The black fog seemed to have grown even more.
Grunting worriedly, he turned from the window, and looking across saw that another such opening was set in the opposite wall.
Light from this flew across Fur-nose’s dead legs and lit a cloud of dust that was falling upon another platform to Gazda’s left.
This was just like the thing that Fur-nose rested upon, but it was larger with a tall thin back and broad upraised arms.
Gazda crept closer to it, grumbling warmly, and then panting at an odd feeling of familiarity. He sniffed the wooden arms, and then half-climbed upon the platform. Its old bindings squeaked but held.
The night ape studied its high, narrow back, tipping his head left and right, trying to understand...and then his eye fell upon the structure there in back of it.
This was a tall, hard-looking thing built against the wall where an opening that smelled of burned wood gaped between two smooth wooden uprights like trees.
Gazda’s nose itched as he climbed down from the platform to investigate it. He sniffed at the charcoal and ash within the opening until he leapt back sneezing.
Center to Fur-nose’s lair now, he leaned back on his haunches to study the strange cave-like thing that smelled of...flames. It was fire that he smelled there.
The night ape’s attention shifted back to the skulls on the wall and the broad flat platform beneath it and from his vantage point, he could see that something was stacked under there.
Moving quickly, Gazda reached under the low platform and pulled out first one, then several animal skins, all piled and dry, and from these also he recognized the animals that had once worn them.
He pulled two other skins from under the low platform, but these were different, for each was suspended by thin pieces of hide, center to a wide loop of wood. A long slim branch had been fed through the strips of skin and this kept the hide taut and flat.
He slid his fingers against the fur and then turned the skin and rack over to sniff at the inside surface that had been scraped of flesh, and while it was dry, it was not brittle.
Indeed, Gazda’s fingers worked the corner of one skin and the hide was soft and pliable.
He set the skins and racks aside and looked up at the skulls, horns and furs on the wall and he sighed.
Fur-nose was a hunter.
Gazda was a hunter.
The night ape squatted there in the center of the lair with his arms wrapped around his chest. Hooting fearfully, Gazda thought back to first entering the nest, and remembered the shock, and fright at its strange contents.
But now it felt like all the fear was gone.
Almost everything around him was strange: sight, smell, touch and sound, angular shapes forming unnatural structures; but as his eyes had continued to acclimate to the growing dark he had looked over the scene with less and less fear.
There could be no comfort. But these things felt familiar to him.
Gazda looked back to where Fur-nose’s body sat propped up in the fading light that crossed the floor from the entrance, and he approached it again, growling instinctively until he knelt in front of it.
Fur-nose was mostly bones from his shoulders down, but where dried flesh appeared on his chest and abdomen; it was torn, and shredded as though some creature had attacked him.
The night ape noticed something then, and he crept even closer to look where a great length of rotten material was bunched and appeared to have been wrapped many times around Fur-nose’s waist. It was deeply stained and displaced by the manner of the creature’s death, but something within its folds caught Gazda’s eye.
A curious length of wood or stone stuck out of Fur-nose’s belt. Its rounded end had glimmered suddenly in the setting sun’s rays, and even now the light shone along its length and led to a stained leather box that lay within the folds of cloth on the dead creature’s thighs.
Grasping the strange thing, Gazda gave a simple tug and a shiny, slender fang as long as his forearm slid out of the narrow leather box.
Hooting happily, the night ape held it up, and in his excitement gripped the gleaming fang with his free hand—and screamed, snatching his fingers away with a bark.
Dark blood welled up from a gash on his palm before it pooled and ceased to flow. Gazda had cut himself with the shining fang.
The night ape put a fresh hank of hair between his teeth and chewed as he studied the thing that had held the fang, and he quickly reached out to draw this away from the body.
He held the shining fang carefully; keeping his hand clear of its sharp point and edge as he cautiously slid this into a narrow opening in the broad end of the leather box that had previously contained it.
Gazda smiled as he watched the gleaming edge slide in and out of this holder, and his mind worked feverishly as he studied the weapon.
Fang? Bite. Claw? Scratch. Tooth. Eat. Cutter? Cut... Cutter. Knife? The unfamiliar word came floating up out of the recesses of his mind. Knife, he marveled incredulously, smiling as he admired its gleaming length.
It was a long knife!
But the only spoken word Gazda had for the weapon came from his lips as the ape language for ‘fang,’ which he repeated now as he continued his study of the blade smiling.
He slipped it away and then pulled it out with a flash. Panting and nodding with pleasure, he was thrilled by how quickly he could release the knife from its hiding place, and for a time he imagined it like the claws of a leopard that could be extended and withdrawn at will.
Gazda chuckled grimly, gazing hungrily at the thing in his hand and imagined the jungle enemies of the ape: the leopard, warthog, chimp and gorilla—and their
