The moonlight hung pristine and sharp, casting a cold sheen across the frozen landscape. Spring nights on the slopes of Mount Elbert remained brutal, with temperatures hovering dangerously close to freezing as icy winds sheared through the timber.
Despite being wrapped in a heavy, double-layered coat of thick mountain hide, Tatanka felt the chill creeping deep into his joints. The wind bit at his exposed face like shard glass.
But the veteran hunter ignored the discomfort, his focus entirely consumed by the overlapping paw prints cut into the soft mud of the riverbank.
"GROWL~~"
Suddenly, a low, guttural vibration cut through the wind—originating from the darkness directly behind his left shoulder.
Tatanka spun in a single, fluid motion. He swung his pine torch wide, the orange light cutting through the gloom to illuminate two shifting, heavy shapes. Two starving gray wolves stood at the edge of the brush, their lips curled back to expose long white teeth. Yet, the unnatural glare of the fire held them back, triggering the deep, evolutionary terror of light shared by all wild canids.
Tatanka remained entirely calm. His decades on the mountain had taught him that panic was a terminal error when facing apex carnivores; running would only trigger their chasing reflexes, turning an observer into prey.
"HIYAH!"
Tatanka took a violent step forward, thrusting the roaring torch toward their muzzles while uttering a sharp, resonant war cry.
The display worked. Intimidated by the human's lack of submission and the heat of the fire, the two wolves backed into the brush, turned, and trotted away into the darkness.
"Fooh..."
Tatanka let out a slow, controlled breath as the shadows swallowed the pack. His objective was the wounded cheetah; he had no intention of burning energy or risking an injury fighting a pair of scrawny wolves.
With the perimeter cleared, he pushed deeper along the trail, following the distinct tracks until he reached the wide, sluggish pool of the beaver reservoir. The moment he stepped onto the bank, a heavy, musky scent hit his nostrils—the sharp, territorial marking of a dominant carnivore.
"This must be the cheetah's nesting ground," Tatanka calculated.
Identifying the exact species by scent lines alone was difficult in the dark, but since he knew the wounded animal had fled in this direction, it was highly logical that the pool belonged to its range. In the unforgiving hierarchy of the mountains, a disabled predator wouldn't dare linger inside another killer's boundary unless it belonged to its own kind.
His knuckles whitened around his atlatl board. He quietly selected a light, sinew-wrapped dart shaft from his quiver, nesting the notched end into the throwing spur. The point was a masterfully knapped piece of translucent flint, its edges sharp enough to slice hair.
Holding the weapon high, Tatanka stepped silently into the shadow of the cliff face, moving with the absolute stealth of a ghost.
Inside the deep cavern.
Because the interior chamber was narrow, James had forced the cheetah to camp outside the main entrance. The stone interior was already uncomfortably tight with his own expanded 180kg frame and Aurora's mass; adding a third predator would mean sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder without room to breathe.
It was well past midnight, and James was deep within a heavy sleep cycle.
However, the neural architecture of a wild feline functions differently than a human mind. Even during deep rest, their auditory cortex remains partially active, filtering the ambient background noise of the forest for any anomalous frequency.
"REOW!!"
The sudden, high-pitched scream of the cheetah outside shattered the quiet of the cave. James and Aurora snapped awake instantly, their eyes dilating to catch the dark contours of the stone.
"What the hell is that?"
James erupted from the entrance first, his heavy paws striking the gravel. Through the blackness of the mountain night, the first thing to hit his vision was a shifting, brilliant orange glare bouncing off the pine trunks.
Fire
Adrenaline spiked through his veins. He pushed his limbs into a hard trot, heading directly toward the light.
When he cleared the final thicket, the scene unfolded instantly. The cheetah was scrambling backward across the dirt, its injured leg buckling beneath its weight as it tried to flee.
Standing ten meters out was a broad-shouldered Clovis hunter wrapped in heavy animal pelts.
The orange glare was coming from a fat-pine torch driven into the soil near his boots. The hunter's torso was twisted back, his arm coiled as he locked his atlatl dart onto the panicked cheetah, preparing to launch.
"ROAR——"
James didn't hesitate, He knew that if he hesitated for even a single second, his new crew member would die and he couldn't tolerate a stranger entering his territory and trying to kill his companions. He opened his jaws and unleashed a full-chested, thunderous roar that tore through the clearing, the explosive acoustic force echoing off the limestone cliffs for miles.
The sheer volume hit Tatanka like a physical blow. His ears rang violently, and the hand anchoring the dart shaft gave an involuntary, nervous twitch, spoiling his alignment.
"A... A Sabertooth? Why is there a Sabertooth out here?"
The hunter froze, his eyes widening. The darkness was too dense for him to distinguish the clean, massive lines of James's upgraded framework, but the unique, guttural resonance of that particular genus was unmistakable.
This was supposed to be the cheetah's area. Why was a prime male sabertooth holding the perimeter?
Tatanka forced his racing mind into order, instantly calculating his options. Running was out of the question; exposing his spine to a big cat at this distance was a death sentence. The only viable path was the one he had used against the wolves: break the beast's resolve with fire and noise.
As for killing the tiger? Tatanka was confident in his accuracy, but attempting to drop a ambush predator solo in the dark was pure fantasy.
While the human was searching for a tactical opening, James was scanning the surrounding brush with intense vigilance.
He didn't charge immediately.
Clovis hunters were social primates; they rarely traveled or hunted without a coordinated unit. He needed to verify if this human was acting as a scout for a larger party hidden in the shadows.
But as the seconds ticked away, the human made no signal, nor did any answering shouts echo from the ridge.
"He's alone," James realized, his amber eyes locking onto the hunter's stance. "He followed the blood trail to finish the job, completely unaware that the cheetah had entered my territory."
The realization removed the final layer of James's restraint. The old hesitation about engaging human civilization evaporated. He had actively avoided their camps to prevent unnecessary complications, but when a hunter crossed his line and brought fire into his home, the rules changed.
"WHA-OH!!"
Tatanka snatched the torch from the dirt, waving the roaring flame in wide, aggressive arcs while giving a harsh, guttural shout to break James's stance.
In his experience, every predator on the continent harbored a genetic aversion to open flame. He had driven off massive short-faced bears and adult lions with this exact routine.
But the golden tiger ahead didn't move. The brilliant light didn't trigger a flight response; instead, to James's human consciousness, the fire was simply a familiar element.
James took a deliberate, heavy step forward, his massive shoulders rolling under his hide. As the hunter's torchlight finally illuminated the immense, blocky skull and the thick column-like limbs of the cat, Tatanka's expression deteriorated into pure terror.
James pulled his lips back, exposing his 10cm ivory sabers in the firelight.