2004-01-20 - 2:45 p.m.

The Hunt

The Hunt

They travel downwind from the Bonzo, they always traveled downwind on the hunt, by scent - the Tracker was invisible to all but them in the black of the Drydeath.

The �Drydeath Forest� wasn�t so much a forest as it was an expanse of dry wooden skeletons, bark bleached bone white � strong trees a thousand years old who�d long ago given up their hunt for moisture. The floor was parched and cracked, the trees were a reminder that they couldn�t remember a time of rain.

If they actually stopped to think about this new hunt, this slaughter, the tree�s outcome would assuredly be their own.

They come to a clearing in the thorny shrubs and paused. The humans were closer now.

Being Rearguard, she saw her flanking sisters ahead. On their sleek hides the blood of the slaughter had dried like rich mud and was black in the moonlight. She imagined they looked like the half-Panther half-Lion Goddess, �S�busaba�

She and her sisters used to hunt Watercattle in this very sinkhole clearing during the rainy season. She remembers the Gazelle and the Impala, now long gone � herds having migrated many years before.

�We weren�t always like this,� she thought to herself, �we were better than this.�

The old smells still linger. She remembers when the nights were cool and the herds plentiful. She remembers a time when they were hunters � better hunters than, this.

The humans were very close, now. Their spoor told her they were a group of five or six terrified, scrambled humans, blinded by both fear and night and she was reminded of a human saying, translated by one of the old Mothers, �Only the blind and the stupid travel by nightfall.�

The flanking sisters separated silently in either direction, ready to take their cue from her. The humans were both blind and stupid and unaware.

�This is no hunt,� she thought to herself, crouching, stalking, �There is no skill in this.�

She vaguely remembers a time when respect was held sacred between those of Lion and Human kin. A time before Mboomba Doky�s reign of blood.

The �Devil Cat,� was what his name meant, and although none would address him as such, it is what he truly was, for even the Animal Kingdom have their own Angels, their own Demons.

Previously: The Slaughter - Next: The Devil

0 of you fuckers have been accounted for.

old shit. - newer shit.