Free Koban Universe 1 by Stephen W. Bennett Page A

screaming from the pack, down below the obscuring tree crowns. Had the drove of pigs returned after they saw the wolfbat depart?
    Confident his two squadron leaders and the Flight Leader had seen him with their sharp eyes, and marked his location, Flock Leader dove back down through the overhanging branches, twisting and turning to get below their multilayered cover.
    It wasn’t the return of the pigs that had the pack screeching, it was a large spotted feline thief that had arrived to claim the weakened sow as its own, a leopard analogue on this part of Koban. At roughly half the size of a female ripper, the light teal and deep blue spotted cat was still eight or nine times the mass of a wolfbat, and over fifty times the mass of an individual screamer.
    The screamers had backed away from the much larger predator, which appeared to have already injured two members of the pack, seen limping out of range of another swat of those sharp claws. The sow, already wobbly on its thick stubby legs, and in no condition to run, couldn’t catch a break. One predator after another had her marked for a meal. The cat could easily bowl the tired unstable prey onto her side if it leaped and shoved her, but the task of suffocating it would take time. With its jaws on the pig’s throat, the cat would be vulnerable to darting attacks from the screamers.
    The sow weighed perhaps two times the mass of the leopard, an animal slightly larger than the cat would normally try to kill if it was with its drove. This was an opportunity for theft of more than a week’s worth of meat, which seldom presented itself. However, it had a problem. There were no low trees below the light blocking towering forest giants, where it could climb above the screamers with this heavy prize, particularly if it were still alive and kicking.
    Closer to the river, over a mile away, there was open sky along the banks and many smaller tree varieties grew there. Except the cat couldn’t carry the pig that mile, not with forty or so screamers biting at his haunches when his jaws were occupied.
    Then his luck grew worse, as he caught sight of the wolfbat dropping down through the highest tree branches. He was more than a match for a thirty to forty pound wolfbat, but an entire squadron would be able to drive him from this prey. There was a “V” shaped cleft, formed by two above ground massive roots, which led to the base of the nearest tree from the leopard, only twenty feet away. It suddenly lunged for the front lower left leg of the sow and jerked it off its feet, and pulled with all of its strength to drag the fallen pig quickly towards the cleft. The huge roots rose over five feet high right where they merged into the tree’s trunk, with relatively smooth and vertically planar sides sloping up to the tree.
    As the space between the high roots narrowed as the cat backed into the cleft, his flanks were protected from side attacks, and it only needed to release the pig’s leg three times to defend itself. Twice to bite and paw swipe at screamers that came too close, and once it leaped and nearly raked its claws along the leathery membrane of Flock Leader’s right wing. That would probably have proven fatal for the bat if he were injured and flightless, located where the screamers or the cat could reach him.
    The leopard backed deeper into the narrow juncture at the base of the tree, its haunches touching the thick high roots on either side, its tail touching the trunk. The wiggling pig providing protection from screamers that could only reach him by climbing over the pig. One enterprising, but not terribly bright little screamer, worked its way up the narrow crest of one of the long sloping roots, and poised itself above the leopard. It belatedly realized that alone, it would be suicidal to leap down onto the cat. Its precarious position nearly proved fatal anyway, when the cat leaped up after the poor planner. It was a narrow escape as it dropped down the opposite side