Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [58]
CHAPTER 32
65 million years BC, jungle
Several of the new creatures were standing in the shallows of the raging river, frothing white water tumbling noisily around their legs. They all held long sticks in their hands and seemed to be studying the water intently, keeping motionless for long periods then finally, inexplicably, lashing out with their sticks.
Broken Claw turned to the others crouching a few yards away, watching these creatures with fascination. He snicked his claws to attract their attention. They all obediently looked his way. Broken Claw uttered a series of soft throaty barks, and snapped his teeth.
New creatures. They are dangerous.
He couldn’t explain why – he just knew somehow that they were. Quite possibly far more dangerous than them. His yellow eyes swivelled back to the creatures, and across the far side to the curious contraption these things had been fashioning with their pale clawless arms. The long trunk of a tree stripped of branches and leaves and hanging at a raised angle over the river, just like the long-slanted neck of one of the giant leaf-eaters that lived on the open plain. Tied round the contraption’s top, Broken Claw recognized vines, entwined together, taut and angling back up towards another tree, over a thick branch and dangling straight down to the ground, where the vines were wrapped round a cluster of logs.
He couldn’t begin to understand what the contraption did, or why these things had laboured so hard on making it. But they had, and it worried him. That he himself couldn’t understand what it did worried him. He barked again softly.
New creatures. Cleverer than us.
The others seemed to agree. They cowered lower among the foliage at the edge of the jungle.
He could see as many of them wading in the water as the number of claws he possessed. He wondered how many more of them were on the island on the far side of this narrow river. More than his pack?
Just then, one of the new creatures lurched forward, pushing the stick into the water. A moment later it pulled the stick out. On its end, one of the grey river creatures thrashed and struggled, silver and glistening.
The stick had somehow captured the creature.
The stick … captures … the river creature.
He watched with fascination as the new creatures carried the large flapping river-dweller between them, away from the water’s edge and through the trees until they were gone from view. Only one of them remained behind. Still, poised, gazing intently out at the water.
Broken Claw recognized this one. He’d seen him before three sun-rises ago, back in the jungle. Their stare had actually met for a moment, although the thing’s pale blue eyes had seemed to register nothing of that. Broken Claw sensed this one led the others, just like he led his pack. A position of loneliness and responsibility. For a moment his animal mind processed a thought that a human might have called kinship.
New creature. Is like I. Leads others.
When the time came to kill them all, when he was sure it was safe for them to make their move, he decided this creature should be his and his alone. Perhaps in the moment that he tore this pale thing’s heart out all the wisdom and intelligence inside it would become his. Then he too would understand the stick that captures … and the curious construction raised over the river.
Liam scanned the swirling suds of water in front of him. Every now and then he could see the dark outline of one of these large prehistoric mudfish darting around the shallows, teasing him to make a lunge at it with his spear.
He was useless at it, unable to anticipate which way the dark shape would lurch to avoid being skewered. Juan was probably the best among them at catching these things. The one he’d just caught was a whopper: four feet of wriggling wet meat, enough to feed at least half of them tonight. If he could just manage to bag another one himself while the others were carrying it back to the camp, then he could at least feel less like a useless jerk.
Some leader.
Franklyn seemed to know everything about