Eden, Dawn Page 71
ENTRY 2: THE BEASTS OF EDEN
The Sabre
A terrifying tiger-like creature only bigger, Eden’s Sabre is a hideously violent carnivore unfairly armed with a rhino-horn, too. While it mainly shreds its prey with its sabre-fangs and claws, the Sabre uses its horn for spiteful pleasure, to gore and torment. The Sabre stalks its prey, is very quick over a short distance but tires easily. Fortunately, due to its colossal size and sheer weight, it’s unable to climb trees.
As the biggest land carnivore on Eden we’ve encountered, an adult Sabre is typically around seven to eight strides long, not counting the tail (roughly twice the size of Earth’s tiger). Its most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark red stripes on a purplish-green hide, skin that is three to four centimetres thick. With sabre-shaped canines that are around thirty-five to forty centimetres long, the Sabre feeds on Eden-deer, Hog, and lone Wolf that wander from their packs. On a few rare occasions, in a battle royal, a Sabre will take on a Serpent—however, not for food, for bragging rights.
The Sabre is, in one sense, a beautiful beast. However, its bloodlust—killing for sport and pleasure—makes it far more terrifying than interesting. To be avoided, not admired. Proud and superior, king of the Eden-jungle, the Sabre never eats what it does not kill itself. And it usually eats the prime pieces of meat, leaving the entrails and sinewy meat for scavengers to feast on. And Eden is not short on a host of scavengers and scroungers.
Although I’ve seen a fairly young adult, I’ve yet to see a Sabre cub, and I’ve never seen more than one Sabre at a time. My guess is that they’re territorial, solitary creatures.
The Sabre is the beast on Eden I hate the most. My father was killed by one.
The Wolf
A canid-like creature, only bigger, Eden’s Wolf is a strange-looking beast that moves on its strong hind legs like a kangaroo. To me, it seemed like someone simply stuck the upper body of a wolf onto the abdomen of a kangaroo. A hybrid. Thus, at first sight, the creature looks awkward, almost comical. I’m even tempted to call it a Wolferoo. However, there’s never time to laugh—even though the noise they make when feeding on a kill sounds like a strangled chortle. Their bark is a haunting cackle; their bite, fatal. A Wolf’s powerful jaw can shatter a human thighbone like a matchstick.
Hunting in packs; at full gallop, it runs on all fours, capable of huge leaps at a time, and is the fastest beast on Eden. It is also able to run long distances at top speed.
At two to three strides long (not including its tail), with canines as long as eight centimetres, the Wolf is a formidable carnivore capable of killing a human with ease. In a hunting pack, however, it would be able to take on a Sabre, although I’ve never seen this. While the Sabre prefers the thicker jungle bush, the open plains are the domain of the Wolf.
Purple-blue in colour and given to howling at the full moon, the Wolf feeds primarily on Eden-deer. Although preferring to kill its prey, it never turns down the chance to scavenge.
Since ninety-nine percent of our lives are lived in the cover the jungle bush provides, we don’t see the Wolf much. Although Gellica has a particular hatred for them. Both her mother and father were killed by a Wolf-pack.