Gruk leads them away from this scene of violence and death. Keeping a watchful eye on the earth around them.
But the duststorm has swept the ground clean. The twin pairs of prints they were tracking four days earlier do not reappear. Gruk is again as blind as he was when he stumbled onto them. And again he points his hunters in a direction he hopes will lead to some quarry, familiar or no.
It is when they awaken from their third sleep after losing the trail that the hunters make a discovery that gives their villainous quest new hope and opportunity!
It is a vast structure, unlike any they have seen, and it beckons to their leader’s lust for treasure even as it strikes fear in his cowardly heart.
The hunters approach the walled city with a sense of dread and misgiving at this frowning heap rising unnaturally from the open plain. But in the two days it takes them to reach the outer walls, Gruk convinces his hunters there lies the best hope of capturing slaves and plundering unknown riches the walls conceal.
They do not hesitate to enter the city gate, and the silence within reassures them no danger lurks there. Examining the outer towers and finding them sealed, they cross the square to the central tower where they soon discover the hidden trench.
While the tower itself is readily accessible from the far end of the submerged opening, Gruk decides the trench is an ideal hiding place both for their own concealment and for ambuscade should their quarry show themselves.
Just as he and his fellows were attracted to this place, he is confident its imposing presence on the open plain will draw their quarry irresistibly here. The walled enclosure is the only structure on the open desert, and it will call to them just as it did to him.
There is a nearby well in the square, and it is filled with fresh, sweet water. Gruk dispatches hunters to the plain to collect what tubers and berries they can and to store them at the walled end of the trench. This done, they hunker down for a wait that Gruk is convinced will not disappoint.
Sooner or later, he knows, their quarry will come to them.
∆ ∆ ∆
Oblivious to the import of the prints they crossed several days ago—indefinable smudges Noah had dismissed as the game trail of some exotic animals—he and Davina awaken to an altered horizon that tugs at his memory.
Sensing the vague outlines of unnatural symmetry on the far horizon, Noah knows they are approaching the vast walled structure of enclosed towers. Whose voice revealed to him the secrets of a distant past.
He also knows they are invading the domain of dire wolves. Without the protection of the remarkable bipeds who drove them away on his earlier visit.
Turning to Davina, he declares:
“Ahead lies the numinous tower that talks, guardian of the legacy of your people’s ancient past. It is our destination. But the territory outside its walls is home to the great dire wolves I have told you about.”
Without hesitation, Davina responds:
“Then let us press ahead! I am anxious to visit the tower with the mysterious voice. And its walls appear to offer the only protection on this open plain.”
Conflicted between eagerness to reach the walled city and concern for Davina’s safety, he persuades her to bivouac here before they enter the wolves’ domain. And so they rest this night on the dry desert.
Dreaming of his encounter with the voice in the tower, Noah is pursing his lips with an unasked question when he is rudely shaken into wakefulness. It is his mate, and he can see by her expression that something is terribly wrong.
“Night has swallowed the new day,” she exclaims, “and I know not what it signifies.
“When I awoke, the suns were just beginning their ascent. Then, darkness fell, and the black veil of night has returned.
“The air is as thick as heavy snow, but it has a dusty, grainy quality. What does it mean?”
Springing to his feet, Noah grabs his mate’s hand and tells her they must find cover. And quickly!
“It is a dust-storm,” he explains, “and we will be flayed alive if it catches us out in the open.”
Leading her to the shallow bed of a nearby, long-dry stream, he shows her where they both can dig with the flat side of their lances.
Soon, working together, they hollow out a space large enough to hold them both. Pulling her in beside him, Noah quickly spreads a layer of soil over them up to the crest of the riverbed. Where he leaves a narrow slit to admit air.
No sooner does he spread the last handful of soil than the screaming wind blasts dust particles over the protective layer shielding the two within from the stinging surge of hail. It is not long before the couple are encased in a cocoon of alluvium, safe from the roaring tempest scouring the countryside without.
They hunker down in their sheltered space for three days and three nights while the dust-storm rages outside and, at dawn the following day, blows itself out.
Clawing their way out, like emerging chrysalides, they pat one another clean of the clinging particulate and watch the towering wall of dust draw slowly away.
Both suns are rising from a horizon blurred by the dust-refracted light, and Davina motions her mate to sit beside her on the elevated lee bank of the riverbed.
That is when Davina shares with him the precious secret within. So delighted is she that she cannot resist a tease:
“I am eager for the three of us to reach the walled city,” she blurts out in her excitement.
“It is a place of ancient lore and new light.
“A magical place connected to the beginning of my race.
“A fitting place for our new beginning.”
Puzzled and still somewhat dazed by long confinement beneath the riverbank, Noah replies:
“I am glad to find you so cheerful so soon after that dust-storm. But you do speak in riddles, Davina. And I do not understand.”
“You do not understand what?” she laughingly returns.
“That another travels with us?
“That he is most precious?
“That you are the father of a new race?
“And that I am its mother?”
Placing two fingers on his parting lips and her own close to his ear, she whispers a confession that reaches into his very soul:
“I am with child. And he is a boy.”
Stunned, Noah returns, “How can that be? We are different species.”
Lovingly stroking his face, she assures him:
“Nevertheless, it is true. He is male. He is healthy. He is ours. And together, we shall remake the world.
“Like the seeds you carry in the backpack, your seed will usher in the beginning of our new race and heal a damaged world.
“It was foretold to me in another magical place, and so it shall be!”
Joyously embracing her, Noah holds his mate tight throughout this dawn. Pondering the enormity of her revelation.
Travel the next two days is uneventful as the towers rise up from the barren landscape of the plain and the city walls acquire clear definition. They have shared the night watch at each campsite but, so far, there is no sign wolves are abroad.
It is early on the third day when they realize they are not alone!
Heeding only the approaching towers, they were unaware of the creatures tracking them. It is not until Noah glances backward in his wary scan for wolves that the creatures are revealed.
They move single file in a plodding, erect posture Noah knows well.
Puzzled by their unexpected presence in this place, he smiles broadly as he motions his mate to turn to greet the newcomers.
He is even more puzzled to hear their leader cry out in his soft, cooing voice and to hear Davina answer him in kind!
They are soon surrounded by the furry bipeds who are raising their arms to Noah’s outreached hands and jabbering in their strange tongue. Davina is first to respond to the curiosity of their new companions.
Launching into a brief narrative relating the events that have transpired since her first encounter with Noah o
n the forsaken shore, Davina is surrounded by the entire band of curious bipeds. While Noah is edged to one side. Neither understanding what his mate is saying, nor able to contribute to it.
Meantime, their leader is cooing incessantly to Davina, and she soon relates to Noah all he has said to her.
It is the tale of the band’s narrow escape from the quaking earth of their adopted valley. Of their quest to return to their own home. And of the hardships they have endured along the way.
Her narrative speaks of their discovery of two pairs of fresh prints in the great valley of every color. Tracking them to the valley’s roof. And continuing onto the plain they travel now. It concludes with the lashing dust-storm. With the band huddled together, their thick fur proof against the blasting wind and pelting particles of earth.
Davina points to the walled city as their destination, and the furry bipeds immediately fall in with them. Providing protection as well as companionship.
That is when they make a discovery that raises the hackles on the nape of Noah’s neck.
It is the clumped remains of a recent kill, clearly marking the territory and presence of dire wolves. While the leader’s wide eyes dart in every direction, scanning for wolves, it is the kill that absorbs Noah.
Using the tip of his lance, he rearranges the scattered shards of flesh, hide and bone into a reasonable facsimile of their owner: a low-slung, heavily muscled, gorilla-like creature whose hairy head possesses neither nose nor ears.
He wonders what manner of creature this is. And how it came to be here.
“I have never seen such a creature as this,” Davina admits, reading the question in Noah’s eyes. “And our new friends are as puzzled as we.”
That is when his eyes alight on the tell-tale signs of struggle and the tattered remains of two more kills—both anatomical copies of the first.
While the carcasses are badly shredded, they appear to be complete. From this, Noah infers these strange creatures are not the dire wolf’s prey but rather were trespassers in its domain.
And there, not far away, lies the corpse of the great wolf itself, with its own story to tell. Like the carcasses of its three foes, the wolf’s body is whole, suggesting it, likewise, is outside the gorilla-like creatures’ food-link.
But it is the condition of the carcass that fascinates Noah. There is neither a tear upon nor blood leaking from its body. Prodding it, Noah discovers its bones are smashed to pulp. It is, on the whole, a giant sack of mush.
This tells the observer that the other creatures used neither claw nor fang in their defense. That they somehow beat the wolf to death with their thick hands and feet and their stout arms and legs or that they wielded some blunt weapon to do so. And the three-to-one kill ratio suggests the creatures are no match for the great dire wolves.
They were indeed fortunate they encountered only a lone wolf on the prowl by itself.
And, Noah reflects, he was indeed fortunate no dire wolf discovered him and his mate as they crossed its territory. He shudders as he recalls his earlier experience with the great wolves. When only the timely intervention of the furry bipeds plucked him from certain death.
While they are difficult to read on the hard-packed soil, he is able to make out the faint prints of seven more of the gorilla-like creatures interspersed with the claw-marks of the single dire wolf.
The pattern and direction of the prints have their own story to tell.
One set of prints leads away from the scene in long strides. The widely spaced, uneven impressions suggesting they were made by a creature on the run.
The other sets of prints point backward, toward the fallen wolf. Their even impressions and short spacing suggesting those creatures were retreating slowly in a defensive posture to fend off the wolf.
After a few yards, the impressions fade and then disappear altogether from the rock-strewn ground. Outside the small circle of struggle, the ground goes silent.
There are no other clues to complete the story of what happened to the survivors. Or which direction they took from here.
Thus, Noah does not suspect the evil that lies in wait for them inside the walled city!
Chapter 53. Kidnapped!
Seven bestial brutes sidle into the walled city. Six attack the furry bipeds. And now there is one.
Approaching the leader, Davina voices her intention to enter the walled city and the central tower within. After much discussion, punctuated by the furry biped’s pointing and gesticulations, she returns to Noah and explains:
“Your friends are loath to enter the city.
“They regard it as a place where evil dwells, and they are afraid of dark spirits they cannot see.
“They will remain outside the walls until we return. While I am comforted by their close presence, we enter the city alone this day.”
Thus does the lone couple approach the walled city, weary but wary.
It is the same masonry-stone pile Noah remembers from his earlier visit, but something is different . . . very different. While he cannot define it, he senses great danger in this place and squeezes Davina’s hand with a whispered warning:
“The walls of this place are redolent with the scent of danger. I can smell it, and I fear it. If danger is abroad, it is best you stay close by my side, and stay alert.”
Passing the broad, open gate, they enter the city with watchful eyes.
What they cannot see are the seven pairs of eyes watching them.
Crouching like spiders in the trench next to the tower, Gruk and his brutes wait patiently for the couple to walk into their trap. It is the same hidden recess Noah and his furry companions followed to gain entry to the tower on their earlier visit here.
Gruk’s ‘eyes’, the tribe’s new number 2, is first to spot the couple approaching the central tower. The others gather round him to witness the strange spectacle of two oddly hairless creatures trudging across the open square toward them.
It is as they get closer that Gruk’s lust is awakened, burning hotly in his sweaty loins and his hollow heart.
At first, he cannot credit what he is seeing. It is the she that captivates him: a vision of smooth skin, oval face, long lashes curling upward above enormous ice-blue eyes with large full lips beneath a sculpted nose. She is a dazzling image of lithe-limbed loveliness, and it fires Gruk’s desire to possess her.
Here, he decides, is a creature worthy of his attentions as leader of the tribe. In his lust, he quickly dismisses the creature’s companion as weak-looking and easy prey for his hunters.
Gazing up in awe, unaware of the hidden watchers, Davina approaches the central tower.
“This must be the tower of the voice whose tale you related to me during those endless treks across the ice-fields. I never have seen a tower like this, yet it is as you described it to me.
“Frowning stone, not crystal ice.
“A heap, not a spire.
“It is hard to imagine this is a place of magic.”
Following her gaze upward, Noah replies:
“I do not think this tower is magic. I think it is fell. I think the magic fled when the voice fell silent.”
So absorbed are they, neither Noah nor Davina senses the misfortune creeping toward them from the shadowy trench. It is not until many stout, hairy arms grasp them that the couple realize the danger that has befallen them. They can only struggle in vain against the vise-like grip of Gruk’s hunters.
“Bring them into the tower,” Gruk barks.
“The he looks plump and juicy, and we shall feast on flesh this day!
“I will decide the fate of the she on a full stomach.”
Eyes smoldering, Davina casts an imperious look at Gruk as she responds in his own base tongue:
“Unhand us, you beasts!”
While he does not understand a word that has passed between them, Noah is again astonished at the ready fluency of his mate in this coarse, guttural tongue.
Taken aback by the unexpected retort and her facile use of
his language, Gruk blurts out:
“You speak like one of us, yet you do not look like one of us. What is your tribe?”
“I belong to no tribe. My mate and I are not tied to others. We are travelers, free of all, asking only that we may proceed unmolested.
“This talk of eating his flesh and being the judge of my fate is preposterous. You shall do no such thing!”
Recovering his swagger, Gruk casts a malevolent look at Davina, warning her:
“Do not test me, witch, unless you crave a good beating! I am Gruk the Brave, and I will do as I like with both of you—and with your third. The swell of your stomach shows you are ripe with child.”
Curling his lip into a sneer, the brute continues:
“It is long since we have tasted flesh. Your mate will be butchered.
“I have different plans for you. I have long tired of my own mate, Greld, and you will take her place when we return to our village.
“There, you will bear your child, and we shall feast on its flesh in celebration of our mating. Then shall you serve Gruk, your master, and bear him many strong children.”
Horrified, Davina struggles to loosen the grasp of her abductors as the hunters drag her and Noah through the trench and into the tower.
Her tormentor smiles maliciously at her discomfiture. Ordering the hunters to guard both captors closely.
Licking his obscenely moist lips, Gruk relishes the prospect of returning to the village with this lithe beauty cowering under his cudgel. And of beating Greld to a pulp and feeding her sour flesh to the dogs.
These pleasant thoughts are rudely interrupted by a cry from one of the hunters:
“Gruk, others approach!”
Leaping back into the trench, Gruk espies several furry bipeds entering the city gate. They are unlike any creature he has seen, and he quickly sizes them up by their lack of visible weapons and unthreatening demeanor.
Creeping back into the tower, he assures the hunters:
“I have told you we will be repaid for all the sacrifice and privation we have suffered in our hunt; now I show you it is true. For there is a band of many furry creatures walking into the trap I have set for them.
REGENESIS Page 33