Ƭħє ŞąЬяє'ƨ Şħąmє

Chapter Ten: The Hunt

The pack was tense.

Each sabre had a unique way of preparing for the strike at the end of a hunt; the finishing move in a long series of preparations that had taken weeks to accomplish. But the hour before the true hunt began was the hardest to deal with. The raging hunger, the enhanced instincts, the sharp movements… They were all tense.

Akira was lying in a hunter's position, her eyes locked on the distant horizon, barely breathing. Her mind was moving with rapid speed; conjuring up strategies, killing off ideas, imagining, wondering, deciding, estimating, calculating, thinking, thinking, thinking…

Silver was beside her, motionless, her whole body frozen. Only her eyes were moving, scanning the land around them, mentally plotting the route back to the herd. Her hunger was outweighing the gentler streak in her, and low snarls were escaping her throat.

Shi was relentlessly pacing around the perimeter of the pack's territory, a tight spiral that would leave him back in the middle of the pack, before he started moving outwards again. His moves were sharp and jerky, fighting back the adrenaline that he would need for the fight to take down the mammoths.

Damian and Lars were locked into a wrestling match, burning spare energy, not-so-playfully snapping and biting at each other. More often than not, their intention was to cause pain. Slowly, their sanity was slipping away, instincts taking over, preparing for the hunt.

Ray, the last member of the pack, was curled around the base of a tree in a tight coil of quivering energy. He was pawing the air, claws out, eyes narrowed to glowing slits. The ferocity that had led him to kill his family was inherent in him now; his body clearly ready for the kill that was about to come up.

The last vestiges of light finally faded from the sky. The lonely moon bathed the landscape in an eerie light, darkness ruling the sky.

Moving slowly, the pack gathered at the eastern peak of their territory, gazing through the black woods. Everything seemed to be frozen in silence, one of those moments that seems to stay for an eternity. Nothing moved, nothing breathed. Glittering eyes pierced the darkness, and then the scent of meat drifted through the woods.

Unanimously, the pack let go of sanity and let instinct rule in its place. Eyes glowing, muscles flowing, they slipped through the woods like smoke in the air. Unreachable, untouchable, and utterly unstoppable.

***

The herd were all asleep. After Alexia's story, an inexplicable need to sleep had just come over all of them, literally knocking them out. Now the only person conscious in their dwelling was the sabre herself, her glittering eyes now emerald with savage hunger. She was holding herself in check, keeping herself away from the sweet, sweet scents that drifted from their sleeping bodies. They'd wake up in mere minutes now, but after that, they'd never see the light of day again. The two possums were stirring restlessly, and Alexia bared her fangs in a horrible grin.
So intent was she on keeping herself under control, she didn't even notice that the sloth had disappeared.

***

Diego had slipped into the hollow when Alexia had been entering her hunter's trance; he knew from experience just how much you could miss out on in those few seconds of readjustment. He'd leapt into the middle of the pack, totally silent, grabbed Sid in his mouth, and leapt straight back out. His timing had been perfect; Alexia had woken back up to herself just as he returned to his lair. Now he was gently hitting the sloth with his paw, slowly waking him up.
"Ugh – unnh – whaa – Diego?!"

Diego hissed "Be quiet! Listen, we need to talk!"

"Nuh-huh," Sid said defiantly. "Not after what you did. You're a bad person. Bad tigey-wigey. Baaaad…"

Diego blinked. The first part of that statement had made sense. The second part – he sounded like he was still asleep. He asked "What are you on about?"

"Alexia said that you're bad. You're bad. Bad, bad, bad."

Diego gritted his teeth. "Alexia. She's your new sabre pal, huh?"

"Yup. She's my sabre p-p-pal."

Diego narrowed his eyes. "What on earth did she do to you…?"

Sid ignored the question, instead getting up and starting to walk out of the cave. "She has pretty eyes. Really pretty. Really, really, really pretty…"

Diego let out a low gasp, mentally berating himself for not realizing before. "She's the ambush! She hypnotized you!"

Sid had already vanished though, wandering back down the hill towards the pack, eyes crossed and unfocused, walk swaying and zigzagging. Diego shook his head in incredulous amazement, following his one-time friend to the outskirts of the herd's dwelling, where he stopped, watching the herd slowly stir in their sleep. Sid began to wake Manny up, probably to tell him that Diego was back in the area – but that wasn't Diego's concern at the moment.

He could see them.

The pack.

They were here, and ready to kill.