to listen intently. Hearing nothing, he focused his green eyes on the land around us. After a brief study of the area, he turned towards me. “Has the smell altered?” he asked. He didn’t have a nose, so he relied on mine.
I sniffed the air. “Slightly. It doesn’t smell as tangy as it did before.”
“That’s because there’s less … dust,” he said, pointing to the hills around us. “We seem to be leaving the … desert behind. There are a few plants and patches … of dry grass.”
“About time,” I groaned. “Let’s hope there are animals too—I’ll crack up if I have to eat another lizard or bug.”
“What do you think those twelve-legged … insects were that we ate yesterday?” Harkat asked.
“I’ve no idea, but I won’t be touching them again—my stomach was in bits all night!”
Harkat chuckled. “They didn’t bother me. Sometimes it helps to have no … taste buds, and a stomach capable of digesting … almost anything.”
Harkat pulled his mask up over his mouth and breathed through it in silence, studying the land ahead. Harkat had spent a lot of time testing the air, and didn’t think it was poisonous to him – it was slightly different to the air on Earth, more acidic – but he kept his mask on anyway, to be safe. I’d coughed a lot for the first few days, but I was OK now—my hardened lungs had adapted to the bitter air.
“Decided where we are yet?” I asked after a while. That was our favourite topic of conversation. We’d narrowed the possibilities down to four options. Mr Tiny had somehow sent us back into the past. He’d transported us to some far-off world in our own universe. He’d slipped us into an alternate reality. Or this was an illusion, and our bodies were lying in a field in the real world, while Mr Tiny fed this dream scene into our imaginations.
“I believed in the … illusion theory at first,” Harkat said, lowering his mask. “But the more I consider it, the less … certain I am. If Mr Tiny was making this world up, I think … he’d make it more exciting and colourful. It’s quite drab.”
“It’s early days,” I grunted. “This is probably just to warm us up.”
“It certainly warmed you up,” Harkat grinned, nodding at my tan.
I returned his smile, then stared up at the sun. “Another three or four hours till nightfall,” I guessed. “It’s a shame neither of us knows more about star systems, or we might be able to tell where we were by the stars.”
“It’s a bigger shame that we … don’t have weapons,” Harkat noted. He stood and studied the land in front of us again. “How will we defend ourselves against the … panther without weapons?”
“Something will turn up,” I reassured him. “Mr Tiny wouldn’t throw us in out of our depth, not this early on—it’d spoil his fun if we perished quickly.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Harkat said. “The idea that we’re being kept alive … only to die horribly later, for Mr Tiny’s benefit … doesn’t fill me with joy.”
“Me neither,” I agreed. “But at least it gives us hope.”
On that uncertain note, the conversation drew to a close, and after a short rest we filled our meagre lizard-skin pouches with water and marched on through the wasteland, which grew more lush – but no less alien – the further we progressed.
A WEEK after leaving the desert behind, we entered a jungle of thick cactus plants, long snaking vines, and stunted, twisted trees. Very few leaves grew on the trees. Those that did were long and thin, a dull orange colour, grouped near the tops of the trees.
We’d come across traces of animals – droppings, bones, hair – but didn’t see any until we entered the jungle. There we found a curious mix of familiar yet strange creatures. Most of the animals were similar to those of Earth – deer, squirrels, monkeys – but different, usually in size or colouring. Some of the differences weren’t so readily apparent—we captured a squirrel one day, which turned out to have an extra set of sharp teeth when we examined it, and surprisingly long claws.
We’d picked up dagger-shaped stones during the course of our trek, which we’d sharpened into knives. We now made more weapons out of thick sticks and bones of larger animals. They wouldn’t be much use against a panther, but they helped us frighten off the small yellow monkeys which jumped from trees on to the heads of their victims, blinded them with their claws and teeth, then finished them off as they stumbled around.
“I never heard of monkeys like that,” I remarked one morning as we watched a group of the simians bring down and devour a huge boar-like animal.
“Me neither,” Harkat said.
As we watched, the monkeys paused and sniffed the air suspiciously. One ran to a thick bush and screeched threateningly. There was a deep grunt from within the bush, then a larger monkey – like a baboon, only an odd red colour – stepped out and shook a long arm at the others. The yellow monkeys bared their teeth, hissed and threw twigs and small pebbles at the newcomer, but the baboon ignored them and advanced. The smaller monkeys retreated, leaving the baboon to finish off the boar.
“I guess size matters,” I muttered wryly, then Harkat and I slipped away and left the baboon to feed in peace.
The next night, while Harkat slept – his nightmares had stopped since coming to this new world – and I stood guard, there was a loud, fierce roar from somewhere ahead of us. The night was usually filled with the nonstop sounds of insects and other nocturnal creatures, but at the roar all noise ceased. There was total silence – once the echoes of the roar subsided – for at least five minutes.
Harkat slept through the roar. He was normally a light sleeper, but the air here agreed with him and he’d been dozing more deeply. I told him about it in the morning.
“You think it was … our panther?” he asked.
“It was definitely a big cat,” I said. “It might have been a lion or tiger, but my money’s on the black panther.”
“Panthers are usually very quiet,” Harkat said. “But I guess they could be … different here. If this is his territory, he should come by … this way soon. Panthers are on constant patrol. We must prepare.” During his time in Vampire Mountain, when he’d been working for Seba Nile, Harkat had spoken with several vampires who’d hunted or fought with lions and leopards, so he knew quite a lot about them. “We must dig a pit to … lure it into, catch and truss a deer, and also find some … porcupines.”
“Porcupines?” I asked.
“Their quills can stick in the panther’s … paws, snout and mouth. They might slow it down or … distract it.”
“We’re going to need more than porcupine quills to kill a panther,” I noted.
“With luck, we’ll startle it when … it comes to feed on the deer. We can jump out and frighten it into … the pit. Hopefully it will die there.”
“And if it doesn’t?” I asked.
Harkat grinned edgily. “We’re in trouble. Black panthers are really leopards, and leopards are … the worst of the big cats. They’re fast, strong, savage and … great climbers. We won’t be able to outrun it or … climb higher than it.”
“So if plan A fails, there’s no plan B?”
“No.” Harkat chuckled dryly. “It’ll be straight to plan P—Panic!”
We found a clearing with a thick bush at one end where we’d be able to hide. We spent the morning digging a deep pit with our hands and the rough tools we’d fashioned from branches and bones. When the pit was done, we harvested a couple