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I grabbed it and was surprised at how much stronger I had become since I arrived here, as I managed to pull myself even higher.
“Thor!” I yelled his name in panic as the trumpeting sounds grew louder, and the very tree I sat in began to shake.
Thor looked ready to fight whatever approached, but thankfully thought better of it. He jumped and pulled himself up next to me on the branch before he gripped another one even higher, calling my name, “Holly.”
On shaking legs, I stood. Grabbing his clothes for support, he heaved me onto the next branch before climbing up next to me. And then all we could do was hold on to each other and the tree because the ground shook so hard, I worried the tree’s very roots would lift out of the earth.
My breath stopped when I saw the first mammoth break through the foliage, making the butterflies in my stomach riot in a mix of excitement and fear. I think my eyes must have poppedout of my head as they took in the animals that had been extinct for thousands of years.
I had been lucky enough to have been invited to a dig in Africa a few years back, but the elephants I had seen there didn’t come close to these massive creatures. Their tusks, even bent as they were, were at least as long as Thor while the beasts’ bodies were easily double the size of a regular elephant. Long hair swayed with their movements, and as they lumbered by underneath our tree, I was given a bird’s-eye view of their majesty.
Tears prickled my eyes as I realized the gift I had been given by being propelled into this time. Everything I had studied was coming to life right in front of my eyes. How often had I thought how incredible it would be to see a mammoth in real life? And here I was, experiencing it.
“Trunkers,” Thor said.
“Mammoth,” I gave him my word.
“They’re impressive,” he remarked, with unmistakable awe in his voice.
“Yes. All I’ve ever seen were their bones—oh, and once a frozen mammoth—but this…” I shook my head, drinking the spectacle in. “This I never expected to ever see.”
I counted at least seventy, confirming the assumption that mammoths traveled in groups of twenty or so, like elephants. Or maybe several groups had merged for one reason or another.
When they were gone, Thor helped me down from our tree. Just as I was about to leave the last branch, a loud noise to the right startled us, and Thor pulled his blaster.
I cried out in fright at the sight of the animal that belonged in a nightmare. An entelodont, also known as a hell pig. It wasn’t a direct ancestor of pigs, but was related. The creature pawing the ground aggressively reminded me of a wild boar, even though it didn’t look anything like a pig, except for its cloven hooves. The way it stood reminded me of a hyena with its massive chest andsmaller back. And when I say massive, I mean its chest reached as high as the tip of Thor’s head.
Its long face looked like a cross between an alligator and a horse with sharp teeth and long fangs. When the beast turned, giving me a view of its side, it looked lionlike with its straight ears and long mane. It made an unearthly warning scream before its legs propelled it forward, straight at Thor.
“Thor!” I screamed again, as if he could miss the giant, sharp-fanged monster coming for him.
Easily, he lifted his arm, and for the first time, I saw his blaster in action. Shooting a pulsing blast of light at the entelodont, the weapon stopped it dead in its tracks as a burnt hole appeared in its side.
Its body skidded to a halt right in front of Thor’s feet, and I let out a loud gasp. Before I had a chance to recover, more noise reached our ears, and three more entelodonts arrived. The mammoths must have scared them from wherever they had been hiding.
Thor’s blaster rang out in quick succession and three more bodies joined the first on the ground. Warily, Thor turned in a slow circle, aiming his blaster at the slightest movement, but the forest remained quiet now.
“And what do you call these beasts?” he asked while helping me down from the tree.
“Hell pigs,” I said, not seeing a reason to give the more scientific name. Because honestly,hell pigsounded a lot more descriptive thanentelodont.
“Are they edible?”
“I believe so. How they taste, though, we’ll have to figure out." People ate hippos and whales, right? Those were the two species the entelodont was more closely related to than the pig, at least according to the scientists who had studied them. Even though to me the dead beasts looked more like a boar than a whale orhippo, I had already learned that many of the theories I had studied didn’t really hold true here. For all I knew, I hadn’t only been catapulted into the past, but maybe into another dimension altogether.
“Thor’Steyn? Holly?” we heard our friends calling.
“We got food and could use a hand here,” Thor shouted back.
“Food?” I mouthed.
He shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
The others appeared, and with a team effort, the men dragged the four dead hell pigs back to where we had camped last night.
The fire still burned and without any hesitation, some meat was cut off and hung over it.
“Want to do some more scouting?” Thor asked me.
