Stars Beneath My Feet

by D L Frizzell

  Chapter Two

  I ran toward a ridge I’d seen on the map, following the last bearing I’d gotten from the crash site. My aerobike was a memory now, lost to the Rekeire Plain forever. Thankfully, the tendrils of the shadow palms didn’t pay any attention to me after I left. Once there was no more sunlight to compete over, they more or less went dormant. Good thing, too. I’d hate to fight them all the way to Bogleg.

  My bigger concern was whether I’d have to deal with a more direct adversary, either one with teeth or one with a rifle. Recalling that I had little time to wake up and less time to think during my experience on the aerobike, I started to doubt myself. I hadn’t gotten a clear view of the shooter as I was distracted by the magquake. I’d also been convinced that somebody was talking to me when I first woke up. Was it all a figment of my imagination, a fatigue-induced hallucination? Did the magquake just make me think I’d been shot at? As unfocused as I was at the time, the sound of a snapping cable could easily be mistaken for a bullet flying by. The glint of metal I saw between the shadow palms? For all I knew, there were a hundred wrecked vehicles on the Rekeire Plain, and some might even protrude through the canopy in places. One thing was certain; I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep for anything to make sense, especially in retrospect. And now, prolonged exertion might make me prone to further misperceptions. I wished I could just lie down and sleep, but that wasn’t an option. Whether or not I was the only person for hundreds of kilometers, I was certainly in danger of getting eaten by the local wildlife. So, I focused on getting to the ridge. It lay to the south, not on a direct course toward Bogfield, but it had the advantage of rising above the shadow palms. After the last few hours, it would be enough to just get back into daylight.

  I tried to keep a steady pace, but fatigue sapped my energy. If something did attack me in the dark – which was a distinct possibility - I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to defend myself. On the other hand, running took less effort than fighting. My feet disagreed, seeming heavier than ever before, and dragged through the dirt as I shambled onward. Well, I thought, the plumes of dust I kicked up made it easier to see which way the needles of sunlight pointed. I used those occasional shafts of sunlight as my compass, following them southward.

  I must have been half-asleep when I ran headlong into a shadow palm. It had some play in it, as such plants would, but was rooted firmly at both the top and bottom. I lost all forward momentum when I hit the stalk, and then bounced backward to fall on my ass. As I shook off the impact, I knew the last thing I needed was a predator homing in on a litany of curses. Instead, I sat there seething, gingerly touching the fresh sore spot on my right cheek.

  I came to grips with the fact that I was almost at the end of my rope. I climbed slowly to my feet, ignoring the aches I felt from head to toe. How much longer could I go on? How much darkness could I take? Like anybody else who lived their life in the northern hemisphere, I was accustomed to the permanent daylight that Arion’s sun provided. Even though I knew the sunlight shone just a few meters overhead, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t feel it. It was at least fifteen degrees colder here in the shade. Maybe that was weighing on me, too. The darkness and the cold, leeching my strength away…it was too much. In this state, I imagined being trapped, not on the broad expanse of a plain, but underground.

  I staggered and fell.

  I lay there for…I don’t know…minutes. Finding another meager reserve of energy, I managed to achieve a kneeling position. I couldn’t give up, not now. I unsheathed my falcata and mustered my strength. With a shaky hand, I hacked at the stalk of the nearest shadow palm until I severed it. Instead of falling, however, the stalk just hung there, its tendrils woven in the organic mesh overhead.

  “That figures,” I mumbled.

  I crawled to the next plant and swung my blade again. It came apart, but again, nothing happened.

  “Really?”

  I stumbled to my feet and chopped another, and then another, cleaving them until the canopy began to droop under its own weight. Sunbeams peeked between separating fronds, but I just kept swinging. It was cathartic, really, not just because the sunlight now shone through numerous places, but because these plants needed to die. They were a threat somehow, so I cut and sliced the damned things, backtracking to cut some trunks shorter just because they were there. I was drenched in sweat, barely able to stand, but I swung that blade with renewed energy. Fluid erupted from the shadow palms, but I didn’t care. If I thought they would burn, I’d light a bonfire. Feeling almost disembodied, I realized I was shouting at them. A silent part of me wondered what kind of delirium would make me hate these plants so much.

  The fluid-gorged fronds couldn’t support themselves after losing so many trunks, and the canopy finally started tearing apart under its own weight. I scrambled away, pulling my hat’s brim down so the increasing glare wouldn’t rob me of my sight. If there were a man-eater nearby, especially one unaccustomed to the daylight, I would take advantage of its temporary blindness and…

  Hack at it, too? I asked myself. What’s wrong with you, Alex? I shook my head, dumbly wondering why I felt the need to go to such an extreme when all I wanted was a little sunlight. I’d been so…angry.

  When a ten-meter patch of shadow palms collapsed onto the ground, I glanced at my falcata. It dripped with blood. Did I cut myself? I checked myself for injuries, but found none. When I looked down at the falcata again, I saw that it was only covered with yellow sap from the severed shadow palms.

  “You really are tired, aren’t you? I whispered.

  I wiped the blade clean and re-sheathed it. The palms that lay on the ground writhed, their tendrils darting back and forth in a vain attempt to reconnect with their neighbors. I backed away, not wanting to get tangled in them, not wanting to touch them anymore.

  The palm fragments on the ground received no aid from their neighbors. They bled out, their tendrils slowly dying as the yellowish fluid drained from the cuts I’d made. After barely a minute, the chopped palms twitched their last. That’s what I was waiting for. I kicked the dead vines to the side to get into the sunlight, even if just for a minute, and then fell to my knees. I’d have to move on again before new growth overtook me, but I needed the sun just as much as the plants did at that moment.

  I took the opportunity to look around again. I had the bizarre sense that I hadn’t gone anywhere since leaving the aerobike, though I must have covered better than fifteen kilometers by that time. The sun looked the same. The shadow palms looked the same. Even the ground looked the same. Was I feeling a sense of deja vu? I took a drink from my canteen, thinking there was a good chance I was suffering from dehydration.

  I heard a rustling sound in the distance ahead. I quietly put my hand back on my falcata and did the same with my pistol. I heard what sounded like raspy breathing ahead, but I couldn’t be sure. I took my hand off my weapons, choosing instead to pull the Longarm rifle off my shoulder. I thumbed the safety and found an intact shadow palm for support.

  When I saw where the sound was coming from, I almost laughed. It came from a crack where two granite slabs leaned against each other in an upside-down V shape. The noise was just the wind rubbing palm fronds back and forth against the stone. I’d finally reached the ridge, and could now see other granite protrusions going left and right into the dim light. The palms had been so efficient at filling in every last gap of sunlight that they’d made a seamless border against the uneven rock faces. It’s a good thing I ran into that vine. Otherwise I might have hit a solid wall of stone.

  My relief abandoned me when I noticed broken yellow fragments scattered around me in the dirt. Those are teeth, I realized. I murmured a silent prayer that they’d been there for a very long time, and then peered closer at the stone slabs ahead.

  Dry, crushed bones littered a hollow between the rocks. Judging by their condition, they hadn’t been there long at all. I swore under my breath. Somehow, I’d come straight to the den of the world’s most notorio
us killing machine – a clefang. A pair of them, judging by the different shades of broken teeth everywhere.

  Clefangs were vicious carnivores. Though their bodies were reminiscent of canines, clefangs had none of the happy characteristics that people associated with dogs. With thick, blocky skulls, and tusks shaped like cleavers, they grew up to fifteen hundred kilos. Clefang lifespans were guessed to approach a hundred years, though none had been found to die of old age. They only died in the jaws of other clefangs or, on rare occasion, at a comfortable distance with field artillery. The damn things were practically indestructible. Their bad reputation wasn’t wholly founded on their toughness, but also their brutality. In contrast to regular carnivores that relied on incisors to chew their prey, clefang teeth looked like bricks, which ground their food to a pulp instead of cutting it. They could still take off a man’s arm in a single bite, though, working much as a ten-ton hydraulic press would.

  Listening intently for the sound of grinding molars, a clefang’s primary telltale, I heard only the breeze whistling through the cracks. That didn’t mean I was safe. On the contrary, clefangs only left their dens to hunt their next meal. And there I was, stooped in a circle of light like a chef’s signature pork roast.

  I knew my only course of action was the one I’d already decided – get on top of the ridge and head toward Bogfield as fast as my feet could carry me. No pacing myself this time because I doubted my Longarm could bring either one of those beasts down. I climbed, slicing the shadow palms out of my way until I was on naked rock. I then pulled myself to the top of the ridge, easily a fifty-meter ascent.

  The granite slabs that formed the ridgeline followed a jagged but navigable path to the horizon in both directions. Bleached white from eight millennia of perpetual sunlight, the ridge looked the same way it did on the map, like a monstrous shattered backbone dividing the Rekeire Plain. Except for the stretch of mountains to the south, the ridge was the only landmark breaching the shadow palms in any direction. If I made it to those mountains, I could then alter course toward Bogfield.

  There was no indication of movement in the grass on either side of the ridge. A careful predator wouldn’t give itself away, but careful predators didn’t venture into clefang territory any more than careful people did. Clefangs were blunt instruments of nature. One whiff of meat and they would charge through concrete walls – literally - to get it. Clefangs owned the plains. They ate everything that moved: herbivores, carnivores, each other, and were even known to chew on themselves if they smelled blood. The only silver lining here was that clefangs had to patrol huge territories to find enough food for their voracious appetites. If there was any chance for me to get away, it would be that they weren’t in the neighborhood.

  The worst possible outcome would be to stumble upon a lone clefang in the throes of a feeding frenzy. An eating clefang was more dangerous than one that hadn’t eaten for days, for once it got the scent of blood it would run absolutely berserk. Driven more by bloodlust than hunger, the vicious creatures would claw, shred and clamp down on anything in reach of their monstrous mouths, and then roll in the blood of their victims like pigs in mud. This behavior wouldn’t just last for a single feeding - clefangs raged for weeks before exhausting their crazed appetites and returning to their dens to mate like rabbits. Hopefully, since I didn’t see evidence of mayhem, this meant that they were many kilometers away.

  The sense of being watched suddenly came over me again. Thinking my exhaustion had created a level of paranoia, I figured I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between real and imagined dangers. Not wanting to chance a mistake that would cost my life, I decided it was time to go. I stumbled along as fast as I could manage, my rifle held across my chest, hoping I could make it to the mountains before I collapsed.

  After only a hundred meters, I tripped and fell. I didn’t even feel my knees hit the boulder where I stopped. No, I told myself. Don’t give up now. If I could put twenty kilometers between me and the clefang den, maybe then I’d stop for a breather. I got back to my feet and continued at a walk. Lungs burning, throat parched, I tucked my sweaty hair under my hat and looked around. Other than a few scavenger birds circling nearby, maybe the ones I’d seen earlier, I was alone.

  By the third time I fell, I knew I had to stop. My pack felt like it was full of rocks and I could barely hold onto my rifle. I began looking for a crevice to hide in, the only prerequisite being that a clefang wouldn’t fit inside. It didn’t take long to find one. Clefangs are big.

  I had to squeeze into the deep notch without my field pack and then pull it in behind me. Once inside, I turned to face the opening and pointed my Longarm at the narrow shaft of daylight that followed me in. I wasn’t comfortable, but was as safe as I could hope to be.

  The two scavenger birds appeared at the opening. If they thought I was going to die and be their next meal, they were in for a surprise. The first one to touch me would get a good solid kick in the beak. Still, I was relieved to see them. Scavenger birds aren’t dumb enough to perch anywhere near danger.

  I lay there for a while, wanting to sleep but worried that I was still exposed. A full-grown clefang couldn’t get into my niche, but what if the clefang had a cub? Clefangs were known to eat their young, as their appetites frequently surpassed their parental instincts, but they let their young live if hunting was good. Part of the whole natural selection process that kept the populations balanced, I supposed, but not very comforting in my current situation. The only attributes that cubs lacked in comparison to their parents were their size and the hormones that would eventually cause their teeth to grow until their deaths. Once clefangs hit adolescence, their hunger and their teeth would consume their attention for the rest of their lives. Eat, eat, eat. Grind, grind, grind. Once I was asleep, an adult might wake me, but a clefang cub would be nearly silent. It would be my own screams that woke me up if one found me there in my hidey hole.

  I felt my thoughts shutting down, not because I wanted them to but because I couldn’t help it. Do clefangs get toothaches? I wondered. It might explain their constant rage. Do they ever sleep? That was a question that almost left me feeling sorry for them. Losing interest, I listened to the scavenger birds talking to each other as I drifted off to sleep, thinking finally in my delirium that birds weren’t supposed to talk.

  Chapter Three

  Once I fell asleep between the granite slabs on that backbone ridge, I had a dream more vivid than any I’d had before. I was back under the shadow palms, racing between the plant stalks as I was before, only this time I was following somebody. There was a blade in my hand, but it wasn’t my falcata. It was a sword, sharpened for combat and very deadly.

  I stopped in my tracks when I heard something in the distance. A rhythmic grinding noise that sounded like a wet piece of lumber being twisted back and forth, approached from the north. Something sniffed the air in that direction. When I heard a deep, throaty growl, I knew my skill with a sword would soon be tested.

  Rapid footsteps pounded in the darkness. The beast was heading toward me and would arrive in mere moments. I turned, raising my sword to strike, but still could not see it. The footfalls took on a grinding quality, indicating that the beast’s retractable claws were now fully extended. I could not afford to guess its exact location, as I would only have time for a single attack.

  A tiny spot of sunlight jumped off the ground and flickered once in midair before disappearing completely into the dust and shadows.

  There you are. I raised my sword with my right hand. With the other hand, I slapped an activator pad on my belt. Ahead of me, the shadow palms exploded in a shower of lightning. The plants’ internal fluids flew outward in gelatinous droplets, obscuring my view, but only for an instant. As quickly as the lightning had been created, it was gone. In the gaping hole of obliterated shadow palms, a broad swath of sunlight poured in, illuminating my quarry.

  The clefang never slowed, despite being coated in plant matter. Its tiny eyes narrowed slight
ly, but even the radiant burst of sunlight would not slow its charge. Below those eyes was a giant mouth set with blocky and fractured teeth, bracketed on either side by tusks that could have been blades had they not been broken off so close to the beast’s square face. It sped toward me, snarling, head swinging from side to side as its legs pumped feverishly at the soft ground. It is so fast! I could see old blood spatters encrusting its scarred, demonic visage. Almost before I could react, it leapt into the air, claws stretching out toward me. There was no time to swing. Instead, I lowered my sword to meet its charge. I missed its mouth, and instead pierced its left shoulder. It seemed not to notice as it tackled me, its full weight crushing the air out of my lungs.

  The clefang’s left foreleg twitched uselessly beside my head, but its right claw slid quickly under my torso. I was surprised that the claw didn’t cut me at first, but then I realized why. The claws are hook-shaped. They don’t cut until the beast pulls them back, and then they shred. I felt the muscles peel away from my rib cage. The pain! The claws pushed back under me and yanked again, this time splaying my insides onto the dirt with a torrent of blood. I have never screamed before, but without any breath left, I only wish I could. Above me, the beast’s huge mouth snapped viciously, not quite able to reach my face. My sword’s hilt had saved me, being pressed into the dirt beside me enough to support the creature’s upper body, if only for a moment. It craned its thick neck, drooling long threads of rancid saliva into my mouth. All I tasted was my own blood. My left arm no longer felt connected, but my right hand still held the sword. There’s a risk, I thought, but I have to try something soon. My partner won’t be here in time. With the last of my strength, I rotated my blade through beast’s shoulder in an attempt to pierce its heart. In doing this, I inadvertently removed my only leverage against it, and it hardly seemed to notice the damage I was inflicting. The beast heaved itself forward again, its lower jaw collapsing my windpipe while its upper jaw went over my head. I knew I was finished, so I twisted the sword’s hilt deeper. The clefang finally roared in agony as the long blade pierced its chest cavity, deafening me as its coarse, slimy tongue mashed against my face. Insanely, it continued its attack, pressing its full weight down on me as it drove forward with its hind legs. Its upper teeth dug tore into my scalp and…