In contrast, Mako's horse bucks, nearly succeeding in unseating her. She clings to its reins in blind terror, unable or unwilling to confront the reality - or lack thereof - of the thing circling them overhead. She can muster little more than a short intake of breath, her mind a panicked whirl of fragmentary images, the shriek of Otachi's claws sinking into metal, the awful thunderous snap of its wings unfurling, the sickly bright blue of its blood gushing from the place where they cleaved it in two.

Otachi's dead, says Raleigh, but he doesn't sound as certain as he means to, as he hypothetically means to. Otachi's dead, remember? We gutted it like a fish.

The timbre of the echoing roar is deeper, throatier, nothing like the birdlike screeches of a kaiju, but the rational reminder is not enough to hold her heart still or her breath even.

The shadow swoops low and this time she sees it, face-to-face, smoldering eyes and jaws gapped wide and startlingly bright red tongue. With the hiss of igniting gas, its maw gapes open to belch loose a gushing sheet of flame. The trees spring alight.

Mako's mouth goes dry.

Her horse rears abruptly and it is all she can do to cling desperately to its back as it makes a sharp turn to bolt as far away from the inferno as it possibly can.