The Valley of Tooth & Claw

by Chris McInally

  CHAPTER 12

  The ache in Kate’s wrists was incessant now, her poor skin rubbed red-raw by the primitive rope used to bind her hands. Looking down at her restraints, the professor noted faint traces of blood intermingled with the coarse fabric. Still, the pain concentrated about the woman’s wrists was nothing compared to the rest of her body. Her back and legs hurt the most she found, evidence that their march had indeed been an arduous one. By Miller’s estimation however, they were now on the home stretch. Thankfully, after the better part of a day on the move, it was almost over. Or was their hell just beginning? What fresh horrors awaited them? Kate had no doubt that time would ultimately tell on this front.

  In any event, Professor Miller and the others stood atop the brow of a small hill, surrounded by their kidnappers. From here the land fell away from the group, the decline smooth and gradual. Bottoming out after less than twenty feet, the land, more or less level from here on, proceeded to stretch for about a quarter of a kilometer before coming to the walls of a heavily fortified settlement.

  A village, Kate supposed quietly as she looked out over the expansive plain. Their village. She warily snatched a glance at the tribesmen scattered all around her.

  Ultimately, they didn’t hold her attention for long and Kate went back to studying the settlement yonder. More specifically, Miller surveyed a series of thatched, sun-bleached roofs just visible beyond the twin sets of sharpened palisades that made up the village’s imposing defenses. As to the rest of the abodes, she couldn’t quite make them out from where she stood, partially obscured as they were by the double-ring of fortifications.

  Returning then to the defenses, Kate inspected the first set of palisades. This ‘outer rim’ protruded away from the main site on a menacing angle; the stakes rising from the ground at roughly forty-five degrees. It was immediately obvious that this feature was intended to ward off attackers˗ and large ones at that. Behind this initial perimeter, a second set of walls had been erected. Composed of similarly fashioned stakes, the sharpened tops of these pointed skyward. The geographer estimated the height of them at close to thirty feet, possibly even more.

  Miller’s gaze turned next to the settlement’s gateway. Here was the only gap in the structure’s otherwise complete and fearsome outer perimeter. Roughly rectangular in shape, the outline of the entrance was rimmed left and right by yet more spear-like stakes, as was its top. Lastly, on either side of the entrance sat platforms. Strangely enough, these made the professor think back to her childhood in Huntsville and her cousins’ old treehouse, in particular.

  Guardhouses, Professor Miller presumed silently, for some reason imagining archers atop them.

  “Impressive,” she heard Greg say, the man standing just off to her left.

  “Huh?” Kate turned to look at Professor Trentham.

  “The structure is rather impressive,” Greg elaborated for her, “wouldn’t you say?” He signaled towards it with an open hand.

  “I suppose,” Miller looked on at the settlement, her stomach roiling anxiously at the sight of it.

  “How can a place like this exist?” Professor Trentham pondered aloud. “A land out of time, inhabited by dinosaurs and god-knows-what-else.”

  “My dad always said; this world isn’t what it appears to be,” Kate replied.

  “Is that why you became a geographer?” Greg probed. “To make sense of the world?”

  Professor Trentham’s question took his colleague off-guard. The woman paused, mulling it over. “I-I…” Miller hesitated, “… never thought of it like that.”

  “Now that I think of it,” Trentham returned to the original subject, “there are several examples of living fossils throughout the world, such as the Coelacanths.”

  “Coelacanths?” Kate screwed up her face.

  “They are a species of lobed-finned fishes that lived alongside the dinosaurs,” Greg explained. “They survived the KT-extinction event and remain virtually unchanged, morphologically that is, from their primeval ancestors. Perhaps a similar situation has arisen here in Javari Valley? Perhaps the valley itself is some sort of prehistoric refugium. There are of course legends from all over the world of relict specimens of dinosaurs, particularly in Africa; Mokele-mbembe; Emela-ntouka; Kasai Rex to name a few. What’s more, there is even anecdotal evidence to support the existence of these creatures.”

  Kate was about to say something when a sudden grunt to her rear drew the woman’s attention. It was the big tribesman, the scarred one she had pegged as their leader, using his axe to point toward the village as he grimaced irritably.

  Talk about a broken record. No rest for the wicked, it was time to get moving again.

  #

  Peering nervously over her shoulder, Kate looked on as the settlement’s gate locked firmly into place behind them. Operated by a weighted pulley-style system, the entrance swung closed as the last of their party, Trey and Sienna, crossed the threshold; the slab-like collection of wood working something like an inverted drawbridge.

  Now firmly inside the walls, Professor Miller couldn’t shake the feeling that she was little more than a lamb being led to the slaughter. Indeed, a profound sense of foreboding gripped the woman. Pins and needles stabbed at her hands. Coupled with this was a lingering sense of nausea that sat rather uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.

  “Amazing,” Gregory piped up, seemingly unfazed by their predicament.

  Seriously? Kate thought to herself, a little irritated by the man’s ill-placed enthusiasm. Could he not see the danger they were in?

  Craning her neck back around, Kate discovered Professor Trentham edging away from her now, apparently intent on inspecting the village in greater detail. The geographer also noted Latham and Clementine had crept up beside her at some point. The pair now stood one on either side of her. Like Professor Miller, Trey and Sienna were clearly a little thrown off by Greg’s behavior, the pair watching him inquisitively. As for Miller’s fellow academic, it seemed he was utterly captivated by their abductors’ homeland, a look of near ecstasy etched on his weathered features.

  “Always the academic,” Kate Miller muttered morosely.

  Unlike her companion, Kate found it difficult to appreciate the village in all its primeval grandeur. Especially when she had yet to find out what its inhabitants had in store for them. Nonetheless, together with her companions, Kate plunged deeper into the belly of the beast as it were. Then again, what else was she to do? Under the circumstances, they had nowhere to run and certainly nowhere to hide.

  Guided by nothing more than the angry stares of their captors at this point, the foreigners were maneuvered deeper into the fortified encampment. Left and right wooden huts topped with angular thatched roofs flanked the new arrivals. Outside some of these stood what could best be described as stalls, held aloft on the most minimalist of frames; simple but effective contraptions composed of lengths of kindling crudely lashed together. On display were the carcasses of various animals, strung up akin to butcher’s meat for sale at a market. Devoid of their hides in several cases, Miller couldn’t actually identify what many of the specimens were.

  Disgusting… Kate thought, quickly averting her gaze from the bloody profiles.

  It was then Professor Miller noted a trio of smoke trails in the distance. Issuing forth from fires unseen, the grey-black plumes inched high into the ever-reddening sky. All the while, red-brown bodies bustled to-and-fro about her. Awestruck by the aliens in their midst, those natives closest to the newly arrived group stared wide-eyed at the pasty-skinned foreigners. Indeed, gasps and muffled cries went up all around. Some of the tribesmen and women even shrunk from the newcomers, fearful to approach.

  Surrounded as she was, Kate was beginning to feel hemmed in. Still, she did her best to ignore the feeling, pressing onward in the hope she would eventually find somewhere less confining. It was taking everything the woman had to conceal her sense of trepidation from the leering Amazons. She just hoped it was working. Kate’
s father had always taught her it was best to exude strength when placed under pressure; any signs of weakness would always be exploited.

  Keep your cool, she instructed herself. Call their bluff.

  Professor Miller’s attention was soon drawn to a stall similar to the ones the woman had perused just before. Beside it sat a mother and daughter, dark-haired and tawny-skinned like the rest of the tribe. Although, if truth be told, Kate barely registered their presence, let alone their appearance. Rather she had eyes only for the odd creature stretched out and dangling from their rickety little stall.

  “Oh my God…” Miller gasped.

  Eyes widening, a memory flickered in the back of Kate’s mind. She thought back to the strange winged beasts she had spied earlier that day (shortly before the expedition dived head-first into turmoil). Something in the professor told her she was looking at one of these mysterious animals now... or something akin to them anyway. At the time, she had considered the possibility they might be bats. She now knew this wasn’t the case. In fact, Kate’s guess wasn’t even close to the truth.

  “Rhamphorhynchus,” said a voice matter-of-factly.

  It was Trentham. He had doubled backed at some point without her realizing.

  “Whatever its name is,” Miller responded flatly, “it’s one ugly son of a bitch.”

  As for Latham and Clementine, they said nothing. Evidently out of their element, the duo looked on quietly from the sidelines, happy to listen and learn, and just let the eggheads do their thing.

  “Quite,” was all Gregory could think to say to Kate’s comment.

  Together he and Professor Miller, along with the other two, admired (or perhaps scrutinized was the more appropriate word) the ugly carcass before them. Its beak was thin, long and pointed, lined top and bottom by teeth that protruded on awry angles. Added to this, the creature’s eyes were small and beady, staring lifelessly ahead. Wrapped in leathery skin it was the epitome of hideous. Or so Kate thought.

  “How is it a conservation biologist comes to know so much about dinosaurs?” Kate asked Trentham, her eyes remaining on the little beast. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?” She raised a suspicious eyebrow in his direction.

  “Oh, Rhamphorhynchus wasn’t˗ or should I say isn’t?˗ a dinosaur,” Greg answered evenly, the man’s grey eyes gleaming behind his broken lenses. “It did however live alongside them.”

  “Just answer the damn question, Greg,” Miller instructed him curtly, put off by his continuing aloofness.

  “Very well. When I made the decision to pursue an academic career,” Trentham huffed a little as he spoke, “my options were paleontology and conservation biology.”

  “What made you choose the latter?” Miller probed, her tone easing slightly.

  “Whilst dinosaurs have been a passion of mine since I was a little boy, I figured they are extinct,” Greg explained adjusting his glasses momentarily, “if I truly wanted to make a difference in the world, which I did, then conservation biology was the route to take. After all, you can’t help a species that’s already succumbed to extinction, can you?” Professor Trentham shrugged at his own words.

  “How wrong you were,” Kate smirked, the last of her annoyance at him evaporating with these words.

  That made Greg laugh, before he abruptly moved on again.

  “How wrong we all were,” Professor Miller said to herself, barely noticing Greg’s departure.

  Out of nowhere, Kate felt a massive paw wrap firmly around her bicep, squeezing tight. Shocked, she instinctively tried to wrestle free, but her accoster held on, refusing to let go. Too strong for the woman to resist, panic rapidly set in.

  What the hell’s going on? her mind screamed before she had a chance to figure it out.

  A fraction of a second later, Miller twisted in-place to find the ‘big fella’ looming over her once again. Lips curling with thinly veiled anger, the bare-chested brute half-grunted, half-barked at the startled woman, his scar stretching hideously as he spoke. Then he pushed her. The force of it sent Kate reeling. Professor Miller stumbled away from the native, only just managing to keep her balance in the end. As this happened, Trevon rushed to the academic’s side, trying to steady her.

  “Thanks,” the professor said, albeit scowling in the direction of the swollen tormenter who had nearly toppled her.

  Sienna joined them soon thereafter. Silent and still very much somber, the blonde woman glanced sheepishly in the tribesman’s direction. Interestingly, all sense of bravado had vanished from the woman’s demeanor now.

  “Just keep moving,” Kate said to the others.

  Cautious as to what the disfigured native might do next, and eager to catch up to the wandering Trentham, the trio moved on. Meanwhile, all around them, the cadre of grimacing warriors led by their dour-faced leader, continued to circle, watching like hawks. As for the other villagers, the civilians you might call them, like before they kept their distance from the interlopers.

  “What are we going to do?” Sienna squeaked, tears lining her eyelids.

  Kate and Trevon failed to find the words to answer her.

  Minutes ticking by, the quartet forged deeper into the village, equal parts fearful and curious. Gradually, more of the settlement revealed itself, seeming to expand in front of them. More huts came into view at this point, some bigger than others. Off to her left, Kate spied one of these larger, oblong structures. By her estimation, it must have been close to four times the size of the smallest huts she had encountered. Miller wondered to herself if it was a communal building, like a granary or smokehouse, perhaps even a temple, or maybe something else entirely that she hadn’t thought of yet.

  As if stuck on autopilot, the group advanced further still into the prehistoric village. More of the smaller abodes continued to appear. By now Kate was convinced these must all be homesteads. Yet, whilst she slowly became familiarized with the sights, sounds and smells around her, each step remained tentative. After all, they were steps into the literal unknown.

  Kate found the ground beneath her feet to be hard and unforgiving. Unlike the moist and decidedly lush floor of the rainforest beyond the walls, the soil here was dry and dusty; arid on account of it being well-trodden, or so she presumed. This settlement had stood for many years by the professor’s reckoning. More astonishing than this however was the indisputable fact that these people, without the aid of modern technology, had survived alongside some of prehistory’s greatest and deadliest predators.

  Bit by bit, the buildings became fewer, fading from Kate’s peripherals. The woman’s sense of claustrophobia began to lessen with this, but not by much. Indeed, her anxiety by and large remained. It was fueled by the warriors’ enduring presence, in particular the scar-faced bully in their ranks. Silently, Professor Miller wondered if the others felt the same way. Looking at their faces she got the impression that this was very much the case.

  Returning her attention to the village, or rather what remained of it now, Miller found the wooden buildings were all but gone. Ultimately, the absence of the primitive infrastructure meant Kate was now offered a much different and rather unexpected view.

  What is that? the professor pondered, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the new and very much unexpected sight.

  Cool-blue and gleaming, something sparkled several hundred meters out from the group’s current position, the glimmering body originating somewhere up ahead where the land dipped away from them, just out of sight. Bright and piercing, the image made Kate think of diamonds. Taken off-guard by this, the professor failed to notice the land to her right had begun to climb away from them. Instead, she had eyes only for the glistening expanse in the distance.

  Water…

  For a moment the geographer thought she was looking at a pond. That is until her mind finally registered the sheer scale of what she was looking at. The shimmering carpet wended for miles by her approximation, its far-off shores bordered by green rainforest.

  A lake! The realiza
tion hit her, the woman feeling a little stupid on account of her profession.

  Several moments passed, the quartet silent as they admired the majestic sight.

  “It’s beautiful,” Miller told the others finally.

  Sienna and Latham mumbled their agreement.

  “What do you make of that?” Gregory pointed to Kate’s righthand side.

  Somehow, she managed to avert her gaze from the picturesque body of water. Taking her lead from Greg, Professor Miller eventually noted the change in the topography. She followed the incline, her brown eyes trailing the lay of the land. They soon came to rest on the feature responsible for capturing Trentham’s curiosity, about one hundred and fifty or so meters up the hill from them.

  Kate recognized the peculiar formation immediately. Like a single finger extending away from an otherwise clenched fist, the rock formation emerged seamlessly from the arid landscape. Standing on a roughly thirty-degree angle, the slender appendage jutted out over the waters of the lake beyond, hovering over it akin to a diving board positioned above a pool. In all, its length must have been close to fifty feet. On top of that it sat about twenty feet above the surface of the lake.

  “It’s known as an erosional fin,” Miller explained to Trentham, hurriedly thinking back to some of her earlier elective classes at Colorado State University. “Over time its base has been eroded by the elements, in this case most likely a combination of wind and water.” She signaled to the concave base that supported the lone ‘finger’.

  “Is it stable?” Trey asked, inclining an eyebrow.

  “More than likely,” Kate answered, “it would take something like an earthquake to down it, I’d say. What we are looking at is the strongest portion of rock remaining, its shape molded over millennia.”

  Before she could explain any further, something in the atmosphere changed, breaking her concentration and ending the geographer’s mini lecture. Kate couldn’t quite explain what it was. But her body reacted to ‘it’ nonetheless. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as a chill slowly traced the woman’s spine.