The wait seemed interminable. A couple of times, Moe tensed, and it seemed like he was about to give the signal, but then he relaxed slightly. Through it all, Silva was as still as stone except for the tiny adjustments he made to his aim, following the vitals of the big boar. Sweat dripped unnoticed down his face and soaked the black patch covering his left eye.
“Now,” said Moe, without any warning at all. Almost before the word was fully uttered, Silva squeezed the trigger. The flint leaped forward, scraping a shower of yellow-hot sparks from the frizzen and kicking it open to expose the priming powder. A jet of flame and white smoke erupted in front of Silva’s face, and with a horrendous cracking roar, the main charge vomited the quarter pound missile from the barrel-and heaved Silva’s shoulder a foot backward. There was a nightmarish shrieking squeal that reverberated in the cut, and through the smoke they saw the big boar perform an almost vertical leaping lunge. He collapsed in the turf, back feet kicking spastically. There was pandemonium among the rest of the herd. Two other dark shapes lay where they’d fallen; another was performing writhing cartwheels. The rest were thundering in all directions like small locomotives gone amok. One large beast came directly at them, and Moe let fly with his massive crossbow, driving a shaft through the charging creature’s snout and probably straight into its brain. It collapsed in a heap perhaps a dozen yards short of their position. That fast, all the surviving rhino-pigs were gone, vanishing into the dense growth on either side of the cut.
Silva was standing, already pouring another charge of powder down the massive gun. “Whoo-ee!” he said excitedly. “Good stick, Moe! I figgered I was gonna hafta poke that last one off us with my rifle muzzle!” He shook his head and slapped the holstered 1911 Colt at his side. “Never would’ve even got my pistol out!”
Lawrence scampered forward with nothing but a short spear. With a peculiar cry, he plunged it into the one still-thrashing pig.
Dennis nodded toward him, smiling. “Junior’s growin’ up,” he said, almost wistfully. “Come on, fellas. Let’s see how many we got besides ol’ Moe’s there!”
Having heard the shot, the bearers were already approaching. They knew whenever Silva fired his big gun, there’d be work to do.
Abel stared at Moe’s rhino-pig as they passed it. “Will they clean the beasts here?” he asked.
“Sure. No sense waggin’ their guts back. Makes ’em lighter.”
“I’d like to watch.” He looked at Silva. “Not that I’m finished watching you, sir! You are every bit as fascinating as any entrails, I’m sure!”
Silva blinked. “Yeah, well, thanks.” With his rifle fully loaded and at the ready, Silva marched forward to view the carnage he’d created. “Four for sure.” He beamed. “Big sumbitches line up, little sumbitches bunch up!” He held out the Doom Whomper. “What a gun!”
“Two ’lood trails!” Lawrence announced. His voice was a little shaky, but he seemed excited. He was spattered with the blood of the pig he’d finished. Dennis sobered.
“Rats. We’ll hafta go after ’em, and they’re dangerous enough when they ain’t hurt and sore at you. Mr. Bradford, why don’t you and young Abel here stay and study these boogers while the bearers cut ’em up. Me and Moe”-he glanced at the “lizard”-“and Larry’ll track these other ones.”
They quickly found the first rhino-pig. It hadn’t gone far and had probably bled out within moments of being hit. Silva wasn’t sure which one it was in the lineup, but the entry and exit wounds were quite large and about the same size, so he figured it was toward the back. Moe trilled a call to the bearers and, returning to the cut, the three trackers commenced following the final blood trail. This one put them a little on edge, and they’d saved it for last for a reason. Moe said the color of the blood indicated a liver hit. A fatal wound certainly, but not necessarily immediately fatal. The more time they gave the beast to die in peace, the less likely it would be to kill one of them when they found it.
They advanced carefully. Rhino-pigs were notorious for playing dead when wounded. Sometimes, their last act was to charge a tracker, taking revenge with its final breath. Moe always said never to approach a “dead” rhino-pig lying on his belly. One that was really dead couldn’t lie like that; it would always lie on its side. If it was on its belly, it was poised to strike.
They crept along a considerable distance, the blood trail clear and dark, the ground disturbance unmistakable. This was some of the densest jungle Dennis had been in yet. The path they’d once followed while tracking the super lizard was on the east side of the cut and had been fairly easy going, in retrospect. It had been made by an animal dozens of times as big as a rhino-pig. This path wasn’t much larger than the animal that left it, and sometimes all of them were forced to their hands and knees. It was like following a shark down a tunnel, Dennis thought uncomfortably. At some point you knew you were bound to run into the bastard, and by then, he was probably turned around and waiting. Raucous cries permeated the jungle and harsh coughs and snorts stopped their progress occasionally. Dennis knew about super lizards and rhino-pigs and many other creatures by now, but only Moe had a real idea what other dangerous predators they were likely to meet. Lawrence proceeded, alert to every movement, his short spear held before him like a sword. Little lizard’s really a pretty good guy to have with you, times like this, Dennis decided. He knew he was in over his depth. He’d never been this far from the cut before.
With considerable relief, they noticed the jungle begin to thin as they approached one of the many clearings probably created by lightning fires. This one was recent, and blackened stumps protruded through the lush, fresh undergrowth. The foliage was really a type of long-leafed grass, Dennis realized, and it was damp and clingy to walk through, even though it was barely calf-high. Lots of herbivores probably frequented places like this, he thought. They heard a squeal. Then another. Lawrence’s fur bristled and his eyes became intense as he sniffed the air.
“Just ahead!” Moe told them.
“Not just rhino-’ig,” hissed Lawrence with a note of caution.
“What else?” asked Dennis.
“Not sure. Strange, ’ut’ a’iliar.” He shook his head in frustration. “Like thing I should know.”
As quietly as possible, they picked up the pace. There was a little rise, probably formed by burned and rotten deadfall, and they crept up to the peak.
Below them, little more than sixty yards away, three rust-colored Grik, or lizards… or something stood around a dead rhino-pig. Their clawed hands held spears that were no more than sharpened sticks, but the points were black with blood. They seemed to be resting from their exertions, or complimenting one another on their prowess, and for the moment, at least, their guard was down.
With a Lemurian curse, Moe brought his crossbow up.
“What the… Hey, wait a goddamn minute!” Silva said, pushing the crossbow down. “What the hell? There might be dozens of the bastards!”
“No, just those,” Moe said, trying to wrench his weapon free. “They steal our meat! They just big skuggiks!”
“You mean they live here?” Silva whispered savagely. “You never said there was jungle Griks on Borno!”
“Like Griks, but not!” Moe insisted. “I tell. Others tell! There not many on Borno, but we kill them when we see them! Let them live on little islands! Not here!”
Suddenly, Silva did remember. He remembered Nakja-Mur mentioning that the Grik on Borneo were primitive and didn’t know tools, and they’d been hunted to near extinction. Only on islands like Bali-small or far away-were they left alone. They had been told, but he, at least, had forgotten.
“ I like Grik, ’ut not,” Lawrence hissed.
The ground beneath them seemed to shake and the foliage near the trio of lizards exploded into the clearing. Within the confetti of leaves and brush charged a young super lizard! The “Grik,” or whatever they were, scattered in three directions. Apparently more interested in live prey than the dead pig, the monster fixed its gaze on one rusty shape and bolted after it with the amazing speed Silva knew the things were capable of.
“Shit!” growled Silva, and rose to a knee. He cocked his big gun and pulled it to his shoulder, raising the stock to his cheek. For an instant, he honestly didn’t know what he was doing, but he didn’t really need to. Threat assessment had always been one of his strong suits, whether the question was whom to throw the first punch at in a bar, or which target to engage. There was that little incident when he’d shot Lawrence, but it was a perfectly understandable mistake and the little guy didn’t hold a grudge… His sights found the pocket behind the super lizard’s right arm. He eased a little right to lead the target and squeezed the trigger.
The recoil nearly tossed him on his back. It did put him on his butt. It was the first time he’d ever fired the
