Hot breath burst from the creature’s tooth-lined mouth rocked Peter back as he readied to run.

Above the cries of dying blackbirders a human voice called out close by, but Peter could not see through the swirl of steam from the beast’s breath. Peter stumbled in the snow but looked back and up.

The mist cleared and Peter saw standing on the head of the man-eating monster a tall figure. They lifted their face up to give an ululating call and their hood fell back. Their beast lowered its head to the snow. The figure walked down the head between the creature’s beady eyes, paused, then jumped off the snout onto the churned up snow.

The human landed lithe and surefooted, scanned the remains of the ambush ahead, and blew on a horn. The attacking beasts all carried human riders, some of the larger four-legged creatures had two riders. Now the warriors swung long lances into holsters, or slipped long bows across their backs. The quivers on their saddles still rattled with arrows, the beasts had done most of the work of attacking their enemy.

The human confronted Peter with dark eyes that pierced in accusation. This man had dark blue-black paint around his eyes, and a red-brown slash on one cheek. When he spoke Peter could not understand the words. Deep and guttural, peppered with clicks, the language sounds like nothing Peter had heard before.

And yet he knew the warrior wanted to know who they were and why they were there.

Exactly what Peter wanted to know himself. Why had these warriors attacked the blackbirders at just the time he and the cousins had tried to escape into the portal?

‘If not for you we would have got into the building and might have got home,’ Peter said to the warrior leader.

He and Peter stared eye to eye. The warrior outweighed him, Peter shifted his stance and held his open hands to his face as if frightened of attack. But in reality Peter readied to counter any attack. The older man would not have the sort of martial arts training he had.

Probably deadlier.

‘That portal building was full of blackbirders,’ said Jan. ‘We couldn’t have got through them.’

‘Yeah. They must have just come through the portal,’ said Tiz. ‘Almost like they had been waiting for the right moment.’

The warrior turned away, grunted in dismissal, then shouted out a command. In response an old man shuffled forward. He wore a gray woolen great coat that did not meet at the front. Under it the same felted material padded out his body.

Peter recognized the coat as like something out of an old war movie. He saw an Italian flag on the shoulder.

The old man spoke in a creaking voice just above a whisper.

Tiz looked back at Peter. ‘That’s Italian isn’t it?’

‘Something like it at least,’ said Jan.

‘He’s nuvra,’ said Peter. ‘Like we are. But it doesn’t really help when we don’t understand each other.’

The warrior leader and the old Italian batted back and forth before the warrior took up his horn and blew a command on it. A smaller man still on their huge man-eating beast took up another horn and joined with the first. The fighters mounted up and readied to depart.

Peter glanced back along the road through the falling snow. The portal fortress blazed with light and an alarm still sounded distant and muted by the snow.

Peter turned back to the warrior’s leader, and they exchanged another glare. Then the leader stepped up the bowed head of his beast, and after a mutter to a smaller companion, he wheeled around, directed his beast back in retreat. The rest of the mounted troupe followed in his wake. The smaller man shouted at Peter and the cousins. Then whistled and motioned behind. A fat creature walked up on two legs. Baskets slung either side had a few arrows within them. The majordomo commanded them to get in the baskets.

Peter realized then. Somehow he had got the gist of his meaning.

‘He wants us to get in the baskets,’ Peter said.

‘No way,’ said Tiz.

‘If the alternative is to walk,’ said Jan. ‘Or to be left behind…’

‘There’s no real choice,’ said Peter.

Already the majordomo had turned their mount and readied to leave.

‘Get in will you?’ said Peter. ‘Those blackbirders won’t stay in the fortress. Once they know of the ambush they’ll be after them, and us.’

Peter and Walt got in one basket, Jan and Tiz in the other. Then the majordomo took up the creature’s lead and started off on his mount after the pack. The creature jolted them almost out of the baskets until it changed gait to run faster and smoother.

‘Fur-feathers,’ said Peter as he examined the beast’s hide next to him. ‘Like the dinosaur-birds of Eoth.’

They pounded along the snowbound way between the forests’s dark trees as snow gathered on his shoulders, and chilled his hands clamped tight to the side of the basket.

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‘How will we get home now?’ said Walt.

‘I don’t know. But I’d rather be with humans than those blackbirder aliens.’

As Walt’s shoulder shook with a sob, Peter reached around and pulled him tight.

It’s all my fault we’re here. I know it is.

His niho taniwha pendent felt heavy around his neck and he wondered…

You’re meant to keep us safe. How about you start doing your job?

Peter decided he really didn’t appreciate being treated like a piece of baggage. The basket they had wedged themselves into rattled and rocked with every movement of the pack animal. The cold, wet, snow chilled him, and he and Walt had huddled close to conserve heat.

The majordomo caught up the rear guard and they found themselves amidst the huffing of the giant carnivores as they kicked up snow and snarled at each other. He could not help thinking these beasts looked a lot more like dinosaurs than any he had seen on Eoth. These beasts did not have the same strange mammal-bird hybrid appearance of those on Eoth.

The pack animal seemed a lot like a large moasaur and it did not like getting too close to the carnivores. It ran on two legs but Peter had never got a very good look at the creature through the falling snow. Its size, though, greatly exceeded any of the two legged moasaurs he had seen.

A horn blew and the pack of forty mounted warriors pulled up with their heads aimed into the center. Peter figured that would mean the carnivores could keep an eye on each other. Their pack animal hung back behind the majordomo’s mount. That meant he felt even more like baggage.

Not that I can understand what they say.

After a heated discussion the horn blew and the pack wheeled about the took off through the forest flowing around the trees at a slower pace. At the bottom of the slope the pack turned onto a wide flat snow bound riverbed and pounded up the slight slope until they came to a frozen waterfall.

The pack then took to the forest again, weaving along a narrow trail at the base of a cliff until they broke out above the tree line. Peter had not noticed when the snow had stopped falling, when running in the company of the huge beasts enough snow got kicked up that it had not really registered.

Mountains reached high into the cloud base on all sides. A glacier fell down the other side of the wide valley likely the source of the frozen river.

In this panorama the pack seemed smaller as they stomped and grumbled knee deep in the white powder of the fresh fallen snow. One snapped at a ball of snow that rolled down the slope dislodged by an exuberant kick.

Peter tried to trace where the portal would be. Somewhere ahead and at the head of the valley in amongst the dark forest.

If we’re not careful we will be lost. If that happens we may as well be these human’s prisoners.

He had no illusions that these humans had to be the good guys.

For all we know these could be a criminal biker gang.

The maybe Italian guy came close to them and gestured wildly and with enthusiasm.

‘What does he want?’ said Tiz.

‘No idea. Anyone got a guess?’ said Jan.

‘I think we’re waiting here for someone. The beasts are settling down to rest.’

The creatures had bowed their heads and their riders each fussed over them. The spoke in low voices and rubbed their heads, noses, and looked them in the eye.

‘They’re like crazy huge dogs or something,’ said Walt. ‘You know. The riders seem to love them.’

Peter had to admit that did seem to be the case.

The Italian began to shout and pulled the pack animal’s head down.

‘No love for this creature,’ Peter said. ‘I think we have to get off.’

No sooner had they got onto the ground when the baskets had been slipped off. The pack animal mewed, and Peter saw the carnivores all seemed to be paying a lot of attention to them and their mount.

‘Guys. I think we had better slowly move away.’

The Italian guy frantically called them to follow him.

No sooner had they got in amongst the human handlers when a horn blew. The carnivores all cocked their heads then swiveled as one towards the pack animal. It backed away.

‘Oh no way,’ said Tiz. ‘It’s toast.’

The pack beast turned and ran but had not got far before the carnivores had brought it down and encircled it. Another horn blew and they began to tear chunks from the still living flesh.

Peter and the others just kept on stepping back. Away from the carnage. Not a lot remained of the animal that had carried them for much of the day. Just a smear of red on the snow.

A couple of the carnivores even chomped on this bloody red slush until called away by their riders.

‘No way. I’ve never…’said Tiz

‘Yeah. That didn’t take a minute even.’ Walt stared in fascination at the red maw of the nearest carnivore. It made cooing noises as the rider wiped blood and gore from its snout and tossed the bits into its open mouth like a giant trash bin.

‘Peter,’ said Jan. ‘We’ve got to get away from these thugs. Look what they let those monsters do to our… our…’

‘Yeah,’ said Peter. ‘Not sure how we’re meant to travel with them now.

‘You don’t think they’ll leave us or… anything?’ said Walt.

‘Chomp chomp chomp.’ Tiz pushed at Walt.

’Tiz. Stop it. Not funny,’ said Jan.

‘Tiz-so,’ said Tiz with a grin, but his face soon fell.

Walt leaned into Peter’s side and shuddered.

‘Hey dude. Joking.’ Tiz came close but Walt pushed him away.

‘Hey. They’re mounting up again,’ said Jan.

The majordomo came close on his mount which at a short command bowed its head. The majordomo raised two fingers.

‘Tiz, Jan. Up you go,’ Peter said.

‘No. You first,’ said Jan.

Tiz strode up the head of the beast. It snorted and Tiz almost jumped off in fright but made it to the top of the head where he swung behind the majordomo.

‘Walt. You go with Tiz.’

‘No. He’s a jerk. You saw…’

Jan climbed up too and settled behind Tiz.

The beast rose and the majordomo joined the rest of the pack.

‘Okay. So what the heck do we do now?’

‘Look. More riders,’ said Walt.

Peter turned and coming along the tree line another pack of the beasts. Five this time.

‘What the heck is happening?’ said Peter. ‘I wish I understood their language.’

The newly arrived pack ran up. A small figure slipped from their beast even before it had stopped and strode towards the warrior leader. After a brief exchange the leader wheeled, and led his troupe in the opposite direction.

The new arrival strode up, and Peter saw she was almost as tall as him. Her face paint shaded more green and orange but the look on her face shouted frustration and disapproval.

‘Damn it,’ she said. Then she shouted at them in the incomprehensible language.

Peter stared at her. Had he heard her swear in English?

He had no chance to question her, her mount jogged up and knocked her onto its head. She rolled and leapt to the seated position then glared at him.

‘Okay hero. Get on or get lost,’ she said. Then she continued in the guttural clicking language.

Peter shrugged and climbed up. When he got behind her she turned and pushed him back. She muttered something he sensed was obscene. Once Walt had set himself between the woman and Peter the beast wheeled and ran off after the main pack. Peter could feel the mount’s huge muscles bunch and roll underneath him, but all his focus lay upon the woman’s back.

I’m not imagining things am I?

‘So? Aotearoa. That’s where you’re from then?’

The look on her face made it all the sweeter.