Jemunu-jah was already dressed and ready to be on their way. Though visibly discouraged with their lack of progress, Masurathoo was not about to give up and lie down in the moss and muck. They were both waiting for him.
Well, he was ready, too. Picking up his rain cape, he gathered the folds around him preparatory to slipping it over his head and shoulders. At least the rain had let up, he reflected. Glancing down one last time, he happened to notice the protruding jaws of the dead herbivore. White mycelium were already probing the small, motionless body preparatory to entering the dead flesh and beginning their task of starting to decompose the small corpse. Frowning, he moved close and leaned low. There was something around the edges of the diminutive stilled jaws. Some kind of red stain. No, not red. Maroon. He had seen it before.
Lining the open mouths of the exterminated mokusinga.
“It is a good morning and the rain is light, sir.” Masurathoo’s bulging eyes blinked in his direction. “We should travel while the conditions are favorable.”
“Just a minute.” Waving one hand in the direction of his impatient companions, Hasa bent lower still, bringing his face close to the unmoving little corpse. There was no mistaking the color or consistency of the residue that lined the dead herbivore’s mouth like some kind of bizarre granular lipstick. Was it toxic on contact, he wondered, or did it have to be inhaled or swallowed? One thing he knew for sure: it had been ejected by the upright rhizomorph. That black tendril now lay flat on the ground alongside the stem of the one damaged purple-and-red fruiting body. Seepage was already beginning to cover and heal the gaping wound where the herbivore had been chewing. Curious, Hasa reached for it.