The Valley of Tooth & Claw

by Chris McInally

  “Who is that?” Trey asked all of a sudden.

  “Who?” Kate queried, her eyes leaving the fin.

  “Him,” the mercenary nodded a little farther off to the right.

  Miller’s eyes shifted accordingly. To her surprise, there stood the outline of a man (or what she presumed was a man) a short way up the face of the parched hillock. Silent and stock-still, he watched Kate and the others intently, arms hanging limply by his sides. Adorned only in a loincloth and some beads about his wrists, he had the look of a vagabond. The sight would even have been comical if it wasn’t so downright creepy. Kate noticed then that even the other natives kept their distance from him. This fact alone unnerved Miller the most. What cause did they have to fear this individual? Was he not one of them?

  Suddenly, the haggard figure stepped towards Kate’s group. She felt her body tighten in response. The professor couldn’t quite pin down what it was about the man (she was certain it was a man now) that unsettled her, other than to say his aura. Despite the heat, goosepimples sprang up the length of Miller’s arms as she watched him more closely now.

  Descending the hill, the mysterious figure cantered forward, a confidence evident in his stride. Drawing nearer, his features gradually became more discernible. In stark contrast to the other tribespeople, his hair was an unkempt mattress of grey-white strands, as was the beard that hung from his shrunken face. The man’s eyes, small and dark, were framed by sharp cheekbones, the skin pulled tight against the latter. Purple bags sat under his eyes. The man appeared ancient, as old as the Earth itself, with his dry and cracked skin. His hide was wrinkled to boot, sagging noticeably from his bones. Curiously, three thick lines of white body-paint scored the individual’s shrunken chest, running horizontally across it.

  Who is this guy? Kate found she couldn’t take her eyes off the strange character. What does he want?

  Professor Miller decided then the individual didn’t have the look of a warrior. No, he was something else to this community… something else entirely. Watching the way the other villagers moved around him, making sure to keep their distance, Kate realized then they didn’t necessarily fear him as she had thought before. Rather, they respected him. No, respected wasn’t the right word. They revered him.

  A priest perhaps? Kate pondered for a second. Then it came to her. A holy man… a shaman…

  As the realization sunk in, the old man came to within a few feet of Kate. Stopping dead, he locked eyes with her. Ultimately, his gaze did not waver. Indeed, it felt like an eternity, the pair inspecting one another intimately. Needless to say, the ancient’s reluctance to avert his gaze unnerved the academic greatly. Professor Miller felt her pulse quicken and with this the woman’s heart began to beat harder against her chest plate.

  What does he want?

  Without warning, the elder jerked towards her, swiftly closing the gap between them! Kate flinched, a short scream escaping her lips before she managed to cut herself off. The woman felt her cheeks instantly flush red with embarrassment. A sneer danced mockingly across the old man’s dried out lips. Meanwhile, perhaps taken off-guard, or perhaps too afraid, none of her companions came to Kate’s aid. But in the end, they didn’t need to. The shaman’s face hovered inches from Professor Miller’s, his nostrils flaring wildly. Still, he did not harm her.

  Keep your composure, Kate tried to remember her father’s lessons. Don’t let him intimidate you.

  Rendered speechless, the professor began to tremble. A shuddering breath escaped the woman’s throat. As for the holy man, he remained silent, his dark, bloodshot eyes boring into Kate’s own all the while.

  Keep it together! Miller told herself, trying to fend off the shakes.

  Kate could feel her eyes beginning to water. She chastised herself inwardly for that. Before long, her knees grew noticeably weak. Meanwhile, the shaman’s smirk transformed into something much more malicious. His lips, thin and shriveled, peeled themselves back to reveal a horrid collection of yellow, decayed teeth. Then, just as Kate thought he was going to say something, he brusquely turned his back on the professor.

  Spinning on his heels, the holy man turned to face his people instead. Throwing his hands into the air, he began to croak in a harsh tongue so utterly foreign to the professor she had no hope of understanding. His voice was like gravel, his tone low and relatively unassuming. Yet, his congregation hung on every word. Still, the shaman’s tenor didn’t remain like this for long. Rather, it began to rise as he continued with his energetic diatribe. Next, he threw his head back, crowing at the top of his lungs. In turn, cheers from the crowd went up. Clearly, they approved of whatever it was he had to say. In fact, with their excitement growing, it wasn’t long before they began to shout back themselves. Ultimately, their reaction only encouraged the holy man further. He was working them into a frenzy, and they him, it would seem.

  What is he saying to them? Professor Miller wondered, her temples pounding feverishly, painful and relentless.

  Still, even amidst her discomfort, Kate’s eyes refused to leave the shaman. As for the tribal leader, he continued to agitate his onlookers, reveling in their excitement. Then everything changed. Gesturing and roaring, the holy man turned to face Kate once more. An arm extended toward her, his gnarled index finger pointed squarely in her direction. With this his congregation fell silent almost instantly.

  “I might not speak his language,” Trevon spoke up, “but something tells me that ain’t good.”

  The warriors pounced then, stealthily moving in from the margins of the crowd. In twos and threes, they set upon the intruders, overpowering them in a matter of a few seconds.

  “Where are you taking us?” Sienna Clementine screamed amidst the ruckus, tears spilling from her eyes.

  As if answering Clementine’s desperate query, the priest proceeded to point up the hill and with that Kate and her friends were shunted away to meet their fate.

  CHAPTER 13

  The rain fell like shards of liquid glass, fierce and relentless. It had been going on like this for the last few hours. The word ‘torrential’ came to Campbell’s mind as he watched it. Still, the Scotsman had endured worse weather than this whilst in the field. Hell, he’d witnessed worse weather than this on a night out in Glasgow with his cousins.

  Perched in a tree at the edge of the rainforest, cloaked to some extent by its foliage, Commander Campbell watched the settlement at the other end of the plain through a pair of night-vision goggles, his world bathed in a ghostly shade of green. The rain made his job more difficult than it should have been, the droplets darting in and out of view, working to obscure his vision and distract him. Still, he noted off in the distance torches burning at intervals along the settlement’s inner wall of defenses. Beyond this however, there was little else about the village that stood out to him.

  Not far from the settlement’s imposing gates, maybe twenty meters or so out from it, a group of five long-necked and dark-bodied sauropods trooped peacefully across the otherwise empty plain. The largest of them must have been close to fifty feet long, whereas the smallest was more like ten. Mighty and majestic creatures, their march was slow and methodical.

  A family, Elias presumed to himself.

  “Come in HQ,” Elias spoke into his mic as he watched the dinosaurs, his mind still struggling to comprehend their existence (in the face of all his recent experiences). “This is Reiver, do you copy? Over.”

  “Reading you loud and clear, Commander,” a voice responded almost immediately. “Over.”

  “I have located the enemy encampment,” he informed headquarters, his eyes shifting from the dinosaurs back toward the village. “I intend to commence rescue operation at daybreak. You have my coordinates; have choppers en route and ready for extraction by zero-six-thirty-hours local time. Please confirm receipt of this information. Over.”

  “Confirmed,” said the tinny voice. “Over.”

  “Roger, HQ,” Elias grimaced. “Over and out.”

  P
utting away his night-vision goggles, Campbell shifted from his perch, shuffling along the tree branch. Next, pressing his palms against the tubular appendage, the PMC leveraged himself before launching off it. Landing amidst the soaked bed of grass with a squelch! the merc stayed low to the ground on his haunches.

  “Okay,” Elias spoke to himself, looking out over the clearing, “just one last thing to take care of and then time for some well-deserved shut-eye. Got a big day tomorrow,” he smirked wryly to himself. Although, if truth be told, he wasn’t feeling all that confident.

  #

  “We should never have come here,” Sienna finally spoke up, these words of hers the first in hours. As to what had triggered this comment, no one in her company could say except her.

  By this point, the foursome had been crammed into a tiny hut that felt no bigger than an Alabama outhouse. Outside it, a pair of tribesmen draped in coarse, poncho-like cloaks stood guard in the rain, spears at their sides. Occasionally thunder cracked overhead, pulses of lightning flashing on the tail of the horrendous noise.

  “No shit,” Trevon growled at Clementine, his expression brooding.

  A small fire burned at the center of the shack. Except for the intermittent bursts of lightning seeping in from outside, this was the group’s only source of light. Save for Sienna, who was pressed up against the hovel’s wall, they all sat around the small fire. However, this was not so much for the warmth but rather the small amount of illumination it was able to offer them. The cramped confines of the hut were made all the worse by the lack of ventilation, and the smoke’s subsequent failure to dissipate.

  “We should have known better,” Sienna went on, ignoring Latham’s jibe.

  Clementine sat with her chin propped up against her knees. Not for the first time that day she exuded the air of a pouty child. Now devoid of their shine, the young woman’s eyes had taken on a decidedly grim appearance. Although that may have been a trick of the light considering their shadowy, smoke-laden surrounds.

  “What do you mean, you should have known better?” Kate queried. Something about Clementine’s words didn’t sit right with the geographer.

  “There were… signs,” Sienna answered vaguely.

  Thunder clapped sharply, followed quickly by another subdued flash of lightning.

  “What do you mean signs?” Miller narrowed her eyes at Clementine’s crouched figure.

  “Do you remember the clearing crew I told you about?” the blonde woman lifted her head away from her knees. “The migrant workers,” she clarified, looking at Miller.

  “Yes,” the professor said, a little hesitantly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Clementine had to say.

  “They disappeared before they could finish the job,” Sienna reported.

  “What?” Kate was lost.

  “They still had a ways to go,” Clementine told her, “towards completing the road to the ranch site, I mean. Not much, but still…” she trailed off.

  “You said they disappeared?” Miller wanted to make sure she understood.

  Thunder cracked, followed by twin flashes of lightning.

  “Just upped and vanished,” Sienna replied, “or so we thought.” She leant her head back against the shelter’s wooden wall, breaking eye contact.

  “You mean you knew about those things out there?” Gregory added his voice to the conversation. The man was seated off to Kate’s left with his legs crossed in front of him, the cap Kate had gifted him gripped tightly in his wrinkled paws.

  “No, of course not!” Sienna immediately became defensive. “A search and rescue squad was scrambled to their last known coordinates to investigate after we lost contact with them. Their equipment was found abandoned, but still in working order. There were no bodies. Nothing. Certainly no evidence of… dinosaurs. At first, we thought maybe they had fallen victim to guerrillas, but no ransom was made. It was as if they just vanished overnight.”

  “And you didn’t think to share this information with us?” Professor Miller hissed.

  “For all the Company knew they got offered a better job and took it, it happens all the time in this neck of the woods,” Sienna snapped back. “There was no evidence to tell us what actually happened… no blood... no bodies… nada.”

  “And you had the balls to try and pin this shit on me!” Trevon seethed off to Kate’s right, the big man getting brusquely to his feet.

  Clementine’s earlier outburst all made sense now. Sienna felt guilty. The little bitch needed someone else to blame for this debacle: it had to be distanced from her… and ultimately the company she represented. That being said, if Slaine Industries had done their homework, maybe looked a little deeper into the clearing crew’s disappearance, then all of this could have been avoided. Maybe.

  “Calm down, Trevon,” Miller instructed the mercenary, casting a quick glance at him.

  “Calm down?” The bodyguard glared back at Kate. “After everything˗”

  “I know, I know,” Kate cut him off, perhaps a little too quickly.

  “No, you don’t know, Kate!” Trevon’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “It wasn’t you she blamed for all this!” He pointed at his chest. “She didn’t place the bodies at your feet in some fucked up attempt to cover her own ass!”

  “I get that, Trey,” the professor held a hand up, trying to keep him at bay.

  “Stop patronizing me!” Trevon was trembling with anger now. “I put my life on the line for you people! Look at me!” he pointed to the crusted wound on his head.

  “And I for one appreciate what you did,” Kate told him, her tone firm but nonetheless genuine. “Truly, I do. You have to believe that.”

  This seemed to go some way towards diffusing the situation. For his part, Latham seemed to be lost for words now. Still, his anger remained. That much was obvious from his brooding demeanor. The African-American’s chest rose and fell sharply with each breath that he drew, his eyes refusing to leave the figure of Clementine.

  “Now we need to stop bickering amongst ourselves,” Miller’s eyes shifted from one companion to the next, “so we can figure a way out of here,” she told them, “before those assholes out there,” Kate signaled to the entrance as she spoke, “decide what it is they want to do with us.”

  “Got any ideas?” Trevon’s tone was derisive.

  “Yeah, I do,” Kate answered flatly before she turned back toward Sienna.

  “What?” the blonde asked, her eyes glistening nervously.

  “I’m gonna need you to play along, honey,” Professor Miller told her, stepping towards the other woman.

  #

  The two women wrestled at the far end of the hut, directly opposite the entrance, gripping at each other’s hair. Cursing and screaming, they banged one another off the walls of the hovel, throwing the occasional punch and kick for good measure. As such, it was only a matter of a few seconds before the entrance to the hut was yanked open.

  Standing in the narrow entryway was one of the cloaked warriors, his companion trailing close behind him, albeit unable to enter on account of the thin doorway. The lead tribesman locked in on the two battling women who were still latched onto one another at their respective scalps. Cautious to enter, he barked something incomprehensible to them rather than intervene. Needless to say, they weren’t listening. And so, the women continued to slap and scratch like a pair of alley cats, spitting profanities at the same time.

  The first Amazon stepped into the hut, followed quickly by his cohort. Neither of them noticed the other two men hugging the walls to their left and right. On the left, Trevon dashed forward, proceeding to drive a knee hard up into the first warrior’s gut, ripping the air from the tribesman’s lungs. In the tight confines, the native’s spear proved too awkward to maneuver. What’s more, he was too slow to react to even use it. The Amazon swiftly doubled over, collapsing in a heap. Dropping his weapon, he clutched at his hurting belly, whimpering and gasping for air. A second later, a swift boot to the man’s face from Tr
ey put him out like a light, the force of it knocking loose a handful of teeth.

  Meanwhile, Professor Trentham, a man not known for his martial prowess (by any means), jumped on the second Amazon. Greg latched onto the incoming native like a spider-monkey, wrapping his legs around the man’s waist and his arms around the latter’s neck, seemingly going for a ‘sleeper hold’. Entwined now, the pair spun in place, struggling less like grown men and more akin to wrestling children. Attempting to loosen the other man’s grip on his neck, the tribesman foolishly discarded his spear in the heat of the moment before trying to pry Trentham off.

  “For the love of God, Greg,” Kate let go of Clementine, pushing her aside. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I don’t know!” Greg yelped in return. “I’m a lover, not a fighter!” The two men hovered precariously by the fire for a moment, still turning and jerking.

  “Trey!” Kate nodded, signaling for him to intervene.

  Taking his cue, Trevon looked about himself first. Noting the other tribesman’s dropped spear, he went for it without a second thought. Scooping it up, Trey made toward the native, Greg still clinging to him. In that instant, Professor Miller’s breath caught in her throat. The frightened woman wondered what the mercenary intended to do to the Amazon. Was Trevon going to kill him? Despite how they had been treated by the indigenous population, Kate didn’t want any more bloodshed. But could the same be said for Latham?

  To her relief, the PMC fired the lower section of the spear’s shaft up into the warrior’s balls. The man crumpled instantly, Professor Trentham letting go of him. The Amazon landed on his knees, gripping his battered privates, a pained grimace etched on his otherwise smooth features. Then stepping forward, Trevon let loose with a thunderous right hand that put the native out cold like his companion.

  “Right,” Trey gripped the stolen spear in his left hand, “follow me.”