FORTY-SEVEN

A LONE HYBRID Neanderthal crept through the jungle, avoiding twigs and dry leaves that might give away his position. As a sentry it was his duty to patrol the area directly surrounding the settlement. There were other sentries keeping watch, some on the ground, some in the trees, all keeping an eye out for dangerous animals or human military units that might pose a threat. He looked forward to the day when the renovations to Meru City were complete and their people could move out of the settlement and into the mountain itself. He had been chosen as chief lookout because of his keen eyesight. He would keep an eye on the city from high in the temple—the last line of defense against those who might manage to slip past their outer defenses. His days of sneaking around the jungle were almost at an end.

The hybrid stopped and sniffed at the air. Something unfamiliar had passed by recently. But he couldn’t place it. Perhaps an animal, or even one of the old mothers? They often smelled foreign as they roamed the jungle, killing and eating whatever they could find. He envied the old mothers sometimes. They were free to hunt and eat what they wanted. Red had taken him to hunt once, when he was still young. They found two human women fetching water at the river. He’d tasted, and enjoyed, both, washing the blood from his hands and mouth before returning home. Father would have been upset because he was human, but he was not like the others. He was family.

He pushed thoughts of his parents from his mind. The internal battle between the old and new worlds of his people would distract him from his duty. His nose and ears lacked the sensitivity that his eyes possessed, so he stood perfectly still and observed the world around him. Light shimmered as the canopy overhead swayed in a light afternoon breeze. Branches groaned, leaves rustled, and the denizens of the forest sang out. Everything sounded normal. But the smell lingered.

Then he saw it. A piece of torn fabric hanging on a dead branch. He walked to the branch and picked up the cloth. With the fabric pressed against his nose, he breathed in deeply. The smell filled his nostrils. Someone had been here . . . someone human had made it past. Humans were really no threat; even armed with guns they rarely put up a fight. He never felt the need to carry a weapon of his own, though sometimes they used their enemies’ weapons against them as they had during the attack on the VPLA camp. Of course, Father taught them that some human weapons were powerful enough to destroy entire mountains.

Even one human making it into the settlement could be disastrous.

He thought for a moment about hunting down the invader on his own. With no one around he could have his fill and bury the evidence, or throw the body in the river. But he decided against it. There was no way to know how many humans there were.

With his powerful lungs and broad chest, the guards back in the settlement would hear his call and know that someone had made it inside the perimeter. Their entire population would set out to find the humans and would no doubt round them up within minutes. He took a deep breath and then . . .

“Hey, buddy.” It was just a whisper, but the sound spun the hybrid like a top.

Expecting to see his foe approaching by land, the hybrid failed to see the figure descending from above until it was too late. Before any warning could be shouted, a spear fashioned from a straight branch sharpened to a point burst from his stomach, thrust through from behind. The hybrid’s eyes went wide as the plummeting shadow resolved into a mud-covered, nearly naked human female. Her eyes showed bright white and blue from behind her darkened mud covering. And in her hands . . . another spear, thrust out toward his open mouth.

Queen’s spear pierced the back of the hybrid’s throat, severed vertebrae, and exited through the back of its neck. The creature fell back, convulsed, and then laid still. Queen pulled her spear from the hybrid’s mouth as Rook stood from his hiding place behind the bush. He retrieved his spear from the hybrid’s back, twisting and turning it to loosen the body’s grip.

Without a word shared between them, they dragged the body behind the bush and covered it with leaves. The job done, they picked up their spears and began climbing. Queen went up quickly, stopping every now and then to give Rook a hand. After two minutes of hard climbing, they were in the canopy, invisible to the world below, but facing a new group of dangers.

Moving through the trees was slow and nerve-racking. A misstep might mean falling fifty feet to a very quick end or, at the least, a painful debilitation. They were also in unfamiliar territory. Fighting in the trees. Hiding in the trees. Queen had some experience, but given Rook’s size, he hadn’t spent much time climbing trees since he was a kid. They had considered going separate ways, but decided against it. They fought better together. They had also considered staying on the ground where they would have been more mobile, yet easier to spot. But recon was their goal at this point, not infiltration, so they opted for a high perch that would allow them a bird’s-eye view. Perhaps they were too used to satellite imagery, but both could more easily assess a situation when seeing it from above.

They made their way, without incident, to the edge of the forest, where the hybrid settlement began. After working their way into the branches of a tree whose bark most closely matched the drying mud on their bodies, they turned their attention to the community below. Rook summed up his assessment in one word. “Shit.”

They looked down on a large clearing at the base of the mountain. Perhaps fifty large huts filled the area. A line of caves pocked the side of the mountain. Fires glowed and cast off streams of smoke that billowed up and dispersed into the ominous rain clouds above. Animals paced in cages built from stone and wood—two tigers and four bears—and two crocodiles were fenced inside a small pond. But it wasn’t the collection of predators that surprised Rook, it was the Neanderthal population.

“There must be more than a thousand of them,” Rook said.

Queen nodded. She wouldn’t bother counting. As the population moved about, some building, some foraging, some gathering, the total number would be impossible to discern. “You said Weston was here for only fifteen years, right?”

“Yeah . . . ,” Rook said. “But he also said these guys matured and had kids by age three.”

“So these . . . things . . . are all fifteen years old and under? A bunch of kids?”

Rook shook his head. “In our years they’re kids. But they’re not human. They’re not kids. They’re as adult as you and me, and much more deadly.”

They watched in silence for several minutes as two elephants entered the camp, pulling fallen trees behind them. The trees were quickly cleared of limbs and then, using stone blades and raw strength, a group of large males began splitting the wood into long planks. Within fifteen minutes, the trees had been split into ten planks each. The elephants returned to the jungle with their keepers, and the hybrid males who had cut the wood carried it away. Two men carried each long stack of ten planks, nearly the equivalent weight of the trees they had been hacked from, one on each end.

“They’re not even exerting themselves,” he said.

“Look where they’re going,” she said. The male hybrids headed into the largest cave and disappeared into the darkness. “Why would they need all that wood inside a mountain?”

“I’m telling you,” he said, looking at the mountain. “As many as we see out here, we’ll find more in there. They’re like ants. If they have King and Pawn, they’ll be in there.”

“If they’re not dead already.”

Rook cast a serious glance in Queen’s direction. “Don’t even think it.”

She looked away from him and nodded. She could be a ruthless and efficient killer, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care about her teammates. It was hard to stay positive when the odds of survival, let alone rescue, seemed so insurmountable. Queen forced herself to look on the bright side; she’d already killed two of them. She could kill more.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

Queen looked up at the sky and then to Rook. The ferocious gleam in her eyes returned. “Wait until night, pray it doesn’t rain, and then set the captives free.”