You are in the forest wetlands of Europe, 30,000 years ago.

The mist over the blackwater marsh of the Pleistocene was thick, illuminated only by the faint glow of your headlamp. You were out looking for late-season mushrooms near the boundary of the national park, far from any hiking trail. The night was dead silent, until it wasn't.

You were packing your gear when a sound made you freeze—a splash, followed by a heavy, wet tearing noise.

You expected a modern moose, perhaps a hungry bull. What emerged from the morning mist into the shallow marsh was not a modern moose.

It was impossibly high at the shoulder, its long, slender legs moving through the mud with strange grace, almost like a stilt-legged elk. But the head was wrong. It had the long muzzle of a red deer, not the snout of a moose. The true horror—and beauty—was the antlers. They didn't flare out immediately like a modern moose; they were complex, branching, and palmate, a massive eight-foot span of tangled tines that seemed to drag the air itself.

A Cervalces. A stag-moose.

It stood 8 feet tall at the shoulder, towering over the willow thicket. The creature looked directly at you with dark, intelligent eyes. It didn't react with the quick aggression of a modern moose, but with a cool, prehistoric indifference. It raised its head, the massive, intricate antlers catching the morning light, and tore a massive bundle of aquatic plants from the bog.