Badger had no idea how long he had been traveling, but he thought he had gone no more than a mile or so. It was hard to tell, through the dense undergrowth that covered most of the forest floor. He had met some interesting things: a giant wasp, fortunately uninterested in badger spirits; a woman who had stepped out of a tree, opened wings, and soared up into the canopy; and a lizard who had looked at the badger with an old, wise eye and spoken to him in a language that he did not understand. This might not be his own Hell, but it had the same sorts of things in it.
There was also a river. It was slow and green, running sluggishly between banks of mangrove, and badger had the distinct impression that there were a number of things in it, all best avoided. He followed the river nonetheless, traveling downstream, on the principle that it must come out somewhere. He disliked this aimlessness, feeling that he functioned best with some order to his day, but there was no helping it. And then, at a bend of the river, he heard something. It was growling.
Badger's hackles were immediately up. He recognized that growl: tiger! He slid down the bank to the water's edge and coiled himself under the mangrove roots. A voice spoke.
"Where is he?"
The badger thought dark thoughts. He recognized the voice, too—one of the tigresses, though he could not have named her. He thought it was the one who had proved timid during the conversation overheard in the kitchen. Then the reply came, "I don't know. He was here a moment ago. You keep searching along the stream."
The sound of large, padding feet and a crashing through the undergrowth. The tigresses were not being particularly subtle about their hunt, but then again, why should they be? This was their preserve. Badger could hear a great deal of rooting about and then the voice—and this one was definitely the one from the kitchen, the one who seemed to be planning something—said to herself: "Hah!"
She was coming closer. Badger scrunched into the root hole, wondering whether it would be safer, on balance, to slide under the water. He was a reasonably strong swimmer, but then, so are tigers. He could smell her now, a rank feline odor, growing stronger by the minute. Next moment, she was down the bank in a rush and the badger was confronted by the unwelcome sight of an enormous golden eye.
"There you are, little demon!" the tigress said, and reached in a gigantic paw. Badger flattened himself against the wall, hissing, but suddenly the tigress was gone, upward. There was a gurgling yell and the green waters of the river were spattered with drops of dark blood. Someone jumped lightly down to stand on the roots; badger looked up into a familiar face.
"Hello, badger," said Zhu Irzh.
The badger stared up to where the striped body hung, still swinging over green water. The fur was blackened with blood, the golden eyes were filmed.
"Impressive," the badger said, rather grudgingly. Zhu Irzh shrugged.
"Not my doing. The trap was already there." He pointed to a thin band of wire hiding under the roots of the tree. "Someone's been busy. I saw it when I came through here—doubled back and let her catch up, then tripped it. It's an effective snare, to collar something like that."
"Whose doing?"
"I've no idea. I imagine some of their prey must have got away from them, just by the law of averages. Maybe there are people living out here."
"And what has become of her?" Badger nosed the air in the direction of the tigress' body.
"Same answer—don't know. Presumably this Hell functions like other Hells; there might be lower levels. Hope she's got a nasty shock, anyway."
"There are more," badger said. "Seven at least."
"Yeah, I know. I met all of them, before I was dumped on the lawn and told to make a run for it." Zhu Irzh drew the badger back behind a thick trunk of mangrove. "We ought to get moving. You know what? This lot are nearly my in-laws. If I'd known getting married was going to prove such a hassle, I'd have made sure I stayed a bachelor."
Night fell fast and red, the sky above the canopy deepening to a starless crimson.
"Tigers are supposed to be nocturnal," Zhu Irzh said, uneasily. "Does this bunch ever sleep, do you know?"
"I do not. I have had little to do with them. Thankfully. I expect they captured us at the same time?"
"Yeah, I went in after you. Time was up and I waited for a bit, but I didn't hear from you and I got worried. Walked through the door and that was it—I don't remember what happened. Everything went dark. I don't think I was hit on the head." He put a hand to his cranium. "No sign of it, must have been magical. And they must have been good, to take me with such little difficulty."
"I was bundled into a bag," the badger said, sourly.
"Bad luck. Come to think of it, they must have been pretty good to get you."
"Thank you." The badger was grateful at this attempt to save his face. Zhu Irzh wasn't such a bad sort, really. "You said these demons are your family?"
"Family-to-be. They have some kind of relationship to Jhai. You know her mother's from Kerala? These are Keralan demons. A very old clan. They used to live wild in the jungles of Hell—one of them was kind enough to explain it to me, just so I knew why I was about to be killed. But in the nineteenth century, when the British came to India and set up the Raj, they hunted tigers. Wasn't popular."
"I have sympathy with that," badger said.
"Well, yeah. So that palace came into being—Hell grew it, apparently. Brought a demigod down—that would be the prince—and gave him a harem. Their role was to hunt the souls of British big-game hunters, soldiers, that sort of thing."
"But if they are your woman's family," badger said, "why are they trying to kill you?" It was not that he was unfamiliar with the concept: Mistress' relatives were continually endeavoring to poison one another, for instance. But badger liked things to be clear.
"I don't know," Zhu Irzh said, rather wildly. "Maybe they just don't like me." His expression, as far as badger could interpret it, was one of incredulity. "But it's more than that, isn't it? They must know how to really get rid of demons. Let's say a tigress jumps out of that tree right now, tears you and me to pieces. What happens to us?"
The badger thought about this. "We go to the lower levels? Or return to our own Hell?"
"Must be the lower levels here, because otherwise we'd just be transported home, and could return to Earth. They must have a way of making sure that we can't get back. They're not just hunting for sport; they're hunting for keeps."
And away in the darkness, something snarled.