The air by the river was thick with the smell of wet fur and the copper tang of blood. Under the lead of Mom and Dad, the three of us shook off the temporary safety of the bank and stepped toward the muddy edge.
The Giant Bison waiting to cross spotted us immediately. These weren't the skittish pronghorns from a few miles back. They didn't run or panic. Instead, the bulls lowered their massive heads, swinging those two-meter-wide horns back and forth like they were daring us to try something.
A Giant Bison's skull is basically a block of reinforced concrete, and their neck muscles are built like hydraulic press components. In the modern world, people think of cows as docile; out here, these things are land-tanks. One wrong move and those scimitar horns will give you a ventilated chest before you can even growl.
"Roar~~"
Mom and Dad ignored the posturing bulls. Their eyes were locked on the water, watching the Crocodile Kingdom claim its tax.
The alligators had already shifted targets. They were ignoring the armored adults and swarming the calves. In the water, even the best protection from a mother bison isn't enough to stop a stealthy strike from below.
I watched a calf—at least 1.5 meters long and weighing maybe 200 kilos—get yanked under by a group of gators. Its mother went ballistic, charging into the deep and headbutting the reptiles away, but the moment she separated from the main line, she was surrounded.
The gators systematically tore into the calf's back legs, letting the current sweep the disabled animal downstream. The main herd didn't stop to help; they just pushed the grieving mother back into the line and kept moving.
"That is brutal..."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. That calf was bigger than I am right now, and it was dismantled in seconds. If that had been me? I didn't want to finish that thought.
Suddenly, Dad's pupils narrowed. He let out a sharp roar and launched himself into the river.
Plunge!
The water was deeper and faster than it looked. The second I hit, the current tried to take me. I was submerged up to my neck, my heavy paws paddling frantically as my head bobbed above the freezing, muddy surface.
In a river like this, the unknown is what kills you. You never know when a log-shaped shadow is going to turn into a set of jaws. I didn't have time to be a philosopher, though—I just paddled like a madman, trying to keep pace with Mom's tail ahead of me.
The bison nearby were too busy with their own survival to care about us. It was the "blind spot" principle—the more chaotic and dangerous the area, the less likely a predator is to single you out. We were over halfway across, maybe fifty meters from the far bank, when I saw the ripple.
Splash~~
A massive shadow moved. A male alligator, easily over four meters long, was zeroing in on Zoe. If he caught her in the water, she was dead. And Zoe, being the least experienced, was just paddling along, completely oblivious to the prehistoric monster closing in on her flank.
"Look out!"
I let out a roar and kicked into high gear, lunging through the water.
The gator was right on her. He opened a mouth that looked like a garage door lined with steak knives.
"Roar—!"
I didn't think. I threw myself at the gator, lifting my paw out of the water and slamming it down with everything I had right on its upper snout.
Bam!
The gator's jaw snapped shut on empty air as my blow connected. I didn't stop. I kept swinging, hammering at its armored head.
But I was in deep water. I didn't have any leverage, and I started losing my balance, my back half sinking as I tried to play boxer. The gator was pissed now. He forgot about Zoe and turned his cold, reptilian focus on me. He lunged.
His explosive power was terrifying. He launched the front half of his body out of the water, jaws wide, aiming straight for my head.
"ROAR!!"
Up ahead, Mom and Dad saw me in trouble and let out a combined roar that shook the air, but the gator didn't give a damn.
Then, pure luck intervened.
A panicked bison bull, trying to dodge another gator, blundered right between us. His two-ton body slammed into me like a freight train, knocking me sideways. The gator, whose eyesight was probably trash anyway, felt the massive vibration and clamped down on the bison's leg instead.
The bull bellowed and the gator started his "Death Roll," dragging the giant into deeper water.
The water turned red instantly. I didn't stick around. I scrambled through the wake, found my rhythm, and pushed toward the bank with Zack and Zoe. Ten seconds later, we dragged ourselves onto the muddy grass of the far shore.
I collapsed immediately, my lungs burning. My whole body was a mess of aches—that bison hit me hard enough to leave some internal bruising. I looked back at the river, my heart still hammering. Getting hit by a bison was the luckiest thing that happened to me today. If those jaws had found me instead of the bull, I'd be at the bottom of this river—future research material for some lucky scientist.
Even Mom and Dad looked rattled. Out here, in the water, the kings of the land are just snacks.