We’d picked up dagger-shaped stones during the course of our trek, which we’d sharpened into knives. We now made more weapons out of thick sticks and bones of larger animals. They wouldn’t be much use against a panther, but they helped us frighten off the small yellow monkeys that jumped from trees onto the heads of their victims, blinded them with their claws and teeth, then finished them off as they stumbled around.
“I never heard of monkeys like that,” I remarked one morning as we watched a group of the simians bring down and devour a huge boar-like animal.
“Me neither,” Harkat said.
As we watched, the monkeys paused and sniffed the air suspiciously. One ran to a thick bush and screeched threateningly. There was a deep grunt from within the bush, then a larger monkey — like a baboon, only an odd red color — stepped out and shook a long arm at the others. The yellow monkeys bared their teeth, hissed, and threw twigs and small pebbles at the newcomer, but the baboon ignored them and advanced. The smaller monkeys retreated, leaving the baboon to finish off the boar.
“I guess size matters,” I muttered wryly, then Harkat and I slipped away and left the baboon to feed in peace.
The next night, while Harkat slept — his nightmares had stopped since coming to this new world — and I stood guard, there was a loud, fierce roar from somewhere ahead of us. The night was usually filled with the nonstop sounds of insects and other nocturnal creatures, but at the roar all noise ceased. There was total silence — once the echoes of the roar subsided — for at least five minutes.
Harkat slept through the roar. He was normally a light sleeper, but the air here agreed with him and he’d been dozing more deeply. I told him about it in the morning.
“You think it was … our panther?” he asked.
“It was definitely a big cat,” I said. “It might have been a lion or tiger, but my money’s on the black panther.”
“Panthers are usually very quiet,” Harkat said. “But I guess they could be … different here. If this is his territory, he should come by … this way soon. Panthers are on constant patrol. We must prepare.” During his time in Vampire Mountain, when he’d been working for Seba Nile, Harkat had spoken with several vampires who’d hunted or fought with lions and leopards, so he knew quite a lot about them. “We must dig a pit to … lure it into, catch and truss a deer, and also find some … porcupines.”
“Porcupines?” I asked.
“Their quills can stick in the panther’s … paws, snout and mouth. They might slow it down or … distract it.”
“We’re going to need more than porcupine quills to kill a panther,” I noted.
“With luck, we’ll startle it when … it comes to feed on the deer. We can jump out and frighten it into … the pit. Hopefully it will die there.”
“And if it doesn’t?” I asked.
Harkat grinned edgily. “We’re in trouble. Black panthers are really leopards, and leopards are … the worst of the big cats. They’re fast, strong, savage and … great climbers. We won’t be able to outrun it or … climb higher than it.”
“So if plan A fails, there’s no plan B?”
“No.” Harkat chuckled dryly. “It’ll be straight to plan P —
Panic!
”
We found a clearing with a thick bush at one end where we’d be able to hide. We spent the morning digging a deep pit with our hands and the rough tools we’d fashioned from branches and bones. When the pit was done, we harvested a couple dozen thick branches and sharpened the tips, creating stakes that we were going to place in the base of the pit.
As we were climbing into the pit to plant the stakes, I stopped at the edge and started to tremble — remembering another pit that had been filled with stakes, and the friend I’d lost there.
“What’s wrong?” Harkat asked. Before I could answer, he read it in my eyes. “Oh,” he sighed. “Mr. Crepsley.”
“Isn’t there any other way to kill it?” I groaned.
“Not without proper equipment.” Harkat took my stakes from me and smiled encouragingly. “Go hunt for porcupines. I’ll handle this … end of the operation.”
Nodding gratefully, I left Harkat to plant the stakes and went looking for porcupines or anything else to use against the panther. I hadn’t thought much about Mr. Crepsley lately — this harsh world had demanded my full attention — but the pit brought it all crashing back. Again I saw him drop and heard his screams as he died. I wanted to leave the pit and panther, but that wasn’t an option. We had to kill the predator to learn where to go next. So I quashed thoughts of Mr. Crepsley as best I could and immersed myself in work.
I picked some of the sturdier cacti to use as missiles against the black panther, and made mud-balls using leaves and fresh mud from a nearby stream — I hoped the mud might temporarily blind the panther. I searched hard for porcupines, but if any were in the area, they were keeping an ultra low profile. I had to report back quill-less to Harkat in the afternoon.
“Never mind,” he said, sitting by the edge of the completed pit. “Let’s create a cover for this and … catch a deer. After that we’re in the lap … of the gods.”
We built a thin cover for the pit out of long twigs and leaves, laid it over the hole, and went hunting. The deer here were shorter than those on Earth, with longer heads. They couldn’t run as fast as their Earth counterparts, but were still pretty swift. It took a while to track down a lame straggler and bring it back alive. It was dusk by the time we tied it to a stake close to the pit, and we were both tired after our long, taxing day.
“What happens if the panther attacks during the night?” I asked, sheltering under a skin I’d sliced from a deer with a small stone scraper.
“Why do you always have to anticipate … the worst?” Harkat grumbled.
“Somebody has to,” I laughed. “Will it be plan P time?”
“No,” Harkat sighed. “If he comes in the dark, it’s … KYAG time.”
“KYAG?” I echoed.
“Kiss Your Ass Goodbye!”
There was no sign of the panther that night, though we both heard deep-throated growls, closer than the roars of the night before. As soon as dawn broke, we ate a hasty breakfast — berries we’d picked after seeing monkeys eat them — and positioned ourselves in the thick covering bush opposite the staked deer and pit. If all went according to plan, the panther would attack the deer. With luck it’d come at it from the far side of the pit and fall in. If not, we’d leap up while it was dragging off the deer and hopefully force it backward to its doom. Not the most elaborate plan in the world, but it would have to do.
We said nothing as the minutes turned to hours, silently waiting for the panther. My mouth was dry and I sipped frequently from the squirrel skin beakers (we’d replaced the lizard-skin containers) by my side, though only small amounts — to cut out too many toilet trips.
About an hour after midday I laid a hand on Harkat’s grey arm and squeezed warningly — I’d seen something long and black through the trees. Both of us stared hard. As we did, I saw the tip of a whiskered nose stick out from around a tree and sniff the air testingly — the panther! I kept my mouth closed, willing the panther to advance, but after a few hesitant seconds it turned and padded away into the gloom of the jungle.
Harkat and I looked questioningly at one another. “It must have smelled us,” I whispered.
“Or sensed something wrong,” Harkat whispered back. Lifting his head slightly, he studied the grazing deer by the pit, then jerked a thumb backward. “Let’s get farther away. I think it will return. If we aren’t here, it might be … tempted to attack.”
“We won’t have a clear view if we withdraw any further,” I noted.
“I know,” Harkat said, “but we have no choice. It knew something was wrong. If we stay here, it’ll also know when … it returns, and won’t come any closer.”
I followed Harkat as he wriggled farther back into the bush, not stopping until we were almost at the end of the shrubs and vines. From here we could only vaguely see the deer.
An hour passed. Two. I was beginning to abandon hope that the panther would return, when the sound of deep breathing drifted toward us from the clearing. I caught flashes of the deer jumping around, straining to break free of its rope. Something growled throatily — the panther. Even more promising — the growls were coming from the far side of the pit. If the panther attacked the deer from there, it would fall straight into our trap!
Harkat and I lay motionless, barely breathing. We heard twigs snap as the panther closed in on the deer, not masking its sounds any longer. Then there was a loud snapping sound as a heavy body crashed through the covering over the pit and landed heavily on the stakes. There was a ferocious howl, and I had to cover my ears with my hands. That was followed by silence, disturbed only by the pounding of the deer’s hooves on the soil as it leaped around by the edge of the pit.
Harkat slowly got to his feet and stared over the bush at the open pit. I stood and stared with him. We glanced at each other and I said uncertainly, “It worked.”
“You sound like you didn’t … expect it to,” Harkat grinned.
“I didn’t,” I laughed, and started toward the pit.
“Careful,” Harkat warned me, hefting a knobbly, heavy wooden club. “It could still be alive. There’s nothing more dangerous than … a wounded animal.”
“It’d be howling with pain if it was alive,” I said.
“Probably.” Harkat nodded, “but let’s not take any … needless risks.” Stepping in front of me, he moved off to the left and signaled me to go right. Raising a knife-like piece of bone, I circled away from Harkat, then we slowly closed on the pit from opposite directions. As we got nearer, we each drew one of the small cacti we’d tied to our waists — we also had mud-balls strapped on — to toss like grenades if the panther was still alive.
Harkat came within sight of the pit before I did and stopped, confused. As I got closer, I saw what had bewildered him. I also drew to a halt, not sure what to make of it. A body lay impaled on the stakes, blood dripping from its many puncture wounds. But it wasn’t the body of a panther — it was a red baboon.
“I don’t understand,” I muttered. “Monkeys can’t make the kind of growling or howling sounds we heard.”
“But how did …” Harkat stopped and fear flashed into his eyes. “The monkey’s throat!” he gasped. “It’s been ripped open! The panther must —”
He got no further. Even as I was leaping to the same conclusion — the panther had killed the baboon and dropped it into the pit to fool us! — there was a blur of movement in the upper branches of the tree closest to me. Whirling, I caught a very brief glimpse of a long, thick, pure black object flying through the air with outstretched claws and gaping jaws — then the panther was upon me, roaring triumphantly as it dragged me to the ground for the kill!
T
HE ROAR WAS CRITICAL
. If the panther had clamped its fangs clean around my throat, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. But the animal was excited — probably by having outsmarted us — and tossed its head, growling savagely as we rolled over and came to a stop with the powerful beast on top of me.
As it roared, Harkat reacted with cool speed and launched a cactus missile. It could have bounced off the animal’s head or shoulders, but the luck of the vampires was with us, and the cactus sailed clean between the panther’s fearsome jaws.
The panther instantly lost interest in me and lurched aside, spitting and scratching at the cactus stuck in its mouth. I crawled away, panting, scrabbling for the knife I’d dropped. Harkat leaped over me as my fingers closed around the handle of the bone, and brought his club down upon the head of the panther.
If the club had been made of tougher material, Harkat would have killed the panther — he could do immense damage with most axes or clubs. But the wood he’d carved it from proved unworthy of the task, and the club smashed in half as it cracked over the panther’s hard skull.
The panther howled with pain and rage, and turned on Harkat, spitting spines, its yellow teeth reflecting the gleam of the afternoon sun. It swiped at his squat grey head and opened up a deep gash down the left side of his face. Harkat fell backward from the force of the blow and the panther leaped after him.
I didn’t have time to get up and lunge after the panther — it would be on Harkat before I crossed the space between us — so I sent my knife flying through the air at it. The bone deflected harmlessly off the creature’s powerful flanks, but it distracted the beast and its head snapped around. Harkat used the moment to grab a couple of the mud-balls hanging from his blue robes. When the panther faced him again, Harkat let it have the mud-balls between the eyes.
The panther squealed and turned a sharp ninety degrees away from Harkat. It scraped at its eyes with its left paw, wiping the mud away. As it was doing that, Harkat grabbed the lower half of his broken club and jammed the splintered end into the panther’s ribcage. The club penetrated the panther’s body, but only slightly, drawing blood but not puncturing the panther’s lungs.
That was too much for the panther — it went berserk. Even though it couldn’t see properly, it threw itself at Harkat, hissing and spitting, swiping with its deadly claws. Harkat ducked out of the way, but the panther’s claws snagged on the hem of his robes. Before he could free himself, the predator was on him, working blindly, its teeth gnashing together in search of Harkat’s face.
Harkat wrapped his arms tight around the panther and squeezed, trying to snap its ribs or suffocate it. While he did that, I leaped on the panther’s back and raked at its nose and eyes with another cactus head. The panther caught the cactus with its teeth and ripped it clear of my grasp — almost taking my right thumb with it!
“Get off!” Harkat wheezed as I clung to the panther’s heaving shoulders and scrabbled for another cactus.
“I think I can —” I started to shout.
“Off!”
Harkat roared.
There was no arguing with a cry like that. I let go of the panther and slumped to the ground. As I did, Harkat locked his hands even tighter together and spun, looking for the pit through the green blood streaming into his wide left eye. Finding it, he clutched the struggling panther close to his chest, stumbled toward the pit — and threw himself in!