No time for flight. The metal bar was his only weapon stopping the thing from mauling him.
He slashed out; the thing’s skull shivered with the impact, but it came veering in at him again, and Miko got another stab at it, sending it sagging to the mossy turf, twitching. A strange sour call drifted out from the dank airs. The cry seemed to emanate from a place distant. Another aardvark had crept from the foliage and halted in its step, ears perked. The plaintive sound echoed amongst the trunks. What manner of creature was it? It had a peculiar melancholy and otherworldly tone to it.
The aardvark sniffed at the air and gave a mournful whine, then tramped back from where it had come.
Miko blinked, puzzled. Why had the creature not lunged for him? Had the cry unnerved it?
Did things roam abroad in these primeval woods more fiendish than the land predators? Miko exhaled a curse. What could be worse than eels, or Audra?
A furtive movement warned him of activity in the upper branches.
He swung low on his heels, barely missing the rush of some gangly tree-dweller. The thing was brawny and agile, some powerful marsupial that had dropped twenty-five feet upon him.
But it was no marsupial, this multi-armed beast. It was crusted with thick greenish hair, matted and muddy in places. It sported a bulldog face and a rhino-like horn centred on its crown. More of the feral creatures dropped in unison. Miko lost count of the beasts; after the seventh, he staggered headlong through the forest in a fit of despair. How could he fight them all?
Bramble caught his skin; he sagged to the brink of an odious low. Aside a pool he halted, his heart beating with mad desperation. He knew the marsupials were fast behind him. He also knew that he could not withstand the onslaught of so many of them. Despair clutched at his innards. It was either face these hound-faced monkey things or the cursed fishy-horrors of the swamp.
The marsupials however, seemed to fear the water as much as the aardvark had feared the hooting, and they began to mewl and hop about. Miko frowned; the things stamped their flat, fur-padded feet.
Miko shook a fist at them, brandishing his bit of metal, but they snarled back at him and clawed the air in his direction.
Miko snorted in mimicry. Maybe he would stay here by this glorious pool, and seek the protection of whatever guardian haunted it?
His mirth died in his throat. He cast a dubious look about him, examining the thick gloomy cast of the forest, repulsed by the teetering stumps and the nests and outlandish flying squirrels that continued in their trajectory to glide across the water, oblivious to the horrors that would snatch them down below the waters.
No mocking curl touched Miko’s lips; the water held some primeval, sinister attraction, as if beckoning. He shuddered at the memory of the scavengers lurking beneath that surface of inky glass and what they would do to him.
Almost in answer, a crest broke the surface and a corrugated fin rose, then submerged as if it had never been.
Miko exhaled a gurgling cry. A disquieting horn-like bass note seemed to follow the arrival of the creature, as if emanating from the very water itself.
Miko cringed at the weirdness of it all. He leaped back, aghast, even as a stringed tentacle came trickling after him. He caught the glint of coruscated lumps like jewels gracing its slimy skin. He hopped away. The member darted sideways and slithered toward his toes.
Miko crabbed back, but before he could strike out, it looped coils about his ankles and began pulling him toward the foul water. He cried out, clawing at the turf. A pair of bold horned marsupials scrambled forward to jab at him while he lay sprawled flat. He felt the acidic bite of the marauder’s teeth clamping on his foreleg.
He squirmed back, swinging his weapon, missing, feeling the juices stinging like vinegar where the teeth had been. In a fit of uncontrollable frenzy he hacked at the tentacle until it frothed blue and lay writhing in the muddy grass like some reptile’s entrails.
Up from the water came the fin and an ugly pocked mouth with it, reared in its horrific majesty.
Miko winced, for new tentacles seemed to sprout from the water and seize two of the marsupials before they could dash away. Glistening tentacles plucked them into the black maw before they could bite or claw—and then, crunching with delight, it dove underwater.
Miko staggered along the shoreline, his mood one of hysteria. The obscene gullet that had appeared almost sapped his will to scramble on. The ease with which it had snatched the lives of the land creatures gave him little faith in his own ability to stay alive. Shivering, he fled on shaky legs.
Stumbling along the shore, he did his best to steer clear of the water and the chattering marsupials. The pool’s surface had become unnaturally still.
Dead from exhaustion, he wanted to lie down, and drown in a dream exhaustion. But if he slept, he knew he would wake up with predators at his throat.
He nursed his wounds. He had scrambled twice up baobab-like trees to avoid the advances of several aardvarks, also another creature more feral still, a cross between a gator and a wolf. He could outwit a few more of them before perishing, he thought.
Now a slow rhythmic booming came from behind him high in the sky. Craning his neck, weapon clutched, he detected the swish-swish of powerful wings as they ploughed the heavens. The sound was unlike any other, but like swoosh of giant windmills or the roar of a bitter wind. Perhaps it was a dragon. The winged things which soared overhead certainly would
