Prince Jadar caught their motion and reined in his dun stallion; the bright morning sunshine glanced off his freshly oiled olive skin and highlighted the crevices of his lean angular face and his tightly trimmed short beard. He wore a forest-green hunting turban, secured with a heavy strand of pearls, and a dark green jacket emblazoned with his own royal crest. His fifty-man Rajput guard had drawn alongside, and their horses tossed their heads and pawed impatiently, rattling the arrows in the brocade quivers by each man's saddle.
Then Jadar spotted the _nilgai_, large bovine Indian deer, grazing in a herd upwind near the base of a low-lying hill. With a flick of his hand he signaled the keepers who rode alongside the to begin removing the leopards' saddlecloths. He watched as first the male and then the female shook themselves and stretched their paws in readiness.
"Fifty rupees the male will make the first kill." Jadar spoke quietly to Vasant Rao, the moustachioed young Rajput captain who rode alongside. The commander of the prince's personal guards, he was the only man in India Jadar trusted fully.
"Then give me two hundred on the female, Highness."
"A hundred. And half the hides for your regiment's shield maker." Jadar turned toward the waiting keepers. "Release the female. Then count to a hundred and release the male."
In moments the _chitahs _were bulleting toward the unsuspecting deer, darting from bush to bush, occasionally kicking up dust with their forefeet and hind legs to create camouflage. Then, as they approached the final clearing, they suddenly parted--the female to the north, the male to the south. Seconds later, as though on some private signal, the female sprang. She seemed to cover the remaining twenty yards in less than a second, and before the _nilgai _realized she was there, she had already pawed down a bleating straggler.
The striped ears of the other _nilgai _shot erect at the sound, and the herd panicked, sweeping blindly away from her--and directly toward the cover where the male crouched. He waited coolly, and then, as the deer darted by, pounced.
What followed was a fearsome devastation, as he brought down one after another of the confused prey with his powerful claws.