The Killing Fields

There was no other way but to follow the herd through the Killing Fields.

The land-bridge would funnel them between the teeth of jagged pressure ridges and predators alike. The promised land lay somewhere beyond the gauntlet.

He led the band of hunters across the hellscape. The mammoth tracks were being scoured by the wind. Speed was as much a necessity as caution now. They had endured much loss already, and he was trusted to shepherd them safely through.

The cold gnawed worse than the hunger under their layered animal hides. Massive snowbanks materialized out of the flurries and disappeared just as fast. They navigated along a hulking mass and the tracks ceased suddenly.

They rounded the towering drift, finding a massive limb jutting out of the snow. A sixth-sense stood his hair on end. Signaling the party to halt, he crept forward and peered over the humongous wooly trunk.

Crimson gore covered the ice on the other side; frozen chunks of macerated flesh littered the area. The torso of the giant mammoth had been hollowed by the feeding. The hind-end of a saber cat wriggled as it gorged itself within the meat cave.

A resounding CRACK echoed as something below the ice betrayed him. The saber cat's head snapped up, jowls painted red.

He slipped and fell, scrambling for balance. His frantic hands brushed snow aside. A familiar face stared back from under the ice; eyes open in an eternal stare. He screamed as the claws pulled him away.