“A more dangerous mission than fleeing any karak-ta,” Sekun-ak agreed.
Alex found Senta-eh sitting on the edge of the very top of the cliff. It was a difficult climb to reach the top, so it took Alex a few stumbles and missteps to sit beside her. When he did, the view was more than worth it. The view encompassed the fields below, the thin ring of forest, then onto the plains that lay beyond.
“I saw you agreeing with Sekun-ak.”
Alex’s head fell to his chest, but he couldn’t hide his smile.
“Yes. That look right there.” She extended her long, finely muscled arms, then did the same for her shapely legs. “I am not old and ready to be put out to pasture with the magdas.”
Alex couldn’t help himself. He laughed at the ludicrousness of that idea.
“You are definitely not old,” Alex agreed. “And I have yet to meet the man who could put you out to pasture.”
Alex met her eyes and was surprised to see some actual pain in them.
“But,” she sighed, “I know I am not as young as I once was.”
Alex unconsciously rotated his left arm, which was almost always stiff after being shot with an arrow in Denta-ah and sliced to the bone by Draka-ak. “Can I tell you something?”
“Why would you ask me that? Of course you can, and I hope you tell me everything. There is nothing you need to hold back from me.”
“You’re the best person I know.”
Another woman might have looked away, or blushed. Senta-eh held his gaze for three heartbeats, then said, “Thank you. I’m glad you think so.”
A twenty-first century woman might have felt pressured to say, ‘So are you,” but Senta-eh did not. Instead, she looked out over the scenery and let a satisfied smile settle on her face.
THINGS HAD NOT GONE precisely to plan on the karak-ta egg-gathering mission, which led to the predicament they now found themselves in.
The plan had been to set Alex, Senta-eh, Monda-ak, and four of the tribe’s best bowmen at the beach where the door to the twenty-first century had once stood. They were to wait there until the group they called the disruptors came running toward them. Then, the bowmen were supposed to cut down the leading karak-tas as they approached, hoping that the other birds would stop to feed on the corpses.
That was the plan.
Alex grew antsy as the six of them and Monda-ak waited at the appointed spot. He thought it was taking them too long to come running past. He had become increasingly certain that something had gone wrong. Slowly, he had started to walk up the path that led to the rocks where the karak-ta laid their eggs.
Senta-eh let him get ten paces away, then turned to the four bowmen she had chosen. “Stay with him. We don’t want to get separated.”
Finally, almost halfway to the rocks, they saw the first of the disruptors running toward them. Immediately, Alex knew something was wrong. They were not running smoothly. The young man in the lead was uninjured, but behind him were three more who were limping to varying degrees.
Behind the four of them, trailing by perhaps a hundred yards, was a swarm of the ugliest birds to grace either world Alex had lived in. They were huge, with twelve-foot wingspans, leathery wings that ended in tiny sharp claws, and huge heads that were so heavy they looked constantly off balance in flight. Each massive head came to a point in a huge, hooked beak that could tear ribbons of flesh off a human in seconds.
“Where are the others?” Alex screamed at the lead runner.
“They’ve fallen! Karak-ta!” he screamed back.
“Keep going!” Alex slowed long enough to do an instant triage on the other three. They had scrapes and were bleeding, but their injuries didn’t look serious.
The four young men were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. If someone fell, they were considered lost, as no one could realistically fight off a pack of karak-tas. The wisdom of the tribe was that it was better to let one or two warriors fall than have others try to rescue them and lose everyone.
That was the wisdom of the tribe, but not the mindset of Alex Hawk.
Carrying his two-bladed axe in one hand and a long cudgel in the other, he ran toward the rocks, Monda-ak on his heels. Alex didn’t charge into battle without him. He turned around a bend in the path and a horrifying sight spread out in front of him.
Two young Winten-ah warriors were standing back to back, circling, moving. Both had obviously slipped and fallen getting off the rocks. One had a nasty, jagged wound on his left side. The other had scrapes, cuts, and bruises over his entire body.
There were a dozen karak-tas on the ground, surrounding them, hopping in their weird fashion, closing in. Overhead another flock of the leathery beasts circled.
Just as Alex turned the corner, the dozen birds on the ground all lurched forward at once. The young boys were armed with long cudgels, but they were almost immediately buried under the flapping wings, scratching claws, and jabbing beaks.
Their cries of pain and sheer horror were terrible.
Alex redoubled his speed and launched himself at the writhing, skittering heap of prehistoric birds. Both his weapons were attached to his wrists with leather thongs and he didn’t dare swing them with abandon for fear of further injuring his brother warriors.
Instead, he grabbed the long necks of the first two birds he found and flung them away. For as terrifying as they looked, they were, like most birds, relatively lightweight. Alex continued on, grabbing any part of the heap of birds he could and tossing them as far away as possible.
Monda-ak bared his teeth and grabbed a leathery wing, pulling it off
