She pretended to yawn. “Then I guess we’d better be going. There are demons after us.” She made a cartoon gesture of fright when she said “demons”.
He turned his back to her and yelled in frustration. “Ahhhhh!” Then he picked up a rock by his shoe and threw it as hard as he could.
“Well, now that you’re turned around, stay that way until I say you can look.”
He didn’t look when he felt her feeling around in the duffel. She withdrew one of the rolls of emergency toilet paper, tore off a few sheets and replaced the roll.
Brave stared straight ahead and said nothing else but she saw that his neck disappeared as his shoulders rose in aggravation. Of course he was irritated that she wasn’t buying it wholesale like she had the last time. But what did he expect? Really. Even the least evolved organisms learn from experience.
Lana righted her clothes and stepped out from behind a stand of underbrush that served as a partial screen. She buried the toilet paper by digging a shallow hole in the loose dirt with a rock.
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “Ready for Sulphur World.”
Brave turned and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You know it’s not going to smell any better.”
She extended her arms and held them out to her sides. “Proof that I will survive.”
He stared for a few seconds, shook his head and started forward. “Step where I step. No fancy footwork or rebel variance. Just try to be smart.”
“I heard that.”
“Good.”
“No. It’s not good, Brave. What do you mean, “Just try to be smart. For once.”
“I didn’t say ‘for once’.”
“You did. I heard it clearly. Even if you didn’t say it, it was definitely implied.”
“Implied? Will you listen to yourself? How could such a seemingly nice well-balanced girl with such beautiful gray eyes and such irresistible lips turn into such a raging lunatic? With so little provocation.”
“I AM NOT A RAGING LUNATIC!”
Brave’s mouth twitched. He seriously considered trying to contain his laugh, but finally decided that was pointless. So he laughed out loud. In her face. While she glared and fumed and glared some more.
Without further announcement he turned toward the direction of the noxious smell and began walking with a gait that was deliberate, determined, and somewhat less concerned about whether she was following or not.
She was.
As the smell grew stronger, she realized that a little time and distance had caused her to minimalize the horror of it while inflating her ability to withstand the assault to her olfactory sensibilities.
By the time they reached the pits, she was gritting her teeth and internally chanting ‘I will survive’. At the same time she was wisely staying close to Brave as he carefully picked his way through the cluster, looking for patches of solid ground.
Ninety-three minutes of pure agony later, they reached the far side and began moving away from the smell.
By that time Brave had cooled off. So had Lana.
“You want to stop for a break or get away from the smell?”
“What do you think?” she said, but without bite or sarcasm.
He reached over and shoved a stray tendril of hair behind her ear.
“I’m sorry I made you feel unsafe with me, like you can’t trust me,” he said softly.
He paused as if he was waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he turned and started walking.
As they plodded on, the bare ground near the sulfur pits turned into a grassy meadow and that gave way to a forest of evergreen trees with bright red trunks and branches. About the time Lana realized that the sulfur smell was subdued, probably lingering only on her clothes and in her hair, she began to feel a rising concern, that time because of ears, not nose. The noise that was growing louder with each step sounded suspiciously like rapids.
She’d opened her mouth to say something about that to Brave, but noticed that the forest seemed to end abruptly, giving way to nothing but blue sky. She knew there was no point in voicing her objection. The thing about Brave’s adventures was that they had been designed as the-only-way-out-is-through propositions.
Within fifteen minutes, they were standing on a cliff edge looking down at river rapids. About twenty yards to their left, which was upstream, there was a dilapidated wood bridge with broken slats, so narrow that only one person would fit at a time. The bridge was on an incline because the cliff on the other side was considerably lower.
The good news was that it was only about forty-five feet across.
Lana turned to Brave. “Nice touch. This time it’s wood instead of rope. Creative.”
“Lana…”
“Save it. You know the worst part? Everything in that duffel,” she pointed as if there was more than one, “is going to get wet. That means that some things like toilet paper and energy bars are going to be useless.”
“You have energy bars?” Brave sounded hopeful. “What are you saving them for? I could use some energy. Let’s eat them while we can.”
He took the duffel off his shoulder and started to look inside.
She grabbed it from him. “Give me that.”
She rummaged until she found a zip lock bag with bars inside. It would keep them from getting accidentally opened and making a crumbly mess inside the duffel, but it wasn’t waterproof and wouldn’t save them from rapids.
“Here.” She handed him the plastic bag.
He turned it over. “There are six.” He grinned like it was a Yule gift exchange. “Which ones do you like? How many do you want?”
Truthfully, after ‘surviving’ the sulphur smell, she was far from ravenous.
“Save me one.”
His smile fell. “One? No.” He shook his head. “You need more than that.” He looked across to the other side of the canyon. “I don’t know when we’ll get to eat again.”
“Yeah. I may be crazy hungry later, but I’m not very hungry now. So…”
“You sure?” He looked and sounded concerned. Lana nodded. “Well at least tell me which flavor you want.”
She looked at the bag. “White chocolate.”
He sat down where he was, pulled the bag open and handed her a bar in an orange-colored wrapper. “Sit. Sit. “
“Not a dog, Brave,” she said, as she was sitting.
He chuckled as he shoved an entire Rocky Mocha bar into his mouth.
Ten minutes later Brave was lying down with bent knees and wrappers all around him, looking at the sky like he was drunk on granola.
“Don’t you think we should be going?”
Brave angled his head so that he could look at Lana where she sat, but made no move to get up.
“That sounds like the responsible thing to do. But there’s a part of me that would like to just undress you and make love to you right here on the grass, with a full stomach, and the sound of rushing water.” He grinned as he noticed the flush and fluster rise to her face. “I’d die a happy human.”
With the grace of a panther Brave suddenly rolled to hands and knees and began crawling toward her like she was prey.
Lana jumped to her feet. “Stop it, Brave. This is no time for hanky panky. I’m not going to be intimate with somebody who smells like sulphur. You know how you were saying you wanted to learn how to please me? Well, start with clean-smelling bodies.”
He stood up dusting off his clothes and shaking his head at her. “So you’re saying that you’d rather jump into that water than get naked with me. I think it’s time for one of your monosyllables. Wow.” Brave gave her a look that said, “I don’t believe you,” and then said, “Okay. Here we go.”
Lana had gone about ten feet across the bridge when it gave way, sending her straight down into the water. She took a deep breath and instinctively aligned her body into a tight perfectly vertical line, but her muscles didn’t tense because she expected pleasantly warm buoyant water that was moving fast enough to be enter
taining, but not fast enough to be dangerous.
The shock that went through her system when she hit the cold water was indescribable. It was a few seconds before her brain resumed function and urged her body to propel itself to the surface.
She gave three strong kicks, but the water was rushing fast and carrying her along. When she neared the surface, she couldn’t quite get her head above the churning water. Panic was setting in. She felt a pull just before her face breached the water. Her lungs dragged in air over vocal chords that were making an ugly rasping sound.
Lana grabbed onto Brave as if she could climb him to safely, which pushed his own head under water. Brave fought his way clear and turned Lana away from him so that he could lock her into a lifeguard hold before she drowned them both. That left him holding onto her with one arm and trying to battle the current with the other.
At one point Brave was sure his muscles were going to fail him and give into exhaustion. His first thought was not that he would die. His first thought was that he would not save Lana. And the unacceptability of that thought kept him going beyond expectations of human endurance. He thought about letting go of the duffel, which was filled with water and weighing him down further, but decided it might contain things Lana needed. So he held on.
When their bodies finally came to rest on the rocks in a section of shallows, Brave was in a semi-conscious state, but his arm was firmly locked around Lana. She had to struggle to get free. Once she did, she realized that Brave wasn’t moving. His eyes were open, but glazed as if he was somewhere else.
“Brave.” She shook him. “You’ve made your point. I believe you. Okay? Now come back to me so we can get out of here.”
They were only a few feet from a sandy bank bordered by more of the strange evergreens with red bark. When Brave didn’t respond, she started trying to drag him. His wet clothes made his already heavy body even heavier, but Lana was determined to get him out of the cold water. Her teeth were chattering from being wet and exposed to a breeze, but the exertion helped warm her up.
She found that yelling out loud with each pull seemed to help. She tried it both ways, pulling with a small grunt and pulling with a big yell. Results were definitely better with big yells. She didn’t worry about the sound alerting pursuers as to their whereabouts because her vocalizations just blended into the roar of the nearby rapids.
When Lana got Brave fully out of the water and onto dry sand, she laid him out so that the sun could do its job, warm him up a little, dry his clothes a little. She pulled her own change of clothes out of the duffel, wrung them out and laid them over branches in the hope the breeze would blow them dry – especially the thick hoodie.
Even though she knew he couldn’t hear her, Lana talked to Brave to distract herself from the misery of being cold, wet, and hungry.
“I know you said to eat while I could, but I didn’t take you seriously. Wish I had one of those honey peanut bars you gobbled down. No. Don’t rub it in and tell me how good it was. I don’t want to know.
“On the other hand, I guess you needed the energy. Like you said.
“Ha! It was a prediction.
“Maybe you’re clairvoyant. No. If you were clairvoyant, we would have stayed in Edinburgh in a nice safe warm building where there’s food and water and dry clothes and toilet facilities.”
Lana pictured people in her home world sitting in cars, offices, and on sofas.
“I hate those people! They’re so ungrateful!” She looked at Brave. “People take conditioned air and dry clothes for granted, you know that?”
She pulled the decks of cards from the duffel. “Sorry, Maverick. Looks like your poker parlor went under before it even got started.
“Ha! Went under! Get it? The cards went under? As in under the water? Never mind. It’s probably just as well you didn’t hear that.
“I guess you expect me to say thank you for saving my life.
“I wish I’d told you I wanted half of the energy bars. I also wish I’d said that I wanted to eat half the energy bars, take off your clothes and worship your beautiful body. People take the moment for granted. You know? It never occurred to me that might be my only chance to…”
She heard a rustle, a deep breath, and a very hoarse masculine voice say, “Lana.” He gave no indication that he would be moving from the exact position in which Lana had arranged his body.
She scooted closer and leaned over him. “Brave. You scared me.”
“I did? Because you thought you were never going to find out if I’m as good at fucking as kissing?”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Brave’s face went slack and he looked at her like she’d knifed him. “Oh, God, Brave, I’m sorry. I’m so so so so sorry. I’m an idiot. No I’m a moron. Wait. Which is worse? Whichever is worse, that’s what I am.”
“Lana, it’s okay. The only person I want to kiss with this mouth is you. Why don’t you cover me and get me warm?”
“I don’t have anything to cover you up with. I’m sorry. I know you must be really, really cold…”
When her eyes returned to Brave and she saw his amused expression, she realized that he’d meant for her to use her own body to cover him and make him warm.
“Oh. You mean me.” Brave watched her look of concern become a sly smile. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“You’re a fast learner.”
“We can’t stay out in the open like this. We need to get into the trees. If you’ll give me as much help as possible to move you a little ways, I’ll make you warm as I can.”
He smiled with his eyes closed. “How could I refuse that deal?”
She quickly grabbed the damp clothes, shoved them into the duffel, and stowed the duffel just inside the tree line behind the first wide trunk she came to.
When she tried to help Brave get up by pulling on his hand, he yelled out.
“What’s wrong? You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
“I hit a rock pretty hard. I don’t think anything’s broken, but I could use a nice nap.”
“Lean on me.” She knew Brave wanted to argue with that, but was smart enough not to. They managed to get about twenty feet into the forest. She more or less propped him against a tree. “Wait here for just a minute.”
Lana ran back for the duffel. She dropped it at Brave’s feet and began pulling the wet clothes out.
“What are you doing?”
“I have an idea,” she said.
When the duffel was mostly empty she stretched it out on the ground like a blanket. It wasn’t long enough to accommodate the entire length of his tall figure, but it was long enough to form a barrier between Brave and the bare ground, from head to hip. She’d helped him down and winced herself every time she heard a soft groan.
When he was on the ground, she saw that there was blood on his shirt. She raised it to get a better look. There was a gash. If they’d been close to a clinic, he would have probably gotten a few stitches, but although it would scar, it wouldn’t kill him. Unless it got infected.
Based on her previous experience in Demon World, she estimated that she had another hour of light. She set to work gathering fallen branches that were lightweight, but still had their thick green densely-bunched leaves. She piled them up next to Brave.
“Lana. What are you doing?” She thought he sounded weak.
“Sorting. Just rest.”
“Sorting what?”
“Flora.”
She took the branches that were most recently fallen, the ones that still had soft supple leaves and began stacking them on top of Brave. When the layer was about three branches deep from his neck to his feet, she began laying the damp clothes over that to provide a layer of insulation. The thick hoodie went over his chest and abdomen where the organs needed the most warmth, with everything else arranged like a puzzle to give the most cover.
After stacking the remaining branches on top of the clothes, she went on another gathering mission for more densely covered branches. When she re
turned, Brave was snoring softly and she thought it was the most gratifying sound she’d ever heard. She piled the rest of the branches on top of her makeshift mound then carefully lifted the layers so that she could nestle close to Brave without disturbing the integrity of her structure.
She knew Brave was hurt and was afraid she’d make it worse if she put her weight on top of him. So she settled for snuggling as close as possible.
Darkness fell, but sleep didn’t come for Lana. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to be on guard. As time went on the crude and hastily constructed shelter did retain enough of their combined body heat to allow their muscles to relax. And Brave slept. As he breathed in and out, she kissed his shoulder and said a quick prayer to anyone listening asking for help to get them out of there.
She knew immediately when he woke during the night because his breathing pattern changed.
“Brave. You’re awake? Are you in pain?”
“I’ll be honest. I’ve felt better, but I don’t think it’s anything that a good nap and a demon brew won’t fix.”
“Can you go back to sleep?”
“Not right now. Talk to me?”
“Not sure that’s a good idea. My thoughts are pretty bleak right now and I think maybe you need cheerleading.”
“I just want to hear your voice. Talk about anything.”
“I was lying here thinking that it’s not like in the movies. Nobody’s going to show up in the nick of time to save us. Like the cavalry riding in at the last second.”
“What’s a cavalry?”
“There was an historical period in my, um, world of origin… well, actually in my region of my world of origin, that was known for conflict between the indigenous people and their conquerors. The conquerors had a mounted military unit, mounted on horses that is, and it was called the cavalry. Dramatic reenactments often feature the cavalry riding in at the last possible minute to save people.”
“To save the native people.”
Prince of Demons 1-3, Box Set Page 22