The Bell Tree by H M Hoover

Author:H M Hoover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 1982-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

In the darkness of her den the ghema came awake and raised her head from her massive paws. There were noises. Not the sound of falling stone, or frantic wingbeats of lost birds, or rain on trees and waterhole—some strange animal was out there. She sniffed the air and coughed to check its taste. The wind was coming from rear passages and blurred the scent. The den smelled as it had for forty years—a satisfying sweetness of rotting pelts and bones and old blood, stone and lichen, musky insects, and the small furry scavengers who made their living from her leavings. Because they kept her quarters neat, she ate them only in the rainy season, when she was bored at being den bound.

The noise came again, clearly now. Closer. Footfalls on the stone and sand around the waterhole. But what sort of creature walked on six paws, with three separate cadences? Or was it six hooves? She couldn’t be sure. The footfalls stopped, and the animal or animals vocalized. A bird voice, a song of three distinct tones, followed by two deeper songs. But they didn’t walk like birds. They were too sure, too confident. They walked like carnivores. Like herself The ghema growled softly, twitched her tail, got up, and padded to the arched doorway. Although she weighed twelve hundred pounds, the clicking of her claws on the stone was the only sound she made in walking.

She was halfWay down the corridor when she recognized the scent. They had followed her, the strange creatures from the yellow thing.

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