The land before us spread openly, fertile. There were no tall trees or anything like that, but there was dense foliage in bushes, tall grasses, and strange, twisted trees that grew no higher than maybe 3m. The trees had bright red berries that decorated their boughs, thick trunks, and dense leaf population. The berries weren’t to my taste, but the triplets quickly began picking an entire tree clean, Ishtar volunteering herself to clamber up the branches and pluck the tree clean, tossing the berries down to Isnanna.

More than the immediate appearance of sprawling, deciduous greenery, there was no shortage of life up here. Birds sang from everywhere, in the distance milled a gargantuan flock of goats, and no matter where you looked, there was teeming life. It was like the jungles we’d come from, but less densely packed with greenery limiting your sight, so everything was immediately visible.

This area above the reaches of clumsy predators was, apparently, a paradise to prey. At least, until we arrived. Since the location lacked the treacherous footing we struggled more with than the goats, we didn’t even plan beyond “chase them down and kill them.”

In a perverse way, it was like playing tag. We snuck up close enough to guarantee that we kill at least a few, then burst from hiding just as our prey began to demonstrate nervousness at our presence. After that, our bloody game of tag began.

The pack I’d brought up was plenty intelligent enough to know how best to maximize the hunt–all of us rushed as quickly as we could through the herd, gimping and crippling with sharp blows to the legs, eviscerating bowels, and dealing quick death blows to whatever came within reach. Behind us, the panicked and agonized bleating of our prey didn’t slow us or cause pity, instead, we used it to push ourselves even further, faster, more vicious and deadly.

We continued our pursuit of our prey for several minutes, chasing them to the edges of the little paradise, to where the foliage grew even thicker and bordered on another precipitous, rocky slope that led to the summit of the mountains. There, we gathered back together and began returning to the scene of our hunt, finishing off and gathering the corpses of any goats we encountered en route.

As we walked, Iituli turned to me, beaming. “Did you see me? I took down seven before they could even begin to escape.”

Before I could respond, Ishtar jumped in, “Then you’re slow. I got more than ten… I stopped counting after that.”

“That’s only because I couldn’t just cook them all, because if we weren’t going to eat them, then I could have burned them all down to dust.”

“That doesn’t matter. This is a hunt, not a mindless piling of bodies.”

“Then why would you keep track of your kills?”

“Because I knew you would and I wanted to put you in your place.”

I was rolling my eyes and leaving them to their argument when a shiver ran down my spine. Glancing around, I saw nothing, and while the air was cool, it wasn’t the chill that had me confused. I looked forward, and, still seeing nothing, consciously realized what my subconscious was uneasy about–there were no sounds of mountain goat suffering in front of us. It wasn’t that I was looking forward to witnessing suffering, but instead that I was positive that there should still be living mountain goats trying to somehow escape death at our hands before our return.

That is, if there weren’t any outside interference.

I whistled low, and the pack immediately went silent around me. Even with nerves beginning to color my reactions, I couldn’t help but let a fierce grin cross my face, appreciating the discipline of this team. I gestured to be on the lookout and to gather together as we approached the more open clearing where the goats had been grazing.

The silence was beyond unnerving, the previously vibrant, noisy, and life-filled area gone completely silent. I could see the heat signatures of birds in the trees, but they sat, unmoving, paralyzed with what could only be fear. Noting all that was happening, my swarm also began to step as carefully as I had been already. It was just after we all slowed ourselves that we saw the first sign of whatever it was that had finished off the goats.

A huge paw print that had crushed the entire skull of a goat, its horns and all smashed unforgivingly upon and into the ground. Dug deep into the surrounding earth was the print itself–whatever this thing was, its paws were larger than the entire head of a 100kg goat. On top of that, it was at least relatively stealthy when it wanted to, since the print that had flattened the skull of the goat was the only one to be seen, even in the fertile, soft soil that surrounded us.

Moving forward, it became more and more apparent that the creature that had come through here, whatever it was, was simply putting any surviving goat out of their misery. Every blow that had been dealt was decisive and permanent. No strikes to incapacitate, but only to slay. The primary execution method had been through the crushing of skulls, and no bites were taken from the flesh, no unnecessary or tortuous wounds that hadn’t been inflicted by the pack. It almost seemed to have been mercy killings, and we left the corpses behind as we approached the scene of our initial attack.

There, hunched over a body, was a behemoth of a beast. I’d only heard of them by name, never seen, but I could tell that this was a predator, and a creature whose strength was to be respected just by looking at it. The furry beast was massive, getting up to 4m as it stood tall. It had stood shorter, about 1.5m with its six limbs on the ground, but it stood tall and looked at our pack somberly as we approached. The face of the creature was like a more bestial Moonchild’s: Long snout, protruding canines, wet nose, and ursine ears, but the face still carried a hauntingly human shadow to it.

Around me, the pack bristled and prepared for battle.

It was uncanny and uncomfortable, but as the Nanuk looked at us, seemingly lamenting the loss of the goats, it roared angrily in challenge.