Burning Angels

38

Even as Jaeger vaulted into the air to avoid the bloodied corpses, his P228 spat rounds.

His boots slammed down on the far side and he sprinted onwards, as behind him the bull elephants closed in – the water boiling under their massive feet; their eyes blazing, ears flapping, trunks sensing the threat.

As far as the bulls were concerned, there was blood and death and combat on the path before them, on the very route their little ones needed to take. For elephants, the strongest urge was seemingly to protect their own. The entire one-hundred-strong herd was one big, extended family, and right now the bulls’ offspring were in mortal danger.

Jaeger could understand the animals’ desperation and rage, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be anywhere around when it was unleashed upon the enemy.

As he instinctively checked over his shoulder, searching for Narov, he realised with a shock that she wasn’t there any more. He came to a juddering halt. He spun around, spotting her bent over the form of a hyena, trying to drag it off the path.

‘GET MOVING!’ Jaeger screamed. ‘MOVE IT! NOW!’

Narov’s only response was to redouble her efforts with the dead weight of the corpse. Jaeger hesitated for just an instant, and then he was back beside her, hands gripping the animal’s once-powerful shoulders as together they heaved it into the crevasse at the side of the path.

Barely had they done so when the lead elephant was upon them. Jaeger was hit with a wall of sound that seemed to turn his innards to jelly as the elephant trumpeted its earth-shattering rage. Seconds later, tusks stabbed inwards, trapping the pair of them on the narrowest part of the rock shelf.

Jaeger dragged Narov back into the crook, where the cave roof met the inner edge of the shelf. Jammed against the thick webs and the needle-sharp crystals, they shaded their torches with their hands, lying motionless in the dirt.

Any movement would attract the bull elephant’s wrath. But if they stayed still and silent in the darkness, they might just survive the carnage that was being unleashed.

The massive bull speared the first of the hyenas, lifting it up on its tusks and flinging it bodily into the waters of the lake.

The power of the animal was simply fearsome.

One by one the hyena bodies were picked up and hurled into the lake. When the shelf was clear of corpses, the lead elephant seemed to calm a little. Jaeger watched, both fascinated and fearful, as the massive animal used the soft, flat end of its trunk to check what had happened.

He could see the huge nostrils dilating as they sucked in the scent. Every smell would tell a story. Hyena blood. To the elephant, that was good. But it was also intermingled with a scent that would be alien to the animal: cordite fumes. A smog of smoke from the pistol fire hung thick in the cool air of the cave.

The elephant appeared perplexed: what smell was this?

The trunk reached deeper. Jaeger could see its moist pink end groping towards him. That trunk – as thick as a tree, and capable of lifting 250 kilos – could snake around a thigh or torso and rip them out of there in a flash, dashing them to pieces against the rock wall.

For an instant Jaeger considered going on the offensive. The elephant’s head was no more than ten feet away: an easy shot. He could see its eyes clearly now, the long, fine eyelashes catching in the light thrown off by his torch.

Weirdly, he felt as if the animal could see right through him, even as its trunk reached out to make first contact with his skin. There was something just so human – so humane – about its gaze.

Jaeger abandoned all thoughts of opening fire. Even if he could bring himself to do so, which he doubted, he knew a 9mm subsonic round would never pierce a bull elephant’s skull.

He abandoned himself to the elephant’s caress.

As the trunk made contact with the skin of his arm, he froze. It was so gentle, it felt as if a faint breeze was rippling his arm hairs. He heard the snuffling as the elephant sucked in his scent.

What could it smell, Jaeger wondered? He hoped to hell that the elephant dung had done the trick. But was there also an underlying human scent that the animal would still detect? Surely, there had to be?

Gradually the familiar smell of its own species seemed to calm the big bull. A few more caresses and sniffs, and the trunk moved on. Jaeger was using the bulk of his body to shield Narov, so the elephant was only able to take a few perfunctory sniffs at her.

Seemingly satisfied, the animal turned to its next task: herding its offspring through the bloodied mess that was all that remained of the hyenas. But before it moved away, Jaeger caught a glimpse in its eyes; those ancient, deep, all-seeing eyes.

It was as if the elephant knew. He knew what he had encountered here. But he had decided to let them live. Jaeger was convinced of it.

The elephant moved away to where the young ones were clustered on the rock shelf in fear and uncertainty. It used its trunk to settle and comfort them, before nudging those at the front to get moving again.

Jaeger and Narov grabbed the chance to clamber to their feet and scuttle onwards, ahead of the baby elephants, and towards safety.

Or so they thought.