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Thus it was that the engrossed animal whisperer, peering up at the faint outline of the swamp elephant towering above him behind its almost laughably flimsy containing fence, and making soft trumpeting noises with his lips while caressing the animal’s outstretched trunk, did not hear as the two figures crept up behind him.

And, mercifully, he hardly felt the short, sharp pain of the blow behind his left ear.

Of course, no one really knows if the pain was mercifully short for the one on the receiving end. To him, it may have been an agony as everlasting as the mountains rising above him in the darkness, an agony that would dim only when the electrical flux of his brain slowly petered out, like a tank full of fish succumbing to mercury poisoning and sinking to the bottom.

- Nice one, signed skulker no. 2 to his companion with professional appreciation for a job done professionally and with a minimum of fuss. - Now, let’s get these cages open. And remember the leaflets!

What followed was the sound of bolt cutters snicking easily through chains and locks. After all, these constraints had never been meant to restrain wild beasts. These were circus animals, and therefore the cages were to contain relatively tame creatures who were expected not to want to escape from a life that guaranteed at least one square meal a day, even if the deal included occasionally wearing silly hats and running in circles.

The animals reacted tentatively at first, like any caged creature who doesn’t initially know what to make of it when the chains fall away and freedom presents itself. Suspiciously, they tested to see whether they were all the butt of some new cosmic

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