A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

creatures that came to the edge of the clearing
were somewhere between apes and humans. Small as
adolescents, lithe and sleek, with fine fur thickening at the
armpits and crotch. The two males carried short curved
batons of some sort, fire-hardened, with inset fangs from
some large carnivore. The females wielded spears, one of
them holding her spear in one hand and a broad flint axe
head in the other, which she tossed into the clearing. The
object landed with a thump, flattening the grasses, halfway
between Gruntle and the band.
    Gruntle realized, with a faint shock, that he knew the
taste of these creatures – their hot flesh, their blood, the
saltiness of their sweat. In this form, in this place and in
this time, he had hunted them, had pulled them down,
hearing their piteous cries as his jaws closed fatally round
their necks.
    This time, however, he was not hungry, and it seemed
they knew it.
    Awe flickered in their eyes, their mouths twisting into
strange expressions, and all at once one of the women was
speaking. The language trilled, punctuated by clicks and
glottal stops.
    And Gruntle understood her.
    'Beast of darkness and fire, hunter in dark and light, fur of
night and motion in grasses, god who takes, see this our gift and
spare us for we are weak and few and this land is not ours, this
land is the journey for we dream of the shore, where food is
plenty and the birds cry in the heat of the sun.'
    Gruntle found himself sliding forward, silent as a
thought, and he was life and power bound in a single
breath. Forward, until the axe blade was at his taloned
paws. Head lowering, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the
scent of stone and sweat, the edges where old blood remained,
where grasses had polished the flint, the urine
that had been splashed upon it.
    These creatures wanted to claim this glade for their
own.
    They were begging permission, and maybe something
more. Something like . . . protection. 'The leopard tracks us and challenges you ,' the woman
sang, 'but she will not cross your path. She will flee your scent
for you are the master here, the god, the unchallenged hunter of
the forest. Last night, she took my child – we have lost all our
children. Perhaps we will be the last. Perhaps we will never find
the shore again. But if our flesh must feed the hungry, then let it
be you who grows strong with our blood.
    'Tonight, if you come to take one of us, take me. I am the eldest. I bear no more children. I am useless .' She hunched
down then, discarding her spear, and sank into the grasses,
where she rolled on to her back, exposing her throat.
    They were mad, Gruntle decided. Driven insane by the
terrors of the jungle, where they were strangers, lost, seeking
some distant coastline. And as they journeyed, every
night delivered horror.
    But this was a dream. From some ancient time. And
even if he sought to guide them to the shore, he would
awaken long before that journey was completed. Awaken,
and so abandon them to their fates. And what if he grew
hungry in this next moment? What if his instinct exploded
within him, launching him at this hapless female, closing
his jaws on her throat?
    Was this where the notion of human sacrifice came
from? When nature eyed them avid with hunger? When
they had naught but sharpened sticks and a smouldering
fire to protect them?
    He would not kill them this night.
    He would find something else to kill. Gruntle set off,
into the jungle. A thousand scents filled him, a thousand
muted noises whispered in the deep shadows. He carried
his massive weight effortlessly, silent as he padded forward.
Beneath the canopy the world was dusk and so it would
ever remain, yet he saw everything, the flit of a green-winged
mantis, the scuttle of woodlice in the humus, the
gliding escape of a millipede. He slipped across the path
of deer, saw where they had fed on dark-leaved shoots. He
passed a rotted log that had been torn apart and pushed
aside, the ground beneath ravaged by the questing snouts
of boar.
    Some time later, with night descending, he found the
spoor he had been seeking. Acrid, pungent, both familiar
and strange. It was sporadic, proof that the creature that left
it was cautious, taking to the trees in its moments of rest.
    A female.
    He slowed his pace as he tracked the beast. All light was
gone now, every colour shifted into hues of grey. If she discovered
him she would flee. But then, the only beast that
wouldn't was the elephant, and he had no interest in hunting
that wise