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Sabre understood, then.
They'd used him, used his speed . . . made the smugglers think Shiba was on their trail so they'd deploy
their second skunk . . . and now Shiba had circled round him, her nose protected and intact, and taken
up the trail.
He felt a strange twitch of pride. They'd not get past her. He barked, trying to back her even from here,
and whined his most beseeching whine at Tallon. It rarely worked on Taliya; she was inured to it. But
Tallon . . . Sabre could see him softening. He didn't need his nose to back Shiba, he needed only his legs,
and he still had those. He still had his speed; he could catch up to her without trouble. He whined again,
wagging just the tip of his tail, and widened his eyes in hopeful attention.
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"God and goddess," Tallon muttered. "Howdoes she resist you?"
Sabre knew permission when he heard it. He sprang to his feet, dug in his claws, and sprayed dirt and
leaves into Tallon's face with his takeoff. Tongue lolling, eyes squeezed into slits against the undergrowth,
he ran flat-out through the woods, his body stretching, coiling, exploding, barely heeding the obstacles in
his way. He knew he was on trail again by the deep hoofprints before him, signs of the horse being
pushed to speed in these tight woods. And then Shiba was just ahead first just her belling voice in his
ears, and then her butt in his face.Bitch-butt .
Sabre was glad to see it.
He hung back, trusting her nose, until he saw the flash of movement through the trees. Then his bark
roughened, grew choppy; he found a place to pass her and did, surging into his powerful speed. In
moments he was barkingtreed , leaping up against the side of the horse to reach the magic carried on the
man who rode it.
"[Critter]-spawn!" the man spat as the horse faltered; he jerked on the reins, fighting the creature while
Sabre leapt at them again and again, knocking them both off balance, delaying them, not even considering
that the man might turn the horse against him until one hard hoof landed on his front leg, briefly trapping
him . . . snapping the limb in a clean break.
Sabre didn't even feel it, not with his quarry so close; he didn't need all four legs to throw himself at the
man, and the injury barely slowed him. But it stole his agility, and the man easily kicked him aside;
Sabre's strong tail was the next to break, and by then he was beginning to feel his hurts, hesitating
The man was not. He drove the horse onward, kicking it into compliance, aiming it at Sabre . . .
Shiba. Bellowing all the while, she bounded into the fray from behind and with one mighty leap latched
onto the horse's tail midway up its length. The animal froze an instant only, and then it hunched its back
and kicked out, but she was too high up, too close, for the kick to do anything but knock her aside; she
was back on the tail in an instant, worrying it, growling, fierce in her trail fury. And all the while the man
hammered his heels into the horse, yanking its head around, still trying to aim for Sabre, who'd taken up
barking a steadytreed for Tallon and Taliya, right in the animal's face.
And then he shook out the whip. He lashed at Shiba, the kind of feeble strike that would barely affect
her through the bramble-guard, and which hit the horse right along with her.
Too much for any horse, even a good one which this was not. It launched into a bucking protest,
dislodging both Shiba and the smuggler.
Shiba landed on her feet. The smuggler, not as agile, rolled to a dazed stop on his stomach. Unlucky for
him that he had clipped his long, scruffy hair at the back of his head. Unlucky. Just as he made the effort
to prop himself up on his elbows, Shiba landed on his back, audibly driving the air from his lungs as she
latched on to the trailing tail of hair. She braced her feet on his back andpulled . His head came up, the
skin of his face stretched back and a squeak of protest in his throat. Sabre hobbled forward, stuck his
nose in the man's face, and bellowedtreed as loud as he could.
Which is exactly how Taliya and Tallon found them.
* * *
Sabre shifted his awkwardly splinted leg and woofed to let Taliya know they had visitors. Tallon and
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Shiba, as of course had been the case every day since Tallon had carried Sabre back to this cabin with
the help of a sling made from the smuggler's shirt, for no man carries a densely boned, muscle-packed
linehound far without help, not even a lineman trying to impress a linewoman. And once the smuggler was
secured, and Sabre's hurts tended, Taliya seemed quite impressed indeed.
Now she came out of the cabin, raising a hand in greeting as Tallon and Shiba broke through the trees
surrounding their cabin. Tallon went to Sabre first wise man offering a treat of dried meat; Sabre
accepted it delicately between his front teeth and swallowed it whole.
He was learning to wag his bottom instead of his broken tail.
Shiba sniffed Sabre's toes still his and sat nearby while Tallon went to greet Taliya. He seemed to
have some sort of treat for her, too, although it didn't smell like dried meat. Nothing important, then.
Sabre would have ignored them altogether if the strangemagicsmell hadn't filled the air. He'd finally
realized the truth of it the day before when this same thing had happened yet again.
The magic wasn't Tallon. It wasn't Taliya. It was something that happened when the two of them came
together, and he was critter-bedamned if he could understand why.
But it did make Taliyahappy . And it made hernot happy when Sabre fussed about it, and especially
when he jumped on Tallon, so though it tore at his linehound sense of duty, he was willing to ignore the
magicsmell . For her.
Shiba seemed to have come to the same conclusion. Though her eyes glinted and her nose flared at the
scent of it, she turned her back on the humans why did they lean so close to one another,
anyway? and sniffed Sabre's toes again, her long, graceful ears brushing his feet.
Ooh, that itch again.Where he nibbled his side not there and lifted a hind foot to his ear not
there and tried desperately to reach the spot under his splinted front leg no, not there and then
noticed that Shiba had engaged herself in the same sort of frustrated exercise. She twisted herself around,
trying to reach the loose skin directly over her spine, that glossy black fur twitching with her efforts . . .
Mesmerized, Sabre gave up on his own scratching and reached over to nibble the spot for her. To his
utter astonishment, his own vague prickling sensations instantly vanished. Shiba regarded him in
momentary surprise, then still twisted around she solemnly cleaned his face with her tongue.
It seemed he'd finally found the right bitch to scratch.
Foxy Boxer Gal Fights Giant
Monster King!
Pierce Askegren
"So this is Japan," Jenna Ferguson said. "Everything's so different." She took another bite from her Big
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Mac, chewed the two all-beef patties, special sauce, cheese, pickles, onions and sesame seed bun, then
swallowed.
Teruhisha smiled. They were seated beneath the sign of the golden arches and looking out through
spotless windows at busy downtown Tokyo. Some of the local residents, mostly men, were looking back
in, and Jenna knew they were looking at her.
That was understandable; even sitting down, Jenna stood out.
She was a redhead, with fair skin and green eyes, and a great body that put her a full head taller than
most men. Right now, she was eating her second sandwich and watching Teruhisha work on his meal,
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