by Inmon, Shawn
Alex turned to Senta-eh. “You’ll have the best chance to get a shot off from up here. So, you two stay here and I’ll go find one of the things and try to lure it up out of the hole. Then you can shoot it. Don’t aim for the head, though. Their skulls are tough. Try to hit it here,” he said, pointing just below his own ear. “Tokin-ak said they are vulnerable there.”
“Wait,” Werda-ak said. “Why am I staying up here? Her, I understand. She can shoot from this distance. But I can’t do anything.”
“Yes, you can. You can stay alive.” Alex lit a second torch and didn’t wait for a reply. He hurried down the hill toward the battleground.
Werda-ak also didn’t hesitate, but followed silently behind Alex. Halfway down the hill Alex turned and looked at him, but knew there was nothing he could do. If the boy wanted to risk death, there was nothing he could do to stop him.
Once they reached the area of scattered holes and boulders, they walked on cat’s feet. When they reached the first hole, they held the torch away, then cautiously moved it to illuminate the darkness.
Alex realized he was holding his breath and forced himself to breathe. The flickering light slowly revealed that the hole was empty. It was perhaps eight feet across and five or six feet deep. Well big enough to hide a dandra-ta, but not so big that it wouldn’t be able to leap up at him.
Can those things leap? Are they fast, slow? I hate going into a battle as blind as this.
They went through the field systematically. When possible, they stood on a boulder and shone the light from the torch into the hole, all the better to evade the first attack they both knew was coming.
When they had investigated almost all the holes, Alex began to wonder if they had been given bad information.
It’s possible that these things like to come here to sun themselves in the daytime, then have a completely different place to sleep at night.
On the next-to-last hole, he finally saw it. His torch illuminated a spiked tail, twitching ever so slightly, like a dog’s tail moving in a dream.
Alex sucked in an involuntary breath. He had expected this thing to be big, but he had a different definition of big in mind than what the spiked end of that tail promised. He had expected the tail to perhaps be as thick as his bicep, but instead it was as thick as his thigh.
He motioned to Werda-ak, standing on a boulder a few feet away, to stay where he was. Alex edged forward with excruciating slowness, illuminating the monster inch by inch as it curled up at the bottom of the hole. Then, things stopped making sense. He had thought he had an idea of their body type, but what he saw was confusing. There were more arms, legs, and talons than there should have been. Finally, he realized that he was seeing both of the creatures wound together, their limbs, tails, and heads intertwined.
Off to the side, he heard quiet footsteps and discovered Senta-eh had abandoned her post on the hillside and was perched on a rock in the middle of the field. Her bowstring was already pulled to her ear and pointed at the lip of the hole, waiting for a target to appear.
Standing beside the boulder he was standing on was Monda-ak. He didn’t even look guilty at disobeying a direct order.
The gang’s all here.
Alex wanted to be mad at them for risking their lives when he told them not to, but couldn’t manage it. He felt stronger and safer with them around him.
Okay, we’ve got two sleeping beasties curled up in a hole. What’s the best way to attack them and still survive? Attack while they sleep, hoping to disable one of them before they come fully awake? Or, try to draw them out and hope they don’t both come at once, so we can maybe pick them off one at a time?
Alex handed his torch to Werda-ak and the hole went black again. He gripped his heavy spear high up on the shaft and jumped directly into the hole. As he jumped, he aimed the spear at where he remembered the neck area of one of the dandra-tas had been. Just before he hit the ground—or landed on the beasts, he thrust the spear down with all his might.
His aim was slightly off in the darkness. The tip of the spear hit the dandra-ta in the most heavily-armored spot on its body—its head. Instead of the satisfying feeling of the spear sinking deeply into the throat or back of the beast, it bounced away and the world came alive beneath him.
Alex knew he wouldn’t be able to survive long in a deep hole with two potent adversaries. He looked up to see if he could possibly claw or jump his way out ahead of certain death. He realized he had been impetuous once again. The hole had been deeper than he had estimated and the ground above was well over his head.
The dandra-tas were awake now and spun to face Alex. It was too dark in the hole for him to be able to see, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a primal early warning system.
At that moment, the torch was thrust over the opening, lighting his predicament. The second heavy spear was offered butt first. A lifeline. Alex grabbed the spear, braced a leg against the side of the hole and jumped. As he did, Werda-ak pulled and Alex flew up out of the hole inches ahead of the snapping mouth that would have devoured him.
Alex landed face first on the rocky soil and sprang to his feet. He had escaped momentarily, but his spear was in the bottom of the hole and the dandra-tas were climbing after him.
“ON THE ROCKS!” ALEX shouted. He knew they wouldn’t protect them from the beasts—they were simply too big and the rocks weren’t tall enough. But, he hoped for a better angle of attack and an extra split second of reaction time. Plus, their poisonous tails only moved in a flat arc, so they wouldn’t be able to spike them, or so he hoped.
The first dandra-ta crawled out of the hole and Alex knew he had accepted a suicide mission. Aside from being able to breathe fire, it looked like a slightly smaller version of the dragon slain in legend by Saint George.
This was no legend, and Alex didn’t have a lance.
The curved back of the beast meant that its head was near the ground, where a serpent’s tongue flicked left and right. Its eyes were that of an alligator, cold and devoid of anything except murder. And the tail. The tail that dealt death with every poison-tipped spike swished back and forth menacingly.
As Alex tried to form a plan to kill such an impossible creature, another crawled up out of the hole and stood hissing beside it.
Standing proudly atop the tallest boulder in the field, Senta-eh drew her bowstring back to her ear and aimed. At this range, she couldn’t miss, and she didn’t. The arrow flew straight and true, hitting the dandra-ta exactly where she had aimed, where the creature’s ugly head met its sloping shoulder. It did nothing. It bounced away as though she had shot it into a rock wall.
In quick succession, she fired three more arrows, not waiting for the first to hit before drawing and firing the next. She moved her aim up and down the thing’s body, looking for any vulnerable spot. If there was a vulnerability, her arrows did not find it. They all bounced as harmlessly away as the first.
Monda-ak could not hold himself back any more. He launched himself forward in a frontal attack designed to bowl the dandra-ta over onto its back so he could tear its throat out. The gigantic dog never got the chance to attempt to break through the leathery skin. He hit and bounced away with a yelp and lay dazed and helpless on the ground.
Alex spied Werda-ak atop another boulder, frozen in place.
“Here!” Alex shouted, wanting the heavy spear the boy carried. In the panic of the moment, Werda-ak instead threw one of the lighted torches. Alex plucked it out of mid-air and waved it down at the biggest of the monsters. In his mind, he was counting on the primal fear that so many animals have of fire. The dandra-ta did not share that fear. It hissed and flicked the air with its tongue. It put first one foot then the other on the boulder Alex stood on. It had stubby front legs, but its back legs were thick and powerful. It bunched its muscles and leaped straight for Alex’s face.
Instinctively Alex bent backward, like Keanu Reeves doing bullet time. But this was not a movie and there were no special effects to help him. He tumbled backwa
rd off the boulder and the dandra-ta, which looked even more like a dragon in mid-jump, soared after him. As Alex fell, he saw that the beast had exposed its yellow underbelly. He hit the ground with a bone-shuddering thud, but managed to point the sharp end of the torch upward.
The dandra-ta landed on top of him, crushing the breath and nearly the life out of him. Alex struggled to roll away from the thing when he noticed it was not moving. The burning stake had jammed into its soft underbelly and pierced its heart. He crawled from underneath the weight of the body and shouted, “It doesn’t have armor underneath. That’s how we can kill it.”
“Great!” Senta-eh said. “You tell it to roll over and I’ll shoot it!”
Alex liked a woman who could make jokes even in the face of mortal danger.
The second dandra-ta was smaller, but only by comparison to the first. It had its eyes set on Werda-ak who manned the top of his boulder. He held the spear thrust outward, but it was wavering.
This dandra-ta didn’t seem as strong as the other, either. Where the first one literally leaped up and over the boulder Alex had stood on, this one resorted to climbing. Werda-ak retreated, stabbing at it with the tip of the spear.
The dandra-ta dropped back to the ground, then turned away. It didn’t leave Werda-ak alone, though. Instead, it used its powerful hind legs to climb up the rock backwards, slashing its tail from side to side. Werda-ak jumped each time the tail jabbed at him, like a child jumping rope, but with deadly consequences for missing.
Alex saw that this put the creature in a more vulnerable position and rushed at it, only to realize that Monda-ak was doing the same from the opposite direction. They hit it behind its hind legs simultaneously—Alex with his shoulder, Monda-ak head-first—and the thing screamed as it flipped over on its back.
Before its back even hit the ground, Senta-eh again fired a barrage of arrows. They all sank home. Alex held his hand out to Werda-ak and this time he got the message and tossed him the spear. Alex leapt high onto the wounded beast’s belly and drove the spear down deep inside it.
He was bucked off instantly, as the thing thrashed and screamed its death throes. Alex scrambled to his feet and shouted, “Monda-ak, back!” The dog had been preparing to leap onto the belly of the beast, but Alex could see that was not necessary. The screaming went on for another minute, but slowly died away and there was quiet in the rocky field.
Senta-eh and Werda-ak hopped down from their boulders, unable to believe the end had happened so suddenly.
Alex, who had survived more conflicts than he could count, had seen it before. The silence that devours you.
“Anyone hurt?”
Both Senta-eh and Werda-ak held their arms out in front of them, rotating them, looking for injuries. There were none.
“Monda-ak, hut!” The dog hurried to Alex’s side, tail wagging. Alex ran his hands over the dog’s body, looking for injuries there.
“I can’t believe it. We killed these things without a scratch on us. Toss me a torch so I can retrieve their ceremonial spear.” Alex grabbed the torch and jumped down into the hole once again. He reached for the spear and his heart skipped a beat. Sitting in the middle, half-buried, was an egg.
“Werda-ak! Lean down here.”
The boy dropped down onto his belly and said, “What?”
Alex pointed at the egg.
“What are we supposed to do with that?”
“It’s not part of our deal. We promised to kill the two danta-tas. We’ve done that. But, we can’t leave this out here to hatch, or they’ll be right back to where they were in a few months. Lean down and I’ll hand it up to you.”
Alex dug the egg out of the dirt and the boy extended his arms down as far as he could. It was bigger than an ostrich egg and heavy. Alex lifted it up to the boy, then, tossed the spear up onto the grass. He grabbed hold of some roots sticking out of the dirt and scrambled out of the hole.
They gathered their weapons and headed back toward the village, Werda-ak in the lead, still carrying the egg. Senta-eh walked behind him, holding a torch. After a few steps, she said, “Werda-ak, did you injure yourself jumping down from the rock?”
The boy turned to her and said, “Me? No. Or, at least I don’t think so. Why?”
“There’s blood running down the back of your leg.”
Werda-ak twisted around to examine himself and saw that there was a gash on his leg below the knee.
“Huh. Don’t worry about it for now. I don’t even feel it. We’ll look at it when we get back to the village.”
Werda-ak took three more steps and fell face first to the ground, unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Race Against Time
As Werda-ak fell, the egg flew from his hands. It smashed against a rock in front of him and green and gray goop oozed from it.
Alex and Senta-eh rushed to the boy. Alex lifted his head up and pulled his eyelid back. His eye was rolled back in his head.
“Hold the torch over his leg.”
Senta-eh moved her torch and illuminated Werda-ak’s left leg below the knee. There was a long scratch there, and an angry red blotch was beginning to spread.
“Damnit! That thing got him. We’ve got to get him back to the village and see if there’s anything they can do.”
As he watched, the poisonous scratch began to swell up.
“If we don’t do something, he’ll already be dead by the time we get there.” Alex took his knife out of its sheath and held it against the flame of the torch for long moments. When he thought it was sterilized, he took two deep, cleansing breaths and placed the sharp edge of the knife against the wound. He made two quick incisions, making an “X” where the swelling was the worst.
Angry-looking pus erupted out of the wound. Werda-ak, who had been unmoving since he had collapsed, awoke with a fury, screaming his pain, then lapsed back into unconsciousness.
Alex put his fingers on either side of the oozing wound and pressed them together, like popping a pimple. More pus leaked out.
“I hope that’s enough to give him a chance,” Alex said. As gently as he could, he picked the boy up and laid him across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
Senta-eh put her arm on Alex’s shoulder. “Perhaps I should carry him. I am the strongest of us.”
“I won’t argue with that, but we’ve probably got three miles to get back to the village and neither of us is strong enough to do that on our own. Not with any speed, anyway. We’ll take shifts.”
Senta-eh led the way, illuminating the path back to the village with the torch. She watched Alex over her shoulder and adjusted her own pace to what Alex was able to do while carrying Werda-ak. After a few hundred yards, Alex was flagging. Senta-eh stopped, lifted the boy off his shoulders and onto hers, handing Alex the torch.
They did this relay all the way back to the village. Alex noticed that Senta-eh was able to keep up her steady pace while carrying the load for much longer than he could. If Senta-eh noticed the same thing, she did not say anything.
When they reached the outskirts of the town, a group of villagers was waiting for them.
Alex recognized Jabril-ak among them. “Hurry! Run and get your medicine woman. Werda-ak was spiked by the dandra-ta. Have her gather whatever cures she’s got!” Alex stumbled under the weight of the boy. Senta-eh reached to take him, but the villagers stepped forward and said, “Let us. We will carry him.”
So exhausted they could barely put one foot in front of the other, Alex and Senta-eh trailed behind as the villagers sprinted ahead with Werda-ak.
They followed them to the dining area and as they stumbled in, they saw that Werda-ak was already laid out on a clean cloth on a table. A crowd was around him, but standing back a distance. A young girl, no more than a teenager herself, examined the wound. “Who cut the wound open?” she asked.
“I did,” Alex answered.
“Good. You’ve given him a chance.”
In the better light of the dining room,
Alex could see that the leg had swollen up again and that the red blotchiness had spread. It had moved above his knee now and was spreading up his thigh.
With gentle hands, the young girl opened the lips of the wound and sprinkled a dark green powder inside it. She took more of the powder and wet it into a paste, then applied it to a bandage that she wrapped over the wound.
“I’ve never had a reason to actually use this, so I don’t know how effective it will be. It’s made to draw the poison out. If it works, the swelling will go down in the next twenty-four hours. If it doesn’t, we’ll need to amputate the leg or he will die.”
Alex tried to envision Werda-ak, who had always been a natural athlete, hobbled and unable to jump again. He couldn’t envision it.
“Do whatever it takes,” Alex said. “He’s so young. He needs to live.”
“I’ll stay here and clean the wound and change out the poultices every few hours. You should go and sleep. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
Alex glanced at Senta-eh, who nodded agreement with his unspoken sentiment. “We’ll stay here with him if we’re not in the way. If he wakes up, I don’t want him to be afraid.”
The young girl nodded. “I am Frina-eh. You are welcome to sit with me here.” She laid a hand on Werda-ak’s face. “He is feverish. The poison is trying to kill him.”
“He is young and strong,” Alex answered. It was as much a prayer as a statement. He glanced at the young girl bent over his friend. “And so are you. How did you become a medicine woman so young?”
“My grandmother was our healer. My mother gave me to her to train when I was born. I’ve been making cures and wrapping bandages since I could walk.” She seemed to realize that didn’t answer his question completely. “My grandmother died recently. My training was not complete, but I am the best we have, so it is my responsibility.”
Alex watched her sure, confident, movements and judged that her training was fine. “We have faith in you. Thank you for caring for him. He is our friend.”