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He was still looking at me and not saying anything.
“Also, I think I might have killed a were-sabertooth tiger. I did wonder why her fangs were so long.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Ice Age or not, we’re going in there and clearing that place out. That’s all there is to it.”
“I told Conlan he could come.”
“Good,” Curran said. “He’s earned it.”
Curran
The cleanup of the manticore bodies took a good two hours. There was some discussion about burning them, but we’d been traumatized by the awful sooty smoke that had risen from the rhino when it was burned. The stench had been indescribable. I could still smell traces of it.
A decision was made to dump the bodies into a conveniently available trench that had been dug out by the town previously because it needed dirt for some municipal reasons. Kate had assured me that unlike the rhino, the manticores were magically inert. That the chances of them springing out of the ground as something dangerous were relatively low. I trusted her on it.
We dragged the manticore bodies to the trench, and then Kate caused a tiny earthquake, collapsing the pit walls to bury the corpses. I knew she was already pretty tired from the claiming, and spending any more magic would probably knock her off her feet. There would be no going into the woods today. She’d need a day to recover, and I wanted my people to rest a little. They’d earned it.
We needed to discuss Conlan’s theory, so I decided we’d have lunch on the edge of the woods, where we wouldn’t be overheard. Keelan’s shapeshifters brought out food, drinks, and blankets to sit on. The day was warm. The sun shone bright from the blue sky, and a light breeze kept things refreshing. It felt almost cheerful: a cozy little picnic, just us and some friends, eating by the scary woods, across from a mass grave and a burning pit filled with corrupted, toxic ashes. I’d need to do something about that before I left Penderton to its own devices.
Kate explained the Ice Age theory and passed the paleontology book around. They took it better than expected.
“Explains the rocks and the spears,” Da-Eun said. “I’ve been wondering why they didn’t deploy archers. They probably don’t have the technology.”
“They might not have needed to develop it,” Troy said. “Their throwing skills are above and beyond.”
“What about the spearheads?” Hakeem asked. “Bronze?”
“Bone,” Kate told him.
We’d managed to retrieve only one spear, the first one the hunters had thrown at her. They had picked up the rest. I hadn’t looked at it until today.
“So I’ve killed a Smilodon,” Keelan said.
Kate took a sip of her iced tea. “Probably.”
He’d be insufferable now. We’d never hear the end of this.
Andre turned the book around, showing off an illustration of a huge bear. “Bulldog bear. Fastest bear that ever lived. Five feet at the shoulder on all fours, twelve feet when standing on hind legs. Runs at forty miles per hour and weighs one thousand five hundred pounds.”
Jynx whistled. “Fun.”
Andre grinned, nodded, and passed the book to Owen. The werebison flipped through it.
“I don’t see my rhino.”
His rhino.
“Look under Elasmotherium,” Kate told him.
“Look under things that kicked my ass,” Troy muttered.
Owen ignored him and flipped the pages. “It says that they were native to Eurasia. Also, mine was a lot larger.”
“We only have a fossil record and it’s not exactly complete,” Troy said. “We can’t say that there wasn’t a rhino of this size in North America. We can only say that we haven’t found any bones that would indicate the presence of such species.”
“So the shapeshifters are one species of human,” Hakeem said. “The hunters are another?”
“Possibly,” Troy said.
“And they fell asleep during the Ice Age and just now woke up? Why now? Why not when the Shift happened?”
“We don’t know,” Troy told him. “Maybe we will find out when we get to their home base.”
I’d been thinking about that home base. I had no idea what it would look like. We didn’t know how many fighters we would find there. We didn’t know who was in charge and how powerful that person would be. I didn’t like not knowing things.
“The two Smilodons came for us first,” Keelan said. “The rest followed their lead.”
“Hierarchy,” I said. Most shapeshifters were born and died in one.
He nodded.
“If there is hierarchy, there is an alpha,” Andre said.
“Kill the alpha and you take the pack,” Da-Eun cracked her knuckles.
“Or break it,” Troy said.
“Either way works,” Keelan growled. He was giving the wolf more leash today.
They’d settled too comfortably into our pack vs their pack. There was more to this problem than simply biting everyone’s heads off. It was time to point them in the right direction.
“Both the shapeshifters and the hunters are wearing collars,” I said. “The priest-mages are not.”
