Dancing with Bears Read Free Page A

had taken less than a minute.
    Surplus dismounted and saw to Prince Achmed, while Darger untied the stranger. The ropes fell away, and the man woozily rose to his feet. His clothes were Russian, and his face could belong to no other people. “Are you all right, sir?” Darger asked.
    The Russian, a burly man with a great black beard, embraced him fervently. “ Spasibo! Ty spas moyu zhizn’. Eto chudovische moglo ubit’ menya. ” He kissed Darger on both cheeks.
    “Well, he certainly seems grateful enough,” Darger commented wryly.
    Surplus looked up from the prone body. “Darger, the ambassador is not well.”
    A quick examination of the fallen man revealed no broken bones, nor any serious injuries, save four long scratches that the claws of one of the machine-wolf’s paws had opened across his face. Yet he was not only unconscious but pale to the point of morbidity. “What’s that smell?” Surplus leaned over the ambassador’s face and inhaled deeply. Then he went to the fallen wolf and sniffed at its claws. “Poison!”
    “Are you certain?”
    “There can be no doubt.” Surplus wrinkled his nose with distaste. “Just as there can be no doubt that this wolf was already dead when it attacked us, and had been for some time. Its body has begun to rot.”
    Darger considered himself a man of science. Nevertheless, a thrill of superstitious dread ran up his spine. “How can that be?”
    “I do not know.” Surplus held up the wolf ’s paw—strangely articulated metal scythes extended from its toe-pads—and then let it drop. “Let us see to our employer.”
    Under Surplus’s supervision, two of the Neanderthals produced a litter from the mound of luggage lashed to a caravan roof and laid the prince’s unconscious body gently down on it. They carefully donned silk gloves, then, and carried the litter to the rear car. Surplus knocked deferentially. A peephole slid open in the door. “We need your medical expertise.” Surplus gestured. “The prince…I fear he is poisoned.” The peephole snapped shut. Then, after Surplus had withdrawn, the door swung open, and the Neanderthals slid the body into the darkness within. They backed down the steps and bowed again.
    The door slammed shut.
    The Neanderthals ungloved themselves and resumed their positions in the traces. Enkidu grunted a command and, with a jerk, the caravans started forward again.
    “Do you think he will live?” Darger anxiously asked Surplus.
    Herakles glanced sideways. “He will if he don’t die.” Then, as a harness-mate punched him appreciatively in the shoulder: “Haw!” He shoved the Neanderthal in front of him to get his attention. “Did ya hear that? He asked if Prince Ache-me was gonna live and I said—”
    The Russian they had rescued, meanwhile, had found his horse and untied it from the rear of the last caravan. He had been listening to all that was said, though with no obvious comprehension. Now he spoke again. “ Ty ne mozhesh’ ponyat’, chto ya skazal? ”
    Darger spread his hands helplessly. “I’m afraid I don’t speak your language.”
    “ Poshla! ” the Russian said, and the horse knelt before him. He rummaged within a saddlebag and emerged with a hand-tooled silver flask. “ Vypei eto, I ty poimesh’! ” He held up the flask and mimed drinking from it. Then handed it to Darger.
    Darger stared down at the flask.
    Impatiently, the Russian snatched it back, unscrewed the top, and took a long pull. Then, with genuine force, he thrust the flask forward again.
    To have done anything but to drink would have been rude. So Darger drank.
    The taste was familiar, dark and nutty with bitter, yeasty undertones. It was some variety of tutorial ale, such as was commonly used in all sufficiently advanced nations to convey epic poetry and various manual skills from generation to generation.
    For a long moment, Darger felt nothing. He was about to say as much when he experienced a sharp twinge and an inward shudder, such as