something,” Taric calmly answered and then asked her with a benign glint reflecting the firelight in his eyes. “Then tell me this truth you fear so much.”
“Okay, here goes and don’t say you’re sorry when I’m done,” Jennifer said, pausing to make sure he understood.
“Humans are by nature aggressively violent creatures. We had to be aggressive to survive the countless perils in our world, and I’m not talking about Earth’s wild animals. I’m talking about humans. We’re a predatory species by nature. Humans are selfish, greedy, and often violent, even among our families. Cruelty and violence of our past have made my species distrustful. It’s a basic human instinct to be wary of strangers, but a stranger from another world? No, that can’t be known. No one can know the truth!
“Although our body’s physical structure and appearance may be similar, were not of the same species. I’m human, my difference in appearance and my origins may be too much for some of your people to accept. It only takes a wild imagination combined with an irrational fear to incite a group of people into a state of uncontrolled panic. We call it mob mentality because sometimes people driven by fear or revenge will actively seek out and kill the focal point of their fear. You’re the only one who knows the truth about me.
“If we’re to share our lives in this world, I must be accepted as a native of this world. The differences in my appearance can be explained as defects from a complicated birth. You must keep my secret!” Jennifer demanded in a low-pitched, authoritative voice that momentarily sent shivers up and down his spine.
He saw for the first time within the depths of her human eyes, a glimpse of her true strength. Within that brief glimpse, Taric saw a strong-willed woman staring back at him, who was decisive in her actions and reasoning.
Although he believed Jennifer’s fears of discovery were unwarranted, he offered her a plausible story to appease her. “We can say you look like everyone else of your tribe, but unfortunately all but you were tragically killed when your cave collapsed during a landslide. We met each other afterward, when our paths crossed while we were hunting in the grasslands.”
“That might work,” Jennifer said thoughtfully with a slight nod. “Yes, that will work just fine.” Then in a softly spoken voice, she changed the subject of their conversation with a question. “What animal are we hunting tomorrow?”
“Gorocs,” Taric answered and then spent the remainder of their evening until they lay down to sleep, explaining his technique for hunting a goroc.
Goroc hunting required a stout heart and a fearless approach when armed with long, sharp, bone-tipped laces and sharp stone-tipped arrows for their bows. The goroc herd ruled the open plains with impunity, claiming the best grasses and shrubs for themselves in return for their protection from predators. Gorocs relied on numbers and brute force to defend the herds on the grasslands. Gorocs were the only animals living on the grasslands capable of repelling a kessra pride’s coordinated attacks.
A goroc was a wide burly and mean-tempered beast that roamed on the outskirts of the grassland in small family groups. Gorocs had a dense warm underlayer of fine fur next to their skin and an outer layer of long coarse strands of matted dark brown hair that dragged on the ground as they walked. When grazing, goroc heads could be extended outward toward the ground, but when threatened, it could be drawn into its chest by their strong elastic and muscular necks located between the animal’s wide shoulders. When fully grown, their head and shoulders stood as high as a man’s chest on thick, stocky, short legs that supported their heavy bodies.
Above their heavy brows, a stone-hard plate of thick bone grew to crown the top of their skulls. On each side of the bony plate, gorocs were armed with a pair of curved horns, which made them extremely deadly in a fight. Below the plate, black eyes peered out from flat-nosed faces of wrinkled and hairy jowls that sagged below their chins with a slow, steady flow of spittle spilling out from each side of their mouths as they chewed on the dry grass.
Tired of thinking about his dreams and her fears and fed up with trying to sleep, Taric decided to get dressed and scout the gorocs’ location before Jennifer awakened. He quietly slipped out of the furs they shared in the night and dressed quickly in the cave’s dim firelight. Jaxx awakened by his movement was lying on the edge of the furs near Jennifer’s feet. The dog, as she called it, raised her head and watched him curiously, but Taric motioned with one of Jennifer’s hand signals for Jaxx to stay where she lay. As always, he was astonished to see the lycur obey and lay its head back down on the furs with her eyes following his every move about the cave.
Using the cover of darkness, a pride of hungry kessras climbed down from their mountain lair to the rocky base and stepped onto the river’s sandy embankment, lured by their hunger and the strong scents of goroc musk and urine drifting in the wind. The lead kessra’s bronze eyes and ears were fixated on the opposite shore, listening intently to the varied animal noises created by the herds as they grazed on the dry summer grass in the early morning darkness. Sniffing the enticing aromas of their diverse prey, the lead kessra urged his pride toward the water. With a low rumbling growl, the pride’s alpha male and leader stepped into the swiftly flowing water and began to swim across the narrow river.
Once on the opposite shore, heavy impressions of their wide clawed padded feet sank deep in the soft sand were the only signs of their passage until they reached the long grass crowning the sandy embankment. There they split into two groups and instantly vanished in the tall grass. One group moved silently northward around the herds to position themselves for a three-directional rushing attack. They were to drive the herds south and distract the formidable goroc bulls that would rush toward the source of danger in defense of the herds.
The pride’s leader moved easily through the dry grass near the outskirts of the herds. Moving silently into position, the three kessras waited anxiously for their packmates to initiate the hunt. The leader knew the hunt would begin when it heard the grassy plain erupt with the combined noises of frightened beasts stampeding toward them. The pride’s alpha male lowered its sleek body even closer to the ground as the anticipation of tasting warm, sweet bloody meat grew within its consciousness. When the hunt began, they would wait as a team for the bulk of the swiftly moving mass of animals to pass them by, as they preferred to ambush the stragglers too slow or weak to keep pace with the thundering mass.
Taric added more wood to the fire to deter any small scavengers from entering the cave and warm the cool air inside. Assured, Jaxx would remain with Jennifer and not follow him outside the cave. Taric grabbed his weapons and left the warm confines of their comfortable little cave. He moved cautiously southward in the darkness, barely able to see the solid trunks of the forest trees growing on the hillside around him. Taric silently moved through the trees to the edge of the grasslands leaving a faint scent of his passage in the loose soil under his feet as he advanced closer to the herds.
Slightly south of the cave moving slowly within the trees toward the grassy plain, a prideless kessra stood, sniffing the scents drifting in the air. It was too old and weak to hunt effectively and was verging on the cusp of starvation when it smelled a familiar scent of a favored prey. Instinctively, the old kessra turned to follow the intriguing scent toward its source.
Taric wasn’t the only hunter creeping slowly through the tall dry grass, making sure to stay downwind of the roaming herds. Sniffing the strong savory scents of their prey floating in the air, the kessras moved cautiously through the grass, stopping in instinctive intervals to raise their heads above the tall grass. The stealthy predator’s keen eyesight and sensitive noses immediately located the huge goroc bulls grazing on the outskirts of the amassed herds. Once again, the kessras, with their senses heightened by the pungent odor of goroc musk, silently vanished back into the cover of tall grass. Each kessra, so accustomed to hunting as a coordinated pride, moved invisibly toward their assigned spots with practiced ease.
Taric felt a slight breeze of cold air on his skin and shivered just as the first rays of sunlight crested the mountain peaks to slowly lift the night’s veil of darkness. The sight of wide swaths of trampled grass and brown soil stretching down the northern plain were sure signs that most of the smaller animals would soon begin their long migration to