Slowly the forest grew taller, the canopy thicker. The sunlight waned down to a persistent emerald twilight, while the fungi growing along the trunks seemed brighter. As they hiked, the undergrowth also thinned out, starved of the sunlight by the taller trees.
At last the darker shadows ahead became discernible as cliffs of black rock, draped with vines and orchids. The air grew muskier with the reek of damp pelts and the rot of spoiled meat. Multiple cave openings appeared. Some looked entirely natural; others looked widened by the scratching and sharpening of claws.
Cutter slowed their pace.
The denizens of these caves were nowhere in sight.
“What now?” Cutter asked.
“I should go,” Jenna mumbled out. “Alone. Stay here.”
She passed Cutter and headed forward on her own. She crossed until she could see the darker shadows shifting in those black caves.
Watching me . . .
She lifted the cub, crossed her legs, and sank to her backside, cradling the small sloth in her lap. He mewled a soft complaint, batted her with a hooked claw, but then settled.
She sat there, waiting.
At some point she started to hum a lullaby, not remembering the words, but the melody remained inside her.
Finally a lone sloth appeared, knuckling on her claws, and it was plainly a female from her stained teats on her chest. The female bobbed her head up, letting out a soft chuffing noise.
The cub stirred, rolling his head toward the sound, and gave off a couple of answering bleats.
Clearly mother and child.
Very slowly Jenna lowered the cub to the ground and retreated away, staying hunched, her head bowed submissively.
The female crept forward, scooped the body up one-armed, using those claws like gentle hooks to pull the cub to her chest. Then she turned and lumbered back into her den.
Jenna sat again, waiting. Occasionally she would nudge her chin up and imitate that chuffing noise. The pack here had seen her traveling through the canopy with Jori. They would believe he was her child. It was why she had to carry that cub herself. Getting its scent all over her. To intensify the sense of maternity and nurturing.
After another ten minutes passed, she found it harder to think. For a brief moment, she forgot why she was here. She started even to rise. Then movement again. A small figure came running out of a cave to the left.
Jori ran up to her and hugged her, flying hard enough to roll her to her back.
“Careful,” she said hoarsely.
He helped her up. She did so with great care.
Then a massive bull sloth charged out of a cave and barreled toward her. She pushed Jori behind her, knowing if she ran they’d both be killed. She stood her ground, arms out, sheltering the boy. She kept her face turned, not wanting to challenge him.
The Megatherium bull skidded to a stop, its nose right at her face. Its breath blew the small hairs from her damp face, reeking of blood and meat and savageness. She knew it was the same creature from earlier, the same one who had followed her to the edge of the clearing.
It sniffed her in turn, moving from face to crotch—then bumped her with that nose, not to dismiss her, but as some manner of acknowledgment, as if to say I know you, too.
It began to turn away, and she took a step backward.
A gunshot cracked across the silent jungle.
The bull’s ear exploded into a pulp of blood and fur. It roared, swinging around and clubbing her in the side, knocking her flying.
Another shot struck its flank, flinching the limb on that side.
“Run, Jori,” she said, struggling for breath after the blow.
The boy refused, coming instead to help her. Cutter saw this and came rushing low toward them, ready to protect his son.
Another shot struck the beast in the head, but it glanced off the thick skull. Jenna spotted Rahei flat on her belly near a rock fall by the cliff’s edge. She must have crept into that position very slowly, keeping her presence from the pack.
Cutter reached them, grabbed Jori by the arm, and pulled the boy back with him.
The bull noted this movement and charged.
Jenna managed to pull Jori to the ground, rolling on top of the boy. Cutter took the full brunt of that fury as he was bowled onto his back and a claw ripped through his vest and shirt, scouring a bloody track down his chest.
The other men behind Cutter opened fire, a fierce barrage.
The poor beast hunched itself against that onslaught, as if leaning into a stiff breeze. But even its majestic bulk could not sustain such damage for long. It trembled, took a step backward, and fell heavily to the ground, almost crushing Cutter.
Jenna hurried with Jori in tow, both of them collecting Cutter from the ground.
Rahei came bounding as light as a gazelle from out of hiding, plainly triumphant for her part in slaying the beast. Still, she kept wary watch on the cave openings, never turning her back.
From one of the tunnels, a smaller Megatherium charged out of a den, maybe the mate to the slain bull. Rahei swung her rifle and fired, but the first shot only grazed the beast’s shoulder. The creature’s other forelimb cast out toward Rahei, claws unfolding, as the beast braked hard in the loam. From its grasp, the Megatherium launched something wrapped in a leaf. As it flew, the leaf fluttered open and fell away. What it had held—something small and black—spun through the air and struck Rahei in the cheek.
She stumbled back as if hit by a bullet. Her face turned, revealing a small ebony-skinned frog glistening on her cheek. Rahei screamed, dropping her rifle and pawing at her face. She knocked the amphibian off, but emblazoned on her skin remained a bloodred burn in the shape of that frog. Rahei fell to her knees, her spine arching backward, her mouth open, her limbs quaking in a grand mal seizure.
Then finally she collapsed to her side, unmoving, dead, the mighty hunter brought down by a lowly frog.
Must have been one of Cutter’s toxic creations.
As if the violent death were a cue, more of the sloths charged out, drawn by the scream, the bloodshed, the death of one of their own.
Jenna retreated with the others, pursued through the jungle, chased by the roaring from many throats. They all simply ran, forgoing any attempt to even fire at the beasts.
Never make it . . .
Then the canopy ripped apart over them, letting in the blinding sun shattering the darkness. Winds whipped and tore at the forest. The craft overhead roared far louder than any Megatherium.
The pack fell back, intimidated and confused. Then as one, the beasts slunk back into the deeper shadows and retreated.
Lines fell from the aircraft, and men traveled smoothly down them to land in the forest, carrying heavy automatic weapons and wearing body armor.