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we’re up here.” He and the young ranch hand were still on a slope above the trees, a hundred meters from the open grassland. They urged their horses closer. It was quiet for a moment, a deathly stillness.
    The mammoths churned about, grunting, drawing closer like covered wagons circling against a Comanche attack. Amazingly, acting on instinct, the bigger bulls formed outer ranks, clearly to protect the rest of the herd. The alpha male, Bullwinkle, with its huge tusks and russet fur, snorted and moved forward like a locomotive, looking for an enemy.
    No sign of the shadowy figures, but the fringe forests offered plenty of cover.
    Alex knew that Cassie’s first thought was for Majestica, the pregnant female about to give birth to the first pure mammoth. They rode toward her, and Alex prayed the beasts could tell the difference between friendly humans and deadly ones.
    Abruptly, scarlet fireballs burst a hundred meters away … and another right on top of them. One of the wild grenades struck Majestica between the shoulders, and the impact knocked even the giant female battleship flat to the ground, her upper body cratered with ragged, flashburn wounds.
    Cassie screamed. She threw herself off her horse and raced to the fallen pregnant female.
    Alex waved his shotgun around, then took a few high potshots, hoping the retaliatory gunfire would at least stall the attackers, send them scrambling for cover. But it was a pitiful gesture at this range. None of the terrorists came out of the tree line.
    Gunshots rang out and ineffectual bullets peppered the mammoth-elephant hybrids, sending them trumpeting into a frenzy. Some charged, stopped, trumpeted. But the big male Bullwinkle thundered into the night, toward the attackers hiding in the trees.
    Alex dismounted and came up beside a determined but weeping Cassie. His heart wrenched, knowing they had all been betrayed. The young woman impatiently swiped tears from her eyes and got to work. “Damn, Dr. Pierce—I don’t have the equipment for this!”
    Back in the forest, startled shouts turned to shrieks. Alex could well imagine the giant bull trampling the bastards into paste on the ground. Bullwinkle hooted, a powerful bellow that brought more shrill screams. A grenade burst near the beast, then the big mammoth was into the trees, smashing branches, splintering trunks, following the panicked outcries.
    More screams. He did not think further about what Bullwinkle was doing. He could see only the pregnant mammoth’s blood shining dark and wet in the moonlight. “Don’t worry. I’ll help,” he said to Cassie. Corporate CEO bullshit, but it seemed to be what she needed to hear. He knelt beside her, trying to anticipate what the young woman was trying to do. She worked with utter concentration, adrenaline, and desperation, staving off panic.
    As he tore off his shirt and wadded it up into a large pad—nowhere near enough, he saw, pressing it into the gaping wound—he heard a faint sound and looked around. Other mammoth hybrids bellowed, but the gunfire had halted for the moment. Bullwinkle’s work?
    The whispery sound of feet in the sedge grasses came nearer. Cassie didn’t notice it. Bare-chested, Alex backed away from the dying animal, leaving his shirt to soak up a gusher of blood. He smelled gunpowder and meat. “They’re coming back,” he said. Grabbing his shotgun from the trampled ground, he moved as quietly as he could around Majestica’s massive bulk.
    “Keep them the hell away from my mammoths,” Cassie said, her voice thin. She didn’t even look up from Majestica.
    Alex jacked a shell into the shotgun, hoping the flat clack-click sound would be enough of a deterrent. Never . Halfway around the heaving beast, he crouched down, looking across the moonlit expanse.
    He cursed himself as much as the fanatics. He had underestimated their dedication, dismissing them entirely. He had scoffed at their mindset, never giving them credit for a zeal that would push