those filthy flies.'
None of the others spoke. Shock had descended upon their pale features. They had all known that four men had been lost in this valley from the previous expedition. Their hope had been to find them alive and unharmed, and simply unable to contact the outside world. No one had expected to find them like...this. Four of them. Was it possible there were more bodies, similarly slaughtered? And if so, it begged the most terrifying question of all.
Was whatever killed them in such a fashion still out there, watching them at this very moment?
His skin crawled under the scrutiny of unseen eyes. Was it a result of the paranoia spawned by his military training, or were they indeed already surrounded?
'We need to gather the others and get out of here while we still can,' Merritt said, looking to each of them in turn.
Jay approached the tent and raised the camera, but Dahlia stayed his arm. There were some things never meant to be immortalized on film. Instead, he wandered toward the gap in the fortification wall, where a stone staircase descended to the forest floor. Leading with the lens, Jay reached the top of the steps and halted abruptly.
'Holy crap,' he whispered, and turned away. He heaved several times over a sapling tree fern.
Merritt jogged over to where Jay wiped a strand of saliva from his chin and looked down the stairs, which were lined to either side by walls that were nearly five feet tall. Iron cages, like those that housed the torches on the pedestals encircling the fortress, topped the slanted walls of the thin trench every few feet. At the bottom, a large rectangular stone that appeared to have been carved to fit into the opening of the staircase lay cracked and covered with moss. And on the uneven steps between, Merritt saw what had caused Jay's reaction.
Another body was sprawled on the staggered rocks. Or at least what was left of it. The manner in which the man had been slain reminded Merritt of the jaguar carcass: scattered in a straight line as though torn apart while in motion. The broken legs, bereft of flesh, save the black skin on the ankles above the boots, were closer to the top, while the pelvis and torso rested a dozen steps down, ribs shattered, spine unnaturally bent and twisted. The skeletal arms pointed toward where the crushed skull rested in a puddle of muddy rainwater and hair at the bottom. Shreds of clothing had blown into the corners of the stairs with the detritus.
Only the black flies dared to disturb the unclean bones, though the rain deterred all but the most ambitious individuals.
The man had been overcome while trying to flee. He must have seen his assailant coming too late and made a break for it, but he hadn't been fast enough.
These men had never stood a chance. Merritt looked into the pallid faces of his companions. Would they?
'What the hell is capable of doing something like this?' Sam whispered.
'It's irrelevant,' Merritt said. He drew a deep breath, forced aside his fear, and tapped into his training and instincts. 'Right now, we need to focus on rounding up the others and getting as far from here as we can. Nothing else matters at this point.'
The words of the scarred chieftain returned unbidden.
He should have identified the danger sooner. All of the signs had been there.
Their guides out of Pomacochas had sensed the threat and abandoned them days ago. Even that hardass Rippeth had acknowledged it and slipped off during the night. Maybe if they moved fast enough they would be able to escape the fate to which the black-painted man had consigned them.
'We can't afford to waste any more time,' Merritt said. He looked up into the belly of the storm and the mist that hovered in the canopy, mere feet over their heads. Somewhere above, the sun was preparing to sneak behind the sharp peak and turn day to night. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones. They didn't want to still be here when that happened. 'Stay close. Move fast. Don't slow for anything.'
With those final words, he turned and ran back toward the cave where they had last seen the others, listening to make sure he heard the slap of footsteps on the wet ground behind him.
V
The stone floor was covered with mounds of fecal material. Galen immediately identified it as raptor feces by look, but certainly not by size. The older droppings had dried and crumbled, presumably the source of the cloud of dust that lingered in the cavern. There were fresh piles on top of the old, the mixture of urine and white urates still runny, the consistency of a partially fried egg, the fecal matter well-formed pellets nearly the size of a dog's.
He knelt before a heap that was perhaps a few days old. It was just dry enough that it no longer glistened with moisture. He lifted it from the rest, set it on a clear section of the ground beside him, and set to work.
'What in the world are you doing?' Leo asked.
'Exactly what it looks like,' Galen said, breaking apart the feces with his fingers. 'Didn't you ever dissect an owl pellet when you were in school? The point was to determine the diet of the owl. I can remember plucking out mouse bones and trying to reassemble the skeleton. Very fascinating really.'
'So you're trying to figure out what it's been eating.'
'And so much more.' Galen's hands trembled as he sifted through the black matter. He focused solely on the project, and not on the implications of what he already knew to be true. 'I could tell right away by the fecund scent that we were dealing with a carnivorous species. The smell of fresh meat processed through an avian digestive system has a distinct aroma, which is way different than the smell of digested carrion. It's like comparing the scent of an eagle's feces to that of a condor. At first glance, the feces appears to have been formed by a species of raptor. However, if you look closely, you can see several crucial distinctions. First of all, size-wise, the pellets are far larger than that of any known bird of prey. Second, the ratio of the chalky white urates to feces is totally out of proportion. Raptor species have a lower ratio than say, pigeons, but even pigeons don't evacuate such a large volume of urates in relation to the total mass.'
'What are you getting at?' Colton asked. The beam on his helmet stayed in constant motion along with his eyes in lighthouse fashion. While the man remained outwardly stoic, his nerves manifested in the way he shifted from one foot to the other.
'I'm just stating what I see. We're dealing with a species that doesn't fit the mold of any modern avian. In fact, if I didn't know better, judging exclusively on the basis of the amount of urine and urates as a percentage of volume, I would suspect our subject was reptilian.'
'You've already browbeaten us with your speculation, Dr. Russell. Now unless you have anything useful to add---'
Galen gasped. He could barely control his shaking hand well enough to extract his finding from the pellet. Pinching it between his fingertips, he threaded it out of the feces and held it up for the others to see.
It was a clump of thin, dark hair.
Human hair.
Colton took it from him and inspected it while Galen crumbled the remainder of the pellet and spread it out. Something hard and sharp prodded his fingertip. He picked it up and cleared off the foul coating. The base of the small object was blunt and smooth. Four thin prongs extended from the opposite side.
He reflexively dropped it and it tumbled across the granite floor.
The spotlight on his helmet fixed upon it.
'Oh my God,' he whimpered.
The silver of the filling reflected the light.
It was a human tooth.
Galen scrambled to his feet and swiped his palms on his pants. If this didn't prove his theory, then nothing would. And right now he didn't even care what they thought. People had been killed here. The evidence was everywhere around them, from the remains in the ossuary and the cavern to those in the feces. The victims had been butchered and consumed, and he knew with complete certainty that there was no modern species of raptor capable of doing that.
