Foretold

Chapter 19

Alex jumped up in alarm when the tiger came hurtling out of the jungle. His eyes widened when the tiger slammed into Vasiliki, knocking her to the ground where she lay unconscious. The tiger growled at them, whipping its tail to and fro. 

Alex held up the knife he had. He couldn't think of what else to do, so he yelled at the animal, hoping to scare of the tiger. No such luck. The tiger turned to him, snarling. 

Alex wondered vaguely why the tiger was attacking them. So far as he knew, tigers didn't attack without provocation. 

He watched in horror as the tiger leapt at him. Terrified, he brought the long knife up, squeezing his eyes shut. 

All of a sudden, a warm, sticky liquid flooded over his hand and arm. Shocked, he opened his eyes to see that the tiger had impaled itself on his knife. His eyes widened as the tiger let out an ear-splitting yowl and fell on him. Blood continued to pour out of the wound in the tiger's chest. He had managed to hit a major artery or vein when the tiger impaled itself. The tiger's wide-eyed snarl stopped, and its eyes went glassy. 

It was dead. 

"Daedalos!" Alex howled. "Get this overgrown cat off me!" 

Daedalos snapped out of his frozen terror. Eyes widening, he rushed over to Alex, helping the other man to roll the tiger off. 

As soon as he was freed, Alex rushed to Vasiliki. She was breathing shallowly, and he heard moan. His eyes widened as she moaned again, struggling to open her eyes. 

"You're not dead!" Alex gathered her into his arms, holding her in his arms and starting to weep. "You aren't dead." he whispered. 

She moaned again, resting her head against his chest as dizziness threatened to make her sick. "My head is making me wish I was." she griped half-heartedly. "What happened? I saw a blur and then it was lights out for me." she snapped her fingers to indicate how fast it all happened. 

Alex nodded. He waved a hand at the large tiger. "That attacked us."

Vasiliki frowned, instantly alert. She looked about nervously, and then spotted another orange and black pelt. She stiffened. "That wasn't the only one, Alex." Shakily, she pointed to the jungle. 

Suddenly, a thin wail rent the air, and a baby tiger came tumbling into the clearing. Surprisingly, it wasn't afraid of them. Instead, it just ran to the dead tiger, nuzzling her fur and mewing. 

Alex moaned. "We just killed its mother."

Vasiliki sighed. "We'll have to take it with us."

"What?" Alex's eyes widened. "We can't! What are we supposed to feed it?"

Vasiliki looked at the cub. "Alex, we can't leave it! We just killed its mother! Besides, it looks old enough to start eating meat if it hasn't all ready. I'll be hunting anyway, so we can feed it with some of what I kill."

Alex sighed. "You won't give up on this, will you?"

She shook her head, wincing as her head began pounding again. 

"Fine... We'll take it along if it will come." Alex said, groaning inwardly. 

What were they supposed to do with a tiger cub? He met Daedalos's exasperated stare and shrugged. The tiger cub was coming along. He rolled his eyes, and Daedalos just sighed, shrugging and turning back to breakfast, which up until now had been forgotten. 

And so their party gained its fourth member.