Once he verified that this human was operating entirely solo, James had zero intention of letting him leave his area alive.
The security of his reservoir territory had been compromised. If he allowed this primate to trace his steps back to the main camp, it was only a matter of time before the man returned with a full, coordinated hunting party to clear the ridge.
Elimination was the only logical path to absolute security.
"Damn it... this tiger isn't breaking!"
Faced with James's deliberate, unyielding advance, the false bravado shattered, and Tatanka's expression deteriorated into pure terror.
"ROAR!!"
An instant later, James exploded forward. He launched his massive body in a violent leap, rearing up as he brought down a huge paw, extending his claws and slashing directly toward the hunter's chest.
The force behind the strike was immense, far beyond the reflexes of a cornered primate.
"ARRGH!!"
A sharp, ragged scream echoed through the pines.
Driven by pure survival instinct, Tatanka managed to raise his forearms in front of his chest at the last possible moment, shielding himself from a direct hit.
Even with the partial block, James's one-ton strike and razor-sharp claws tore through him. His right hand was completely severed and fell onto the dirt, while his other arm was left heavily injured. Deep slashes ran across his body, extending from his right shoulder down to his left leg.
The pine torch flew from his grip, tumbling into the damp needlegrass before extinguishing completely.
The orange glare vanished. The grove was instantly plunged back into an absolute, suffocating darkness.
Through the blackness, the hunter choked on the icy air, his body convulsing from the shock of the trauma. In that single second, the proximity of his own death became absolute.
Maimed by a single blow, he knew running was no longer a tactical option. His only path to survival was to drive a point into the monster's throat.
His left hand scraped frantically through the loose dirt, searching for the discarded atlatl board and the flint-tipped dart.
But James didn't grant him the chance to recover. He dropped his mass back into a hard lunge, pinning the primate to the earth as he opened his jaws wide, driving his sabers straight toward the exposed neck.
The heavy line of his lips pulled back to an impossible, terrifying angle. Through Tatanka's dilating, panic-stricken pupils, the long white curves of the ivory sabers expanded through the dark.
The Sabers enters clean through the soft tissues of the throat. Two thick channels of high-pressure crimson sprayed outward from the corners of James's jaws, painting the grass crimson.
Tatanka's limbs gave a series of violent, spastic jerks.
His fingers were a mere inches away from the flint spearhead, but the neural commands had already ceased to register. The massive trauma to his carotid artery drained his blood pressure in a matter of seconds, slicking his hide coat in a heavy coat of dark warmth.
A few heartbeats later, the tension left his face, his head lolling limply into the mud as his consciousness faded into the void.
"He's dead..."
James opened his jaws, stepping off the dead hunter.
Looking at the unseeing eyes of the corpse staring into the canopy, James felt a strange, complex ripple pass through his human consciousness. Killing a biped felt entirely different than dropping an ancient bison or a dire wolf. It was a cold reminder of what he used to be.
---
[DING! Host killed a Homo sapiens. Gene Points +30.]
---
The System, however, remained entirely indifferent to his internal philosophy. To the system, a primate held no special status over any other mammal on the continent, calculating the reward strictly on biological mass.
Thirty points. The exact payout of a standard wolf.
James started methodically inspecting the tools left behind in the dirt.
Stitched inside the dense wool of the inner hide pocket was a crude bladder for water and several strips of dried, smoked elk meat. The main leather quiver contained his primary weaponry: three light, balanced throwing darts, a polished limestone hand-axe, and the birch atlatl board.
Beyond those utilitarian hunting pieces, the man carried nothing else.
"How do I dispose of the evidence?" James thought, looking at the silent mass.
Eating the remains was out of the question—his human mind rejected the concept entirely, and he had no intention of letting Aurora or the cheetah develop a taste for human flesh.
"Tomorrow, I'll have the beaver excavate a burrow near the cliff face. We'll bury him along with his weapons."
Leaving the tools exposed on the surface would only serve as a beacon for any future tracking parties.
The physical cleanup was simple, but the tactical concern remained.
Humans were intensely social primates. The Clovis people operated within highly protective clan structures. While this specific scout had been neutralized, he belonged to a larger collective that would eventually notice his prolonged absence, and tracking his final route was entirely within their capabilities.
To neutralize the trail, hiding the body wasn't enough. He needed to erase every physical footprint.
James spent the remainder of the night patrolling the outer perimeter, using his heavy paws to churn the soil and erase Tatanka's approach line, while using his own scent to mask the blood droplets left behind by the cheetah. By the time the final trace was broken, the first gray light of dawn was filtering through the pines.
Exhausted but secure, James turned his compact frame and trotted back toward the cave.
On the opposite face of Mount Elbert, the morning sun cut through the narrow fissures of a limestone ridge, illuminating the interior of a small, temporary hunting shelter.
Sleeping near the rocky entrance, Apache's eyes opened against the light. He rubbed the sleep from his face, his vision clearing as he hauled himself upright.
He pushed the heavy, protective boulders away from the entrance channel, the grinding sound of stone against stone waking the rest of the tracking party behind him.
"Hasn't Tatanka returned yet? It's been all night."
One of the veteran hunters scanned the dark recesses of the shelter, finding no sign of their leader's gear.
"I don't know. " Apache replied, shaking his head. "Let's wait."
As the designated lead tracker and commander of the party, Tatanka's absence left the remaining hunters paralyzed. Without his guidance, protocol required them to hold their position inside the security of the shelter.
But as the hours ticked away and the sun reached its apex, the clearing remained silent. Tatanka was still gone.
The reality of the situation settled heavily into the cave. The man had run out of luck. Even for a hunter of his experience, navigating the alpine timber solo at night was a terminal gamble. His obsession with the spotted cat had likely cost him his life.
"What should we do now?Are we going to find Tatanka?" Apache asked, looking at the grim faces around him. This was his first seasonal migration with the prime males, and the sudden shift in leadership was destabilizing.
"Tatanka was an experienced hunter , he held the map of these western ridges in his head," an older hunter muttered, his hand resting on his knee. "Without him, if we push deeper into the canyon, we risk getting lost or walking blind into a lion's den."
Ultimately, the collective decided to abandon the search. The survival of the remaining hunters took priority; they would retreat to the permanent camp and report the deficit to the clan chieftain.
The main settlement of the Clovis band was nestled within a secluded, three-sided limestone canyon at the base of the eastern ridge line. The valley floor was flanked by a network of natural stalactite caverns that provided excellent insulation and security against the wind.
As Apache's party cleared the final ridge and descended into the canyon, the daily life of the clan unfolded below.
Children were darting between the limestone boulders; women were utilizing bone needles to stitch winter pelts together, while a handful of elders sat near the central hearth, methodically knapping flint flakes into fresh projectile points.
The moment the return party was sighted, the camp's rhythm broke. The inhabitants rose from their tasks, moving toward the canyon mouth to receive them.
In the culture of the Clovis people, every male who crossed the boundary into the wild timber was a provider for the clan, and their return was always met with absolute support. But as the crowd scanned the small line of hunters, their expressions shifted.
Tatanka was missing.