The Game - Laurie R. King [96]
Fifty feet, forty, and at thirty-five I began to understand what he had said about feeling the animal. It was as if the boar gave off waves of heat, or just fury; it wouldn’t have surprised me if the bush burst into flames. My mount began to twitch, picking her way delicately, and the beaters a hundred yards away kept up their drumming on the ground.
This time I saw the blood first, a splash of shocking red against the dusty vegetation as a black shape the size of a small water buffalo shot out of his hiding-place like a launched shell, the broken-off spear protruding from his left haunch, bouncing with every move as he aimed his rage at the gelding’s white gut. The maharaja was ready for him, but the horse was not, and it shifted a fraction, taking the readied spear a degree or two off aim. The pig hit the spear hard, but instead of sinking into his vitals, the sharp head sliced across the shoulder blade and then stuck.
I had an unclear idea of pig physiology, but by the looks of it, a spear in that position was not going to prove immediately fatal. Nor did it seem all that securely planted, I noticed in alarm. As if to illustrate the matter, the pig began to push, grunting in fury, while the man on the horse tried to change the angle to one that might bite in more deeply. The pig pushed hard and the horse gave way, until they were circling around and around in the bush, held apart by a slim length of wood.
I put my heels into the mare’s side, trying to get close enough to use my spear without getting in the way of the partners, but I couldn’t, not while mounted. Without thinking, I kicked my feet from the stirrups and dropped to the ground.
The prince caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye and shouted something, and there was a sudden increase of noise from the beaters, but I could see that there would be an opening after the white hindquarters next passed, and I readied myself to dash forward.
But I didn’t know pigs. I didn’t realise that the animal would see me as well, didn’t foresee that the distraction of two enemies would make him back away, yanking the spear from its resting place. Didn’t realise that once the beast was free, it would come for me. But that is precisely what it did: a quick reverse scurry and the maharaja’s spear was swinging free while the blood-drenched creature got its legs under it and ran again—this time at me. Instinct alone lowered the point of my spear—anything to keep that furious bristling face away from my soft skin, to keep those wicked tusks at a distance, to postpone the inevitable for a moment.
The spear took him straight in the chest, and it was like slamming into a train. I flew backwards, clinging to the spear with every ounce of self-protection in my being, scarcely aware of sitting down hard onto the rocky ground. The universe narrowed down to this tiny space, my entire being focussed on the fact of my straining muscles pushing one way and the huge, stinking, primeval Fury shoving the other, two opposing forces separated only by a thin and sharply arching bamboo stalk, its fibres audibly creaking with strain. The boar was so close I could count its long, feminine eyelashes, so near I memorised the smear of dried blood on its lower right tusk and the scars on its snout, knew the shape of the pebbles crunching beneath its hooves. The creature’s breath was hot and intimate on my face, and we stared into each other’s eyes while its legs thrust towards me, its tusks yearning for my vitals with an urge so all-consuming that it overpowered any awareness of the steel blade driving ever more deeply into its chest. It grunted and strained, then suddenly my vision went pink as the breath blowing across my face went bloody, and through the red mist on my spectacles I saw the boar give a last convulsive push. The spear snapped, his legs buckled, and he came to rest