And now even I was starting with the animal comparisons.
Two days after setting out from the Tallsteeps’ camp, we were walking over what used to be part of the Dragon river but had dried up. Sheer stone cliffs towered over either side of us, but the path through them was wide enough for all nine of us to walk side by side if we choose.
Instead of walking with us, the Tallsteeps did what they had done for the whole trip. They preferred to run ahead, scouting the way and reporting back any danger. Once, they had saved us from wandering too close to a hive of winter hornets that were bigger than dogs. We had taken a detour to avoid a useless fight, but I couldn’t help feeling regretful that I wouldn’t get their elementals.
I could tell Tosvig was itching to do some scouting, too, since that was how he always liked to travel. Now, he hung back with Harrien, Nino, Cleavon, and I even though it pained him to go so slowly.
There wasn’t much sign of life around this part of the wilds, especially not where the river had dried up. Only the odd centipede or beetle scurrying over the ground and disappearing into a crack. I was sure I had seen a buzzard perched on a rock on the cliffside, and I wondered what elementals I would get from it and what buffs its flesh would give me. Before I could decide whether to waste an arrow trying to kill it, it disappeared.
At least the snow had let up now. The chill was enough that we never, ever managed to feel warm, but the ground wasn’t covered in white powder anymore. That was a relief. Walking in snow sapped my energy like hell, and I wouldn’t miss it.
Even now, I still didn’t know how long we had left to walk before reaching the Mine of Light. I hoped it wasn’t far. At least I wasn’t the only one in the dark about it, though. Few of us even had a clue where we were going.
After our initial introductions as a group, Nino, Chief Fergus, and Kostig had told everyone else to leave the tent, and they had pieced both halves of the map together.
Nino was not allowed to share the information with anyone else unless something drastic happened, and neither were Fergus or Kostig. This was sworn on over the oathstone. Nino had told us this much after rejoining us, that there was a further oath but he couldn’t say any more than that.
This made it tricky to get to the Mines of Light. The only way to do it without breaking the oath was for Nino or Kostig to give us the directions one piece at a time, rather than showing us the map in its entirety.
Since we were heading into a part of the wilds that I hadn’t seen yet, I didn’t like relying so much on these guys, not even Nino. So, as we walked, I took a good look around me. In every new location, I focused on two or three natural landmarks and I stared at them until they were firmly fixed in my head.
Every time we rested, I imagined I was sprinting through this mental route, and every time I did that it made the image stronger. At least I would be able to work out how to get back if I needed to.
“Are you not the least bit curious to speak to your brother?” I asked Tosvig as we walked over the dry riverbed. At least the cliffs either side of us were blocking the wind.
“Brother? I have no brother.”
“You do, Tosvig. His name is Kostig, he looks like you but younger. He’s standing right over there, maybe a hundred yards away.”
“Na. Raindrops fall from the same cloud but can land miles apart after cloud drifts. Kostig grew up with his clan. See his hands? Kostig knows mother, father. Maybe other siblings. I know the Lonehills, and nobody else. Kostig is not a brother.”
“When you put it like that, I understand.”
“Ged. I would rather talk with you than Kostig, Isaac. Interesting thoughts.”
“Well, here’s one. The whole secrecy thing is stupid, if you ask me,” I told him. “I understand that the mine’s location must be kept secret. But anything could happen. What if Nino died?”
“Nino is stronger than he looks,” said Tosvig.
Just then, something flew down from the cliff to our left. It was a stone boulder, one so giant that it was taller than me and twice as wide.
“Watch out!” cried Tosvig.
Harrien dove out of the way, while I tried to get to Nino…
Too late.
It flew down, smashing into Nino, cutting off the millisecond of a shout he managed to get out.
Splat!
There was a sickening crunching of bones, and Nino’s blood hit me in the face. I could feel it stinging my eyeballs, and I could taste it in my mouth.
Nino was lying on the ground now, with his right leg completely crushed by a giant stone boulder. He was unconscious, and I guessed that the pain had sent him into shock.
Harrien shouted, and he backed away and tripped over a rock, falling on his ass. Cleavon picked him up and pushed him toward the cliff to our right.
The Tallsteep scouts came running back to us. Tosvig drew his sword and pointed it way above us, at the cliffs.
“A komonaut!”
Komonaut? What?
At first, I couldn’t see what he was talking about. I only saw the cliffside, a giant block of grey-black stone that rose fifty feet above us.
It was when a part of the cliff began moving, that I understood.
Way above us, on a ledge that jutted out from the cliff, there was a lizard. Not just a lizard, though; this looked more like a dragon, with its giant head and the horns that came off it, with its flaring nostrils and scales that looked like they’d deflect a harpoon. Its skin was the same color as the cliff, so that it was hard to see when it was completely still.
This thing was big enough to hurl boulders like they were pebbles. Its claws looked like they could carve through my spine like a knife through a hellkitten. I could hardly believe the cliff ledge was even capable of supporting it.
At least we had one thing going for us. This dragon, lizard, komonaut, or whatever the hell it was, didn’t have wings.
Even so, I guessed there was one thing every guy who faces a dragon for the first time must ask himself; does this thing breath fire?
As if in answer, the komonaut bit a chunk of stone from the cliff, moved it around in its mouth for a while, and then spat it out as one giant stone projectile.
It put enough force behind it that Harrien only just got out of the way before the boulder smashed into the ground.
I ran to my left, out of the komonaut’s eye line. “Don’t stand there,” I told them all. “Move, move, move.”
Okay…a wingless dragon that could spit rocks with insane speed and power. Time to update my list of ‘crazy shit I have seen since awakening in hell.’
Cleavon picked Harrien up once more.
“Come, Harrien, move.”
Harrien looked all around him, eyes wide. “Wha?” was all he managed to say. He looked like he was going into shock.
“Damn boy.” The healer took something from his bag, some kind of herb, and shoved it in Harrien’s mouth and clamped his hand over his lips when he tried to spit it out. Soon, Harrien seemed to regain control over himself.
The Tallsteep scouts reached us now. “What is happening? Blood? What occurred here? Did the cliff crumble?”
Tosvig pointed. “Na. Komonaut. See the bastard up there?”
Kostig followed the direction he indicated. “Ah. Komonaut. Bastard, eh? I like that name. We need cover.”
I pointed at the cliff the komonaut was standing on. “He is on the ledge. So, we stand directly under. Can’t attack.”
“Ged. Come on!”
We all fled across to the cliffside. Above us, the komonaut bit another chunk from the cliff and did his strange chewing thing, which would most likely result in him spitting another rock the size of a monster truck wheel at us.
That is, if I had judged this situation properly.
As we ran, I heard a grunt behind me. Tosvig was on the floor, clutching his ankle, and I saw that the tip of his foot was stuck in a crack in the dry riverbed.
Above, the dragon focused on him with its great, black eyes.
I was about to run toward Tosvig, when someone pushed me away and rushed past me.
It was Kostig. He reached Tosvig, helped him free his ankle, and then lifted him. The two of them just made it to the cliffside when a boulder smashed into the ground where they had just been.
Tosvig pushed Kostig away now and sank to the ground. He didn’t even need to say a word before Cleavon was there, attending to his ankle.
We pressed back against the stone. Above us was the rock platform the komonaut was on. It was reassuring to see that he couldn’t hit us with his giant boulders from where we were.
While we stood there, I felt my pulse beating like a crazy drummer and adrenaline sloshed through my veins. I stared at Nino, pinned in place with the boulder crushing his leg.
It happened so fast that I could hardly even comprehend it. But I put my finger to my forehead and when I pulled it away it was sticky and red, and I knew my brain could trick me in lots of ways, but it couldn’t cover me in blood.
It had happened. Nino was walking near me one second, and he was flattened the next.
What now? Nino was still alive, I think, but he’d be losing blood. I couldn’t see the wound since the rock was covering it, but his bones were probably smashed. Whatever happened, his journey to the mines was done. I just needed to make sure he didn’t die here.
That komonaut bastard.
As my adrenaline left me, I could think a little clearer now. That really wasn’t a good thing, because it was just as my thoughts became as clear as ice, that I realized something; we were screwed.
Standing under the ledge was the only way to protect ourselves from stone projectiles, but it also meant we were trapped.
To test the accuracy of my thought, I picked a rock from the ground.
“Isaac, what are you doing?” said Cleavon.
I held up a finger. “One moment.”
I aimed twenty feet ahead and tossed the rock.
No sooner did it hit the ground, than another rock blasted from above, this the size and weight of a cannonball. It hit the ground with enough force to wedge itself firmly into it.
“Interesting,” I said.
So, the komonaut was spitting smaller chunks of rock now. It was still doing it fast and with enough power to smash our heads into skull fragments with a direct hit, but it meant something. It gave me something to work with. Maybe.
First, what did this signify?
Either it was spitting smaller chunks because it was losing whatever power allowed it to do something so crazy, or, it was changing tactics.
Maybe it had originally shot a couple of boulders at us because it wanted to kill as many of us as once while we were still unaware of its presence up on the cliff. Now, it was switching to smaller projectiles that gave it more speed and accuracy.
Yup, we were pinned down by a rock-spitting dragon who was currently the owner of a ledge that gave him a view of our only escape, and who has an almost unlimited supply of projectiles to use. I say almost, but the word is redundant. We’d be long dead by the time this bozo ran out of cliff stone.
Unless…
A diversion?
I picked up another stone and threw it, but the komonaut didn’t shoot a rock at it this time.
Damn it. It was capable of learning, then. This meant its decision to spit smaller rocks probably was a change in tactic and nothing to do with it losing power. Guess I was an eternal optimist for even thinking that.
How could I get to Nino, move a giant boulder, and drag him to safety without the komonaut flattening me?
Everyone else seemed to be struggling for an answer, too. It was stupid, though. Looking at them, I couldn’t believe how far grudges extended.
Even now, the four Tallsteeps were grouped together on one side of the wall, and me, Tosvig, Harrien, and Cleavon were on the other. Our collective lives were threatened by a pissed overgrown lizard, and there was still tension between the clans.
“Ideas?” said one of the Tallsteeps. “Can we kill it?”
She was the only female member of the expedition. I had learned that this was because there were plenty of high-ranking female warriors back in camp, but that was where Fergus wanted them to stay. Kostig aside, he hadn’t wanted his best people to go on this journey.
Her skin was mint-green - almost a shade of blue actually – and she had purposefully shaved her hair short so that her enemies had nothing to grab in a close-combat situation.
“Can’t get to komonaut,” said Kostig. “If we run, he’ll splat us. If we try and climb to him, same thing.”
“Or one of us sacrifices themselves,” I said.
Kostig looked at me as if I was a rat who’d just learned to talk and had now scurried up to him to give him hunting advice.
“Sacrifice?”
“He can only shoot one rock at once. Someone volunteers to run out. They take a chance. While komonaut spits at them, the rest of us run in another direction.”
“And would you volunteer, human no-color?”
“Hell no.”
“Na. And why would anyone else?” said Kostig. He looked at Cleavon now. “Is he crazy?”
Cleavon shrugged.
Harrien spoke up for me. “Isaac just considers solutions,” he said. “Sometimes they are completely stupid. But at least he considers.”
“Thankie, Harrien,” I said, both happy and wounded at what I figured to be a barbed compliment. “A question; do komonauts sleep?”
“Yap, but they sleep for a long time. Weeks. Sometimes all winter. For a komonaut to be awake, it must have already finished its sleep.”
“So, we can’t just wait it out. Damn. I was hoping Cleavon would have things to keep us awake while we waited for it to sleep. Okay, so what else? Motivations?”
“Huh?”
Cleavon arched an eyebrow at me, before addressing Kostig. “What Isaac means is, why is komonaut trying to smash our heads to pieces.”
“To kill us.”
“But why?”
“Because in wilds, you kill or be killed.”
“Yap,” said Tosvig. “You are mouse or eagle. No other choice.”
“Do komonauts eat ones like us?” asked Cleavon.
“Na; They eat only plants.”
“Okai. So, if an animal does not kill for sustenance, then why?”
“It senses danger?” said Tosvig. “This is why when we see bear, we keep safe distance so they understand we are no danger to them.”
“That doesn’t fit,” I said. “The komonaut saw us way before we saw him. He could have just watched us pass. He didn’t feel danger. And that means…”
“He kills for fun.”
“My sword must meet this bastard’s head,” said Tosvig.
“It is getting dark,” said a Tallsteep scout named Judah.
Judah was an older member of the group, maybe middle-aged. Honestly, it was hard to tell how old some of these guys were.
I judged Judah’s age by his wrinkled forehead and the scars on his knuckles, hands, and arms. The way I figured, a fighter-scout with lots of scars meant one of two things; he was incredibly poor at his job, or he’d been in plenty of battles and had lots of experience.
Judah didn’t say much, but I had noticed before now that he was exceptionally perceptive. So far in our journey, everything he had said had been worth listening to.
He also had a curious side to him. Throughout our short journey, I’d often caught Judah staring into the distance, and sometimes he’d leave our path and go investigate a hole in the ground or a strange patch of herbs. “
A man cannot learn everything about the world,” I had heard him tell Harrien. “But he can gather as much knowledge as possible. Before I die, I want to know all I can about this world we live in. Every field, every tree, every mountain.”
“Yap, getting dark,” Judah continued now. “A night like tonight, with no fire? We don’t die, but some maybe get sick or weak. Those who don’t, are still too cold to move in morning,
which means even less chance to escape.”
“We need a solution before it gets dark,” said Kostig.
I tried to think of something. Throwing rocks wouldn’t work, because the komonaut was wise to it. We could maybe wait until darkness and hope…
Yeah, that was it.
“Easy,” I said. “Just wait until it is dark. Stick to cliff sides and walk slowly. Sneak away. He won’t see us.”
“Komonauts can see in darkness, and their hearing is like wolf.”
“Oh.”
So, what else?
I checked my inventory first to see what would help. I had elementals, my bow and arrows, robes, tinctures…nah, not good enough. Somehow, using harelust to attract a bunch of hares wouldn’t cut it this time, and the komonaut seemed much cleverer than the hellgre.
It was as I cycled my inventory, that I saw something.
And instantly, my tension left me.
I had the salted hare meat in my inventory. I already knew that raw hare meat gave me a speed buff. So, if worst came to worst here, I had a way out. I didn’t have enough to give to everyone, but I could at least make sure Harrien, Tosvig, and maybe Cleavon had a way out.
Ah, that felt freeing.
Now, it was if losing my tension had unblocked a passageway in my brain, and thoughts tumbled out.
First, a random thought.
Flesh.
Why hadn’t I even thought about this?
It seemed like such an obvious thing to wonder about but I hadn’t until now because, let’s face it, everything in this world was crazy. Why did uncooked animal flesh give people buffs?
Maybe it was something to do with the wilds. Maybe their food supply changed the animals, or there perhaps was something in the water. Maybe even something in the air.
But forget that for now.
Now, I was focused on something else; the blood-stained boulder lying twenty feet away.
“So,” said Kostig, and I realized he was halfway into a plan I hadn’t listened to. “Kayla is the lightest of us, and the best at stealthy. We create diversion for her with rocks, attract komonaut’s attention. She sneaks out, climbs cliff, crawls to komonaut and sticks poisoned-dagger between his scales.”
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 28