“Where are they?” Carnassial demanded behind them in the mist.
Dusk crawled deeper. The felids wouldn’t be able to follow. Right now the gaps between each of the saurian’s flared vertebrae were big enough to squeeze through to the outside, but he wanted to put more distance between themselves and their predators before they ran for it. The tunnel seemed to be angling downward, and Dusk suddenly realized they were underground. The gaps between the vertebrae had narrowed, and on either side was only hard-packed earth.
“Dusk, how’re we going to get out of here?” Sylph said behind him.
The tunnel was shrinking and it was getting hard for Dusk to drag himself forward.
“I think it’s a dead end,” he whispered back to Sylph.
“Back up, come on!” Sylph said, her voice thin with panic.
Wisps of steam played against Dusk’s face. He shot out a pulse of sound. “Wait,” he said, “there’s a hole up here!”
“I’m not going into any hole,” Sylph snapped. “We don’t even know where it goes!”
From behind them came the sound of bones crunching, then furious digging.
“Keep going!” came Carnassial’s voice. “They’re hiding inside the tail!”
“Get into that hole!” Sylph cried, nipping Dusk’s rump. “Hurry up.”
He scrambled towards the hole. Fighting his involuntary disgust, he hauled himself over the rim, claws clutching at soil and rock. Warm mist dampened his face. He sang out sound, but before his echoes even returned to him, he lost his grip, and fell.
CHAPTER 23
BIRTHPLACE
Dusk plunged through the hole into an enormous underground cavern. Instinctively he spread his wings, flapping wildly. Twisted strands of rock spiked down from a slick ceiling. He circled quickly back to the hole, just in time to see Sylph plunge through with a scream. She automatically unfurled her sails and levelled out into a glide.
“Dusk?” she called out.
“I’m here,” he said, flying alongside her.
Eerie light emanated from the walls. Steam rose from yellowish pools. From the uneven floor grew bizarre rock formations, some as smooth and pale as giant eggs, others skinny as redwood saplings, still others teetering like immense toadstools stacked one atop the next.
“This way,” said Dusk, guiding his sister to one of the taller structures.
They landed on its peak. The rock was damp and chalky beneath his claws. The humid air was unpleasantly warm, and smelled strongly of minerals. Water pattered down on his back and head. He licked some from a puddle, and spat it out, revolted by the foreign taste.
“The felids won’t follow,” said Sylph, looking back up at the bristling ceiling. “They won’t fit through that hole.”
What worried Dusk more was how the two of them were going to get out. The cave seemed endless, in every direction stretching into darkness. He might be able to fly up and haul himself out through the hole. But there was no way Sylph could do the same. Anyway, the felids and hyaenodons might be waiting for them. He glanced back across the enormous cavern, and despite the heat, felt suddenly icy cold.
Bones.
They weren’t in any skeletal arrangement he could recognize. They’d all been torn loose, cracked and gnawed and piled in an enormous heap. There were more bones here than could make up any one animal, or ten for that matter.
“Dusk,” Sylph said, her voice hoarse with fear. “I see eggs.”
He followed her gaze. Near one of the steaming pools, swaddled in grass and rotting leaves, were eight long, leathery eggs. There were so many strange shapes and colours in the cavern that, for a fleeting moment, Dusk hoped she was mistaken. He remembered their laughable encounter with a pine cone, back on the island. But the longer he stared, the more certain he was that Sylph was right. It was definitely a huge, high-rimmed nest, about ten feet across.
A nest meant adults.
Dusk looked all around, lifting his ears and listening. There was the constant patter of water on the rocks and pools. There was the whisper of steam. There was the sound of his own breathing and Sylph’s. “Could just one saurian lay all those eggs?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “But if they made a lair of this place, there’s got to be a big way out somewhere.”
There was no point in both of them blundering around, with Sylph needing to land and climb all the time. He could be faster and stay high out of harm’s way.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to find the way out.” He’d expected her to object, but she just nodded, staring dazed at the eggs.
Very quietly he flew to another high stone tower, and took a look around. From his new vantage point he almost immediately spotted a saurian, sprawled on the floor. Its eyes were open, unblinking, and its chest did not rise or fall. In the cave’s eerie light, the patches of bright green and violet rot on its scales seemed to glow. It had been dead for some time, judging by the sagginess of its skin and the noxious smell rising from it. Its belly and one of its thighs looked well chewed.
Dusk didn’t know what kind of saurian it was. He’d only ever seen a quetzal, and this one certainly had no wings. It was smaller, with slim, agile legs no doubt capable of considerable speed. In its death grimace, it showed all its sharp teeth: definitely a meat-eater. His father would have known its name.
Dusk flew on. Half submerged in a steaming pool was a second adult saurian, so horribly bloated it was hard to say if it was the same kind as the first. The body rocked and jerked in the bubbling water, the skin so loose it seemed about to slide off the bones.
He continued deeper into the cave, probing with sound, encouraged when his echoes didn’t bounce back at him right away. After a while the ground sloped upward, rubble-strewn, and the darkness seemed less intense. He sniffed fresh air. He flew on eagerly, and finally reached the mouth of the cave.
It was obscured by a dense tangle of tall grass and plants. It didn’t look like it had been disturbed for some time. Dusk landed on a branchlet. He and Sylph would have no trouble crawling through this. He could see a bit of the moon, and hear the swish of the grass in the breeze. From the outside, the cave mouth would be invisible to all but those who knew it was here. He wondered how persistent Carnassial would be in his pursuit. Surely there was better prey on the grasslands.
Excitedly, he headed back for Sylph.
“We’re okay!” he exclaimed, landing beside her. “There’s a way out.”
“What about saurians?”
“I saw two dead ones. Adults. I think they must’ve had that rotting disease Dad talked about.”
“They must’ve come here to lay their last eggs,” Sylph said, staring down at the nest. “They won’t hatch now, not without anyone to keep them warm.”
“I’m not so sure. It’s pretty warm in here.” Dusk wondered if the saurians had known that the steam from the pools would incubate their eggs, even after the parents died.
“Were they flesh-eaters?” Sylph asked.
“I think so. We should get out of here.”
Sylph launched herself from her perch, but instead of gliding high, she put herself into a steep dive, straight down towards the eggs.
Amidst the dirt and scattered tailbones, Carnassial sniffed at the steam venting from the hole in the earth. “They’re down there,” he said.
“We’ve wasted enough time on small prey,” Danian barked.
“I’m not talking about the chiropters,” said Carnassial. “The nest is down there. The eggs.”
Mingled with the earthen mineral scent was the smell that had been haunting him across the dark grasslands. Panthera inhaled. “Yes. I smell them too.”
“Are there caves near here?” Carnassial asked Danian.
“We know none.”
“There should be an entrance, a large one, not far from here,” Carnassial said.
He and Panthera bounded off in different directions to search. He lost the scent of the nest, but that didn’t
matter so much now. He knew what he was looking for, and as the eastern horizon started to pale, his eyes had more than enough light to guide him. It was rare for saurians to make nests in caves, but in his years as a hunter he’d uncovered several underground. He searched on through the rolling grassland. He wanted a slope where he could find a cave mouth.
Panthera found it first. He heard her calling out, and ran to meet her at the entrance. He was mightily impressed with her. It was easy to miss, buried behind several layers of dense scrub.
“You can see the vapour rising through the plants,” she pointed out to him.
The hyaenodons had followed at a distance, and would not go near the entrance. “Kill the eggs!” Danian shouted viciously. “I will,” said Carnassial.
With Panthera at his side, he slunk through the tangle of undergrowth and into the warmth of the cave. He knew that most saurians became active only with the sun’s ascent. At this hour they’d still be dormant—if they were even still alive. The rotting disease acted quickly, and if Danian had already noticed it on their hides, it wouldn’t be long before death took them.
They proceeded deeper into the humid cave, around strange towers of rock and simmering pools. The walls glowed. The smell of the nest was strong now. “We’ll leave two eggs undisturbed,” he told Panthera.
She looked over at him, confused.
“We need to leave the hyaenodons with some enemies, or they’ll become too powerful. We need to keep them scared. This way they’ll need us to find and destroy more nests.”
“Once we were saurian hunters. Now we’re their guardians.” She purred approvingly. “My kittens will be lucky to have such a cunning father.”
Carnassial stared at her in surprise. “You’re sure?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I can feel them growing inside me.” Despite the hazards awaiting him, he felt suffused with pride and happiness. He nuzzled her, and then they carried on in search of the saurian eggs.
“Sylph, pull up!” Dusk gasped, fluttering down beside her.
His sister’s voice was clear and calm. “We have to destroy them.”
She flared her sails and landed in the middle of the nest. Dusk touched down beside her on the thick plant mulch. The nest seemed much bigger now that he was actually inside it. All around them loomed the saurian eggs. Dusk didn’t want to go too close. The eggs were almost twice his size. Still and silent, they radiated a sinister power. On the other side of those thick shells, Dusk knew, pulsed a wet, curled life, just waiting to emerge and feed.
“Sylph, we need to get out of here! What if the felids find the way in?”
She ignored him, awkwardly pulling herself up against the nearest egg, digging in with her claws. Dusk caught hold of her leg and dragged her back. She whirled on him, showing her teeth. Dusk recoiled in surprise.
“I don’t think they’re even climbers!” he said urgently. “They can’t hurt us!”
“Are you sure about that, absolutely sure?”
“No.”
“Then we have to kill them.”
“It’s not what Dad wanted!”
“Dad’s gone.”
“Sylph, stop!”
“Help me, Dusk! Do you want them hatching and terrorizing us in our new home?”
“I don’t think they—”
“I want to do something great too!” she fumed. “You can fly and see in the dark and lead us all to safety—and what have I done? This will be my great thing!”
“It’s not a great thing, Sylph,” he pleaded, and he felt himself trembling, for it seemed she wasn’t intent on destroying just the eggs but their father as well—everything he believed in. “It’s not what Dad wanted!”
“He wasn’t perfect, Dusk. He wasn’t even a good leader towards the end. He was weak, and he hurt the colony! He couldn’t even protect his own children.”
She managed to dig a claw deep into the shell and drag a long gash into it.
“Don’t say that, Sylph!” he said, his anger mounting. “Leave the egg alone!”
“We’ve got to take care of ourselves!” Sylph raged, sinking her claws into the shell once more. “Because no one else will.
Especially not now. The world’s an ugly place. The big animals eat the little ones; the clever ones trick the stupid ones. That’s just the way it is. We need to kill them before they kill us! You want to be like Dad so much, then do what he did. When it came right down to it, he killed the eggs!” “He regretted it!”
“But he did it!”
Dusk thought of everything they’d suffered since the massacre, all the lives lost during their search for a new home. Was everything they’d strived for going to be undone by the hatched saurians? He felt his anger and bitterness harden inside him, like an extra bone. Maybe Sylph was right: the world was an ugly place. It had not been kind to them; why should they be kind to it?
He understood now how his father must have felt, all those years ago on the island. At war with himself, knowing what he’d always believed was right, but knowing also what he most wanted to do: protect himself, protect his colony.
“We can kill these eggs,” Dusk said slowly, “but maybe there are other eggs in other nests. I suppose we could kill those too. But we’ll never be perfectly safe. What about all the other creatures who hunt us? The felids and the hyaenodons and the diatrymas? We can’t kill them all. There’s no such thing as paradise—that’s what Dad told us. And you said it yourself, Sylph: the big animals eat the little ones; the clever ones trick the stupid ones. Everything needs to eat. No matter how hard we try, something will always hunt us. We can’t stop that.”
“We see things differently,” Sylph said. “These, right here, we can stop. They need to be stopped.”
The shell finally cracked under her claws and clear fluid seeped out. Sylph jerked back in shock, as if distressed by the harm she’d caused. She started whimpering. She lifted her claws to gouge the shell again, and faltered.
“I don’t know if I can do this!” she quavered. Dusk moved to comfort her, and from the corner of his eye caught sight of something that made him freeze.
“What’s wrong?” Sylph said.
“Shhhhh.”
Beside one of the other eggs in the nest were two large shards. Cautiously, Dusk stepped closer. The shards were dry. He stared hard at the egg they lay against. Then, keeping his distance, he crept around it. The far side, hidden from view until now, was broken wide open. It was empty. He rushed back to Sylph. “One’s already hatched!”
“Where?” she squeaked.
Dusk remembered the half-eaten corpse of the saurian adult. Food.
“In the cave,” he gasped. “It’s living here in the cave.”
A snout suddenly thrust itself from the gash in Sylph’s egg, small blood-spattered jaws snapping to break loose more shards. Dusk yelped and tripped over his sister in his haste to move away. A claw broke through the shell, flexing weakly. A high-pitched peeping came from the hatchling’s throat.
“Come on, hurry!” Sylph shouted.
She started for the edge of the nest, then stopped, wide-eyed. Dusk followed her terrified gaze.
Poised on the rim of the nest, staring down at them, were two felids.
Dusk hissed threateningly, and scrambled backward with Sylph. Behind him, he could hear the hatchling struggling to get free of its egg. Dusk saw Carnassial’s eyes flick from him to the saurian, as if he couldn’t decide which to attack first. The felid’s eyes narrowed with craving; his teeth were wet.
Dusk kept moving back through the nest, never letting his gaze stray from the felids. He could fly away at any time, but Sylph was helpless until she could get to higher ground.
“Get the flyer, Panthera!” Carnassial said.
The female felid leapt with such speed that Dusk scarcely had time to open his wings and hop into the air. Panthera skidded, whirled, and jumped up at him. He didn’t fly high, just bobbed about, mere inches above Panthera, taunting her. While Sylph franticall
y scrambled for the far side of the nest, Dusk kept fluttering just out of reach to keep the felid focused on him.
In his peripheral vision he saw Carnassial jump into the nest after Sylph. In five bounds he was upon her. Dusk cried out in anguish, and in that split second, Panthera pounced and caught him with both paws. His wings crumpled as the two of them tumbled down in a heap. He struggled to escape, but felt the full weight of her powerful body atop him.
He couldn’t see Sylph any more, did not know what was happening to her. He tried to cry out, but Panthera had already closed her jaws around his throat and was clamping down, cutting off his air.
His vision flared and then narrowed: a tunnel getting ever smaller. At its end, he saw a head peer over the nest, a narrow, sharply tapered head with quick bright eyes. It plunged towards him. Dusk heard a cry, as if from far away, and felt himself heaved into the air for a moment before falling free of Panthera’s screaming jaws.
Back in the nest he scrambled to his feet, and whirled to see a young saurian with Panthera flailing between its teeth. It gripped her tightly across her belly and lower back. Dusk guessed the saurian was only a few weeks old, but already it was twice the size of the felids, a born predator grown strong on the corpse of its parent. “Panthera!”
Dusk spun around and saw Carnassial release Sylph and launch himself at the saurian. Dusk didn’t wait a second more. He flew over to his sister, who was coughing and shaking violently. “I’m okay,” she said.
They clambered out of the nest and rushed to the nearest rock tower. While Sylph climbed the soft sides, Dusk flew to its summit. The saurian still had Panthera in its mouth, though she no longer struggled. Carnassial flung himself again and again at the saurian, but was deflected by its stubby three-clawed hands. His shrieks carried not just the fury of the hunt, but a terrible desperation and sorrow.
Dusk quickly plotted their escape route. Sylph climbed up beside him and, without even a moment to catch her breath, glided after him towards the next stone tower. Their path took them right over the nest, and when Dusk glanced down, he saw the saurian’s head jerk up, intently tracking him and his sister through the air.