by Inmon, Shawn
Alex watched the rope self-destruct, gave it a few more strategic hacks with the knife, then slammed the blade into its sheath on his belt. He took a moment to turn the sheath around so it was facing inward. He didn’t know if anything—his knife, his stone hammer, his pack, his very life—was going to survive the next few moments.
He placed his left hand a few inches back from the knot he had used to tie the rope to his waist. He wrapped the remainder of the loose end around that and used his right hand to tie a one-handed surgeon’s knot, pulling it tight with his teeth.
And that’s all I can do.
He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He relaxed his muscles, knowing that would serve him better in the crash that was about to come. He let loose of the spar, gripping the rope with his right hand, and tied securely with his left. He dangled helplessly for long moments, waiting.
Nothing happened.
He opened one eye and looked at the area he had been sawing and hacking at.
As he watched, the rope released and he was thrown through space.
Chapter Six
Into the Kranda-ah Redux
When a body falls at terminal velocity and hits water, it is like hitting concrete.
Alex was lucky on two fronts. The pressure exerted by the recoiling rope not only pulled him far enough away from the bank and into the river, but he was only a hundred feet up when it pulled him, so he never reached terminal velocity.
He was less lucky in most every other way.
He was facing away from the river when the rope snapped, but it moved him in a whiplash motion, so his body actually began to pass part of the rope as he fell. He twisted around so he fell face-first into the river. It happened so fast, he never had a moment to move into a position to accept impact. He simply fell the way he fell.
Hitting the Kranda-ah wasn’t exactly like hitting concrete, but he did skip off its surface three times, like a rock casually skipped by a child. It didn’t matter to him after the initial impact, though, because he had been knocked unconscious.
He hit the river as he had fallen—face first. The skin was torn away from his forehead, which absorbed much of the initial impact, and his nose was broken, but one small portion of his plan worked perfectly—the rope he had tied around his midsection absorbed much of the impact and saved him from multiple broken ribs and other internal injuries.
As soon as he settled into the river, completely unconscious, his face slipped a few inches below the water. The length of rope he was still tied to floated on the surface and kept him from sinking further. The current picked him up and began to carry him west. When the rope was fully extended, the current moved him to the northern bank.
Fifty feet behind him, tied to the lower rope, Senta-eh, Werda-ak, and Monda-ak were pulled into the river, albeit much less violently.
They saw the upper rope break and watched for brief seconds while Alex was hurled through the air. Then their rope followed and they were swept inexorably along, first toward the middle of the river, then toward the northern bank.
Senta-eh and Werda-ak accepted their journey quietly, stoically.
Monda-ak did not. Although he was a strong swimmer, he did not like being pulled involuntarily into the river. He unleashed an unearthly howl like none of them had ever heard before. The howl was intermittent, as his head bobbed under the water, but each time he surfaced, he yowled as though his heart was breaking.
It was that howl that reached Alex’s ears and tickled his subconscious mind to pull itself from the blackness. Alex pulled his face out of the water, simultaneously gasping for air and coughing up river water. Blood ran from his ruined forehead and his broken nose. His body felt like one massive ball of pain, but at the same moment, he was exultant.
It worked!
At that moment, the rope went taut and pulled him more directly toward the northern side of the river. The twin knots, which had held through the entire ordeal, now became a detriment. He scrambled for his knife, found it still secured to its sheath, and pulled it out.
First, he sawed at the rope that held him around his chest. It was difficult to get an angle to cut at it and the river buffeted him every moment, but eventually he cut through the thinner rope.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw his companions were in the same situation, bobbing along like buoys in the river.
The rope drifted lazily to the northern bank, the languid end to the journey belying its violent beginning.
Alex struggled to find his footing against the slippery stones, then stumbled onto the bank, hauling the rope behind him. He used it to pull his companions toward him until they found their footing as well.
Senta-eh, being the tallest, was the first to touch toes to the river bottom and rushed toward Alex. She lifted his chin and examined the bloodied area of his forehead, then his broken nose.
“You almost lost your scalp to the river.”
“I almost lost my life. Next time I get a brilliant idea like this, tie me up and make me sit and think until I come up with something else.”
His broken nose canted at an odd angle and Senta-eh said, “Hold still.” She placed long, strong fingers on either side of his nose, then applied sharp pressure with her left hand. An audible pop sounded and tears ran from Alex’s eyes, cutting a stream in his bloody cheeks.
“Damn it! Warn me when you’re going to do that!”
Senta-eh smiled. “I did. I said, ‘hold still.’ Your voice doesn’t sound normal.”
Alex fixed her with a glare, but finally had to relent and just nod at the truth of that statement.
Werda-ak was next to stumble ashore, laughing, and excited. “What a ride! I never knew a man could fly!”
Alex searched his brain for a way to say, “Superman,” in Winten-ah, but found there was no way to express that idea.
Monda-ak scrambled to gain his footing then climbed out of the water. He looked at Alex then pointedly turned his back on him.
Alex kneeled and put his arms around the dog’s big neck, grinning through his pain. “I’m sorry.”
Monda-ak gave him more cold shoulder, walked onto the dirt, and collapsed, emotionally drained.
Alex sat on the dirt beside him, and leaned against him, knowing that would both provide a pillow and make both of them feel better. That was when he felt his pack on his back and realized it had come through the ordeal with him. He shrugged it off and looked through it. Not only was the food ruined, but the healing herbs and pastes had become one wet, useless glop.
Senta-eh kneeled in front of him and Alex moved his head back a few inches, thinking that she might be about to make another adjustment to his throbbing nose. Instead, she moved his long, wet hair away from his face so she could examine his other wounds better.
“There isn’t much we can do about this,” she said, lightly touching the side of his forehead. “It’s like you peeled off a few layers of skin, but it’s not deep. We’ll have to make sure it doesn’t get infected.” She met his eyes. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“Right now it feels like I am hurt everywhere.”
“You are such a magda.”
Alex looked puzzled. He spoke Winten-ah fluently, but there were still words or phrases that tripped him up. “Magda?”
“You know the cave at the top of the cliff? Where all the old people sit and talk about all the things the young people are doing wrong, or how their joints ache and their feet hurt? Those are magda.”
“Thank you very much.” Alex stood with a wince, knowing how lucky he was not to have had his shoulder dislocated when he was pulled by the rope or had something worse than his nose broken in the fall.
Werda-ak approached, looking solemn. “Don’t worry, Manta-ak. We’ll go slow and wait for you.”
Alex wanted to swat at him, but knew he would pay the price in pain, so he settled for another glare. “Very funny.” He took one hobbled step, then another, and realized that the boy was probably right—they would have to sl
ow down and make an allowance for him.
“Let’s go back to where the rope was anchored. When I was at the top of the tree, I saw a trail away from there and a village a few miles inland. We can go there and see if they know how long ago the kidnappers went through the area.”
“Is that wise?” Senta-eh asked.
“Isn’t it?” Alex blinked blood, sweat, and river water out of his eyes, trying to think logically through his pain.
“It’s likely that the people of this village built this bridge.”
Alex blinked again, then realization began to dawn. “That would be the bridge I just tore down.”
Senta-eh put two fingers to her forehead. “Do you know how they built this bridge?”
Alex faintly remembered a story his father had told him about how they had built a bridge over Niagara Falls using a kite. They had flown a kite from one side to the other, then used that to pull increasingly heavy ropes across. It was possible they had done the same thing here, he supposed, but the truth was, he had no idea.
“No,” he said simply.
“I don’t either. But I’ve never seen its equal. If our people had accomplished something as marvelous as this, and then three strangers had torn it down and wandered into the cliffside, bloodied by the effort, it would not have been good for them.”
Alex looked up at the sky, thankful again that he had chosen Senta-eh to accompany him.
“We don’t need anything from them anyway. The only information we would have gotten from them is how long it has been since the kidnappers passed through here. That isn’t really helpful to us. It doesn’t matter—we are going to chase them until we catch them.”
“You are right.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. We will skirt the village.”
“I’m sure they have guards watching for approaching danger, so we won’t want to approach too closely.”
Maybe I should just put her in charge of this mission and be done with it.
“We’ll need to stay off that main path, then. We can follow it for a time and pick out another route before we come close to the village.”
“But if the invaders went through the same village, how will we pick up their trail again?” Werda-ak asked.
“It will slow us down, but we’ll have to skirt around until we can pick up their trail again,” Alex said, limping to a stop at the boat that was beached beside where the bridge had once been. “My instinct is that they went east from here, so we’ll start in that direction and keep trying until we find a sign of them again.”
They turned to walk up the path and find something—a game trail, perhaps, that would lead them away from the village.
Before they found an alternative trail, though, Monda-ak bristled, issuing one deep, warning growl.
Alex peered ahead of them. His vision was still slightly clouded by his impact with the water, but he could see two men running toward them. They both had stone hammers in their hands and did not seem intent on conversation.
“I think the village may have noticed their bridge was torn down,” Alex observed, automatically shifting himself into his fighting stance—legs slightly bowed, weight distributed evenly.
The oncoming warriors did not hesitate or slow down to parlay. Instead, the man in the lead screamed loudly and leaped at Alex with his hammer over his head. It was an impressive attack, intended to terrify.
Alex never got the chance to defend himself. Monda-ak leaped up from his side and met the man in mid-air. He outweighed the man and flung him off to the side, where he pinned him, bared his teeth, and waited for a command from Alex.
The second man veered around the first and feinted right, then jumped left, directly toward Senta-eh. She had been part of Alex’s army in the invasion of Denta-ah and her hand-to-hand training was now second nature. She shifted her weight onto her right foot, accepted the momentum of the onrushing warrior, and used it to throw him over her shoulder.
When a seven-foot-tall warrior throws you, it makes for a long trip down. The man landed with a crash on his back, knocking the breath out of him. Before he could recover, Alex was on him, holding his knife against his throat.
“Don’t move,” Alex commanded.
The warrior was wild-eyed, but not suicidal. He dropped his hammer.
“Manta-ak, look!” Werda-ak said, pointing up the trail. A third warrior had been trailing them and had now turned and was running away at top speed.
“Can you catch him with an arrow?” Alex asked Senta-eh.
“With my longbow, perhaps. Not with this.”
“I can catch him!” Werda-ak said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Alex said. “But if not, you’re liable to run into a group of his friends, then you’re dead. No, let him go.”
Alex glanced at Monda-ak, still pressing all his weight on the first warrior, with a long ribbon of drool nearly ready to drop on his face. Alex gave a hand signal to tell him to hold him, but not to kill him.
“If I couldn’t catch him, Monda-ak surely could!” Werda-ak said excitedly, watching the back of the retreating warrior as he ran.
“He might catch him. But if he did, in his excitement he would wound or even kill him. These guards have done nothing wrong. They don’t deserve to die. By the time he gets back with reinforcements, we can be far away.”
He looked down at the pinned warrior below him. In the universal language, he said, “Why are you attacking us?”
The man did not answer, but Senta-eh leaned over and helpfully said, “We destroyed their bridge, remember?”
“Right. Yes, I remember. Now.” Once again switching back to the universal language, Alex said, “I am going to let you up, but if you try to run or attack us, we will kill you. Do you understand?”
Both men sullenly agreed, so Alex stood while Senta-eh stepped back a few paces and nocked an arrow. Alex clicked his tongue loudly and Monda-ak stepped off the man, although he stepped on the man’s groin in the process, drawing a loud groan. Monda-ak panted a smile at Alex.
“Stand up. If that’s the worst you get after trying to kill us, you’re lucky.” Alex turned to Werda-ak. “Take some of this rope and tie them up. Tie them together, and tightly. They will have plenty of company to untie them soon enough. Do you know how to tie a good knot?”
Werda-ak said, “You cannot be a great fisherman without being able to tie knots,” and set about tying the two together.
When they were completely immobilized, Alex said, “Let’s get off the main trail as soon as we can. I’m sure that third man will be back with reinforcements sooner rather than later.”
Senta-eh looked at Alex. “You have the oddest expressions.”
The wide trail that led away made for easy walking, but with each step, Alex worried more and more about running into people hunting for them. He spotted a game trail that ran east/northeast and suggested they take that.
They walked steadily for another three hours through heavy brush and woods, until Alex felt like he was ready to collapse. They were in the midst of a thick forest made up primarily of pine and fir trees.
“I hope we’ve put enough space between us and them for one day. Let’s stay here for a few hours. We can get a little rest. It’ll be dark soon enough, and I don’t think they’ll be able to track us at night. The forest is too thick.”
Senta-eh glanced in the direction she thought the village was. “They are pursuing us, so we can’t have a fire. I’ll see if I can find some roots or berries for us to eat.”
Werda-ak, full of the impatience of youth, said, “It’s too early. I can’t sit still. I’m going to scout the area, see if I can find any trace of our own quarry. Then we’ll be back on their trail first thing.”
Alex slid painfully to the ground and put his back against the trunk of a fir tree. “You two do that. I’ll wait for you right here.”
Monda-ak whined at him. “Go on, find your dinner, then come back.” The dog disappeared into the forest at a gallop.
Alex
closed his eyes and drifted off before Senta-eh and Werda-ak were out of sight.
Less than an hour later, Senta-eh returned with her pack full of huge red berries that resembled huckleberries. She laid a hand on Alex’s leg to wake him. “Here, eat these. They are good for you.”
“Whenever someone says something is good for me, it always tastes like death.”
“Don’t be a magda now. Eat some berries.”
Alex popped one into his mouth and to his surprise, it was delicious—somehow both sour and sweet at the same time, with a tangy aftertaste.
Senta-eh laughed at the expression on Alex’s mangled face. “See? Not everything I do to you is so mean.” She poured more of the berries into his lap. “Eat.”
Monda-ak returned from his jaunt through the forest, black feathers dangling from his mouth. He laid beside Alex and pawed at his snout, sneezing, and trying to dislodge the feathers.
“How far do you think they’ll chase us?” Senta-eh asked
“I suppose it depends on how pissed off they are about me destroying their bridge. I would hope that when we put good distance between us and them tomorrow, they’ll give up and go home.”
“I love it when you’re optimistic.”
Alex plucked another of the fat berries up when an echoing scream reached their ears.
Alex was instantly on his feet, pain and exhaustion forgotten. He looked at Senta-eh.
Together, they said, “Werda-ak!”
Chapter Seven
The Boar
Alex and Senta-eh ran in the direction of the scream, but the forest was thick with trees, bushes, and barbed vines. After less than a hundred yards, they had to maneuver around a stand of trees so thick as to be impassable. When they finally got around it, they realized they no longer had any idea which direction the scream had come from.
