The jungle fell silent.
A sudden hush dropped over the verdant foliage as if someone had trapped it inside a glass jar. The birds huddled closer to their branches, concealing their bright jewel colors beneath the sun-dappled leaves. The chattering hordes of black and white monkeys deserted their overhead perches, carrying their cries — and their babies — with them until the echoes faded into the distance. Even the insects ceased to buzz and skitter. The searing hot air of midmorning became still and empty, a strange sense of expectancy hanging in it.
The chital froze and raised its head, the white dots that peppered the little deer’s reddish brown flanks quivering as it sniffed the air.
Rémy cursed silently. Crouched beneath a bush just a few feet away, she was hot, cramped, and tired of this hunt, which had been going on all morning without success. Whatever had scared the fawn at this crucial moment was in danger of depriving her of her dinner. The loop of rope that belonged to the makeshift trap she had set hours before lay just beyond where the creature now stood.
Go on, Rémy urged it silently. Just a little farther …
The chital turned, head still up, ears flicking this way and that, and took a step toward Rémy’s hiding place. No, Rémy thought. Not this way!
The deer, oblivious and still afraid, took another step in the wrong direction. It looked as if it were preparing to bolt.
Sensing a last chance, Rémy stood, but the deer was already moving. It leapt toward her, its small but powerful back legs kicking up the dust of the forest floor. Rémy lunged forward, arms stretched wide as if she could herd the creature in the right direction, but the chital flicked sideways in midair, black eyes wide with fright, nostrils flaring.
If, in those briefest of moments, Rémy had time to wonder why the deer had chosen to run at her rather than away, the question was swiftly answered. Something surged out of the undergrowth behind it, a flash of orange and white striped with black, massive and muscular with a gaping maw and yellowed teeth as large and sharp as carving knives. The huge creature sliced through the clearing, bathing Rémy in a wash of air that rolled over her as it passed.
The cat caught the chital, one massive bite from those fangs crushing the deer’s neck before the beast rippled to a halt at the edge of the clearing, giant paws as silent as slippers on the jungle floor.
The tiger turned to look at Rémy Brunel.
The cat’s head was enormous, almost half the size of the deer between its teeth. The tiger’s body easily dwarfed Rémy’s, and even now, from several feet away, she could see the rippling muscles beneath the bright beauty of its glossy tri-colored coat.
Blood dripped from the tiger’s razor-sharp teeth, peppering the earth with scarlet. Nothing else moved. The tiger watched her with huge, sepia-colored eyes, as if waiting to see what she would do. Rémy herself didn’t know. The tiger already had prey to occupy it, but the chital was small. She would make a bigger meal. If she moved, would it come after her? If it did, Rémy knew that as swift as she was, she’d never outrun a tiger in full flight.
The Little Bird was no match at all for a Big Cat. Not on the ground, anyway …
The tiger twitched, lifting one huge front paw and setting it down again. She could see its claws, shining like opaque, slivered jewels through the feathery white fur of its feet.
The tiger growled, the muscles along its nose wrinkling like waves on the ocean, its whiskers quivering. Rémy turned and ran. She made for the nearest tree, throwing herself at it and scrambling skyward up the parched bark at breakneck speed. She felt the tiger coming at her, its bulk disturbing the still air as it crossed the clearing in one leap. It thumped against the tree, shaking the trunk with its full weight so that Rémy almost lost her grip. She clung on, digging her nails into the bark, feeling it give under her fingers as she pulled herself up. The tiger leapt after her, paw outstretched and body extended, so big that she was sure she would feel its claws in her legs. Rémy kept going, scrambling higher and higher until she was out of the creature’s reach. Breathing hard, she allowed herself a pause to look down.
The tiger was climbing the tree, using its needle-sharp claws to drag itself upward. It snarled, the sound dispersing like the low rumble of thunder through the trees.
Rémy ran quickly along the narrow branch, balancing even as the tiger’s movements shook and shuddered it beneath her booted feet. It began to bow beneath her weight, but by then she had lined up a jump. Taking a fraction of a second to center herself, Rémy flung herself into midair, the colors of the jungle whipping past her like circus streamers as she reached for a branch of the neighboring tree. Her hands gripped and held the rough bark like the bar of a trapeze and she swung there for a moment, testing its strength. To her relief, it held. She bounced there for a second, then used the momentum to twist one hand over the other, turning to see what her hunter was doing.
The tiger snarled again and dropped back to the ground, too clever to follow her along the narrow branch. It moved to stand beneath her instead. Rémy hung there, nothing but the strength of her arms and several feet of empty, hot jungle air between her and the angry cat. It hunched itself backward on its hindquarters.
She swung out of the way as the tiger leapt, snapping its jaws around empty air. She hooked her legs over the branch and heaved herself onto her stomach, just as she would have done on the trapeze, then found her way to her feet. She moved higher, where the branches were thinner but out of the reach of the tiger’s questing claws. Still the creature stood below her, those great yellow eyes watching every movement, just waiting for her to make a mistake.
Rémy, out of breath, realized that she’d have to take the monkey’s highway if she wanted to escape in one piece. It’s just as well, she thought as she scanned the trees around her for her next move, that I have kept up my training, even though there has been no proper audience to watch me for months.
She set off, zigzagging from branch to branch through the trees, hands protesting at the rough nature of the holds she reached for over and over again. The tiger padded along beneath her for a long way, snarling every now and then, waiting for her to make a mistake. Rémy Brunel, however, rarely made mistakes — at least, not on the trapeze. She climbed, she jumped, and she swung, as nimble and light as a bird — or a monkey.
Rémy didn’t see the tiger go. One minute it was there, following below her like a flash of orange flame. The next it had melted back into the jungle. Most likely it was returning to the clearing to reclaim the chital before a pack of dhole came across it.
Still, she stuck to the trees. Just in case.