Damn hop loop must have been an old model. Sabriel realised, a split second after she touched down, that Mordowrgi was no longer with her. It was hard to miss a bloody great tiger. Hopefully the hop loop had just jumbled up their atoms in transition and placed Mordowrgi somewhere close by, and it wasn’t such an old model that her familiar had been left behind entirely. You’d think that Palmas’ Alliance HQ would have better quality hop loops, given that Brazil was Zed’s home country, but maybe they just kept all the good ones in Brasilia or Rio. That would figure.

At the snap of the twig, Sabriel spun on the spot, asserting herself with her voice and her pistol. A dark-robed figure in a hat akin to something a cowboy might wear stepped out from the undergrowth, his movements slow and confident. Sabriel followed his movements with her pistol, keeping it aimed at his chest, which was a larger and surer target than his head. Prancing around with a cocky grin and a pistol at your hip was a waste of time; pragmatism dictated that whatever got the job done with the least amount of energy and resources was the best course forward.

Sabriel had been trained to resist ‘weapons focus’, the psychological term for the phenomenon of hyper-focusing on a weapon when it’s pointed at you, but her eyes did flick briefly to his pistol in order to assess it. She hadn’t seen a gun made of wood since her days at the academy when she’d studied the history of weaponry. It was a pretty thing, and could be effective, but it didn’t have the accuracy or efficiency of her Browning. Shifting her brown eyes from his weapon to his face, Sabriel swiftly studied it and committed the details to memory. His smile was a little confident for someone who had just brought a donkey to a horse race and was up against a professional jockey. Either he was a fool or he had a trick up his sleeve.

Regardless, the old count to three trope was a waste of everyone’s time. They could count to three and he could fire on two. It made no difference to the situation they were in. Sabriel drew her pistol back, pointing the barrel skywards, before slotting it back into her holster.

“I’ll give you this one free, pet.” She slotted the pistol firmly into the holster but kept her hand on the butt, a small smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Wouldn’t want you to break such a lovely antique.”

A gruff sensation ruffled the back of her mind and her smile widened slightly. Another twig cracked behind her, but this time Sabriel didn’t turn; she could see the tiger stepping out from behind the shrubbery in her mind’s eye. He prowled slowly forward, coming to a halt by her side. His sharp, golden eyes roamed over the stranger’s body, devoid of warmth.

“I’m looking for Prince Tristan and his band of merry men,” she continued, slotting her free hand into a pouch on her belt. Extracting a single gold coin, she tossed it up in the air and caught it again. “Any chance you could help me out, friend?”