by Edward Lang
“Please,” she repeated, and began tugging at my pants, trying to undo them.
I looked over at Lelia, who nodded happily.
Hala and Teeka were beside her. They just knelt there, naked, waiting expectantly for the show.
I took it slow and easy, giving Oona lots of foreplay and oral sex before I slowly entered her.
She came before I was all the way inside her.
Then she came twice more before I couldn’t hold on any more and exploded inside her.
“Ahhhh,” Oona sighed happily, then kissed me.
Lelia, Teeka, and Hala suddenly started clapping.
I looked over in alarm. “What are you doing?!”
“It means very good!” Lelia said, and I thought back to my explanation earlier when I’d clapped as Oona used the snowshoes.
I burst out laughing when I remembered.
I’d never gotten applause for sex before, but I can’t say that I minded it.
Especially when Lelia, Hala, and Teeka crawled over to me to join in the encore.
27
We settled into a rhythm as a group: archery practice. Hunting. Tanning the hides. Constructing the snowshoes. And at night, lots and lots of sex.
I started demanding to help the women on the night watch.
“No,” Fieria said resolutely.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“We need cock magic,” she explained. “If you do cock magic and try to guard, you will not sleep. We need cock magic more than we need you guard us. We can guard us. We cannot do cock magic.”
All the other women nodded in somber agreement.
Well… when she put it like that, I wasn’t going to argue.
So in a way, I did first watch every single night… but with only a specific part of me standing at attention.
It was a good life… but I couldn’t help remembering the skiris that had chased Oona. I was worried that its fellow monsters might come looking for their fallen comrade.
So after the women were relatively good with the bows and arrows, I decided we needed to concentrate a bit on tactics. I built a ten-foot-tall snowman to approximate the height of a skiris, and then we practiced working as a team.
When I yelled Together, everyone would fire at the target at the same time.
When I shouted Protect, three women would kneel in front with spears to keep the skiris at bay, and I and three other women would stand behind them and fire as fast as possible.
Usually it was Hala, Fieria, and Lelia in the back with me since they were the best shots, but I had everyone practice, just in case something happened – like, say, one person got injured and couldn’t fire an arrow.
We also practiced running in different directions when I shouted Scatter!
The women also learned to fire at the target from all different directions. We practiced drawing an arrow and nocking it while running in snowshoes… stopping to aim… then firing and moving again.
I also stressed that we should try to keep trees between us and the skiris, and that we should always take the high ground, if possible. Way easier to aim when you’re up high.
I hadn’t been in the service, so I had no military training – but I figured that those tactics would stand us in good stead in case of attack.
And yet, the skiris never came.
It didn’t matter. I kept drilling the women, convinced it was only a matter of time.
It was.
Ten days had passed when it happened. By then I had completed all the snowshoes – 12 pairs in all: one for me, Lelia, Fieria, Oona, Hala, Teeka, and Mazaria… and five extras, for when we found the other tribeswomen who had been kidnapped. They were going to need a quick way to escape when and if we found them.
We also made sure that everyone had two quivers with 15 arrows apiece, 30 in all. We had more than enough meat frozen in an outdoor larder. And when we weren’t foraging or hunting, we drilled and practiced archery, then drilled some more.
All that drilling and practicing was good, because the attack came on the eleventh night.
I was sleeping deeply after a particularly delightful evening when I was roughly shaken awake.
Fieria whispered frantically as she knelt there in front of me. “Jake, no sleep!”
Adrenaline immediately coursed through my veins, and I was wide awake.
“Mmm… what?” Lelia asked groggily as she yawned beside me. Oona and Teeka stirred, too, just a few feet away.
It had been a busy evening.
“Skiris,” Fieria hissed, and then Lelia, Teeka, and Oona were wide awake, too. They sat up on their elbows, eyes wide.
“How many?” I whispered as I hurriedly pulled on my thermal underwear and outer clothes.
“Three.”
SHIT.
Not overwhelming odds, but a hell of a lot worse than me and Lelia against the single skiris we’d killed.
The only good thing was, they had no idea of our capabilities. This world had never seen bows and arrows, so they wouldn’t be expecting our attack.
“How close?”
“Very close. Not in camp yet, but they are coming.”
Shit, shit, shit –
“Lelia and Oona, grab your bows and arrows and put on your snowshoes as soon as you’re dressed,” I said as I slipped on my boots, which I’d conveniently left lashed to my snowshoes. “Be quiet when you come outside.”
Then I grabbed my own bow and a quiver and followed Fieria outside.
We moved as quickly as possible through the woods to the north side of camp where Hala and Mazaria were keeping watch.
Fieria pointed through the tree trunks.
There was a bit of moonlight coming through the treetops, dappling the snow in random patterns.
Suddenly, about 50 feet away, the patterns shifted – and an entire tree trunk in the darkness was blotted out by moving snow.
Except it wasn’t snow.
It was white fur – I would’ve bet the farm on it.
Fuck.
“Where are the other ones?” I whispered.
Hala pointed to the left and right.
I strained to see through the trees.
Sure enough, dappled moonlight shifted here and there, as though something was moving through it.
The skiris were advancing in a straight row.
That was interesting. I had sort of assumed they would move in a pack. I had no basis for assuming that, other than they seemed to be dumb, brute animals.
I mean, wolves were smart, and they moved in packs – but they also knew how to hunt.
Hunt –
Something about that thought made my stomach knot up.
“Are we sure there aren’t any behind us?” I whispered.
Almost on cue, as though it had heard me, a mighty roar erupted about 100 feet behind us – much closer to the cave.
My heart leapt into my throat as I heard a feminine scream.
LELIA!
It didn’t sound like her voice, but I didn’t care. All I knew was that I had to run to her.
As soon as the skiris behind us roared, the other three in front of us bellowed, too, and began crashing through the trees towards the camp.
Shit – it was some kind of sign – a coordinated attack!
“Handle them!” I hissed at Fieria as I pointed at the three skiris, then took off for the cave.
“Jack!” Fieria whispered, but I was already gone, moving as fast I could over the snow without toppling over.
I saw the fourth skiris in the light from the campfire’s embers: a huge shaggy beast advancing on the cave. Several arrows were already quivering in its chest.
Lelia crouched in the doorway of the snow-packed firs, firing as fast as she could. Oona and Teeka stood slightly behind her, firing at the same time over Lelia’s head – a variation on what we’d practiced.
The skiris lumbered towards the women. I knew that withdrawing into the cave wouldn’t help them at all – if the monster realized that the pr
otecting walls were made of nothing but packed snow and flimsy tree branches, it would rip right through them.
My only chance was to distract it.
I fired once. I was off-target, and hit its shoulder.
It roared and glanced at its arm, but it kept on going towards Lelia and Oona.
I immediately nocked another arrow.
“HEY, MOTHERFUCKER!” I yelled as I let another arrow fly.
That one struck its face.
It howled in pain and turned towards me, enraged.
Lelia, Teeka, and Oona kept firing, turning its torso into a pin cushion.
Finally it realized it wasn’t going to win this bout, and turned and hobbled back into the forest.
I thought for a split second about following it to finish it off, but the screams from behind me immediately focused my attention.
“COME ON!” I yelled at Lelia, Teeka, and Oona as I headed back towards Fieria and the others.
I raced through the forest on my snowshoes. Well, ‘raced’ is the wrong word – but I moved as fast as I could.
The women hadn’t forgotten their training. They were keeping massive oaks and pines between them and the skiris, who were having trouble maneuvering through the trees.
The beasts on the left and right were the farthest away. The middle one was closest.
Unfortunately, the women were aiming at a skiris apiece, and weren’t dealing enough damage to take any single one of them down.
“The middle skiris!” I yelled. “TOGETHER!”
The women all swung their bows over to aim at the middle beast.
“NOW!”
With my shot added, five arrows thudded into the skiris’s chest and neck.
It roared in agony and stumbled face-first into the snow.
I checked quickly. The left monster was a good ten feet closer to us than his brother, but if the right bastard got too close before we could get the next shot off, we were toast.
“Left skiris, TOGETHER!” I yelled.
The women all nocked their next arrows, as did I.
“NOW!”
One arrow missed its mark, but four landed – two in the creature’s face. It screamed in agony and went down onto its knees.
The arrows were barely away before I yelled, “SCATTER!”
Every woman raced off in a different direction.
Again, ‘raced’ being a relative term.
But they were all wearing snowshoes, so they were able to move much faster than their pursuer.
Confused, the skiris looked all around it, trying to figure out who to go after –
Which is when I fired my next arrow.
THOCK!
Right in its throat.
Red gushed down the matted white fur of its chest.
The beast screamed, but it wasn’t down for the count. Instead, it hurled itself at me –
But I darted back behind two closely spaced trees.
Unable to follow me through, the skiris had to go around –
At which point I stepped back through the gap in the trees to the other side.
But now I had an arrow ready.
As it swung around to roar at me, I fired directly into its mouth – point-blank range. Couldn’t miss.
Because of how much shorter I was, the arrow went up into the roof of the creature’s mouth –
Right into the brain.
Or at least that was what I assumed when it collapsed against the two trees and slid into the snow, motionless.
I immediately nocked another arrow and stepped back into the fray.
The women were firing at the two mortally wounded skiris. One finally expired with a dozen arrows in its back; the other tried to crawl away, but I came up on its left and shot it in the side of the head, at which point it gave up the ghost and stopped moving.
That meant there was one more – the beast that had attacked the rear of the camp.
“Everyone follow me!” I yelled as I headed back towards the cave.
They fell into line behind me, arrows at the ready as we passed the campfire and found the plowed-out path left behind in the skiris’s wake. The snow was spattered with blood, which looked black in the moonlight.
We found it a hundred feet from the camp, already dead.
We shot a couple more arrows in its back to be sure, but it never moved.
I was breathing heavily, and I noticed the women were trembling.
“Good job,” I said. “Excellent job.”
They all beamed at the praise.
“Everyone alright?” I asked.
One by one, they nodded.
I was astounded. All that drilling and practicing had paid off.
“There were more of them this time,” I muttered. “And they were smarter than I expected – they surrounded us.”
“We should leave,” Teeka moaned.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “If we go, they’ll just keep following us. But if we follow their trail to where they came from, we can find out more about them. Whoever sent them won’t expect them back for a while, but our snowshoes are faster. If it took them three days to get here, we can go back in two. Maybe even one. We can figure out what’s going on, and maybe save the other women from your tribe.”
Lelia translated for the others to make sure they understood.
“What if go there and too many skiris?” Fieria asked warily.
“Then we can leave before they know we’re there. We don’t have to attack; we can figure out something else. But if we keep running, they’ll keep coming after you. And at some point there will either be either too many of them, or they’ll catch us by surprise. If we go to them, we can surprise them.”
After Lelia finished translating, Fieria looked around at the others. “I say we go.”
Hala started to protest in her native tongue.
“Speak Jack,” Fieria commanded her.
That was what the others called English: ‘speak Jack.’
Hala looked at me furtively, then said to Fieria, “Skiris killed our men. How can we kill them?”
“You killed four of them tonight,” I pointed out.
Hala shook her head. “Too many up there.”
“Which is why we can just go and look. We don’t have to fight,” I said gently. “We just go and see.”
“Remember Nakla, and Ara, and Kees, and Plom, and Jey,” Fieria said. “Will we leave them?”
I was assuming those were the names of the other women.
“They maybe are dead,” Teeka said mournfully.
“We not know,” Fieria pointed out. “We find out.”
The women were silent for a long moment.
“We could vote on it,” I suggested.
“Vote?” Oona asked.
“Yes. Everyone says whether she wants to go or not. There are seven of us, and if four say yes, we go. If four say no, we stay here and figure out what to do.”
They looked at me like I was insane.
“No!” Mazaria protested.
“We do what Fieria say,” Hala rebuked me, like I was an asshole even to suggest otherwise.
“No… we vote,” Fieria said. “I want know what all the people think.”
“Well, I say we go,” I spoke up.
“We go,” Lelia said, nodding.
One by one, the other women paused… and then nodded their heads.
“Go.”
“We go.”
The last to answer was Oona. She looked particularly frightened.
“What do you say, Oona?” I asked.
She looked around at all of us.
Finally she said, “If Jack vote we go… I vote we go.”
I smiled at her, and she smiled shyly back.
“Then it’s settled. Should we try to get some sleep before we leave?” I asked.
Fieria shook her head. “I can sleep not. Not after this.”
The others murmured their assent. I had to admit, I probably wasn’t going to catch any shuteye, either.
“So – we leave at first light?” I suggested.
Fieria nodded. “Leave at first light.”
28
We retrieved our arrows from the skiris corpses and packed what we had. The bulk of it was the skins from the floor of the cave, which we bundled up individually and divided amongst the group. Then we set out shortly after dawn.
We quickly realized we didn’t need our snowshoes. The skiris had plowed a route for us through the forest, gouging out a massive path through the snow drifts and packing down the snow beneath their heavy feet. We were able to move almost as quickly as if we had been on dry ground.
By late morning we reached the spot where Lelia and I had saved Oona. It had taken seven hours, downhill, on our former snowshoe prototypes; uphill and with our way already carved out for us, it took about five.
We encountered no wolves or skiris, which allowed us to move as fast as possible.
We stopped for the night when we found a hollow near the skiris’ path. We didn’t light a fire for fear of drawing attention. We just ate and then slept in shifts, to make sure we weren’t attacked again in our sleep. No sex, either. Everyone was too exhausted and on edge – including me.
The next morning, we got up and did it all over again.
The gigantic, needle-like spire was the first major landmark we passed, at which point the forest began to thin out a bit.
Within another couple of hours we reached the timberline – and got quite a surprise when we did.
Several hundred feet of the edge of the forest had been chopped down. There were dozens upon dozens – maybe even hundreds – of large trees that had been hacked off at the base. The only things left were smaller saplings.
And when I say ‘hacked off,’ I mean it; there were no clean cuts from an ax or saw to be found. If I had to guess, the skiris had used crude stone tools to whack away at the base of the tree trunks until they were suitably weakened enough to fall or push over. The stumps often had messy, jagged spikes of wood jutting up from them, like the trees hadn’t been severed cleanly.
Someone was building something. And judging by the amount of wood they’d taken, it was something large.
At the edge of the timberline, the mountain still continued upwards – but at that point the slope became the bottom of a gorge. There were high mountains on both the right and the left that formed cliff-like walls.