripped off a pickle leaf, and the trunk, deft as a small hand, closed on it and carried it to its mouth.

Then, with no warning at all, it snorted like a horse.

It was... very sudden.

It reached the trunk out again for the pickle — this time Lora handed the whole of it over, and the pickle went into its mouth.

The whole company stood staring.

Corin alone never let his bow down. His arrowhead lay on the elephant's eye — at that range, small as the eye was, he'd have put the arrow in it.

The trunk came out once more. Lora opened her hand flat, and the trunk-tip puffed warm air on her palm. It put her in mind of the cloud-milk sugar in her satchel, the kind she kept for horses — out it came, quick, into her palm.

The elephant refused nothing; into the mouth it went. And this time the trunk went straight into her satchel after more.

Salt is what the body asks for; sugar is what makes it happy.

"That's all of it — you've had the lot!"

Lora took the chance to stroke the trunk, and spread both hands open for it to see.

The elephant seemed to understand: this person had no more sugar. Its long trunk swept left to right, then right to left, wound once about Lora's body — and all at once stamped a front foot.

Before Lora could work out what it meant, it fanned its great ears, turned, and went off down the slope.

"My lady — you can talk with elephants?"

Leon's palms were wet through with the fright of it. He had held a dagger the whole while, ready at any instant to cut that trunk off — and let the consequences sit where they fell.

"Did it just put its trunk round you — hug you?" He found it past belief:

Golden Lion had taken to Lora at first sight and fallen for her outright by the second — and here a wild elephant, met for the first time, meant to embrace her!

"I truly couldn't say whether that was a hug or a body-search for sugar cubes. What I do know is that stamp — it will have been answering its mother. Elephants feel the infrasound that travels through the ground."

Lora explained it to the ring of faces come crowding round, then passed her orders:

"Nansen — follow him, well off, and see where he goes."

They had luck on their side, in truth: a young bull, not yet come to his growth, without a grown elephant's taste for battle — and green to the world besides, his attacking still unpracticed.

And chief of all: he couldn't hold out against cloud-milk sugar either.

What child ever could?

With the danger past, Leon threw caution to the winds and gathered Lora into his arms. When she had broken away from his side and run at that elephant, his heart had come clean up into his throat.

And then to watch her feed the thing pickles — he had thought her mad clean through.

As it stood, there were hours when a woman's feel for a crisis outdid cold steel.

And Norton's heart held more than he could sort.

That quick, that brave — take her away, and who was left?