They heard the cry again, closer now, and Kira could hear that something was wrong with the voice—it was garbled, somehow. She sped up. The gully turned into a steep ravine, a giant wall of rock sprouting up on their right, and as they rounded the edge of it they found a small clearing, maybe seven feet wide at the most, and in the center of it a large tan dog. Kira stopped in surprise, the dog staring at her calmly.

Samm stepped around the corner after her, saw the dog, and swore.

“What?” Kira whispered.

“Help!” said the dog, and gave a terrifyingly human grin. “Help!”

“Fall back,” said Samm, but in that instant the bushes around them seemed to explode with more dogs, heavy, muscled monsters that leapt up against their chests and backs to knock them down. Samm went down under two of them, and Kira only barely managed to brace herself in time, keeping her feet but getting a deep bite in the arm instead. Another dog tore at her legs, yanking one out from under her, and she fired her gun wildly as she fell. The nearest dog retreated with a yelp, red wounds blossoming on its shoulder, but another lunged to take its place and snapped hungrily at Kira’s throat.

“Samm, help!” Kira cried. She felt sharp teeth clamp down on her leg, and more on her collarbone, her heavy travel vest only barely stopping the beast’s fangs from piercing deep into her flesh. Beside her the dogs on Samm were scrabbling and growling, snapping wildly with their teeth, and Kira wondered why they hadn’t pinned him down yet like they had with her. She tried to raise her rifle and saw that the dogs had pinned that as well, a massive animal pressing it hard into the ground with his bulk. She fired it anyway, hoping to scare it off; a flurry of dirt exploded from the ground, and a dog on the far side of the clearing leapt aside with a howl of pain, but the massive beast on the rifle only snarled at her, baring scythelike fangs.

The tan dog whose call they’d responded to leapt onto Kira’s chest, knocking the air out of her, and lunged for her throat to finish her. But inches before contact he fell aside, and Kira felt a hot gush of blood pour onto her chest. She looked up to see Samm standing over her, his rifle gone and a gore-drenched hunting knife in his hands. He slashed at the dog on Kira’s shoulder, but the massive dog jumped into him, knocking him again to the ground. Kira brought her gun up and another dog leapt in to wrestle it away from her, his jaws clamped around the barrel and his heavy paws pressing it flat across her chest—away from the creatures menacing Samm. They were trapped.