| “The tree-trunk shivered and moved again, pulling up long roots. Peter saw thick scales on the trunk, black foliage higher up- A wickedly curved beak lanced down from the canopy and split the spine of the closest fork-tail like a butcher's cleaver. Peter heard the bones crack and snap and saw the fork-tail fall, a sudden ton of dead meat. He still could not make sense of what was happening. Another tree moved, and his eyes and brain seemed to focus at once. He looked up - and up -
What caught his eye next in the gloom beneath the canopy was a radiance of brilliant white feathers. Out of the mane of feathers poked a massive head, like the head of a griffin. The wickedly sharp beak plunged again and scissored the side of the second fork-tail. The communisaur fell with a heavy whump and skidded in the litter of the forest floor, snout plowing up a cluster of seedlings. The fork tail's head stopped within a foot of Peter’s knee. Blood sprayed down on Peter and Ray and the animal’s side rose into the air, at least three hundred pounds of meat and bone and hide. Blood fountained from the fork-tail’s open thorax. It spasmed and its tail thumped furiously against a tree. The beak plunged again and again, snatching away more meat and bone. The air filled with the snapping of bones and the leathery wet sound of tearing meat." |
