Mammoth! by Dakota Chase

Author:Dakota Chase [Chase, Dakota]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult
ISBN: 978-1-64080-671-9
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-08-07T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“HEY, ASH. Have you ever heard the expression ‘my bowels turned to ice’? I think mine just did.” I meant it literally. The saying means scared shitless. I always thought the saying was hyperbole, an exaggeration for effect, but at that moment I found out my thinking was completely wrong. It was real. When I heard that teeth-jarring roar and turned around, what I saw standing behind us sent a spear of ice ricocheting through my intestines. I think I might actually have pissed myself.

It crouched about thirty feet away, a beige, sinewy mound of tightly coiled muscle and attitude. It was vaguely catlike, resembling a squat lion, but it had two immense fangs curving down from either side of its muzzle. They had to be six inches long each, if they were an inch, and they looked wickedly sharp. Not that the rest of the cat’s teeth were anything to sneeze at—I got an eyeful of them when it opened its mouth and roared again. They were all big and sharp, and I had no ambition to feel any of them biting my face off, as Ash would say.

In my peripheral vision I saw Ash lift his spear into a throwing position. I suddenly remembered I also had a spear in my hand and hefted it up, getting ready. If the cat attacked, my plan was to throw my spear at it, then run like hell.

“This is bad.” Ash’s voice had no trace of panic or fear in it—it was as if he was describing a movie he disliked. He must’ve been in shock. I know I felt sort of shocky myself—or would as soon as the ice melted from my colon.

“Try to hit something vital.” I had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded like good advice. At least, I thought it did.

“What’s vital on that thing?”

“The eye, maybe? How would I know? Do I look like a big game hunter?”

“I can barely hit the stuffed target on the practice field, let alone something as small as that thing’s eye!”

“Me either. Our only hope is to wound it, so we can outrun it.”

“Well, frig. In reality, all I have to do is outrun you.”

I made a mental note to pound on Ash’s face with the nearest rock if we made it out of the encounter alive. “Nice. God, even facing certain death, you’re an ass.”

The Smilodon chose that moment to snarl, and I could see the muscles under its golden skin bunching. It was going to attack!

Suddenly, a dozen men and women broke through the trees to our right and ran screaming into the clearing. They all had spears fit into atlatls and wasted no time in letting them fly. Gray Wolf’s spear was the first to sink into the Smilodon’s hide, but it was followed by eleven others in short order. None of the Bison Clan hunters missed their shot. The Smilodon roared again and rose up on its short, stocky back legs, then fell over, the spears quivering in its flesh like a porcupine’s quills.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.