The first feral to notice them was a small female with a long crack running through one of her fangs. She whipped toward them, fury in her wild eyes, and charged.

Rosa fled left, carrying Archie out of the path of danger and far from Houndstooth—but Ruby did not follow. She let out a roar that put the raging feral bulls to shame. She turned her wide mouth toward the attacker and opened it, ready to fight. Her golden tusks glinted in the sun. Houndstooth unsheathed his knives, bracing his knees in the saddle, and bared his teeth, echoing Ruby’s stance.

Water fanned in front of the feral as she bore down on Ruby and Houndstooth, her own jaw yawning wide—but then a brown blur slammed into her from one side, knocking her into the water. Betsy—sweet, small, battle-scarred Betsy—bowled the feral over, sinking her fangs into its flank before it had a chance to recover from the impact.

“Betsy!” Houndstooth cried as the little brown hippo disappeared into the roil of ferals. He looked around for Archie, but she, too, seemed to have vanished in the fray. A grey-backed hippo brushed up against Ruby, and Houndstooth jumped, prepared to fight—but it was Abigail, cowardly Abigail, Hero’s Abigail, trying desperately to hide between Ruby and the tower.

A roar drew Houndstooth’s attention back to the roiling mass of ferals, who were savagely fighting each other as the water buffeted them into the Gate. Houndstooth’s safe shelter against the tower was keeping him and Ruby out of the worst of the current—but it was too much to hope that they would completely escape notice, and Abigail’s flight had drawn the attention of a huge, one-eyed bull.

It was that bull whose roar had shaken Houndstooth’s bones—a roar that was directed at cowering Abigail. The bull began to move toward them, parting a path through the seething mass of grey that was the feral melee. Houndstooth went cold with fear. The bull was easily half again as large as Ruby. His massive head swung to and fro as he snapped at other, smaller ferals. He was coming for them, and they wouldn’t stand a chance.

Houndstooth tried to steer Ruby out of the way—tried to maneuver her out of the path of certain death—but she wouldn’t budge. Houndstooth cast his gaze frantically around for Archie, but he couldn’t see her, and there was no time because the bull was free of the tangle of ferals and he was charging at Ruby with all the fury of a freight train.