Jane Carver of Waar Read Online Free PDF Page B

sleeve was a good fit too. It was leather, sewn over with overlapping metal scales, and covered my arm up to my neck and all of my right boob. Or at least it would have if I’d been a man. As it was I had to leave a strap loose to make room.
    And speaking of boobs, while I was making my adjustments, I noticed that the lighter gravity had an unforeseen plus; my breasts now sat higher than they’d been when I was sixteen and the envy of the girl’s locker room. I smiled. I might be living in some bad sci-fi nightmare, but this I could get used to.
    I was finishing off my outfit with a pair of boots and shin guards from another, smaller guy, when Sai woke up. He choked. “Mistress Jae-En, what have you...? Please, mistress. This is unseemly. You cannot...” He stopped, lifting his head, listening. I heard it too. A rumble, like the one I’d woken up to earlier. We looked up. Coming across the plain at a run were the four harnessed birds from the coach. They’d come back.
    I smiled. “How’s that for luck. We’ve got a ride.”
    “No, Mistress Jae-En, this is no luck at all. This is our doom.” He was looking past the approaching birds. I followed his gaze.
    Far off, but closing on us fast, was a churning dust cloud, shot through with glints of steel and half hiding the forms of massive galloping beasts.
     

CHAPTER THREE
    MONSTERS!
    A t first I thought they were horses and riders—okay, not horses, but some kind of powerful animals carrying big, shaggy riders. There were definitely things with four legs galloping in the dust cloud, and hairy arms hefting big-ass spears and swords, but as they got closer I got the next big shock in a long day of big shocks. Horse—or whatever—and rider were all one animal!
    They reminded me of those horse-man things in Fantasia . Whaddaya call ’em? Cen-somethings. Except these weren’t cute. Not by a country mile. The horse-part was more like an extra large tiger, low to the ground and striped yellow and eggplant purple. It had a thick, Komodo dragon tail at one end, and a squat, upright man-body at the other. Their back legs were like a cat’s, strong and springy, with padded paws that left footprints bigger around than a Frisbee. Their front legs had what looked like big, lumpy clubs on the ends. I couldn’t make out any more detail than that with all the dust and movement.
    Their heads were huge, with wide, blunt faces like a bear’s, except tiger-striped like their bodies. The striping went up into thick dreadlocks, some yellow, some purple, that hung down their wide backs.
    Even with the swords and spears in their hands it took a minute for it to sink in that these weren’t animals. I mean they were, but they were people too. Okay, not people, but another race. You know what I mean. Real aliens this time. Not guys who looked like some guy in a band with a little purple make-up. I got it when I noticed the beads and bones woven into their dreads. Apes might pick up clubs, but jewelry don’t interest them much. For a second I thought that might be a good thing. If they weren’t animals maybe we could negotiate, right? Then I saw some very human-looking skulls around the waist of one mean-ass mother. So much for the “We’re all cousins under the skin” approach.
    I’ll give Sai credit. He didn’t run or burst into tears. He took a sword from one of his dead buddies and painfully got to his feet. He could hardly stay upright he was so weak, but he set his jaw, used the sword for a prop and made like he wasn’t going to budge.
    The cen-tigers slowed as they neared us, circling us and the coach like a bunch of bikers intimidating some nice couple who’ve broken down in the middle of nowhere—not that I know anything about that kind of thing. The leader, a huge, scarred thug with a leather eye-patch over one eye, stopped in front of us. He was about eight feet tall, and smelled like the world’s dirtiest cat box. Then, like we weren’t already impressed, he