While Nick was busy fighting for his life, the trio of crunchers who had taken the bait were each following a trail of rancid meat. Gorging on the foul flesh while struggling to shrug off the pollen’s effects.
They crossed a forest floor that was eerily silent. The animals and beasts alike had gone to ground to ride out the storm. With nothing more promising to pursue, the hyenas gobbled each stinking morsel in turn, their shocked senses slowly recovering from the powerful blast of light and sound that had driven them from their den.
The first beast was now far to the west of Nick’s location. It ate on the move, ceaselessly searching for the next bloody bite. Stopping just long enough to snatch a morsel between its jaws before darting to claim the next. With the creeper’s pollen surging in its bloodstream, the beast was able to think of nothing beyond the hunger raging inside it—a need to consume so intense that it left room for nothing else.
A distant and unheeded part of its awareness was concerned that it was acting alone. It was against the cruncher’s nature to range so far from its den in a solitary hunt. But this tiny voice was drowned out by a primal need to feed, although reason was slowly beginning to return as the minutes ticked past.
The cruncher had finally recovered enough to consider seeking shelter from the storm when its eyes locked onto a pile of meat that was larger than the rest, sitting in the middle of a patch of sticks and leaves that were a different color than the surrounding terrain. The little voice inside screamed that something was wrong, but it was washed away by a surge of pure, primal hunger. The drive to consume was so intense, it felt like the hyena would starve if it stopped eating for even a moment.
Perhaps this meal would be enough to still the vortex swirling within its belly. Closing the distance in a flash, the beast leapt, taking a huge bite of rancid flesh before its paws hit the ground. It swallowed without stopping to chew, lowering its head to finish off the rest of the pile.
Without warning, the ground beneath its claws gave way, and the cruncher found itself falling, walls of rough earth rising to fill its vision. Its brief flight was fated to end only half a heartbeat later, when the beast hit the floor of the pit hard, a white flash of pain shocking it back to its senses at last. The fallen hyena tried to move, confused as to why its limbs no longer responded to its increasingly frantic commands. Only then did it see the bloody spike lodged deep inside its gut, along with a pair that had pierced its breast and flank.
The beast squirmed, bucking and writhing, eventually managing to shatter the stakes between its jaws. It took a single, staggering step before its legs collapsed out from under it, blood leaking from the holes in its hide like a funnel. The cruncher began to drool as the savory odor of fresh blood broke over it, vaguely aware that the blood in question was its own. The moment of clarity dissipated as the beast’s brain started shutting down. It began lapping at the blood-soaked earth as the world faded to black. Less than a minute later, the cruncher was consumed by a frigid darkness. Its heart beat for a final time and then went still.
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Two miles to the south, a hunger-maddened hyena-boar was racing through the forest, stopping only long enough to gobble each glob of rancid meat before darting to devour the next.
Consumed with an insatiable hunger and blind fury that its own pack had betrayed it, the enraged beast did not question why the bits of komo were spread out over such a wide area. It followed the trail, leading it south toward the coastline. The light was beginning to fade as the stormfront passed in front of the sun, turning the forest floor into an ever-shifting shadowscape, occasionally punctuated by bright flashes of purple lightning.
All too soon, it arrived at the end of the trail. The cruncher was unable to find another morsel, although its senses had recovered significantly by this point. The beast came to a halt, panting until its heart rate slowed. It cocked its ears, trying to hear anything over the painful ringing that had accompanied the madness that had descended upon the pack.
After a long moment spent fighting the urge to eat the dirt beneath its paws, the beast heard the scrabbling of claws across the forest floor, croaks and hisses accompanied by the scent of familiar prey. Spitting out a mouthful of soil, the cruncher turned and ran toward the delectable odor of lizard. It had found enough meat to fill its belly at last.
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The beast darted into a wide clearing two minutes later, barely slowing down when it realized that hundreds of reptilian eyes were staring straight at it. The hyena-boar growled and prepared to charge, as the komo pride reacted to its intrusion with a mixture of skepticism and rage. Never before had they seen one of its kind apart from the pack, and even together, the pack had been unwilling to face the combined might of the komo pride. After all, the lizards outnumbered the hyenas fifty to one.
Normally, the cruncher would have considered the odds and then beat a hasty retreat. Taking on hundreds of giant lizards by itself was a suicidal proposition, especially as Komo Alpha was racing forward to meet it, hissing out a furious challenge as it ran.
But caught in the throes of the mind-muddling pollen, the cruncher only stopped long enough to identify the fattest target, then charged without anything remotely resembling hesitation or self-preservation. While it had been able to feel caution when facing down its packmates, it simply couldn’t contemplate retreat when confronting creatures that it had hunted dozens of times before.
The cruncher bounded over to its chosen prey and caught the beefy lizard between its jaws. It ripped out a chunk of raw flesh and then swallowed it whole, unheeding that its rear and flanks were totally exposed. Ten seconds later, the cruncher was buried in a furious tide of tooth and scale. Torn to pieces by the pride with its mouth still full of meat.
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The Cruncher Alpha followed the trail of bait, which led it west toward the domain of the creeper vines and the giant mushroom.
The alpha was more robust than the other members of the pack. It had already begun to shake off the effects of the pollen and the other chemicals that Nick had dosed it with. Although the beast was overstimulated and ravenous, its race to consume was no longer a blind pursuit. While it ran, the alpha pondered its unprecedented circumstances. It knew that this situation was not simply a matter of bad luck or mere happenstance.
No, this affront was deliberate. Something had ambushed it in its home. Threatened its dominance and diminished the might of the pack. A creature whose scent lingered across the trail it followed. A new enemy, and one that would pay for its affront in kind.
Even more than it wanted to sate its fathomless hunger, the alpha yearned to make the intruder suffer. It would pay a toll in blood for this outrage. The alpha intended to make the invader scream long and loud before it breathed its last. While the massive cruncher contemplated the havoc it would wreak, it continued following the trail of meat, devouring each bite before bounding toward the next. It streaked across the forest floor, panting beneath the storm-wracked sky.
As it ran, the alpha grew increasingly certain that something was wrong. This trail led to a part of the forest where it dared not go, as it was home to an even greater predator than itself. A force more powerful than the combined might of the cruncher pack. The bonecrunchers were specialized for close-range combat. They had no way to battle the great sleep-inducing mushroom and the host of ravenous creeper vines at its command. Following that thought, the alpha caught sight of a swarm of yellow-flowered creepers nested in the tree ahead. At the base of the trunk sat a fat pile of meat, which called out to its stomach with a siren’s song.
The alpha knew that if it went to claim the prize, it would be the last act of its life. With a surge of willpower, it suppressed the urge to mindlessly devour. Turned around and began heading back toward its lair. It would hunt the intruder responsible for this calamity and then feed until its stomach was full of rich meat and sweet blood. Once the storm had passed, it would find the other survivors of its pack and reestablish control over its domain.
Just as the alpha was leaving the shroom’s territory, one of its packmates came bursting out of the brush. The cruncher went straight for the alpha’s throat but backed off when the beast growled to assert its dominance. The alpha ordered its packmate to follow behind, but the other cruncher was still caught in the grip of the pollen’s power. It could smell the fresh meat at the end of the trail and went bounding off to its death, heedless of its leader’s order.
With a furious howl, the alpha retreated as a cloud of glittering pollen engulfed its packmate. The doomed beast fell upon the mound of flesh and then disappeared into the mushroom’s domain, lured by the sweet scent of berries riding the breeze.
The alpha found itself consumed with a rage that had nothing to do with the traces of pollen floating in its bloodstream. The loss of yet another member of the pack filled the beast with incandescent fury, driving it to hunt down the creature that had left its strange scent beside the odor of blood on the wind.
If the alpha was quick enough, it would be able to exact its revenge and return to its lair before the boiling rain began to fall.