An Alex Hawk Time Travel Adventure | Book 3 | Return from Kragdon-Ah

by Inmon, Shawn

  The man turned on his heel and ran, happy to be away from the grisly sight.

  “Who is the commander here now?” a commanding voice rang out.

  “I am,” Tronta-ak said without thought. Then he thought, Who is questioning me? I am the Commander! Tronta-ak spun about and saw a tall, good-looking young man who could have been any of his own soldiers. “Who are you?”

  “I am Harta-ak of Danta-ah. Before that, I was Harta-ak of Lasta-ah.”

  Tronta-ak’s eyes narrowed. “I knew your father.”

  Harta-ak ignored him. “Manta-ak has sent me with a message.”

  Tronta-ak had not had time to take his morning piss, let alone think of what to do with the ever-growing problem that was Monta-ak of Winten-ah.

  “What is it?” Tronta-ak asked. He tried to sound authoritative, but didn’t manage to completely keep the tremble out of his voice.

  Harta-ak wished he had the performance skills of Untrin-ak, but did his best.

  “Manta-ak walked like a ghost through ten hundred men in the silence of the night. He could have killed all of you, but did not. He killed Draka-ak the Younger, just as he killed Draka-ak the Elder. When the sun sets tonight, if you are still camped here, he will destroy the rest of you just as surely as he removed Draka-ak’s head from his shoulders.”

  “One man? How can one man kill all of us?”

  “How did one man walk right past guards meant to stop him into the center of your camp and kill your leader? Manta-ak has had three years to train an army of men just like himself. Do you want to face an entire army of men who can do that?” Harta-ak hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Draka-ak’s distended face.

  Harta-ak turned as though he was going to walk back to the river. He stopped as though he remembered something. “It does not matter to me, either way. You will go home and live your lives, or the birds will pick at your eyeballs. That is up to you. But, I will make an offer. If any of your men do not want to march the many months back to Lasta-ah, I will give them refuge in Danta-ah. We are free men, not subjected to the whims of a madman. We are building a beautiful village right here. Klipta-ak is here and so are his men. If you want to join us, come to the river before the sun sets. After that, I cannot vouch for the safety of any of you.”

  Harta-ak looked left, then right, then behind him, as if he couldn’t be sure but what Manta-ak and his army might be coming at any moment. He smiled at Tronta-ak, then hurried down the path to the river.

  Two of his Danta-ah warriors pulled him across in their small boat.

  Laying in the bottom of the boat was Alex Hawk, known and feared by the Lasta-ah as Manta-ak.

  “You made me sound so much scarier than I am,” Alex said.

  “That was my job. I’ve been a salesman all my life. Today, I sold them on the idea that they do not want to die at the hands of the fearsome Manta-ak.”

  When they reached the other side, Alex was swarmed by a massive dog and a tiny girl. The tiny one might have been the most ferocious in being reunited with Alex.

  “Don’t leave, Dadda.”

  Her words tore at Alex. Amy had been just a year older when he left her. Alex held Sanda-eh close against him and said, “I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”

  They climbed away from the bank until they could not be seen from the other side, sat, and waited. Late in the afternoon, a group of men gathered on the bank on the north side of the river.

  Alex pointed and said, “I think you’ve got some volunteers. Good for you.” He laid a hand on both Versa-eh and Harta-ak’s shoulders. “Thank you again. You keep giving me debts I can never repay.” He swung Sanda-eh up onto his horse. He jumped up, put an arm around his daughter and said, “I’m going home. I’m tired.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Return to Prata-ah

  Life continued as normal in Winten-ah. No more massive armies attacked. No more plagues of spiders descended.

  But pregnancy, the very beginning of human life, continued to spell certain death.

  Alex Hawk knew that this had to change, or it would be then end of humanity. No matter how much thought he put into it, he was just as helpless against the widespread curse as he had been when it had claimed Senta-eh.

  Early in the spring after Sanda-eh turned four, Lanta-eh opened the door to Alex’s cabin at first light. The people of Winten-ah—raised in caves with no doors at all—would never understand the concept of privacy or knocking.

  “Gunta, Manta-ak. It is time.”

  Lanta-eh, though burdened with the title of The Chosen One, did not normally speak in lofty pronouncements such as this. She was more likely to comment on the krinta harvest, or how lovely a sunset was.

  But on this day, there it was. It is time.

  Sanda-eh ran to Lanta-eh and held her hand. Lanta-eh leaned over, kissed the top of her head, and whispered, “Gunta, Sanda-eh.”

  “Gunta,” Sanda-eh whispered back. “Why are we whispering?”

  “Time for what?” Alex asked. “The planting is already done. The team is back from the first karak-ta raid since the zisla-ta invaded us, and the hunting has been good. What is it time for?”

  “To finish things.”

  Again, Alex was caught flat-footed. If there was anything he was good at, it was finishing things. The village of Denta-ah was no more because of him, and the city of Lasta-ah was forever scarred, their last two leaders dead at his hands.

  Lanta-eh saw the confusion etched on Alex’s face and said, “I know how to stop our mothers from dying, but I will need your help.”

  “Why now?” Alex asked, skipping over the question that was really in the front of his mind: Why not four years ago?

  “Because it is time. All the days before, it was not time. Now it is.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes at her, but said, “You know you never need to ask. Just tell me what you need, and I will do it.”

  “It is a big project.”

  Alex looked at Sanda-eh and Monda-ak. “Are we up for a big project?”

  “Yes!” Sanda-eh shouted, jumping up and down. Monda-ak woofed his support.

  Alex nodded at Sanda-eh and said, “She’s the boss. What do you need from me?”

  “First, we need to take a hike.”

  Ten minutes later, Alex had thrown together a pack with food and necessities for a day hike and they were out in the misting, early-spring weather. The four of them walked to the forest, turned north, and hiked to the path that led east. This was the path that Alex had traveled so often. The first time had been when Sekun-ak had sent him on a simple quest to retrieve a dinner plate. That quest had been complicated by the presence of a ten-foot rattlesnake.

  Alex couldn’t help but wonder what factor would complicate this quest. Things were never easy.

  This was also the path to Danta-ah. When Alex had first followed this trail, it hadn’t been much more than an animal trail that wound through the forest. Now, there was a regular stream of visitors moving between Rinta-ah, Danta-ah, and Winten-ah, and the trail was much more clearly marked.

  “Progress is coming to Kragdon-ah,” Alex noted to Lanta-eh, pointing at the smooth, straight trail.

  “Another of those things that cannot be stopped. But it can be reset, started over. You’ve seen that, haven’t you? These things are cyclical, an eternal snake eating its own tail.”

  “You are feeling philosophical today.”

  “I am happy today. Do you remember a few years ago,” she glanced at Sanda-eh, “when I told you it was like I was standing on a tall hill, looking out over valleys and plateaus?”

  “I do.”

  “We are starting to climb up to that last plateau now, and that is a relief. I’m tired.”

  “You are far too young to be tired like that.”

  As they walked, Sanda-eh’s head had moved back and forth between Alex and Lanta-eh, like she was watching a tennis match where she didn’t understand the rules. She abandoned that and chased after Monda-ak, who was following a sc
ent trail up ahead of them.

  Eventually, they came to the river where Alex had battled the giant rattlesnake to a draw.

  “This is it,” Lanta-eh said.

  Alex looked around. All was peaceful.

  “What do we need to do here?”

  Lanta-eh slipped her moccasins off and waded a few feet out into the gently running river. She looked into the water, searching for something. She bent, wrestled with something heavy, then stood back up with a heavy rock in her hand.

  “This is what we need.”

  “Great! Good job. Let’s go home.”

  Lanta-eh gave him a cross look. Alex was sure no one had given him a look like that since Senta-eh had died.

  “We need many of these. Many.”

  “How many? That looks pretty heavy.”

  “Many. Whatever you’re thinking right now, more than that.”

  “You’re not going to tell me why, are you?”

  “Not yet. Soon.”

  “FINE,” ALEX SAID. HE and Sanda-eh also shucked off their mocs and waded into the water. Sanda-eh splashed joyfully in the water, seemingly immune to the cold. Alex reached down and picked up another rock, about the same size and shape as the one Lanta-eh had picked, and tossed it onto the shore.

  “No. Not that one. I am sorry, but I have to pick the rocks.”

  Alex waded out of the water and said, “Then what can I do?”

  “I will toss you the rocks. Can you make a pile of them?”

  Alex didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up the first rock and examined it. It was just a rock, though Alex noted there were flecks of crystals distributed throughout.

  Alex held the rock as though it was fine china and delicately set it to the side of the path.

  “Senta-eh always said you thought you were funny.”

  “Mama,” Sanda-eh, said. “Mama.”

  “Yes, she was your mama,” Lanta-eh said. “Do you want me to tell you a story about her while I work?”

  “Yes!”

  Lanta-eh looked up at the cloudy sky, as if trying to decide what story to tell. Sanda-eh had heard all of her stories about her mother dozens of times, but that never mattered. In fact, the little one seemed to relish saying the last few lines of the story along with her.

  “Sounds like we’re going to be here for a while,” Alex said.

  While Lanta-eh continued to scour the riverbed for particular stones and throw them onto the bank, he gathered wood for a fire. It wasn’t a cold day, but it was cool, and after being waist deep in the moving water, he knew they would need to warm up soon enough.

  Lanta-eh worked tirelessly. As she moved away from the bank, she handed some of the smaller rocks to Sanda-eh, who happily worked alongside her.

  When Alex had the fire going, he examined the pile of rocks they were making. He moved and stacked them so they formed a small river rock wall.

  “When we get enough rocks, what then?”

  “First,” Lanta-eh said, wiping a stray lock of hair off her forehead, “we will not find enough rocks today for what I need. Once we do, though, we are going to move them to Winten-ah.”

  Alex winced. The pile of stones was already too big for twenty men to carry. If this was just the beginning, it was going to turn into a big project.

  “And then,” Lanta-eh continued, “we’re going to carry them to Prata-ah. To the very top. That’s where I really need them.”

  The thought of carrying tons of rocks from the river to the top of a mountain many miles away was enough for Alex to sit down by the fire.

  “Dadda?” Sanda-eh said. “You okay?”

  Alex had been making good progress in teaching her English along with Winten-ah and the universal language. One interesting side effect was that she didn’t always keep them straight in her mind. She might start a sentence in Winten-ah, and end it with an Americanized “okay.”

  She was so adorable, with such an outsize personality, that Alex had noticed some of the phrases she was particularly fond of—yeah, okie-dokie, and huh-uh in particular—had begun to be popular in the tribe. That amused Alex no end, as he had tried to introduce a few words where there were no Winten-ah equivalents for years and had met with nothing but failure.

  “I am fine. I just was feeling tired in advance, which is no way to be, is it?”

  “No!” Sanda-eh agreed, though it was likely she had no idea what she was agreeing to.

  In early spring, the sun set early, and it soon became evident that Lanta-eh was not going to be satisfied with the number of rocks she was able to find in a single day. They warmed themselves by the fire as the sun dipped low in the sky, then headed back to Winten-ah.

  “Why did we hike this, instead of bringing the horses?” Alex asked.

  “I thought you could use the exercise,” Lanta-eh said mischievously. “I know you are the kind of person who likes to hurry through everything, but I think it’s better this time to just slow down and enjoy the process. We will be at the end of it soon enough, and we might wish then that we had stretched these days out and enjoyed them more.”

  Chastened, Alex took the words to heart.

  For the next week he, Sanda-eh, Lanta-eh, and Monda-ak set out for the river before first light and arrived home after dark. What had once been a small vacation from their habitual life became a habit of its own.

  The small rock fence that Alex had started, grew. As it did, he became more meticulous in the way he stacked the rocks. It was not unusual for him to take an entire section down to remove a single rock that didn’t quite fit.

  Lanta-eh was amused.

  “You do remember that we are going to carry those back to the cliffside, then on to Prata-ah, don’t you?”

  “I have to do something to amuse myself while you collect your rocks,” Alex retorted.

  Finally, at the end of the eighth day, when they turned for home, Lanta-eh said, “This is enough. On to the next.”

  Next was a three-part operation. First, getting the pile relocated to the field in front of the cliff, then to Prata-ah, then to the top of Prata-ah.

  When Alex had grasped how big the job was going to be, he had sent Wenta-eh to Danta-ah to ask another favor. Winten-ah only had a single cart, but ten horses. With a single cart, Alex calculated it would take months to get the rocks back to Winten-ah, let alone the top of Prata-ah.

  As always, Harta-ak and Versa-eh came through for Alex. On the day Lanta-eh said she had enough rocks, Wenta-eh rode up to the river, trailing three new horses and three bigger, stronger carts.

  “The horses need to go back, but Klipta-ak said he made the carts for you as a gift. Oh, and to tell you that whatever you might need, he will build it.”

  As it turned out, with four horses and a team of men, it only took four days to move the stones to the field in front of the cliffside.

  Another four days got them to the base of Prata-ah, once the site of Alex’s battle with Klipta-ak and the Lasta-ah.

  From there, it was nothing but sweat and labor. The trail up the mountain was too steep for either horses or wagons, so it came down to manpower. Alex dreaded the thought of how many trips it would take.

  He needn’t have worried. Like an Amish barn raising, the Winten-ah showed up in force. Everyone who could walk hiked to Prata-ah and carried rocks up to the top. Those who were weak or injured built fires and cooked a feast for when the work was done. Hundreds of hands made the work go quickly.

  Alex noticed that no one ever asked what the rocks were for.

  Whatever The Chosen One asks for, she gets. Alex immediately dismissed this as an unworthy thought. He had known her since she was a young girl, and had never seen her be anything but kind and attentive to others.

  The job, which Alex had believed would take several days, was done by early afternoon, and it was all accomplished with a smile.

  On his last trip up the hill, Alex looked at the pile of rocks and tried to envision what the whole enterprise had been for.

  A fort? To
o small. A lookout tower? Would have been easier with wood.

  He finally did the thing that was hardest for him—to give up on knowing and wait patiently for the answer.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Signal Boost

  Lanta-eh suggested they take the next day off and rest before they launched into the next phase of her plan. Alex was happy to agree. There was not an ounce of fat anywhere on his body, but he was eleven years older than when he had first stepped through the door. He had fought many opponents, planned many battles, and been attacked by man, beast, and insect. He wore the scars of those battles all over his body.

  In short, he was no longer the twenty-seven-year-old man he had been then. He was more than happy to take a day of rest before launching into a new project that would no doubt involve hauling more rocks.

  The next day, they set out for Prata-ah, a trip they would make many times over the next thirty days. As before, Sanda-eh and Monda-ak walked in the lead, and Alex and Lanta-eh brought up the rear.

  Once they reached the peak, Alex pointed to the massive pile of rocks and said, “What now?”

  “First, we need to clear a flat area,” Lanta-eh answered. “Come, Sanda-eh. Pull these weeds and small saplings with me. We can stack them over there.”

  After a few hours of labor, they had an area three strides by three strides cleared of all vegetation and leveled off.

  “I was so happy to see you build the rock fence that you did at the river,” Lanta-eh said. “Can you build me something like it here?”

  “Of course. What do you want?”

  “I want to build four walls inside the area we just cleared. But, leave a doorway for me to get in and out.”

  Alex scratched the back of his head and looked perplexed. “I’ll do it for you no matter what, but I can’t see a single reason why we are doing all this. Do you want to tell me?”

  Lanta-eh considered this, then said, “I will try.” She sat cross-legged on the grass and gestured for Alex to do the same. Monda-ak trotted down the hill in pursuit of some small game and Sanda-eh trotted after him, but Alex called her back. With a “Humph,” she sat down next to her father.