Cave God
As you made fire, so you made me. From the skull of a bear you killed not because she was attacking or had attacked before but because she might attack From the skin of a sleeping lion you tracked and speared and thanked From these things, you...
The Analogue Cat
When you wake, you wait a few moments for your eyes to come online. You can manage without them, but it's pleasant to lie in the dark warmth and purr while the blurred pixels slowly crystallise into your world. You stretch a striped arm and extend your...
The Tribes of Dog
The Alpha Pair begins the song Calling to the clans along the snow Whale-ivory sinew-strung on whiter pelts. The Old Man Tawny walks from the Dreaming On hard cracked pads; shakes off the red dust Curls his yellow tail, and sits. Two black-backed...
The Witch Doctor - teaser
"OK, sucker," Marty growled, brandishing the kitchen knife. "Only one of us gets out of here alive!" The pumpkin stared insolently back at him. Marty had drawn a scary face on it, with narrow, slit-pupilled eyes and jagged teeth, but he had yet to...
Passing Trade
"You want me to do _what_?" Joko's eyes bulged in his black mask, and he twitched his ears. "That's sick!" "But think of the money!" The gibbon stretched his lips into an ingratiating smile. "Don't worry, I'll deal with all the messy stuff. You...
Rodentia
Tuco-tuco, marmot, mara Guinea pig and capybara The paca and the pacarana With all the seeds their cheeks can garner. Bringing fruit and other booty Woodchuck, coypu and agouti. Hopping dusty deserts o'er Go the springhare and jerboa Crossing...
Ground Control to Major Ward
"All systems check. Shutdown complete." Major Conrad Victor Ward snapped the last switch closed and took a deep breath, ears pricked in the sudden silence. Lights stopped blinking; air stopped humming. There was only a tall, white-haired lion squashed...
Secret Santa
As was their custom, Flink left the office five minutes after Krister. The malamute's car was waiting round the corner, engine running. Flink darted a look to left and right before opening the front passenger door. Once inside, he pulled off his...
Baby on Board
I could hear crying from the top flat all the way up the three flights of stairs, which is never a good sign. I knocked cautiously, then again more loudly when it became apparent that nobody had heard me. Cate answered the door, five foot ten of pure...
Tour of Duty: Teaser
Major Flecker extended her claws and began to clean the sand from under them with a pencil. Her fur would have to wait until she could shower. It was daft, giving a desert posting to a Eurasian lynx, but that was the army for you. Impartial to the...
The Truffle Hunters
The 2CV bumped and skidded along the farm track, past olive trees and fields of lavender. Brioche trailed a paw out of the window and sniffed the smoky autumn breeze. "Aupres de ma blonde, qu'il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon! Aupres de ma blonde, qu'il...
Maple Sugar
The young lioness let out an excited squeal, and her companion turned in the passenger seat to grin at her. They had reached a vast lake, the water so still it made a mirror for the summer sky. A cabin perched on the shore, alongside a jetty with a...