Burning Angels

37

Jaeger doubled his guard. He’d not been expecting this amount of wildlife so deep in Burning Angels cave.

In amongst the glittering crystals and the shimmering webs there was something else too, jutting out of the cave wall at odd angles. It was the petrified bones of whatever animals had inhabited the prehistoric – now fossilised – jungle: giant armoured crocodiles; massive beasts that were the ancient forebears of the elephant; plus the heavyweight age-old ancestor to the hippo.

The ledge narrowed.

It forced Jaeger and Narov skin-close to the rock.

A sharp fissure opened up between the ledge and the wall. Jaeger glanced into it. There was something in there.

He peered closer. The tangled, tortured mass of yellowish brown resembled the flesh and bones of something that had once been living – the skin mummified to a consistency like leather.

Jaeger felt a presence at his shoulder. ‘Baby elephant,’ Narov whispered, as she peered into the crevasse. ‘They feel their way in the dark using the tips of their trunks, and they must fall in there by accident.’

‘Yeah, but you see those marks.’ Jaeger focused his twin beams on a bone that looked badly gnawed. ‘Something did that. Something big and powerful. Some carnivore.’

Narov nodded. Somewhere in this cave there were flesh-eaters.

For an instant, she flashed her light across the lake to their rear. ‘Look,’ she whispered. ‘They come.’

Jaeger glanced over his shoulder. The column of elephants was surging into the lake. As the water deepened, the smaller amongst them – the adolescents – plunged in over their heads. They lifted their trunks until just the tips were showing, the nostrils on the ends sucking in air greedily, as if through a snorkel.

Narov turned to check the path that she and Jaeger had taken. Smallish grey forms could be seen hurrying forward. The youngest of the herd: the babies. They were too small to wade across, and so they had to take the long way around, sticking to dry land.

‘We need to hurry,’ she whispered, a real edge of urgency to her tone now.

They set off at a jog.

They hadn’t gone far when Jaeger heard it.

A low, ghostly sound broke the silence: it was like a cross between a dog’s growl, a bull’s bellow and a monkey’s whooping cackle.

It was echoed by an answering cry.

It sent a tingle up Jaeger’s spine.

If he hadn’t heard that type of cry before, he’d have been convinced that the cave was inhabited by a demonic horde. As it was, he recognised it for what it was: hyenas.

Up ahead on the path, there were hyenas – an animal that Jaeger had come to know well.

Something like a cross between a leopard and a wolf, the largest can weigh more than a fully grown human male. Their jaws are so powerful, they can crush the bones of their prey and eat them. Normally they only take on the weak, the sick and the old. But if cornered, they are as dangerous as a pack of lions.

Maybe more so.

Jaeger didn’t doubt there was a pack of hyenas on the path, waiting to ambush the youngest of the herd.

As if to confirm his fears, from behind them a bull elephant gave an answering challenge to the hyena’s ghastly call, unleashing a screaming trumpet from his massive trunk. It tore through the cave system like a thunderclap, his giant ears flapping and his head swinging towards the direction of the threat.

The lead bull veered off course, bringing two others with him. As the main body of the herd surged onwards through the lake, the three bulls tore through the water towards the rock shelf – the source of the hyena howls.

Jaeger didn’t underestimate the danger. The elephants were facing down a pack of hyenas, and he and Narov were sandwiched in the middle. Every second was vital. There was no time to search for an alternative route around the hyenas, and no time to waver, much as he might baulk at what they were about to do.

Jaeger reached behind and whipped out his P228, then glanced at Narov. She already had her weapon in hand.

‘Head shots!’ he hissed, as they started to sprint forward. ‘Head shots. A wounded hyena is a killer…’

The light of their head torches bounced and spun as they ran, casting weird, ghostly shadows across the walls. From behind them the bull elephants trumpeted again and surged ever closer.

Jaeger was the first to catch sight of their adversaries. A massive spotted hyena wheeled towards the sound of their footfalls and the glare of the torches, its eyes glowing evilly. It had the typical squat hindquarters, massive shoulders, short neck and bullet-shaped head, plus the distinctive shaggy mane running down its backbone. The beast’s jaws were open in a snarl, showing off short, thick canines and rows of huge, bone-crushing premolars.

It was like a wolf on steroids.

The female of the spotted hyena was larger than the male and she dominated the pack. She swung her head low, and to either side of her Jaeger could see other sets of glowing eyes. He counted seven animals in all, as behind him the enraged bull elephants tore through the last of the lake water.

Jaeger’s pace didn’t falter. Two-handed, and aiming on the run, he pulled the trigger.

Pzzzt! Pzzzt! Pzzzt!

Three 9mm rounds tore into the queen hyena’s skull. She fell hard, her torso slamming into the rock shelf – dead before she even came to rest. Her cohorts snarled and sprang to attack.

Jaeger sensed Narov on his shoulder, firing as she ran.

The distance between them and the rabid pack had closed to a matter of yards.