by Louise Wise
There was a flicker of movement on the valley top as a honnard shot his arrow into the gulley as instructed to non-fatally injure a Jelvia they could capture, but it missed its target and more worryingly the gulley was filling with Jelvias and not one noticed the arrow. Then another native shot his arrow, which felled a man below.
As another took aim, Jenny ran to her ready-made fire and took a burning twig and began to light the net strands. With her heart in her mouth, she watched as flames ate the strands. When the line of fires disappeared over the lip of the valley, she ducked into a crevice and placed her hands over her ears.
There was a loud howl, which was cut off as a flash and an explosion lit the darkening sky. It was followed by another. The night erupted into one explosion after another. The sky was aflame.
And then there was quiet. A strange split-second moment of utter calm and then the ground grumbled and shook, and the noise was thunderous. Jenny took her hands off her ears. Landslide! The plan hadn’t gone completely in the right direction; they didn’t have their hostage but she was still alive and the Jelvias were about to be buried in their valley.
She started as someone slipped into the ditch beside her, but it was a honnard. He was followed by Bo. They were both chuffing in quick succession. Bo tipped his face skyward, pursed his mouth and howled. Jen almost joined him in his howl of victory. One by one, there was an answering howl, and Jenny felt a sudden rush of kinship.
She scrambled out of the ditch, and moved cautiously forward. The ground she had been standing on to overlook the vale was gone. It had plunged into the valley under a swell of rising dust. She felt a tremor and heard a sharp crack as more of it caved in. Swirling dust smarted her eyes, and she feared she’d topple into the gulf below. There was a howl behind her, and then hairy bodies pushed past her and went slipping and sliding into the valley, roaring and howling in a tone she could only describe as a war-cry. Her tight control on the honnards had been lost, and she hadn’t allowed for not being able to see once the eruptions had passed.
‘Jenny!’
She looked up in shock. Through the haze of the mushrooming cloud and fluttering ash was the tall figure of Fly, his long black hair billowing in the wind.
They stared at one another.
Then she was running, as he was, jumping over rocks, scrambling over boulders until they collided in a tangle of arms, legs and lips.
‘My God, I thought you were…’
‘Thought I’d never see you again…’
‘What happened to you…’
‘Are you hurt?’
The spoke in between kissing one another. Their hands tracing one another’s body; checking for injuries.
She felt Fly stiffen, and looked around. It was Zack. He was eyeing them curiously until he said, ‘Ji-ji.’
‘Bargi,’ said Fly.
Then the honnard continued forward and became lost in the dense smog that swirled from the valley.
Fly looked back at Jenny. ‘I don’t understand. That was the leader. How come he’s here? They don’t like to venture far from their settlement. How’d you escape the valley?’
‘One question at a time! I call that native Zack, after my father. I need to tell you so much!’
‘Obviously.’ He held her away briefly, before cuddling her again. Against her hair he asked, ‘How’d you get away from the Jelvias?’
‘I didn’t. I was never a prisoner. The Jelvias came to the settlement and took a few honnards as prisoners. You were right; the honnards did look after me. They hid me well.’
‘How did you—never mind. We need to get out of here. The whole place is about to collapse,’ he said as the ground shook and grumbled. He grabbed her hand and began to tug her along the chasm edge. ‘The buggy’s at the base of the hill.’
‘Good. The sooner we get back to the honnards’ camp the better.’
‘It was destroyed,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘They have a lot of clearing up to do—if they stay there, that is—’ he stopped and looked back as she became still. Dust and ash floated down like grey snowflakes and settled in his hair, and landed on his shoulders.
Jenny stared up at him in horror. ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Something cold was smothering her heart. ‘They cleared it up before we left.’
‘Nearly all the honnards were massacred. The settlement is ruined.’
‘They came back?’ She grabbed his upper arms. ‘The Jelvias came back?’
‘Jenny.’ He tried to pull her into his arms, but she whirled away. ‘How many is “nearly all massacred”?’
‘A lot.’
Jenny felt bile rise in her throat. She raised her hands and grasped the top of her head; bunching up her hair in her fists and let out a scream as Fly looked on distraught. ‘No! No, she can’t be dead. I left her safe in the cave with Melinda.’ She turned one way, and then the other, unsure of what to do. ‘Melinda gave birth more or less the same time as me,’ she said. ‘I left Diana with her. ’
They stared at one another as understanding began to flicker on Fly’s face. He reached out towards her as a wall of fire leapt from nowhere, a flash, and then she was tumbling.
Down. Over and over.
Pain exploded in her shoulder as she hit the ground. She couldn’t hear anything but the roar of fire. She lay dazed, wondering if she was alive and then, when she realised she was, she wondered if she wanted to be.
One moment she was in Fly’s arms, the next being told her baby was dead and then the ground had disappeared and she was falling through the ash-filled sky. Shrubbery growing from the side of the cliff had broken her fall, but she’d struck the ground hard, her hands and knees taking the brunt.
She rolled over, wincing, and cradling her injured wrist tried to stand. Every part of her throbbed, and a sharp pain stabbed at her knee. It was difficult to see. The ash cloud had blotted out the moons; shrubs and trees were balls of fire and smoke made her eyes smart. She held up her injured wrist to her nose and mouth to prevent some of the inhalation, the other hand was on her sword. She looked up. Nothing. Just swirling ash and blackness.
There was frantic shouting from somewhere. The voice was Jelvian, but it wasn’t Fly. She heard a howl, and then a chuff-chuff, which sounded panicked. Animals were bleating or mooing and fires were crackling. But among the sounds, she heard a baby crying.
She moved forwards instinctively. She made out a shape of someone standing beside a rock face. It was honnard shaped.
‘Fari,’ the shape said. It was Bo.
Her eyes smarting, she saw that he was standing at a cave entrance, and the crying was coming from within.
Bo fixed her with one of his strange grins, but Jenny was too anxious to return it.
‘Fari,’ he said again.
Then Jenny was inside the cave, feeling her way forward, guided only by the sound of the baby’s cries. She glanced over her shoulder. The silhouette of Bo was still there, but he wasn’t following her.
She didn’t think the night could get darker, but as she followed the curve of the cave wall the darkness seemed to have form. It closed around her. The crying baby was louder inside. It sounded furious. There was no doubt in her mind that it was Diana.
The wails tore at her primal instinct. ‘Ssh,’ she soothed, as she edged forward, feeling her way along the dry wall. The opening behind her was gone.
‘Ssh, honey,’ she said. ‘Mummy’s here.’ As she neared, the baby must have heard or smelled Jenny’s reacting breasts for her crying quietened to little sobs.
Afraid of standing on the baby, Jenny dropped to the ground, and ignoring the pain in her knees and wrist began feeling around on the floor where the crying came from. Her hand knocked something smooth. Wooden. She moved her hands up over the box, and touched Diana’s soft warm body.
The baby gave an impatient cry. Jenny could feel movement as the child kicked and thumped her limbs. The box was lined with hay and topped with furs. She felt relieved that she’d been kept safe, but obviously t
he Jelvias hadn’t thought on how to feed her. She felt the baby’s body, then scooped her up with one hand, while freeing a breast with the other. Her breasts were engorged and painful, but the baby latched on immediately. The gush of milk took its breath away at first and the child cried in frustration, but she soon settled. As did Jenny. Her emotions had hit a hard wall. She drank in the smell of her baby, rubbing her cheek against her soft head and sobbed as the baby drank her fill.
The outside noise was muffled in the cave, the cavern rumbled and dust fell from the roof. Jenny wanted to go and help Fly; tell him she was all right and that she had Diana. But she couldn’t move. Her muscles were taut. And pain from the fall was beginning to make her limbs stiffen. The baby had worn herself out from crying, and had fallen asleep on the breast. She gave a little shudder every now and then that told Jenny she’d been crying for a long time.
‘I’m sorry. I’ll never leave you again. Never!’
Jenny’s eyes were becoming used to the dark, and she could see the slight outline of the cave walls. She looked down at the baby. She wanted to see her properly, and check her over for injuries. All she could do was feel her with her hands. The child was soaking wet and she felt cold. Jenny pulled off the wet clothes and used the fur from her cradle to dry her.
Her harness backpack was beside the makeshift camp the natives had made; far away at the top of the valley. She took off her fur poncho and wrapped Diana inside. The baby was waking at all the fussing, and Jenny put her against the breast again, cuddling and rocking her as she fed. Then she lay down with her and let unconsciousness slip over her.
She lay blinking wondering what had woken her. Then she heard the little snuffles from Diana. She was still clutched in her arms, lying against her chest. She was lifting her head, searching for food. Jenny pulled herself to a sitting position, and allowed the baby a nipple. The child made noises of satisfaction as she latched on. Jenny leant back against the wall, cradling her child, and closed her eyes. She still felt tired. Her back and shoulders throbbed along with her knees and wrist, and a gnawing hunger growled in her stomach. She was thirsty too. She waited until the baby was finished, then wrapped her tightly.
A rumble and dust falling from the cave roof told her she couldn’t stay here any longer. Either the Jelvias would come or the roof would cave in. She had to find Fly. She wondered how long she’d been asleep.
The cave wasn’t as dark as before. Either her eyes had become used to the gloom, or daylight was seeping in from somewhere.
Jenny, with one hand on the wall and the other holding Diana, edged towards the exit. She expected the dark to lift as the wall curved round but the black remained. She thought she heard movement, and her hand automatically moved from the wall to her sword. But it was dust and other debris falling from the ceiling; some fell on the baby and she started. Jenny pulled the fur up to cover the baby’s head and inched forward again.
She stopped. The entrance of the cave should have been in front of her, except it wasn’t—the mouth of the cave just wasn’t there any more. She stared at the blocked entrance, not comprehending its significance straight away.
Slowly, she walked forward, heading towards a small gap where sunlight, picking up floating ash, filtered in. She’d lain unconscious for the entire night!
Jenny peered through the gap and half expected to see a triumphant Jelvia laughing at her imprisonment. Outside, the idyllic valley was full of cliff debris. The lake had gone; the geyser spurted upward a mixture of water, dust and gravel. The pasture was gone. Cattle lay dead or injured. She could see many Jelvian bodies, and a hairy body of a honnard. She hoped it wasn’t Bo. Despite him being the only one who knew she was here, she wanted him to get home safely. Ahead of her, with a roar of thunder, another rock face crumbled. Its structure suddenly as fragile as paper.
She jumped back as a trickle of dust and rock fell past the hole she was looking through and blocked off her view. She looked for another hole; there was one higher up. She carefully laid Diana, still wrapped in the fur, on the ground and turned back to the blocked entrance. She climbed up the rock towards the gap she’d seen. It was more like a small tunnel than a gap, although too small for her. Through it, all she could see was rock after rock. As she stared, her view was abruptly cut off by a chunk of falling debris.
She pressed her forehead against cold rock, closing her eyes.
Buried alive.
She and her baby were buried alive.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Fly stood in shock as Jenny, one moment there, the next pulled from his arms in a brief flash of fire to disappear over the edge of the cliff along with the verge she’d been standing on.
He heard someone yelling, and only realised it was his voice when a hand tugged at his arm.
‘What’s happening!’
He wiped a snotty nose on the back of his hand and looked blankly at Molver. ‘Thought I told you to go,’ he said.
‘I know. I did. I mean, I was. I—’
But Fly had already turned from him, and was climbing down into the valley. The lip of the cliff had crumbled and Fly was climbing over boulders on his descent into the gorge. On the ground, fires seemed spasmodic as shrubs and grassland burst into flame around him. He looked around, trying to see through the swirling smoke and ash. Trying to see the small form of Jenny lying somewhere in the rubble, but the surrounding area was empty of anyone. There wasn’t much sound, either, other than the crackling of flames and the odd howl from a honnard.
‘Jenny!’
His voice sounded loud in the eerie silence. He waited. Holding his breath and trying to slow his heart, which seemed too noisy against the quiet. He was knocked flat as something hairy jumped him. It was a honnard with a mouth of sharp teeth and equally sharp claws. There was a brief moment of recognition in its eyes, as Fly twisted around to face it, but then it raised a hand and Fly saw the spearhead clutched in its fist. He killed it with a single spit of venom, and pushed it off. Standing, he looked up and met the yellow eyes of Bo. The primitive man curled back his lip and raised his spear.
‘No!’ Fly shouted, raising a hand. He kicked the hand of the dead honnard so the bladed spearhead fell out. ‘He was going to kill me first,’ he said. He tried to remember some of their language but couldn’t think straight.
Something hard smacked him across the shoulders and he fell to his knees. Another blow knocked him sideways. On his back, silhouetted against the weak moonlight, Fly could see a smirking Jelvia standing over him. His hair was coloured with ash. He held some sort of homemade tool in his hands, which he raised over his head.
A spear pierced the Jelvia between the eyes, Fly rolled just as the man began to topple towards him.
‘Chuff-Ji-ji,’ Bo said. He walked over to the dead Jelvia and with one hairy foot on the man’s body, he pulled out his spear. Then, he turned and began to disappear into the murkiness of the swirling ash.
‘Wait!’ Fly yelled, scrambling up. ‘Where’s Jenny? Chi-Chi?’
Bo stopped and looked over his shoulder. ‘Fari,’ he said.
Fly frowned. ‘Baby?’
But Bo turned away and seemed to dissipate into the ash cloud.
Fly began to run after him. A loud scream caused him to turn, and Molver came crashing down into the valley. He hit a rock ledge with a loud thud, it broke under his weight, and he tumbled down, grabbing at tree or shrub roots sticking out of the rock face. He landed upside down in a smoking tree. His nicely made clothes had caught on a branch, held, and prevented him from smacking the ground and probable death.
Fly looked to where Bo had vanished, then back at the squealing Molver. He dashed over to the boy and yanked him down. Without checking to see if he was injured, Fly turned and ran after Bo. A noise, which sounded like thunder behind him, made him turn to witness the walls of the gulley, which fed into the valley, collapse. Rock rolled and broke, new dust clouds formed, and the ground shuddered.
‘Run!’ yelled Fly.
Molver ran.
Behind them, the landscape changed; Fly turned to see as part of the cliff fell into the valley. He saw Jelvias, some shackled, become buried. He saw a group of honnards fleeing up the cliff wall. Those at the top were stretching down to help other honnards.
A couple of Jelvias had also seen the only escape route and were heading towards it. A well-aimed arrow stopped them instantly.
‘We can’t get out!’ said Molver.
‘Jenny!’ Fly roared. He turned a full circle. ‘Jenny!’
The dust cloud ballooned upward, sparing them its suffocating effects.
‘There! We can get out there!’ The boy pointed to a tumble of rocks, but his finger wavered when the rocks seemed to implode and disappear into the ground.
‘Chuff huff-chuff, bargi! Ji-ji!’
Fly’s head whipped round at his ‘name’. Bo was running towards him, jabbing his spear behind at the climbing honnards. Molver squealed and turned to run away. Fly ignored him and broke into a run towards Bo, hopeful of news for Jenny, but the honnard was including him to use the escape route.
‘Chi-Chi,’ Fly said. ‘Where’s Chi-Chi?’
Bo replied in a babble of words. He shook his spear at the clifftop again. Most of the honnards were at the top.
The ground shook.
‘We need to get out of here!’ Molver yelled. He’d stopped running when Fly hadn’t followed him. His black hair was white with ash. ‘The prim is helping us, Fly! Helping! Let’s go!’ Molver tugged at his arm, but Fly pushed him away and ran in another direction.
‘Jenny!’
‘Ji-ji, chuff, fari, Chi-Chi,’ Bo said. Fly looked round. Bo shook his spear at a large landslide. The area was spiralling dust, rock and devastation.
‘Fari, Chi-Chi,’ Bo said. He jabbed the spear at the demolished cave again.