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 vicinity, 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 B 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 whilst it was dragging off the deer and hopefully force it backwards 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 smelt 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 backwards. "Let's get further 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've 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 further back into the bush, not stopping until we were almost at the end of the briars 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 towards 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 leapt 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 towards 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 signalled 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 monkeys 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.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE 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 leapt 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 backwards from the force of the blow and the panther leapt 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 scra
ped 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 panthers 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 leapt 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 towards the pit — and threw himself in!
"Harkat!" I screamed, reaching out automatically, as though I could grab and save him. The picture of Mr Crepsley falling into the pit of stakes in the Cavern of Retribution flashed through my head, and my insides turned to lead.
There was an ugly thud and an agonizing screech as the panther was impaled on the stakes. No sound came from Harkat, which made me think he'd landed beneath the panther and died instantly.
"No!" I moaned, picking myself up and hobbling towards the edge of the pit. I was so worried about Harkat that I almost toppled into the pit myself! As I stood on the edge, arms swinging wildly to correct my balance, there was a low groan and I saw Harkat's head turn. He'd landed on top of the panther — he was alive!
"Harkat!" I shouted again, joyously this time.
"Help … me … up," he gasped. The panther's limbs were still twitching, but they no longer presented a threat — it was nearing the final stages of its death throes and wouldn't have had the strength to kill Harkat even if it wished to.
Lying on my stomach, I reached down into the pit and offered Harkat my hand, but he couldn't reach. He was lying flat on the panther, and although the creature — and the baboon underneath — had taken the worst of the stakes, several had pierced Harkat, a few in his legs, a couple in his stomach and chest, and one through the flesh of his upper left arm. The wounds to his legs and body didn't look too serious. The one through his arm was the problem — he was stuck on the stake and couldn't raise his right hand high enough to clutch mine.
"Wait there," I said, looking around for something to lower to him.
"As if … I could go … anywhere!" I heard him mutter sarcastically.
We didn't have any rope, but there were plenty of strong vines growing nearby. Hurrying to the nearest, I sawed at it with my fingernails, cutting off a two metre length. I grabbed it tightly near both ends and tugged sharply to test it. The vine didn't snap under the strain, so I returned to the pit and fed down one end to Harkat. The Little Person grabbed it with his free right hand, waited until I'd got a good grip on my end, then yanked his left arm free of the stake. He gasped tightly as his flesh slid off the piercing wood. Grasping the vine tight, he swung his feet on to the wall of the pit and walked up it, pulling on the vine at the same time.
Harkat was almost at the top when his feet slipped. As his legs dropped, I realized his falling weight would drag us both down if I held on to the rope. I released it with snake-like speed, collapsed to my stomach and clutched for Harkat's hands.
I missed his hands, but my fingers closed on the left sleeve of his blue robes. There was a terrifying ripping sound and I thought I'd lost him, but the material held, and after a few dangerous, dangling seconds I was able to haul the Little Person up out of the pit.
Rolling on to his back, Harkat stared up at the sky, his grey, stitched-together face looking even more like a corpse's than usual. I tried to get up, but my legs were trembling, so I flopped beside him and the two of us lay there in silence, breathing heavily, marvelling inwardly at the fact that we were still alive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I PATCHED Harkat up as best I could, cleaning out his wounds with water from the stream, slicing my jumper into strips to use as bandages. If I'd been a full-vampire I could have used my spit to close his cuts, but as a half-vampire I lacked that ability.
The wounds to his face — where the panther had clawed him — should have been stitched, but neither of us had any thread or needles. I suggested improvising and using a small bone and animal hair, but Harkat waved the idea away. "I've enough stitches," he grinned. "Let it heal as it likes. I can't get any uglier … than I already am."
"That's true," I agreed, and laughed as he swatted me round the back of my head. I swiftly grew serious again. "If infection sets in …"
"Looking on the bright side as usual," he groaned, then shrugged. "If it sets in, I'm finished — no … hospitals here. Let's not worry … about it."
I helped Harkat to his feet and we returned to the edge of the pit to gaze down at the panther. Harkat was limping worse than normal — he'd always had a slight limp in his left leg — but he said he wasn't in much pain. The panther was a metre and a half in length and thickly built. As we stared at it, I could hardly believe we'd bested it in the fight. Not for the first time in my life, I got the feeling that if vampire gods existed, they were keeping a close watch on me and lending a helping hand whenever I strayed out of my depth.
"You know what worries me … the most?" Harkat asked after a while. "Mr Tiny said the panther was … the least of our worries. That means there's worse ahead!"
"Now who's being pessimistic?" I snorted. "Want me to go down and get the panther out?"
"Let's wait until morning," Harkat said. "We'll build a good fire, eat, rest … and drag the panther … up tomorrow."
That sounded good to me, so while Harkat made a fire — using flinty stones to create sparks — I butchered the deer and set about carving it up. Once upon a time I might have let the deer go, but vampires are predators. We hunt and kill without remorse, the same as any other animal of the wilds.
The meat, when we cooked it, was tough, stringy and unappealing, but we ate ravenously, both aware of how fortunate we were not to be the main course that night.
I climbed down into the pit in the morning and prised the panther off the stakes. Leaving the baboon where it lay I passed the panther's carcass up to Harkat. It wasn't as easy as it sounds — the panther was very heavy — but we were stronger than humans, so it wasn't one of our harder tasks.
We studied the panther's gleaming black corpse, wondering how it would tell us where to go. "Maybe we have to slice it open," I suggested. "There might be a box or canister inside."
"Worth trying," Harkat agreed, and rolled the panther over on its back, presenting us with its smooth, soft stomach.
"Wait!" I shouted as Harkat prepared to make the first cut. The hair on the panther's underside wasn't quite as dark as elsewhere. I could see the stretched skin of its stomach — and there was something drawn on it! I searched among our makeshift knives for one with a long, straight edge, then scraped away some of the hairs on the dead panthers stomach. Thin raised lines were revealed.
"That's just scar tissue," Harkat said.
"No," I disagreed. "Look at the circular shapes and the way they spread out. They've been carved deliberately. Help me scrape the entire stomach clear."
It didn't take long to shave the panther and reveal a detailed map. It must have been gouged into the panther'
s stomach many years ago, maybe when it was a cub. There was a small X at the extreme right of the map, which seemed to indicate our current position. Towards the left an area was circled, and something had been written within the circle.
"Go to the home of the worlds largest toad," I read aloud. "Grab the gelatinous globes."
That's all it said. We read it a few more times, then shared a puzzled look. "Any idea what 'gelatinous' means?" Harkat asked.
"I think it's got something to do with jelly," I answered uncertainly.
"So we've got to find the world's … largest toad, and grab globes made out of jelly?" Harkat sounded dubious.
"This is Mr Tiny we're dealing with," I reminded him. "He makes jokes out of everything. I think our best bet's simply to follow the map from here to the circle and worry about the rest once we get there."
Harkat nodded, then set about the panther's stomach with a sharp stone knife, cutting free the map. "Here," I stopped him. "Let me. I've got nimbler fingers."
As I carefully cut around the edges of the map and sliced the panther's flesh away from its insides, Harkat strolled around the dead beast, mulling something over. As I peeled the map free of the panther and wiped the inside of it clean on a patch of grass, Harkat stopped. "Do you recall Mr Tiny saying he'd … thrown in a clue to my identity?" he asked.
I cast my thoughts back. "Yes. Maybe that's what the message within the circle means."
"I doubt it," Harkat replied. "Whoever I was before I died, I'm pretty … sure I wasn't a toad!"
"Maybe you're a frog prince," I giggled.
"Ha bloody ha," Harkat said. "I'm sure the writings got nothing … to do with me. There must be something else."
I studied the dead panther. "If you want to root around in its guts, feel free," I told Harkat. "I'm content with the map."
Harkat crouched beside me and flexed his stubby grey fingers, intent on ripping out the panthers insides. I shifted away, not wanting to be part of the messy task. As I did, my eyes flicked to the panthers mouth. Its lips were curled up over its teeth in a frozen death snarl. I laid a hand on Harkat's left arm and said softly, "Look."