CHAPTER 47

65 mil ion years BC, jungle

Broken Claw cradled the organ in his hands, stil , cold and lifeless now; its colour had drained from a vibrant red to a dul purple as the sun slowly sank in the sky. Now the sky was dark, a half moon bathing the dark jungle with a quicksilver light.

He stood where the new creatures had been just hours ago. Evidence of their presence was everywhere in the form of footprints in the soil, droplets of dried blood on the rocks and boulders and the smel , their unique smel of fear thick on every surface. They had waited here for a while. And they had been so very frightened. The new creatures fear us.

And yet Broken Claw had been so certain up until now that it was his pack that needed to be afraid of them. The others were looking at him, waiting for him. He looked down at the organ in his hand, al that remained of his pack-mate, the mother of many of the young males before him. She would have led them al if Broken Claw was to die before her. The wisdom of age was more than enough to make up for her smal er frame … and no young buck would have chal enged her. Unlike the other simpleminded animals in these lands with their crude pack minded animals in these lands with their crude pack hierarchies that relied on the brute strength of an alpha male, Broken Claw’s extended family understood the power of wisdom.

But now she was dead. Her slim neck had been almost completely severed and she’d had a wound through the chest cavity that would almost certainly have been fatal anyway.

They had returned to the ledge to nd her body stil warm, but her life gone. And so they’d consumed her, torn the esh from her bones in ragged strips – skin, muscle tissue, organs – al of her stripped down to bloodied bones. None of her to be wasted. She was loved too much to leave her esh for smal er scavengers to gnaw at. Her heart was his, though, and his alone.

Broken Claw had cradled it now for hours, unwil ing to let go of the last thing of her. But now was the time. Now, as he stared down through the dark night to the cove far below and the ickering orange ower on the beach surrounded by those pale creatures.

His serrated teeth tore a chunk from the purple organ and he vowed as he chewed on the brous tissue that every last one of those new creatures would die. He would be sure to stare closely into their eyes as his claws dug deep into their chests and pul ed the pumping source of their life out.

The others began to wail and mew softly, young males grieving at the loss of their mother, as Broken Claw placed the rest of the organ in his mouth and bade farewel to his the rest of the organ in his mouth and bade farewel to his lifelong partner. He turned to the others and silenced them with a soft bark.

We do not need to fear new creatures.

The others understood this too.

They are as plant-eaters, harmless without their sticksthat-catch. And they were careless, foolish creatures that often placed these lethal tools on the ground and walked away from them, unaware that without them their clawless hands and smal , even, white teeth made them as vulnerable as freshly born cubs.

Broken Claw watched their distant movements on the beach, il uminated by the yel ow ower. Of course they al had to die to avenge her … but also to be sure his kind were the only intel igent pack hunters in these lands. To al ow these pale things a chance to breed and increase their number would be foolish.

He opened his mouth and his black tongue curled and twisted as he softly tried to reproduce again the strange sound the short fat creature with ginger hair and those strange eyes had made. Broken Claw’s throat gargled and whinnied, and his tongue shaped the sound into something that sounded, to his recol ection, to be a very passable facsimile.

‘Aye … ammmm … Fanck … leeeennn …’