by Edward Lang
Lelia’s eyes suddenly lit up.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Yes, probably.”
“Good,” I said, happy that she was at least entertaining the possibility that the plan could work.
Because if they didn’t believe it would work – if they didn’t have hope to sustain them through the hard parts – then it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to pull off.
“Look, the sun’s setting,” I said to the women. “It would be sui– uh, it would be really dumb to try anything in the dark. I suggest we spend the night up here, and then we move forward with the plan first thing in the morning.”
Fieria nodded. “I agree.”
It was settled.
We moved further back along the goat path and bundled ourselves up in our furs for the night.
As darkness fell and the temperature dropped, all I could think of was those three, poor women exposed to the elements.
Well, this would be the last night they had to suffer.
…if everything went according to plan.
Lelia and I snuggled together under our furs. It was too cold to have sex, so we just held each other tenderly. I softly caressed her hair and whispered reassuring things in her ear until she fell asleep.
It took me a lot longer.
The next morning we awoke with the sunrise. We ate a hasty breakfast of deer jerky and raw berries, then went over the plan again. I had each of the women repeat what they were going to do until I was sure they could handle it.
Then I turned to Lelia. She handed over the climbing harness, which I would need for my plan to work.
She was sobbing.
I wiped tears from her cheeks and smiled. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
“Be careful,” she pleaded.
“I will,” I said, and kissed her. “I’ll see you soon.”
Oona and Mazaria gave me their spare quivers of arrows. In addition to the two I already had, I now possessed 60 arrows.
That should be enough.
I made sure they had the extra snowshoes for the women they would save.
Then I kissed Lelia one last time and set off back down the goat path, leaving the six women to await my signal.
30
I went back along the path until I reached the overhang where all the women had climbed up using my rope – the rope which was now in my backpack.
From there it was a simple climb to the bottom using my ice axes and crampons.
I moved through the woods until I reached the slopes where all the logging had occurred. I kept to the trees until I reached the opposite side of the gorge, the left cliff.
Then I began climbing.
The left half of the gorge was significantly different from the other side where Lelia and the others were now, awaiting my signal.
To make things clear, let’s talk only about the left half of the gorge.
It had two sides: the fort side, and the opposite side that went into a sheer drop of hundreds of feet down to a valley filled with trees. Let’s call that the drop side.
The fort side had tall cliffs bordering the canyon for a while, but then they turned into the same gradual slopes created by snowdrifts that Lelia and the other women were going to use as part of our plan.
You could climb the fort side fairly easily if you were willing to plow through a shit-ton of snow – or if you had snowshoes.
But the drop side… Jesus. It was treacherous.
From the topmost ridge where the fort side switched over and became the drop side, there was a 90-degree plunge of at least 700 feet.
Which was absolutely perfect for what I needed.
When you’re a dude with a bow and arrow facing off against a fucker with a gun, you need cover.
And a 90-degree drop of 700 feet was essentially the best cover I could get, given the circumstances.
Here’s the thing: the drop wasn’t exactly straight down.
A guy with a gun could theoretically stand on a cliff that was straight as a knife’s edge and shoot straight down and hit somebody.
But this cliff wasn’t straight as a knife’s edge. Far from it.
There were outcroppings in the rock – all of which would impede the path of a bullet.
In other words – cover.
All I had to do was get far enough down that I wasn’t in his direct line of sight.
When I got to the top of the ridge, I crawled on my belly so I wouldn’t be seen as I scoped out the terrain.
On the fort side, the snowdrifts angled down gently to the plateau.
The fort was about 300 feet away. Not great for my archery skills, but good for the skiris not being able to reach me quickly. They would have to wade through a lot of snow to get to me.
Which would give me time.
But first I had to set up my grand escape.
I hid my bow and four quivers of arrows amidst the snow. I wouldn’t be needing them for the next 30 minutes, and having my weapons slip off and tumble into the abyss would pretty much ruin my day.
Then I went back over to the drop side.
First I chose the longest length of rope I had in my backpack: 100 feet.
Then I anchored the rope to the top of the cliff, making sure it was securely in place.
Then I rappelled down the side of the mountain.
When I reached the end of the rope, I was 100 feet from the top of the cliff.
There was nothing around me but open air and a long, long fall to the forest below – about 500 feet.
At that point, I anchored the bottom of the rope very securely to the cliff face.
This part was crucial. The anchor had to be 1000% secure – enough to potentially withstand a fall of 200 feet.
Of course, a fall of 200 feet would break my back – but better that than getting shot in the head by some piece of shit who enslaved women.
I actually tripled up on the anchors, bolting them into a massive crack in the cliff face.
Once that was done, I climbed back up the cliff using my ice axes and crampons.
I reached the top of the ridge, crawled across the rocks and snow to the fort side of ridge… and retrieved my bow and arrows.
Now for the fun part.
The closest skiris was about 150 feet away, down at the base of the sloping snowdrifts.
The fort was another 150 feet beyond that.
And there were a dozen or more skiris in between.
I didn’t care about the monsters – not yet.
No… first, I wanted to get the human’s attention.
The human monster’s attention, to be precise.
I pulled out the arrows from two of the quivers and laid them all in a row. Thirty arrows in all.
I selected one, nocked the bow, and aimed upwards at a 45-degree angle.
When shooting any projectile – arrow, bullet, even throwing a baseball – if all you care about is distance, then 45 degrees is the angle you need.
It’s simple physics. Throw a ball 90 degrees up, and it goes straight up and comes straight back down.
Throw the ball outwards at 0 degrees, and gravity will act to bring it down quickly to the earth.
But aim it at 45 degrees, and you hit the sweet spot between how long it takes gravity to act, and putting as much of your energy into sending the object as far as you can.
It’s the kind of shooting you see in 300 and medieval warfare movies where the archers want to blanket the sky with arrows and rain them down on a distant group of fighters.
Only problem was, I hadn’t practiced this kind of archery nearly as much as shorter-distance, precision shooting. So my aim was probably going to be shit.
Oh well. I had 30 arrows. I figured at least one of them would make it into the fort.
I just had to make sure that I didn’t accidentally hit one of the women in the pens.
I aimed… breathed out… and fired.
FWIP!
The arrow sailed up through the air, a dark streak against the gr
ey, cloudy sky.
Eventually it switched from an upward trajectory to a downward trajectory, and sailed down towards the fort.
I couldn’t hear it land from this distance, but the arrow hit the snow beyond the fort. It overshot.
A skiris about 30 feet away from where the arrow landed looked around, startled. It must have heard the arrow land, but because the arrow had sunk completely into the snow, the skiris had no idea what the hell had just happened.
Alright… don’t shoot QUITE at 45 degrees, Jack.
I nocked my next arrow and aimed at about 40 degrees.
The next arrow undershot the fort by about ten feet.
Getting closer…
Of course, it landed a lot closer to several skiris, who looked around in comical confusion.
The snow around them was hard-packed from getting tromped on all day long, so the arrow only sank halfway into the snow.
The skiris had never seen an arrow before and had no idea what the fuck what it was, so they gathered around the spot on the ground, pointing at the stick sunk halfway into the snow.
Try again.
I nocked the next arrow… aimed… and fired.
This one was perfect.
It sailed right into the fort.
I even heard the impact from this distance as it slammed into the wooden logs making up the side.
THOCK!
Then I heard something else: a human voice. It was distant, but the sound carried through the cold air.
Plus, he was shouting.
“What the FUCK?!”
The skiris certainly didn’t know what an arrow was, but Mr. Human Hunter did.
Time to give him another sample.
I let another arrow fly.
I hit the inside of the fort again, but I didn’t hear an impact. Must’ve hit the snowy ground.
But it still made quite an impression.
“What the FUCK?!” he screamed.
I could see the door of the fort from my position. Suddenly a figure appeared in it, hiding halfway behind the edge of the doorway so he could peer out.
Mr. Hunter.
I flattened myself against the snow. Because of the angle and how much lower down he was in relation to me, I doubted he could see much of me – but no need to give him a target.
Several skiris looked over at the figure in the doorway.
The guy started flinging his arm towards me, pointing towards the top of the ridge. “Up there! Go up there!”
He knew where I was.
I’d counted on that, though. The trajectory of the arrows was obvious.
In fact, I wanted him to know where I was.
The skiris, though, seemed confused by his shouts and gesticulations.
From their grunts and roars I’d heard before, I was guessing skiris weren’t exactly conversant in English yet. Maybe they were smart as dogs and could understand rudimentary verbal commands, but I was guessing that was about it.
Time to help them out.
The next arrow I fired from a lying position, and more at a 30-degree angle.
The skiris had all started to gather in a group near the fort, so it was like shooting fish in a barrel. There were so many of them clustered together that there was no way I could miss.
The arrow sunk into the back of one unlucky fellow, who howled like he’d been shot.
Which he had.
The other skiris reacted in shock to hear his screams. Then they started looking at their buddy’s bloody back and the arrow sticking out of it. Then they looked up at my position.
Mr. Hunter was doing his best to urge them onwards from where he crouched in the safety of his fort.
“He’s up THERE, you stupid motherfuckers! Go, go, GO! GO KILL HIM!”
They still seemed confused –
Until another one of my arrows landed in a skiris’s chest, and it howled in agony as well.
They’d all been facing me that time. They’d seen where the arrow had originated… and they might have even seen it flying through the air towards them.
Now they understood.
Now they set off through the snow towards me.
They ran as fast as they could, and they made pretty good time – as long as they were on the snow they’d been walking over the last couple of weeks. Their constant footsteps and the weight of all the trees they’d dragged over it had packed it down into a hard, even surface.
But things changed considerably as soon as they reached the beginning of the snowdrifts.
Suddenly they had to high-step it through two, then four, then eight feet of snow. Within a few seconds, they were in up to their necks. It was like swimming through fresh-poured cement – they had to physically burrow their way through the snow.
Meanwhile, their heads were still visible.
And they were only 80 feet away now.
Which made for a lot better target practice.
I started shooting directly at them. I hit a lot of snow, and arrows skittered away uselessly across the surface – but I also hit at least three skiris dead-on, either blinding them or mortally wounding them. Agonized screams rose up from the trenches like some icy, hellish version of World War I.
I looked back at the fort. Almost all of the skiris had left and were heading for me.
There was only one skiris standing by the front of the fort, and another over by the wooden pen with the three elf women. That was it.
Excellent.
Then I heard the first gunshot.
BLAM!
A split second later, snow kicked up about six feet to my left as the gunshot echoed through the canyon.
Oh SHIT!
I ducked back down for a few seconds… scuttled over to my right, close to a rock jutting up out of the snow… and peeked out over the rise.
The skiris who had been hanging back by the door of the fort had come closer, but he was still waaaay back at the rear of the pack. He was just standing there while all his buddies were charging ahead into the snowdrifts.
I understood why a second later.
The hunter stepped out from behind the skiris, his rifle braced against his shoulder, and sighted along the barrel.
The asshole was using the skiris as a living shield.
I hated the abominable snowmen, but this human made them look like Nobel Peace Prize winners by comparison.
What a fuckin’ douchebag!
The guy suddenly stopped moving. The barrel of his gun pointed up towards me –
BLAM!
I saw the muzzle flash the split second before I jerked back down.
Snow blasted to my left, again – although this time it was only about three feet away.
I was freaked out, sure, but the guy was a pretty bad shot… at least at distances farther than 150 feet.
That made me feel better about my chances.
I went back to shooting at the skiris near me. Even though I had to stay down low and just pop up long enough to fire, I managed to nail another two of them in the face. Which meant their buddies had to haul them out of the way so they could continue coming for me, slowing everybody down.
I didn’t want to directly attack the hunter. I didn’t want him to get spooked and retreat back into the fort – I wanted to draw him out.
So I concentrated on the skiris.
My plan worked. The skiris shield (like a human shield) kept advancing slowly, and the hunter kept taking his potshots, which never came closer than two or three feet away, not even when he got up to the base of the snowdrifts.
BLAM!
BLAM!
BLAM!
The gunshots only stopped when the bastard started up into the snowdrifts, following his minions into the massive pathways they had carved up the mountainside.
While the asshole was still shooting, though, I noticed that the gun blasts were starting up small avalanches along the edge of the gorge. Nothing big – the equivalent of small rockslides. Enough to freak you out, and maybe even knock you out if one fe
ll down directly onto you, but not enough to bury you. We were talking the equivalent of a minivan-sized amount of snow, not the hundred-ton monster that had killed me back on Earth.
I was worried about Lelia and the others, though. There was definitely the possibility that an avalanche could start up near them. There were plenty of cliffs around them, laden with precariously balanced tranches of snow.
But there was nothing I could do about that now but pray.
When the closest skiris were about 30 feet away from me – meaning I had about a minute before they reached me – I abandoned my post and headed for the drop side of the cliff. I had used all 30 arrows from the spare quivers, and I needed to keep some if I wanted to engage in combat later.
I scurried over to the rope I had anchored into the cliff side.
Anchor at the top, anchor at the bottom… basically 100 feet of fairly taut rope attached at both ends to the mountain.
I detached the rope from the top-side anchor and fastened it to my climbing harness.
Then I started climbing backwards down the mountainside as fast as I could, using my ice axes and crampons. I took more risks than I should have, but time was of the essence.
As I went, I took up the slack in the rope, making sure that if I fell, I wouldn’t fall the entire length of the line.
If I’d fallen from the very top of the cliff, that would have been a 200-foot drop – the top of the rope to the anchor point down below being the first 100, and then another 100 feet until all the slack in the rope played out. That far of a drop would have broken my back, and I wanted to avoid that at all costs.
I wasn’t planning on falling, but I might not have a choice if circumstances changed.
Circumstances changed.
Suddenly there were several growls up above me, and a shower of snow dusted my head.
I looked up to see a couple of skiris looking down at me from the edge of the cliff, 50 feet overhead.
Shit.
As soon as they saw me look up at them, they roared, exposing a full set of inch-long fangs.
Good for me they weren’t too bright, or they might have started hurling rocks down the mountainside at me.
If they did that, I was shit out of luck. I would have to take my chances and fall down the mountainside, praying that the safety line jerking taut wouldn’t hurt me too badly.
