Just how I was going to accomplish all my many lofty goals, stripped naked and unarmed, surrounded by wild animals and dinosaurs, was the million-dollar question. I wasn’t even sure I could retrace my steps to Emibi once I passed beyond the view of this grassland.
Fighting back my fears with a stubborn insistence I forged ahead toward the foothills.
“Slow down!” Nala insisted. I had forgotten she was even there. “What’s the hurry?”
I didn’t answer. No sign of pursuit had appeared from the direction of Emibi, and ahead of me I saw nothing moving. No dangers, no animals, no hungry beasts. It was as though we were moving through a long dead and completely forgotten world.
“OW!” Nala said. “Hold on. I cut myself on something.”
We both stopped as she hopped on one foot, trying to get a look at what appeared to be a scratch on her shin. Like me, she wore strap sandals, but nothing else, and I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of us was ripped open by something out here.
She bounced over to a rock and sat down, making faces at the tiny wound.
“It hurts,” she said, hissing. “Would you look at it?”
I stared a moment in amazement before moving. This woman lived in a prehistoric world filled with unheard of dangers, giant insects, and sudden death. I had watched her leap atop a T-Rex and stab the damn thing straight through the chest. How is it this scratch was bothering her in the least?
Kneeling before her I took the shin in hand and turned it gently, studying the wound. It was long, but not deep. I probably had five such scratches on various body parts of my own.
“Your touch is very gentle,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said absently.
She moved her leg to one side and leaned back a little, pressing fingertips into the dark bush of hair, between her legs.
“I have a deeper wound here,” she said seductively, moving the hair aside to expose pink folds of flesh. “Perhaps you could fill it with something… and heal me.”
I dropped her leg and started again toward the foothills.
“Do you prefer boys?” she asked, harshly.
“I prefer Nova,” I said.
“Is that her name? The one who was your mate? ‘Nova’?”
“Yes.”
“Why is she not with you?”
“She escaped on our way here.”
“Alone?” Nala asked.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Well, it’s unlikely she’s even alive. It would be a miracle, you know? Pangea is brutally cruel to lone travelers.”
“You managed to survive the last time you escaped.”
“I had a man to help me.”
“A lot of good it did him.”
“I am still alive,” she said.
I realized I had slowed for her, and had now stopped walking completely, so I could turn to face her, amazed. As I stared at her not hideous, but not to me particularly attractive face, I began to wonder if she was what Pangean men considered beautiful. Rounded face, large, arched nose, heavy hips and stomach.
“Did you offer the other man sex for his protection,” I asked, snidely, “or slow him down when you were tired?”
She looked stung, but shook it off, and glared at me.
“Well, if you want my help staying alive,” I said, returning to my journey, “you’d better keep up.”
“I’m tired and want to rest. We’ve walked very far, and there are many more fun things to do than walk, you know.”
“You’re free to stop and enjoy those things by yourself, if you want. But I need to find Nova, so I’m continuing on.”
I thought I heard her stamp a foot.
“Brandon!”
I stopped, sighed heavily, and reluctantly turned back toward her again. She had her hands on her hips, and was snarling at me in that petulant way my little sister used to do when she was five and had been told she couldn’t have the doll she’d just seen on TV.
“I said,” Nala snarled, “I am tired. And I would like to stop and rest.”
“I’m not stopping you,” I said, returning along the path.
“BRANDON!”
I sighed again… and turned back… again.
“I said,” she repeated, “I am tired.”
“And I have to find my mate!” I snapped.
I wheeled around and walked away from her. I’d gone a good distance before I heard her sandals slapping the earthen trail we’d been following, heading right for me.
“Brandon, wait!”
She reached me, ran in front of me, and took hold of my arms, staring into my eyes.
“Please,” she said, sounding sad, and pitiful, and if I hadn’t already gotten a good sense of her, I would have thought she was actually sincere. “Please, Brandon, just a few minutes rest.”
She let go of my arms and put her hands around my waist, pulling me to her, and pressing her cheek to my chest.
“You’re just so much stronger and faster than I am,” she said. “I’ve never known a man who was so… powerful.”
One of her hands left my back and found its way to my bare ass, the fingers taking delicate hold. I pushed her away.
“If you want to rest, we’ll rest. But none of that,” I said, motioning toward her clutching fingers. “I love Nova.”
“And you can love her still. But let’s enjoy one another while you do.”
“Is that how you do things here?” I said, thoughts of Nova with someone else tearing open my heart in a jealous fury. Nala must have picked up on it, because she smiled, and her seductive look returned.
“You’re not from here?” she asked. “That explains everything. Most of the tribes in this part of Pangea… if you want to, you do. Spearing and being speared—it’s fun. And there is so little fun in Pangea.”
I fought away thoughts of Nova being speared by another. But Nala—probably sensing weakness—pounced.
“If your Nova is alive, and she meets a man, it will happen. It’s like saying ‘hello’. She will let men inside her whenever the opportunity arises. Or the spear arises, as it were.”
I sat down on a nearby boulder and felt a mixture of rage, horror, and sadness slam through me. It made a kind of sense. This place was nothing like my world. But was it really so different? Men and women seemed very similar, for the most part. Physically. Emotionally. But sex was incredibly free, and perhaps necessarily so, if the species was to survive. It was almost Darwinian in its obviousness. There could be no possessiveness. No jealousy. Such notions would only interfere with reproduction and survival. I put my head in my hands and agonized about it.
“This hurts you,” Nala said, kneeling before me and placing her hands gently on my arms. “Don’t let it hurt you. This is just our way. She will still love you. Fucking is only for fun.”
“It has great meaning where I come from,” I said. “For lots of reasons. Not the least of which is knowing whose child you’re raising.”
“What does it matter whose child you raise? A child needs to be protected by the tribe. It belongs to all. But that has nothing to do with spearing.”
I raised my head and looked at her carefully.
“Spearing is what makes babies,” I said.
She looked at me, confused. She shook her head.
“No. Babies are placed inside us by the goddess of life,” she said. “But if you pray before the shoranja, eat its root or drink its tea, the gods will be merciful and give you no babies.”
“Merciful,” I said, stunned.
“Life in Pangea is hard. It is not a place for babies, or being tied down to them.”
“Grigori eat babies,” I said, remembering what Nova had said.
“No they don’t,” Nala said, nearly laughing. “That’s just a story mothers tell to scare their children so they won’t wander off.”
I thought about that. No, Nova had meant it. And she had known that having sex with me could lead to babies—babies she genuinely feared the Grigori would eat
.
Just as she had feared other women would want me, and so had taken steps to prevent it, she also feared pregnancy because she knew it would be ours. Hers and mine. She knew it.
Nova wasn’t like Nala, even if Nala was telling the truth. She wouldn’t take just any ‘spear’ that came along.
I was fairly sure.
I shook my head to clear the thought, and stood up.
“Enough rest,” I said, and began walking again.
Behind me I heard Nala sigh, heavily, but she didn’t try to stop me anymore.
* * *
HUNTED
* * *
I HAVE NO IDEA, of course, how long it took us to reach the limit of the plain, but eventually we entered the foothills, and began following a pretty little canyon upward into the mountains. Nala hadn’t spoken much since the stop so long ago, and I’d said almost nothing. What little she did say was usually complaint or criticism. The only sound as we climbed was her struggling, and moaning, or the trickling of a little brook, splashing pleasantly alongside us down toward some distant sea.
The tiny stream settled into larger pools along the way, and in one of its quieter ponds I found some small fish, four-or five-pounds each, I think. They looked more like tiny whales than trout, or salmon. As I climbed, I occasionally noticed that they not only suckled their young like mammals, but also came to the surface to breathe and feed on some of the tender grasses and a strange, scarlet lichen that grew on the rocks just above the water line.
This, of course, made it easier for me to snag one and make a meal of it. A good meal, at that. Nala cooked the things on a spit over a small fire she started with nearby rocks and scrub. It was plain, and unevenly cooked, but the meat was tasty. By now I’d gotten rather used to eating food in its raw, natural state, though I still cringed at the thought of eyes and entrails, much to Bruk’s never ending amusement. He particularly loved those little treats. Having something roasted was a kind of delicacy for me, even if I knew Nala had done it primarily so we could stop moving for a while. She really was quite lazy.
After dining on a couple of the fish, I brought her water from a clear pool, and we drank the precious liquid together. Then I washed my hands and face and for the thousandth time checked behind us, in the direction of Emibi.
Off in the distance I thought I could make out a small group of figures moving our way.
I sighed. And then I smiled.
“Finally,” I said to no one.
“Finally, what?” Nala asked.
“The Angara are coming.”
She stood, instantly frightened, grabbed her spear and moved around behind me. I laughed a little.
“Far off,” I said. “Back near Emibi.”
She suddenly kicked over the fire, extinguishing it.
“Will they find us?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” I said. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
Turning around, I continued my ascent. Nala, after taking a last look at the distant hunters, followed. Above us in the direction of the source of the brook there was a more rugged climb that led all the way to the summit of the mountain ridge. We reached it in no time, and beyond found a steep decline that sliced almost straight down, directly to the shore of a peaceful, little, inland sea. Out along the upwardly curving surface I could see several beautiful islands.
“What do we do?” Nala asked. “About the Angara?”
“Nothing,” I said, topping the rise and heading down.
“But if they find us, they’ll take us!”
“No, they won’t.”
“They will!” she screamed, panicked.
I stopped and faced her, smiling to show my calm.
“They will find us, Nala, yes,” I said, patiently. “Because they have a thing that tells them where we are. There is no escaping them.”
She started to interrupt with fearful sputtering, but I held my hands up and assured her it would be fine.
“I’ll be ready for them when they get here. And then I’ll take their little tracking device and use it to find Nova.”
She looked momentarily stunned, but not much reassured, and I didn’t care.
The view was beautiful, but I didn’t spare any time to sightsee. As I had all during the hike up I searched during the descent for a suitable cave, but there didn’t seem to be one. I stepped over the edge of a little bluff, and half sliding, half falling, dropped into the pretty, little valley that led out to the sea, marveling at the profound sense of peace and security I felt. Behind me Nala stumbled over a vine and fell on her face. She stood, spitting grass and twigs, and growled.
“Why did we have to come here?” she demanded.
“You have a better place for us to go?”
“Back to my village!”
“So go there!” I said, tired of her bitching and whining.
Turning up the coast, I began to search along its edge for any opening that might be big enough for my purposes. The gently sloping beach along which I walked was thickly matted with strangely shaped, brightly colored shells; some empty, others still housing some of the weirdest critters that ever slimed a trail. As I walked I couldn’t help but think of myself as the first man on earth, so primal and untouched were these virgin wonders and ancient beauties, so completely devoid of people did this entire world seem. I felt like a second Adam wending his lonely way through a newborn Garden of Eden, desperately searching for my Eve.
“Brandon!” Nala called. “Brandon, wait!”
While being trailed by an obnoxious, high maintenance Pangean princess.
I stopped, sighed, and turned to find her struggling to get over some branches and ferns, attempting to protect her naked body from the shrubs, and the skittering little creatures on the sand.
“EW!” she said, flinching from something I couldn’t see. “Brandon, wait for me!”
Nala was—as I said—not attractive to me, but she was far from hideous, her body quite a thing of beauty. A little heavy, but that only made it full, and soft, and appealing. Watching her walk toward me in the nude wasn’t exactly unpleasant. But as she sneered at me out of disgust for the pretty little area surrounding us, an image bubbled up before my mind’s eye of the exquisite outlines of a perfect face wrapped in the loose tangle of luxurious, raven hair that I knew would enjoy this place as much as I did. She wouldn’t complain, or whine, or bitch me into distraction. She would laugh, and joke, and enjoy.
“God, Brandon,” Nala said, irritated, “you don’t make it easy to stay with you, you know.”
I instantly tired of looking at her naked body, and searched the area again for a place to set up. That’s when I saw a series of small caves cut into the ridge that lined the beach.
One of them seemed perfect from where I stood, but eager to be certain, I bounded over the thick weeds and matted undergrowth to reach its mouth.
“Dammit, Brandon!” Nala yelled. “Slow down!”
The cave seemed deep enough, creating both shadow and darkness to hide in. It was also quite damp and muddy owing to a small river whose steady flow still trickled quietly along its floor. But that gave me an idea for something lacking in my plan that had been bothering me—how to hide. The water had probably eroded the tunnel into existence over many, many centuries, and its constant moisture was going to be just what I needed.
I backed out and studied the mouth, noting a small overhang that seemed perfectly suited for my little plot.
“Yeah,” I said to no one. “Yeah, this will do nicely.”
“What will do nicely?” Nala asked, stepping carefully over to where I was.
“I need to set something up, here in this cave,” I told her. “Will you help me?”
She stopped and looked at me like I was insane.
“What kind of help?” she asked.
“Moving boulders, and weaving some grass mats.”
“Why should I do that?”
“So we’ll be free of the Angara and the Grigori.”
; She continued to stare, and I thought she wasn’t going to answer. But I was wrong.
“Fuck me first,” she said.
I stared back at her, stunned.
“I’ll do it myself,” I said.
I headed off toward a small cluster of stones.
“Gods, Brandon, why don’t you want to have sex? Most men would be begging ME for sex!”
“Go find one of them,” I said.
And so, anticipating my visitors sometime soon, I began the preparations I hoped would free, Milton, Elia, Nova, and I from the ever-watchful eye of the Grigori.
THREE ANGARA WERE coming as if drawn to us by magnets. One of them held out a silvery device before him, checked his surroundings, then the device, and finally pointed in our direction, saying something I couldn’t hear. The other Angara moved slightly ahead of him, coming much the same way we’d come, over roots and logs, across ditches and small streams until they all stood near the mouth of the cave, looking in.
The lead Angara checked the device in his hand, adjusted something, and looked into the cave.
“Slaves of the Grigori!” he yelled. “You have been found! Come out now and you won’t be harmed. I really don’t mind getting out of the city now and then, but only to a point. Searching through darkened caves goes beyond that point. So spare yourself a beating, and spare me the exertion that will only make that beating more painful.”
I, of course, said nothing, and thankfully, neither did Nala.
I heard the lead Angara sigh, heavily, in exasperation.
“Go on,” he told the others. “Drag them out.”
The other two looked at one another, and one of them glanced inside, uncertain.
“What if it’s a trick, and there’s a beast in there, or something.”
“Not my problem,” said the lead Angara, who simply stared back at the questioning hunter with stern indifference.
The panther man who had spoken groaned, then trudged slowly forward, followed reluctantly by the nervous third. The two searchers stepped carefully through the mud, moving deeper into the cave, as far as they dared without light.
The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1) Page 19
