by Lori Holmes
Eldrax halted. She had him. If he moved to take her, then he risked losing her altogether and she knew that would be the last thing he desired.
“I don’t think you want to do that, girl,” Eldrax said calmly.
“There are some fates worse than death, Eldrax,” Rebaa spat back, poising herself even more threateningly upon the edge. The dizzying abyss sucked at her. She wondered how long this stalemate would last or how it could possibly end. She had to resist as long as possible.
Eldrax smiled. There was no warmth in the expression. “Would you abandon your baby so willingly?” he asked, his soft yet deadly tone carrying to her on the breeze. “Aren’t mothers supposed to want to survive anything to save their young?”
Rebaa stopped breathing. How did he know about her son? Nen would never have- “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried to keep her tone even, but the panicked edge betrayed her.
The cold smile stretched into a grin. Pursing his lips, Eldrax let out a low whistle. The ranks of Cro men parted and the last man in the group made his way towards his chief. In his arms was a bear skin bundle.
A keening cry shivered on the air and it was a moment before Rebaa realised the sound was coming from her own throat.
“Just look at what my men found in the woods.” Eldrax took Rebaa’s baby from the hunter and cradled him in mock tenderness within his own massive arms. Rebaa could only stare in horror, her cries coming in whimpering gasps as she beheld what she had tried so hard to prevent. “So…” The red-haired beast drawled. “This is the babe my mother cared about more fiercely than her own blood?” Rebaa saw madness flare the cold dark gaze and the hand that supported her son’s head squeezed. The bundle let out a thin wail.
“Please. D-don’t.” Was all she managed to stammer. “N-no.” She was numb to everything but the cruel visage before her. Eldrax would crush her baby’s skull and not so much as blink.
But the deadly grip relaxed and the flash of insanity melted away, replaced by a detached regard. “Such pretty green eyes,” Eldrax crooned, speaking only to her son now as he stared down into the bear skin. “What a loss it would be if something had to happen to you because of her.” He flicked his gaze towards where Rebaa stood. “Unfortunately, you’ll find mothers can be so fickle, little one.” He sighed. “I should know. My mother put her own selfish desires above mine. Why don’t we find out if yours is any better!” He took hold of the bear skin sling in one fist and swung his arm out, dangling Rebaa’s son over the abyss.
“Noooo!” Rebaa screeched. Nen’s spear clattered forgotten to the ground and rolled away behind her. All her senses were suddenly on fire, she could feel everything. There was a roaring in her ears, pulsing, powerful, uncontrolled. But the energy was not her own. The waves she could feel came in time with her son’s screams of distress. The strength of it took her breath away as it had when it had come from inside her own body. It was coming from him.
Eldrax’s body throbbed in the light of the great spirit. Such was the power radiating from her son, it would only take a thought to cease that pulse of life forever. Her enemy was completely oblivious to the deadly threat he held so casually in his hand. But the energy was uncontrolled, undirected. Nebulous. Her son was yet a baby, his thoughts unformed and she was no longer connected to him, unable to direct the sheer force he was wielding. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Birds shrieked overhead, spooked by the unnatural disturbance.
“Come to me, girl!” She heard Eldrax’s demand as though from a great distance. “Obey me and I might yet let your son live.”
The wild energy of the Great Spirit pounded around her as Rebaa took a helpless step forward. She had no choice but to go to him, she was under no illusion that Eldrax would kill her son if she did not do as he asked. She did not have the power to stop him. Keeping her eyes fixed on the gloating black depths, she continued to move down the path back towards her enemy.
Her knees almost buckled as she came to stand before Eldrax and spoke the words. “I give myself to you, dread chief. You have me. Now please, give me my son!”
Elation danced over the pale face and the arm holding her baby aloft twitched. Rebaa held out her own in silent plea.
“You should have jumped when you had the chance, girl.” The madness flared. “Now that I have you, I have no further need for this. The creature that my mother loved so much more than I.”
And he opened his fist. The bear skin tumbled away.
“Nooo!”
Rebaa threw herself from the path. She snatched her falling son from the air and plunged into the darkness below.
24
Defeat
In midair, she twisted around. Throwing out her free arm, Rebaa searched for a hand hold, anything to break her fall as the wind seared past her ears. For one sickening moment her fingers found only empty air. Then her arm wrenched painfully in her shoulder as her fingers caught a protruding rock in the cliff face.
Gritting her teeth as the rock cut into her fingers, she slung the bear skin holding her precious bundle back around her shoulders and took hold of the rock face with both hands, easing the strain on her supporting arm.
For a few moments all she could do was hang there as her mind caught up with the shock of what she had done. Listening to the echoes of angry shouts floating down to her from above, Rebaa tried to master her ragged breathing as it rasped in her ears. Once she could persuade her frozen muscles to respond, she glanced down at her baby. He blinked back at her, his green eyes wide with fright. The unfocused power swirled about them.
“Shhh, shhh!” she soothed him breathlessly. “I’ve got you. I won’t let go. I won’t let us go.”
His eyes calmed and the wild energy drained away as though it had never been. She could sense nothing from him again now. It was mystifying but she had no time to think. They were dangling from a cliff with the Cro waiting just above. She could not see them and they could not see her from this vantage point.
She hoped that they would believe that she had fallen to her death and give up the hunt. But they did not leave the trail, they remained, arguing and howling at one another. Rebaa could not wait for them to move to a safe distance. Her arms might give out before they did.
Rebaa considered her options. She could not go up, nor could she move to the left back towards the opening of the cliff trail and escape, the rock was too sheer that way. The only way to move was sideways towards the crumbling rupture in the path away to her right.
The hand and foot holds barely merited the name but Rebaa was Ninkuraaja and influence over the Great Spirit was not her only skill. The whole of her early life had been spent in the treetops of her forest home. She might have lived with the ground-dwelling Cro for many seasons but her muscles remembered and instilled in her a sense of calm.
Branches were one thing, however, rock was quite another. Every hold along the treacherous cliff shifted, threatening to give out under her weight. Please… she begged to nothing in particular as she tested each foothold.
Slowly, carefully, Rebaa made her way along the side of the cliff, away from the fractious Cro above but the rocks continued to deteriorate until at last she could go no further. A landslide had created a great flat expanse that even her clever fingers could not exploit. Her only choice now was to go up and return to the trail.
The rock splintered and cracked as she pulled herself upwards. Please, she thought over and over until at last she was able to pull herself up and back on to the narrow pathway.
She did not have time to feel the relief of solid ground. Before she could regain her breath, she was rolling to her feet, ready to meet the disbelieving black gaze of Eldrax as he witnessed her reappearance from the abyss.
They had returned to the very positions they had held when their confrontation had begun. Only now, he had no hold over her. She locked her arms around her baby and backed away, further widening the distance between them. Nen’s spear lay where she had dropped it and she snatched it from
the ground. The feeling of the wood under her hand was like the touch of an old friend.
“How…?” Eldrax’s voice was strangled as he took a step after her. But Rebaa was not going to let herself get within reach of him again. She turned and ran, pounding along crumbling trail towards the break in the path. The open air sucked at her upon her right and she clung to the hillside, leaping from one solid surface to another. She didn’t know what she was doing, she was guided by pure instinct.
“No!” Eldrax bellowed.
The rocks groaned and cracked in protest at her careless haste as the mountain of snow and rock above grumbled in response. At any moment the balance could be tipped and all would come crashing down. The great gap in the path opened out ahead of her. To escape, she would have to make the leap onto the finger rock jutting from the abyss; the leap she had thought she would never be foolish enough to make.
The spear seemed to burn in her hand and Rebaa ran at the gap without breaking stride. Jamming the butt hard into the ground at the last moment, she vaulted across the space, flying through the air until she landed catlike upon the precarious pinnacle of rock.
She felt the surface sway and shift as she landed and the mountain moaned. She froze in a crouch, afraid to move so much as a finger. Darkness yawned about her on all sides, threatening to drag her down. For the first time in her life, Rebaa felt dizzy at height. The recent memory of falling without knowing if she would ever stop herself rushed nauseatingly through her mind.
Eldrax had come to a halt at the edge of the crumbling trail. His eyes were almost beyond reason as he glared at her. The other men looked apprehensive as they studied the path ahead of them. She would like to bet that they were more uncomfortable with the height than she was. One of them muttered to their leader and the growing madness in the black eyes sparked. “She is mine!” Rebaa heard him scream. “No other chief will have such a prize as that!”
Rebaa snarled. She was nobody’s prize. “Then come and get me!” she shouted before she could stop herself. “I am right here! Claim me if you wish!”
Eldrax gathered himself but one of his men caught his arm. “No, my chief!” Eldrax shook him off violently, almost tumbling his own clan member over the into the ravine below.
Rebaa was thinking fast. Part of her idea in laying her false trail along this path had been to goad Eldrax into making a wrong move. She had never dreamed that she herself would be here as bait for that moment. Now that she was, she had to push him.
Eldrax was insane, he only needed the slightest nudge and Rebaa was prepared to give it. She laughed in their faces. “Is the great chief too afraid to come and claim his prize?” She sniffed in disdain. “Perhaps some other chief will be more worthy of me.”
Her words had the desired effect. The veneer of reason that had all but held him in check left Eldrax’s face. With a roar of anger he ran out across the crumbling path towards Rebaa. The rocks fell away behind him as his greater weight crumbled them to dust.
He only just managed to keep ahead of the tumbling stones until at last he stood just on the other side of the abyss from where Rebaa crouched on her pinnacle of rock. He had destroyed his own way back and now there was only one way forward - for both of them. Rebaa felt the rock wobble again as she shifted her feet. Please, she thought, please hold just a little longer! She faced Eldrax across the dark chasm.
“You have lead me on a good hunt, witch,” Eldrax acknowledged with a mocking dip of his head. “I have to say, I am amazed you made it this far. You’re stronger than you look.”
“It was only because of your mother’s strength that I still live,” Rebaa said.
“Do not speak of her!” Eldrax spat. “She is dead, she who was too weak to protect her own son. At least at the end she was able to provide me with one gift. I thank you, mother!” He cried out to the emptiness as though he thought Nen herself was watching.
Rebaa felt her heart contract as tears spilled down her cheeks. “She was not weak. She loved you Eldrax. All she ever wanted was to see you again. Out of love for her, I give you one last warning. Leave me be.”
Eldrax’s face had become a distorted mask, showing him for the deranged creature that he was. “I do not care what she wanted, witch! I came here to claim you! You and your child are mine!”
No, we are not. Rebaa gathered herself. “I will never be yours, you monster! And neither will he! I am going home!”
“No!” Eldrax leaped across the gap but Rebaa had already gone. She threw herself from her precarious perch, feeling his fingers brush her back even as she cleared the last of the distance and onto the safety of the solid path beyond. She heard a grunt behind her as Eldrax landed heavily on the pinnacle of stone where she had just stood. She turned back in time to stare into his crazed black eyes before the rock gave way beneath his feet, unable to hold his weight.
His face was frozen in horror at the realisation of his mistake. Scrambling, he tried to jump to safety as Rebaa had done but it was too late, the balance had been tipped. With a roar that drowned out his scream, the rocky hillside above gave way, avalanching down into the ravine, sweeping Eldrax with it in an unstoppable force. Rebaa and the rest of the Cro could only watch as he was carried into the abyss in a whirl of furs, red hair and tumbling rocks.
The roaring went on and on and when it finally stopped, there remained no sign of Nen’s son. Rebaa sank to her knees as the adrenaline drained from her body, leaving her shaking. Her thoughts buzzed. All she knew was that she was alive and Eldrax was dead. Distantly, she knew she should feel avenged, relieved but, oddly, she felt no pleasure in her victory.
“I’m sorry, Nen,” she whispered. “I had no choice.”
Howls of rage shook her from her daze and drew her eyes across the now impassible ravine. The remaining Cro were screaming and brandishing their spears at her in fury for the loss of their leader. Rebaa’s victory further soured in her mouth as she read the dark promise in their furious eyes.
This was not over.
The surviving Cro were now out for revenge and nothing drove them more fiercely than the need to settle a blood debt. It would take them days to find another way around, however. She had gained her much needed head start and she could not waste it. Rebaa forced herself back to her feet and ran on down the path.
25
The Will To Survive
The days that followed blurred together in a never ending torture. Exhaustion, hunger, fear, cold, pain. That was all there was. Still Rebaa kept going. She must travel south and not stop until she had reached the forests of her ancestors. She had to get there. She had to. The whole time she remained alert for signs of pursuit as the rocky foothills around her gave way at last to the open reaches of the Plains.
But now that she was finally free of the foothills, she felt more vulnerable than ever. Fear of the remaining Cro rejoining the chase drove her by day; by night it was the elements as she tried desperately to strike a fire for warmth but failed each time. She had never truly mastered the skill and the fuel she gathered was always wet with snow. She had no means to dry it and no shelter from the relentless winds that sabotaged her every attempt.
The snow thinned the further south she travelled but the conditions became no less fierce. She stumbled through the nights, fearful to sleep lest she succumb to the elements and never wake up again. She tried her best to ignore the stain of blood that continued to mark her every resting place.
She starved. She had dropped her supply of bear meat in her attempt to outrun the Cro. She felt the bite of its absence now. Her baby had a voracious appetite and he sapped what little strength she had left. She had to eat otherwise she would not be able to feed him.
The snare trap that Nen had so carefully trained her to use became her only lifeline. She was not always successful but she managed to catch enough small game to keep her upright. Without a fire, she could not cook the meat and she became so desperate that she skinned and ate her catches raw, fighting down her revulsion so as not
to bring the nourishment back up again. Survival was all that mattered. If she died, her baby died.
Days could go by before her next catch. Rebaa attempted to carry meat with her but, warmed by her body heat, anything she tried to save quickly turned bad and started to smell. She had no means to cure her scraps for leaner times.
She continued to walk. And walk, the blood of her wounds dripping a crimson trail behind her. Carrion birds began to wheel overhead. Rebaa hissed her defiance to their watchful waiting and struggled on.
Birds, however, were not the worst creatures to stalk these lands. She was many rises and falls of Ninmah into her journey across the Plains when Rebaa finally detected the distant presence that told her something far more deadly had begun to haunt her footsteps.
The Cro had picked up her trail.
What hope she had left fled. She was dying, she was still far from home and now they had found her. The knowledge crushed her. If she had ever needed a miracle, it was now. Rebaa leaned heavily on Nen’s spear and turned her face to the sky. Ninmah was hidden behind the roving clouds. “Please,” she whispered to the unseen face. “I know I have done wrong. I know I have shamed and betrayed you in the most terrible way but please let me save my baby. He is innocent. He does not know. Give me strength, most sacred Ninmah. Let me reach my people before my enemies catch me.”
Ninmah did not answer. She kept her face hidden and turned from Rebaa. Rebaa lowered her eyes to her baby’s face. He seemed to know that his mother was in trouble. Reaching out with one little curled hand, he patted her cheek. His green eyes were very determined.
Rebaa laughed and sobbed at the same time. “You think we can make it?” she asked softly. The green eyes held steady. Rebaa nodded. He at least, had not abandoned her. “Alright, then, we’ll make it together. You and me, little strong one. Let’s go home!”
