“What is it?” Ishara whispered, craning to see more.
“Keep down. Something that could frighten those animals must be dangerous.” But Kublai was raising himself higher, too, trying to penetrate the screen of brush, palms, and ferns. The atmosphere was electric, the stillness deafening. Ishara suddenly realized that nothing protected them from what was out there—nothing more tangible than the pouches they wore, which now seemed as foolish as toys. She felt suddenly very vulnerable, as though something was looking over her shoulder, but she dared not turn around.
The kongs were keeping so still that it was all but impossible to see them. Their bodies, half-glimpsed through the foliage, were simply a more solid blackness than shadow.
But the disturbance in the undergrowth was coming closer. Whatever it was had to be huge, as large as the kongs or even larger. A longneck, possibly, straying from its herd? But when Ishara whispered the thought, Kublai shook his head. “No, I think not. Whatever it is seems to be stalking. Longnecks are dangerous only if disturbed or if their young are threatened. It is a flesh-eater, but what kind?”
The roar that burst through the jungle made Ishara clap her hands over her ears and grimace. It sent a clatter of small flying reptiles spiraling into the air. It was harsh and as sickening as the grate of blade on slate, and it seemed to go on forever.
“Gaw!” exclaimed Kublai, opening and clenching his hands.
And then Ishara caught a hint of an enormous reptilian body in the brush, only partly seen but as indelible as a nightmare. A glinting eye, a hint of prognathous jaw. A form wasp-waisted and barrel-chested, a handlike claw—but the size of a hunter’s large shield!—grasping a tree trunk. And movement, move-ment far too fast for something that size, movement toward the hidden kongs.
Gaw, whatever it was, seemed to sink down to the earth. Then, surprisingly far ahead of where it had vanished, there it was again, stealthy and fast. Ishara found she had been holding her breath. And just as she let it out, the female kong roared in defiance and charged!
The impact of massive bodies sent a tremor through the crumbling walls of the old outpost. Ishara grabbed Kublai’s arm, felt its muscles corded and tense. Out in the green maze, branches snapped and thrashed, leaves spun in dizzy whirlwinds. Snarls and growls accompanied the thuds of blows given and received. And then a terribly human-sounding death cry, almost like human words. The sound died bubbling in her throat, and the female kong pitched from a thicket, falling on her back. Her fur was soaked with dark blood, her throat torn open. She stirred feebly and lay still, half in and half out of the thicket, arm extended, reaching toward something unseen—
The juvenile kong burst from its hiding place, but as he raced toward his fallen mother, a swarm of slashers boiled over him. The creatures leaped at him, clung to him, ripping his limbs with razor-sharp teeth and claws. The young kong whirled wildly as he tried to rip them from his body until he fell backward over a gnarled root, writhing into the undergrowth amid a cacophony of animal shrieks and breaking branches.
And then a shattering roar, coming from the depths of the jungle. “It’s the father!” Kublai said in Ishara’s ear. “He’s coming from the mountain!”
Gaw answered with a saurian challenge of its own, and the monster dropped low and raced through the brush. Its path converged with that of the gigantic kong. Now both Ishara and Kublai stood and leaned out the window.
The two beasts met in a clearing where the ridge met one side of the mouth of Skull Mountain. Gaw was the largest killer on the island, but it was different from any meat eater in other ways. Its trunk and front limbs were manlike, the arms ending in dexterous hands, each armed with three powerful, clawed fingers. It was far faster and more intelligent than the other large predators, and as it challenged the kong, its stance was confident and threatening.
The kong charged, and the dinosaur dropped low, striking upward as its foe closed. The kong was almost its match in height, but the force of Gaw’s attack sent the kong reeling back. The silver-coated kong, clearly ancient, was battered, and one eye was missing, a jagged scar cutting across its orbit and down the cheek. But age and wounds could not diminish the kong’s fury, and it lowered its head and struck again, pounding Gaw with its fists.
Gaw gave ground before his onslaught. Ishara clenched her hands, trying to will the kong to defeat this deadly enemy. Breaking away from the kong, Gaw spread its arms in a strange gesture. It bobbed, screeched and clicked like some grotesque, giant bird of prey. A pack of a dozen or more deathrunners, bigger and deadlier than the slashers, came wheeling in from the forest in answer to Gaw’s summons.
Ishara could not help shouting a warning as six of the creatures stabbed in on the kong’s blind side. The struggle was too far away for her voice to be heard, though Kublai instantly put his hands on her shoulders, as if he were preparing to flee and drag her with him.
The kong bellowed in anger as he struck at the deathrunners. Their bodies spun through the air, broken. Gaw charged, only to meet a barrage of hammering clouts as the kong fought all his foes.
Gaw reeled from the blows, but managed to keep its balance. The monster twisted, and smashed at the kong’s legs with its tail. The kong evaded the swipe but left himself open for a stabbing thrust of Gaw’s teeth. They closed on the kong’s left arm, near the shoulder, and the dark beast threw its head back and howled in anger and agony. Three deathrunners hung by their jaws from the kong’s right arm. When Gaw jerked its head away, a chunk of flesh came with it. The kong shook off its smaller enemies and lunged forward, reaching with its good arm, trying to find Gaw’s throat.
The reptilian monster feinted, then struck forward with the speed of a snake. Its jaws clamped on the kong’s throat, and again Ishara heard the almost human shriek of a dying kong. The earth shook as the two struggling beasts fell into the underbrush, and for some minutes, Ishara could not see what was happening. Then she heard the triumphant roar of Gaw.
“It’s killed them,” Kublai said.
Ishara felt numb. “What is Gaw?”
Kublai drew a deep breath and whispered: “It is said by my people that in ancient times, it was this kind of monster that caused the final downfall of the Atu. Bar-Atu claims it was Gaw himself, that Gaw cannot die. But I have heard from elders that from time to time a deathrunner is born that is different from all the others. It lives many times the lifespan of a normal animal. It grows in size, in cunning, in ferocity, and it is somehow necessary for their survival. There is never more than one, and now that one is Gaw. If A could kill Gaw, I think, we could defeat the deathrunners. Gaw thinks for them, leads them, herds them, as they herd the slashers.”
Kublai stared without moving until finally he relaxed. “There it is, on the ridge,” he said. ”It must be hurt. It’s retreating.”
Ishara caught only a fleeting glance of Gaw, the deathrunners following, now so far away that it was only a fast-moving shape.
She and Kublai crept down from their hiding place. “I’m going to look at the dead female,” Kublai told her.
“Kublai, no!”
“It’s all right. They are gone.”
Ishara followed Kublai. The setting sun cast a blood-red light over the battlefield. Ishara stared at the few scattered buildings, if buildings they were. They seemed to be a mixture of mortar, intertwined with living trees whose growth must somehow have been arrested ages ago. Someone—their ancestors—had shaped these into semblances of dinosaur frills and other skeletal forms that from a distance blended into the landscape but which on close inspection proved to be a hollow fusion of many trees. It was as if the earth had given birth to them. Ishara could only wonder what they must have looked like before being deserted and overgrown.
They left the outpost behind and climbed a low rise. Kublai dropped to his stomach and urgently signaled Ishara to do the same, but she crept beside him. “Oh!” She pressed her hand against her mouth to keep herself from crying out.
A great two-legged meat eater
had emerged from the jungle with one of its young, still feather-clad. The parent bowed its massive skull down and then scratched it with one of its tiny arms before letting out a sharp barking hiss. It then sniffed the air and grunted, a low, guttural sound. The two predators looked directly towards the dead kong. Fearlessly they strode forward, skirting the ravine as they neared the gaping mouth of Skull Mountain. They paused now and then to look around them with baleful glances, then arrived at the lifeless body of the father kong. Both creatures buried their snouts in the carcass and tore free glistening, dripping gobbets of flesh. With a toss of their heads, they snapped the meat down, grunting to themselves.
Ishara saw again how different these dinosaurs were from Gaw. This beast’s puny front legs ended in two small claws. Gaw’s were much longer and brawnier, ending in large, powerful hands. And the king dinosaur’s eyes, while certainly fierce, lacked the look of terrible intelligence that shone in Gaw’s eyes.
A furious roar! The larger meat eater leaped back from its feast as a dark, hurtling blur slammed into it. Ishara felt the rubble hard against her belly and chest as she tried to flatten herself into the ground. The young kong was not dead—and it clearly thought this creature had killed its parents. It rained thunderous blows on the flesh eater, slamming its body against a tree and smashing its fists hard into the creature’s head and chest. The dinosaur fought back, but the young kong grappled with it, and they tumbled toward the gaping maw of Skull Mountain. The dinosaur rolled free, roared, and kept the enraged kong away by wildly snapping its jaws and kicking out with its massive hind legs.
The great meat eater snarled, its jaws dripping saliva streaked with blood as it rose to its feet. The kong again pressed his attack, but the predator quickly turned and caught him across the midsection with a crushing blow from its tail that sent him sprawling. Ishara heard its body crash to earth somewhere and realized it had fallen into the ravine that snaked into Gaw’s lair. The king dinosaur gave the fallen foe no more attention, as its juvenile came bobbing and hissing from the undergrowth. They proceeded to greedily rip back into the dead kong’s body.
Ishara grasped Kublai’s arm. Kublai looked at her, and she knew that he, like she, was absolutely exhausted, as though they themselves had been in a battle. The sun was low in a crimson sky and they resolved to stay where they were. They had seen enough. They needed time to think—their original plan now seemed like madness. As quietly as they could, they retreated to the outpost and climbed back to the room from which they had watched Gaw’s battle with the kongs. Kublai said, “We’ll never make it to the Citadel and back.”
“Not with Gaw and the deathrunners so near,” Ishara agreed. “It’s still a long way to the Citadel.”
“We will decide tomorrow,” Kublai said. They shared a sparse meal from the rations he carried and then spent an uneasy night sleeping in that strange room. Each time Ishara dozed, she dreamed of the monster Gaw and of the deathrunners sweeping in a wave over the embattled kong.
In the morning, each of them kneaded the leather pouches of herbs the Storyteller had given them and rubbed them on arms, shoulders, neck, face, and legs. The scent was becoming faint. They set off with the sunrise, beneath wheeling, raucous pterodactyls flying from the empty eye sockets of the mountain’s face far overhead. The father kong’s body had been reduced in the night to scattered bones and rags of fur. Scavengers were always ready for those who fell in the jungle.
It was a clear morning. They woke before sunrise and set out, passing through wisps of ground fog but able to see the stars overhead. All seemed peaceful, though they knew better. Somewhere nearby Gaw lurked, and there were other dangers, too, like the king dinosaurs. “Do we go back?” Kublai asked.
“No,” Ishara said slowly. “We can’t. If we fail, everyone will be at the mercy of Bar-Atu and his murderers. We have to try to reach the Citadel.”
“Then let us start.” Kublai, with the stealth of a hunter, led the way along a rising, rocky path that skirted the base of Skull Mountain. Just after sunrise, they reached a high point on the pathway, and Ishara cried out in wonder.
There, below them and still a long way off, lay the Citadel, emerging like a dream through billows of fog. Shapes of the ancient structures lay half-concealed, half-revealed, lit to glory in the slanting rays of the early sun. Ishara could not take it all in. Her heart swelled.
“We can’t get there,” Kublai said, his voice despondent. “Look.”
He pointed downward. A dozen slashers flashed in and out of the trees far away, at the base of the ridge on which they stood. The creatures had not noticed them, but they were hunting. Ishara looked from them to the Citadel, so promising and yet still so far away.
“We can pass through the slashers. This will protect us,” Ishara said, fingering the pouch of herbs.
Kublai replied grimly, “We can’t trust in that, not with slashers on the prowl. Come, let’s see if we can find a different path.”
And so, instead of heading directly toward the Citadel, they traveled far along the ridge as it drifted to the south. In time they caught the first refreshing breaths of cool, salty air. Slowly, they descended into the jungle before finally emerging onto a pristine, crescent beach that cradled a quiet lagoon. They were far away from the slashers, far away from the gruesome experiences of the day before. The dreamlike clouds and soft, rolling waves beckoned. They both walked to the edge of the water and, kneeling down, listened to the rhythmic sound of the surf. “I wonder if swimming could wash all memory of yesterday away,” Ishara said.
“Is the water safe?”
“Yes. Look, there is a school of sleeks.”
Kublai relaxed. Sleeks were reptilian and superficially similar to the dolphins that occasionally sported in the village bay. They were playful, toothless, large-eyed—and they never appeared when dangerous sea creatures were near. Maybe their senses warned the sleeks to stay out of the way of predators, or maybe the predators themselves were wary of the sleeks. Either way, their presence meant the water was safe. Kublai waded in, then plunged forward.
Ishara followed him in. She sensed that, like herself, Kublai had to feel cleansed after the blood and death they had witnessed. The salty water was warm and clear. Ishara felt the sting of salt in her eyes, tasted it on her lips. It was clean, and that was what she needed. The sleeks kept their distance, for they were always shy around humans, but Ishara could hear the puffs of their breathing and their high-pitched squeaks.
She and Kublai swam lazily, then just floated in the warm water. “What path do we take next?” Kublai asked. “We can’t go over, or even through, Skull Mountain. It would take a giant to do that.”
It was true. The far side of Skull Mountain showed ramparts of vertical cliffs, rearing up from deep jungle. Somewhere beyond them lay the Citadel, but how to get there? She began, “Maybe, we should—”
“Ishara! Behind you!”
Ishara turned, her heart leaping into her mouth. A fin cut through the water, racing toward her, a long dark shadow beneath it. And then another and another! Suddenly the water erupted and something leaped beside her. Her outflung hand brushed the leaping creature’s side—
Something happened.
What it was, she could never afterward explain. But for a moment, as the sleek’s slippery body passed beneath her palm, she felt a connection, like nothing else she had ever experienced. And then, the creature that had raced past them, perhaps trying to see if they were food, returned, more slowly. It raised an inquisitive head from the water and gazed at them with eyes as big as Ishara’s hand.
Surprisingly, it then playfully rolled on its side and nudged her with its long, slender snout. Ishara could clearly see its lack of teeth.
And its touch told Ishara she was safe. “It’s all right,” she said to Kublai, whose face had turned pale.
“Sleeks never let us near them,” Kublai objected. “They—what did you say? How do you know we’re safe?”
“I—I just know it,”
Ishara said. “Look, they’re friendly!”
Kublai started as another sleek’s head broke the surface near him, and beyond that two more.
As the sleeks swam closer, so close that she could reach out and touch them, Ishara could see the difference between them and dolphins. They were similar, so similar that at a distance they could easily be confused with each other. Sleeks were air-breathers, just like dolphins. But they had an extra set of flippers toward the rear of their bodies, and their tail fins were vertical, not horizontal: unlike a dolphin, which undulated in an up-and-down motion, a sleek swam with its tail moving side to side, like a fish. And their minds—How did she know that? Somehow she did—their minds were sharp, curious, and strangely protective. They crowded around Ishara now, as if eager to make contact with this land creature that had touched their leader.
Ishara cried out in surprise rather than alarm as one surfaced almost beneath her. She grasped its fin without thinking, and then the creature leaped with her, clean out of the water, and for a moment she was flying, feeling inside her the joy of play that the sleeks knew. Then she plunged back into the water, only to emerge in a spray of foam, laughing. “I told you they’re friendly! Grab on with me!”
The hunter had surfaced in Kublai. “But they never come close! Are they going to attack?”
Not even acknowledging his question, Ishara insisted: “Here they come. Quick! Take hold!”
Kublai couldn’t resist. With an eager grin, he quickly grabbed the surfacing sleek and slipped right next to Ishara. But as soon as he joined with her on the dorsal fin of the leader, she laughed and let go to grab onto another as it passed close by and dived under water.
Kong: King of Skull Island Page 7