Koban: The Mark of Koban Read Online Free PDF Page A

forward, at least six feet long,
one on either side of a trunk-like lower lip that was wriggling up and down as
they ran, as if in agitation. From time to time, they made loud bugling sounds,
not at all like an elephant’s call, since their so-called trunk was not a long nostril,
but an elongated prehensile lower lip.
    “Thad, you take the first shot at that animal on the edge
closest to us, and then I’ll do the same to the one behind him, as soon as you
fire.” They lined up their selected targets.
    The boom of Thad’s big rifle cut through the sound of
thundering feet, followed immediately by Dillon’s own shot at an animal just
behind Thad’s target. Both of the huge creatures staggered for a few steps and
bugled loudly.
    Thad’s target dropped to its front knees, its tusks digging into
the trampled snow and ground. Momentum caused it to execute a slow motion flip onto
it head and antlers, and then crash to the ground on its back before rolling to
its side. Dillon’s animal ran into Thad’s kill, and simply crumpled to the
ground and fell over. Diverting around the two dying animals, the other
moosetodon’s didn’t even slow.
    After the last of them had passed the hill, Thad gave an estimate,
“I think there were perhaps a hundred fifty in that herd.”
    “Did you see the blood and gashes on some of the animals in
the rear?” Dillon asked. “I wonder if they did that to one another in their
panic.”
    “I saw some blood streaks, now that you mention it. However,
you bring up a good question we haven’t asked ourselves. Why were these
big suckers in such a panic? That was a long stampede for such massive animals.
What had them frightened? We’re the only hunters out here.”
    A huge roar behind them proved the fallacy of that
statement.
    Leaping from rock to rock near the bottom of the hill was a one
and a half ton, thirty foot long white feathered raptor, a huge eighteen inch
long claw on each of the hind feet. Powerful legs were rapidly bringing it up
the hillside to meet and disembowel this fresh prey. The gaping jaws in a
narrow head on a long neck seemed more than enough threat to Dillon.
    Both men manually chambered fresh rounds on their
bolt-action rifles, but the agile leaping beast was a hard target for a weapon
configured for scope use. Dillon missed his first shot at a weaving head, and Thad
merely winged the monster, which appeared evolutionarily related to Koban
birds. He grazed the five foot long feathered and clawed left arm, or winglet.
It roared its anger, and this time pain.
    Two additional roars in reply sounded from below and behind
the two men, from the base of the drop off where the men now stood, completely exposed.
Thad looked back and saw two more raptors, one standing atop a dead moosetodon that
they had obviously been chasing. The third raptor was using mouth, winglet
claws, and clawed feet on muscled legs for purchase to scramble up towards the
men.
    It was too late to wish they had brought the semiautomatic
versions of the .50 caliber rifles, selecting instead the more “sportsman-like”
bolt action long-range sniper weapons to use for hunting. The raptor on the
easier slope was likely to reach them, even if wounded, in just two or three
more long leaps.
    Thad made a snap decision; he shoved Dillon towards the on-rushing
ravening predator, pushing down on the man’s shoulders as he flailed arms and
legs going over the flat toped rock’s edge, losing his rifle. He yelled at Thad
in hurt and shocked reaction.
    Without hesitation, as the beast reached the last spring
point to reach the top, Thad raised his rifle vertical against his chest, leaped
forward and dropped down the rock face after Dillon. He felt the blast of hot
air and fetid breath as the raptor snapped down at him as it passed over the
gap in rocks.
    Falling into the snow-filled crevasse, the same one he had
previously told Dillon he should have pushed him into, he banged his knee
painfully against Dillon’s