by Edward Lang
“…tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I agreed.
She took a long look around the cave. Sadness filled her face.
“I like it here,” she whispered.
“I like it, too. A lot of good memories.”
“Memories?”
“Things that happened that I will think about later, after we’re gone.”
“Like what?”
“Like seeing your face for the first time.”
She smiled. “And?”
“And… when I first started teaching you my language.”
Her hand drifted below my waist and began to caress me. “…and?”
I grinned at her as I cupped her breast in my palm. “And every time we made love.”
She smiled wider. “Those are good memories.”
“Mm-hm,” I agreed as I kissed her.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Let us make one last memory,” she whispered as she opened her legs to me.
She didn’t have to ask twice.
18
We set out the next morning.
After I dressed, I packed all my belongings into the backpack – everything that I had come into this world with. Ropes, carabiners, flare gun, headlamp, cannister of matches… even my six useless bullets. I also took along the rest of the dried-out bird nests to use as tinder in case we needed it, along with an emergency stash of dry branches for kindling. Never know when you’re going to have to start a fire, and in what sort of conditions.
Lelia wrapped herself up in her furs, then put the climbing harness on over that.
After Lelia rappelled down from the cave to the ground below, I pulled up the rope and packed it up with all my other belongings.
Then I took one last, long look around the cave… smiled… said a silent prayer of thanks to whoever or whatever it was that had sent me here after the avalanche… and climbed down the cliff with my crampons and ice axes.
Once I was on the ground, we got ready.
I carried my quiver full of arrows lashed to my backpack. I carried my bow slung over my left shoulder for easy access, and I carried my ‘hammer throw’ rope coiled around my right.
Likewise, Lelia had her quiver on her left shoulder, using one of the deer-hide strips as a carrying strap. The bow was slung over her right shoulder. The knotted rope for our wolf-escape plans she wore coiled and attached to her belt. She wore my ice axes around her wrists in case we needed to scramble up a tree away from wolves, and her fur cape hung bunched up at the back of her neck, out of the way of everything else.
We lashed our snowshoes to our feet, and then we set out. Lelia carried her spear in one hand and used it as a walking stick.
I wish I could say it was an exciting journey, full of adventure and beauty… but it was mostly stumbling around through forests on our snowshoes.
Every once in a while I would stop and gaze around at the beauty… but it was the beauty of a snow-filled forest. After the first five times you look at it, it pretty much looks exactly the same.
And I’d already looked at it hundreds of times over the last few weeks.
So… mostly stumbling around on our snowshoes and stopping at night in exhaustion.
We made good progress, at least. I would estimate we were covering more than a mile per hour. That may sound like nothing at all, and it would have been – on solid ground. Remember, we were walking over snow. And not hardpacked snow, either. The softer it was, the harder it was to get through it. And we were using shitty homemade survival snowshoes. So the fact we were even covering a mile per hour was pretty damn impressive.
Lelia was certainly surprised. She kept pointing at the snowshoes and commenting in wonder, “We go so fast with these ugly things!”
As we made our way through the forest, I realized something: Lelia hadn’t had snowshoes when I first encountered her. Which probably meant that the most distance she could cover in a full day was four miles, if that.
Same for the tribe. They could only cover four miles a day, too.
Lelia had said that it had been six days between the time she last saw her tribe and when she encountered me. That sixth day she had been injured, so she hadn’t gone far then. Actually, I had seen her on the fifth day in the evening, when I’d first woken up here and mistaken her for a survivalist.
So, five days of travel at most. Four miles a day, so… 20 miles maximum. Probably less.
We could do 20 miles in two and a half days, easy.
Well, okay, maybe not easy, but we could do it.
If we could just find some indication of which way we should go, we might find the tribe a hell of a lot faster than I’d anticipated.
The first night we sheltered under a humongous fallen oak tree (or whatever passed for an oak tree in this world). We dug out the snow from underneath it and created a hollow, then leaned a bunch of fir branches against the trunk. I layered the branches with snow, creating a sort of crude fort that would not only keep out the wind but insulate us, keeping in our body heat.
I left just enough room in the fir-tree wall to crawl into, and then we covered the door with more branches from the inside. Between my clothes and Lelia’s scorching body heat, we actually stayed somewhat warm throughout the night.
We even had sex. It was a quickie on top of her fur cape, with us mostly clothed… but that sort of make it hotter, both erotically and temperature-wise. Then we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
The next morning we ate jerky, orange berries from the fir trees, and roots we foraged. Then we set out again.
Another uneventful day of stumbling around through the snow. That night we dug another hollow under a fallen tree, but we were so damn exhausted that we skipped the sex and just fell asleep after we’d sealed up the shelter with fir branches and snow.
We never encountered any wolves, I’m happy to say. It was probably because we’d prepared so thoroughly. It was like bringing an umbrella with you when it’s cloudy: because you brought it, there’s a 95% chance it’s not going to rain.
It’s a corollary of Murphy’s Law: if you prepare for something to happen, it probably won’t.
Fine by me. I had no need to test our tree-climbing speed record.
However, though we never encountered a wolf pack…
…we definitely encountered something else.
19
It was the third day of travel, and we were getting close to the tall, thin mountain peak. I knew that because I’d used my crampons and telephone lineman belt to climb the tallest tree I could find. Up above the treetops, I could see the spire in the far distance. Once I climbed back down to Lelia, we started going up the mountain instead of across the mountain slopes.
It was about midday when we heard it: a low, rumbling roar.
It sounded like an angry lion.
I looked over at Lelia in alarm. My heart was pounding.
She had her headwrap on, so all I could see was her emerald eyes.
But they looked scared as hell.
“Skiris,” she whispered through her headwrap.
We might have practiced getting up in trees specifically to avoid wolves, but I wasn’t about to discriminate against abominable snowmen.
We started moving as soon as we heard the second roar, even louder and closer than the first.
I used my knife to slash the bindings on both our sets of snowshoes. It took no more than ten seconds.
As Lelia stepped out of her snowshoes, I took my rock attached to the rope and started whirling it around through the air.
Two seconds later, I threw the stone over a branch in the tallest hardwood tree near us.
The stone plummeted down, trailing the rope after it.
Lelia grabbed the stone and hooked the rope to her harness.
The roaring was getting louder.
I leaned back hard, helping her scramble up the tree trunk with my ice axes.
As I continued pulling, she scrambled up through the dens
e undergrowth.
When she reached the branch I’d thrown the rock over, she immediately anchored her harness to the branch so she couldn’t fall. Then she attached the knotted rope to the branch and threw it down.
I grabbed the rope as soon as it hit the snow and started climbing.
More roaring. The skiris was definitely coming down the mountain towards us.
Ten seconds later, I was sitting up in the tree beside Lelia, pulling up the knotted rope behind me.
I don’t know if we made it in 45 seconds, but we came damn close.
The snowshoes were still down below us, a dead giveaway – but it’s not like we hadn’t left behind a trail in the snow as we’d snowshoed our way across it. Anybody – or any thing – looking closely would figure out where we were.
But at least we had the advantage of the high ground.
As I lashed myself to the tree branch, Lelia carefully balanced her spear across two nearby branches, pulled out her bow, and nocked an arrow.
As soon as I was secured to the branch with the rope, I did the same.
The roar intensified. We both squinted through the treetops, trying to see where it was coming from. There was no foliage in our hardwood tree, but we were surrounded by pines, and their needles made it difficult to see far.
Suddenly there was another noise, quieter and harder to hear, but definitely audible.
It sounded like a panicked woman trying to muffle her cries as she ran.
Lelia and I looked at each other in shock.
“A woman from your tribe?” I whispered.
Lelia shrugged, and we both went back to staring intently through the treetops.
There was movement about 200 feet away. I couldn’t see what it was – just a small, dark shape barely visible behind the pine boughs.
But I sure as hell saw what came after that shape.
A lumbering mass thudded through the forest, bending smaller saplings out of its way as it tried to force its way through the trees.
I stared in disbelief.
The pursuer was shaggy white, and was really only visible when it passed in front of the darker tree trunks. Otherwise it blended in with the snow.
It had to have been ten feet tall at the very least. It was broad across its shoulders, and two giant arms almost as big as my entire body swung from its massive torso.
I couldn’t see the details. I couldn’t make out its face through the foliage, for example. But what I could see was terrifying.
So THAT’S a skiris…
Whatever it was chasing had chosen to run through the densest patch of large trees it could find.
Smart – having to maneuver around the larger trees was slowing the skiris down.
But the monster wasn’t giving up – and its prey was leaving a very visible track in the snow for it to follow.
Suddenly Lelia cried out, “Mana sa koola!”
I looked at her in alarm.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“If it’s one of the people, she will know what I said,” Lelia whispered back.
“And what did you say?!”
“‘Come here.’”
It appeared that Lelia’s gambit worked, because the smaller figure suddenly changed course and ran towards us, frantically cutting a channel through the three-foot-tall snow.
Now I could see it: another person wrapped head to toe in furs. Small and thin, the runner reminded me exactly of the first glimpse I’d caught of Lelia.
Except now I knew where to look: at the hands and the spaces between the upper arms and forearm wrappings.
It was difficult to see, but I caught a glimpse of blue skin.
Holy shit, we found one of the tribe!
Unfortunately, Lelia’s outburst had attracted the skiris’s attention, too.
It roared and changed course as well, pushing through small fir trees and angling around the bigger tree trunks it couldn’t move aside.
As it got closer, I got a better look at it –
And my blood ran cold in my veins.
Two curling ram’s horns framed its head on either side.
Its face was white and shaggy like the rest of its body, but I could see two intelligent-looking eyes peering out of the fur.
Its jaws, though… they were worse than a roaring lion’s. A lion basically has a bunch of smaller teeth with oversized canines. But the skiris had over a dozen four-inch-long fangs jutting out of black gums. As far as ripping and tearing went, the skiris would whip the lion’s ass.
And its massive hands were big enough to hold a Butterball turkey like a baseball.
Did I say hands? More like paws, with black claws jutting out of shaggy white fingers that were big as summer sausages.
The monster saw us perched up in the oak’s bare limbs. It immediately forgot its quarry and started lumbering towards the tree.
The tiny figure in furs was floundering towards us, only 70 feet ahead of the monster.
Lelia grabbed the knotted rope, still attached to the tree branch.
I knew what she was planning.
“She’s not going to make it up the tree in time,” I said.
Lelia threw the rope down anyway. “Must try.”
I pulled back my bowstring and got ready to aim. “Well, let’s help her, then.”
The rope flung out through space, and its end flopped down onto the white powder.
The figure in furs crashed through the snow, falling on her face as she scrambled for the rope.
The skiris broke through the smaller trees nearest us and headed to intercept the woman.
“Aim for its face,” I told Lelia as I sighted along my arrow. Then I yelled, “HEY, ASSHOLE!”
The skiris looked up at me and roared –
And I let the arrow fly.
Fwip!
The skiris bellowed in rage, and it looked like the monster was jauntily smoking the arrow like one of those old-timey cigarette holders FDR used back in the 1930s.
I realized I’d shot the arrow directly into the monster’s mouth. The arrow must have stabbed deep into its flesh, because the wooden shaft didn’t move as the skiris roared.
A rivulet of red flowed over its lower jaw, staining its fur crimson.
YES!
As I grabbed another arrow out of my quiver, Lelia fired.
Suddenly the creature had another arrow sticking out of its left eye.
Now its scream of rage became agony.
“Holy shit,” I muttered to myself, then said, “Good SHOT!”
Lelia didn’t answer, she just nocked her next arrow.
The woman in furs wasn’t even trying for the rope now – she just stood there in shock, watching everything that was unfolding a mere 25 feet away.
The skiris clutched at its eye socket and jerked out the arrow.
Bad idea. The eye came with it, a round globe attached to a strand of red meat.
The beast roared again in rage and pain.
For my next shot, I aimed at its throat.
I missed, though I still got its upper pec.
Lelia shot the fucker in the jugular, though.
A jet of blood started coursing down its shaggy torso like somebody had turned on a bathtub faucet full blast.
The skiris knew when it was beat. It turned around to flee –
But it was clumsy and wounded, and fell face-first into the snow instead.
Lelia and I fired arrow after arrow into its back, right between the shoulder blades.
All our shots hit home.
Thock!
Thock!
Thock!
Thock!
The skiris tried to get to its feet, but failed. It face-planted again.
Its entire back was soaked in red, and the snow around it was turning crimson and dissolving from the hot blood.
It made a feeble movement forward, stretching out one arm – then collapsed and lay still.
Suddenly Lelia unlocked the carabiner attaching her climbing har
ness to the limb. She grabbed her spear from where it was balanced atop the branches nearest her, seized the knotted rope with her free hand – and jumped out of the tree.
“LELIA!” I screamed in alarm.
She flew down the rope, basically just using it to slow her descent, but nothing more.
She landed heavily in the snow, then rushed forward, screaming in rage as she gripped the spear in both hands and trundled forward through the three-foot-tall drifts.
I’d been around too many wild animals in my time to believe the skiris was completely down for the count.
But I was too far away from Lelia to stop her, even if I jumped right out of the tree directly into the snow.
So I just pulled out another arrow, nocked it, and prayed that I was wrong about the skiris playing possum.
I wasn’t.
Lelia got in a solid jab with her spear, burying the stone tip in the skiris’s spine –
But then it roared and pushed up from the snow, flipping around onto its back.
One last burst of adrenaline – one last burst of rage before it died.
Lelia’s spear was embedded deep enough in the monster’s flesh that it didn’t pull out –
But unfortunately, as the skiris flipped over, the spear knocked Lelia sideways.
It looked like the shaft of the spear might have hit her in the head as it whipped around… because when she landed in the snow, she didn’t move.
The monster looked around, half-blind, trying to find its tormenter.
I held my breath, said a prayer, and let my arrow fly.
THOCK!
The arrow pierced the skiris’s right eye.
Half its shaft disappeared inside the monster’s skull.
The skiris gave one last roar of torment –
And then collapsed on its back, head on the snow, the arrow jutting out of its socket.
I undid the rope lashing me to the branch, grabbed the knotted rope, and jumped off the limb.
I could feel the knots sliding past my gloved fingers, thup thup thup thup thup.
I hit the snow hard and sank in all the way to my waist. The extra cushioning of the snow kept me from feeling any pain as I landed.
Then I ran through the path Lelia had already cut until I reached her.
Glancing warily at the motionless skiris, I dropped to my knees next to the tiny body in the snow.