by Robert York
Bart nodded, understanding evident in his features.
“I’ll lead you to your destination Wizard. But this in no way makes us friends,” Bart said indicating the map and compass in his hand.
“I’ll return them to you as soon as we get to our destination.”
On that note Barnabas turned gesturing for Bart to get in front of us. Which he did, after consulting the map and compass. We set off for our destination, Bart in the lead followed by Race with Tilly, then Adrianna. Next followed Barnabas, then myself six or seven paces behind. Walking around wearing snowshoes isn’t fun by any stretch of the imagination. Especially if a person hasn’t worn them in a while or isn’t use to walking around with large tennis rackets on your feet. OK, they really aren’t shaped like tennis rackets, however the same odd shape applies. First, you have to get accustomed to large cumbersome ovals on your feet made from hard plastic, aluminum and Velcro strips. When you walk in snowshoes however, you must widen your stance so that you don’t step on the other shoe. To be fair snowshoes aren’t impossible to master or difficult to use, it just takes time and practice. I’ve never really liked devoting time in learning how to use them, because I hate snow and everything that has to do with cold weather. But that’s another story.
Our intrepid group moved at a fairly good pace, though I was falling behind, as usual. Race moved through the snow easily bounding from one spot to another. I wondered if Tilly was getting motion sickness. Barnabas had absolutely no difficulty moving in the snow. He appeared to be on a power walk, every step sure and confident. I on the other hand looked completely uncoordinated, like a duck that lost it’s waddle. As for the Vampires their progress wasn’t impeded by the elements or terrain. It was as though they each weighed no more than a feather barely disturbing the snow as they moved resolutely on.
We’d gone approximately a mile in roughly an hour and a half. The sun continued to dip down in the West, which meant we’d be out of daylight in a few hours. I was hoping that Barnabas was going to set up camp and we’d get to Bialek’s place in the morning. Sadly he was notoriously stubborn and wouldn’t stop till one of us dropped from exhaustion. My body ached from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, which were so cold I could no longer feel them. My clothes on the other hand clung to my body like a cellophane wrapper on a piece of American cheese. Sweat pooled under my winter clothes as I attempted to keep pace with the others. The frigid wind swirled around me biting through to my skin. I just couldn’t get warm. My teeth chattered like a pair of novelty teeth and my body shivered uncontrollably. To make the situation worse, my throat was as dry as straw. I couldn’t quench my thirst because my bottle of water had frozen. I ended up resorting to eating the snow around me - I made sure I got it from places Race had not been so don’t worry, I didn’t eat any yellow snow - which helped my thirst, but made my already cold body shiver even more.
We made our way through a dense part of the forest filled with trees that had grown near a ridge with a steep incline. The forest floor hadn’t been blanketed with the drifting layers of thick snow like the open expanses, but that didn’t mean we were free of obstacles. The forest floor was littered with fallen twigs and branches lying only a few inches below the snow. I managed to get my snowshoes hung up twice. I couldn’t complain all that much, the trees being so close together helped with the wind immensely, I didn’t feel as cold as I did before.
The storm continued to rage unrelenting around us with no sign of abating anytime soon, this was one of those occasions that weren’t fit for man or beast. Much to his credit, Bart found a clearing among the trees that shielded us from the wind. The canopy above our heads afforded us enough cover to help keep the snow at bay. We rested for about fifteen minutes. I took the opportunity to eat something. Easier said than done. The jerky was frozen hard as were the two Baby Ruth Bars I’d packed. The only thing that was somewhat thawed out was a chocolate chip granola bar. I guess you’d call it luck that one of the chemical heat packs I carried activated in my pack keeping the darn thing from freezing. Granola bars aren’t my favorite snack food to eat. I only bring them along because Barnabas tells me too. If I could figure out a way to keep an Italian Beef Sandwich with Chili Fries warm on a camping trip I’d have that to eat.
I didn’t feel at all satisfied with the short rest period or inadequate snack, but our taskmasters; Bart and Barnabas wanted to press on. I got up from the rock that’d been my makeshift place to park my behind. Getting up however was difficult. My ass felt like a frozen pot roast right out of the deep freeze. My joints were stiff and my leg muscles rebelled against my insistence that they help get me to my feet. Instead, they were on the verge of cramping.
My body felt tired, worn out and for the first time in my adult life I felt old, really old. Like pass the false teeth Mildred so I can eat old. As I have said before I’m in my mid-twenties, by far the youngest person on this little expedition. Race would be the next youngest at just over one hundred and twelve. I had no idea how old Bart was, but he had the air of being from the mid to late seventeen hundreds. Barnabas was over seven hundred years old and I knew Adrianna had to be at least a thousand. I was the proverbial baby of this particular bunch, but I’d wager a million bucks that I felt the oldest right at this moment. It didn’t matter at all that three of our party were supernatural beings, two of which were Vampires. Adrianna and Bart were immortal and would not change in physical appearance or succumb to fatigue, ever. The other, Race though long lived was not immortal. He’d remain as he was until the day he died. Not a gray hair, not a wrinkle or middle-aged potbelly would ever tarnish his appearance. I let out a deep depressed sigh. Not at the thought of being old or how unfair it was that I didn’t have any of those cool powers that the others possessed.
No.
Those powers came at a price. A price I wasn’t willing to pay. The depressed sigh was in response to the thought of having to hike the three and a half miles to Bialek’s place and there wasn’t any guarantee I’d be getting any warmer along the way or when we arrived.
Chapter 17
We continued on our march, my spirits far lower than they were twenty minutes before. We emerged from the protection of the tree line that served as our wall against the snow. The storm appeared to have gotten stronger. Winds had increased in intensity gusting so forcefully staying upright was difficult. Don’t get me started on the snowflakes; they had increased in size falling with greater rapidity. The cynical side of my brain immediately began thinking that this was all a conspiracy perpetrated by Mother Nature to punish me for all my complaining. Why couldn’t she teach me a lesson by raising the temperature twenty or thirty degrees? That’d sure put me in my place. Bart led us in a wide arc around, what appeared to be nothing. There was a drop off forty feet or so to our left, however there wasn’t anything that I could see that would prevent us from traveling in a straight line. It just didn’t make any sense to me; then again I wasn’t the one holding the map.
My right foot felt heavy almost to the point of dragging. I paused taking a glance down discovering my snowshoe hung loosely by a strap, which was torn nearly in two. It collected snow as I walked making my progress sluggish. Great, the strap must’ve gotten cut on a sharp branch somewhere along our hike. I shrugged out of my pack placing it on the ground in front of me. I knelt down in an attempt to repair my snowshoe. I rummaged around in my pack taking out a couple of thin bungee cords roughly eight inches long. I managed to reinforce the damaged strap by creating an “X” around my boot using the bungee cords to hold everything in place. I stood moving around in a circle discovering that the bungee cords worked well. Satisfied with my jury-rigging, I closed my pack struggling back into the darn thing. Man it was heavy. My pack felt like Tilly had packed Mari’s entire kitchen into it. Along with a Weber Grill and a full bottle of propane. I know I’m exaggerating but come on already. Putting on a fully loaded pack is difficult to begin with. Add in snow gear along with the conditions that I currently fo
und myself in and you have a recipe for complaining.
After I got myself situated I looked around discovering that I was alone. Everyone had continued on without noticing that I’d stopped. Dammit! I’d been so stupid. I hadn’t called out indicating I had an issue, which is what you’re supposed to do while hiking so things like this didn’t occur. I’d chide myself later about my lack of hiking etiquette; right now I had to catch up to the others. I could see far enough ahead where their tracks disappeared around a large rock about forty or fifty yards away. If I hurried I could catch up to them. I learned a while back in math class that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. So using that logic I set off at a brisk lope in the direction of where the tracks disappeared.
Remember when I was talking about all the blowing snow and deep drifts? Well, I realized far too late why Bart had led us around in a wide arc. He was avoiding a cliff covered with an overhang of snow that made the actual cliff appear to be twenty feet wider than it actually was. I got maybe ten or fifteen steps out onto the overhang before the darn thing gave way under me. A few tons of heavily packed snow broke loose cascading down carrying me along with it. The whole heap rolled and tumbled into the valley forty or fifty feet below. The fall was anything but pleasant. My limbs slammed into chunks of ice concealed within the snow, I tumbled head over tail five or six times. My face planting in the snow just as many times forcing cold icy matter down the front and back of my coat. Even more collected inside my boots.
When the mass of snow finally came to rest, I found myself buried in a dark icy tomb. I was alive and I didn’t think anything was broken, which was a good thing. My hand still gripped tightly around the shaft of my staff. I took a few seconds to calm down, my heart rate was beating at a rapid pace to the point I could feel a hell of a headache rising on the inside of my skull. I moved the hand holding my staff in an up and down movement. Making a pocket of space large enough to begin to dig my way out. I slowly moved my body with purpose packing the snow around me into a small tunnel as I went. The snow covering me was only a foot and a half deep which made it easier to get out of the predicament I was in. My head broke the surface of the snow and I gulped air like a scuba diver whose air tank had gone empty. Using my staff as an anchor, I pulled myself up and out of the icy pit, collapsing onto my back just lying there in the snow.
I felt numb yet my body was still able to radiate pain. The collection of snow inside my coat wouldn’t let me forget the sensation of being a Popsicle however, I ultimately forced myself up into a sitting position and it was a painful exertion. I tugged off my wet gloves, pulled down my hood followed by my goggles then went about digging the snow from off my face and out of my coat. The last few handfuls ended up being formed into a nice sized snowball, that I hurled at a nearby tree, missing it by a good three feet. I guess the Detroit Tigers wouldn’t be calling me to pitch for them anytime soon.
I ran a bare hand over my damp hair mantled with a thin layer of snow, then pulled my hood back up over my head. I did my best to wipe the goggles free of snow before placing them back over my eyes. I took off my pack again remembering I’d packed a spare set of winter gloves in a Ziploc bag. After replacing the wet gloves with dry ones I sighed happily. Wearing damp gloves in this weather would not have been a good thing to do. I crammed everything back into my pack zipping it up. I picked up a handful of snow eating it a bit like a flavorless snow cone, letting it melt to gain a measure of relief from thirst. My teeth ached from the frozen sensation, I was thirsty and there wasn’t another way to get water into me. As I took up a second handful I noticed that I had lost a snowshoe and the other was badly damaged. I sighed. My walk just got a lot harder. I still had my pack and my battle staff. I felt the comforting weight of the Colt still strapped to my thigh, so I wasn’t too badly off. Still, I didn’t relish the idea of trudging through this mess without the help of my snowshoes.
Barnabas was the outdoorsman, not me. He’d buy all sorts of gear such as fly-fishing equipment, cross country skis, mountain bikes and these snowshoes so he and I could enjoy the outdoors together. Now don’t get me wrong I do like some outdoor activities, just not all. Especially where cold weather is concerned. I hate anything to do with winter or just cold climate in general. I think my aversion to the cold stems from my first few winters I endured in Detroit growing up in a drafty orphanage. Sister Mari did her best with the money she had to work with, but it was cheaper to keep the heat low. Sweaters and blankets were a necessity in that old drafty building. There was nothing worse - to me anyway - than being cold and not able to get warm. I was glad when I’d heard that the orphanage had been condemned and demolished, no longer would kids have to suffer in that rat hole.
I put my pack back on as I pushed myself to my feet then promptly sank to my ankles in the snow. I sighed a long-suffering sigh. I had two options before me. The first was to find a way back up the ridge hopefully running into the others or second and most attractive to me was to find some shelter, build a fire in order to wait out the storm then find them in the morning. I didn’t think they’d gotten far and with any luck they’d have noticed that I wasn’t with them hopefully deciding on a similar course of action. My mind made up, I cast the bent snowshoe aside then started trudging my way through the storm looking for a place to hunker down for the night.
The deeper I moved into the forest the more strangely familiar the surroundings became to me. Though I’d never been here before somehow I knew where I was and where I was going. Every rock, every tree and every drift of snow had an eerie déjà vu quality about them. A thought nagged at me. A thought that floated at the fringes of my memory yet I wasn’t able to grab hold of it bringing it back into the light. It wasn’t until I made my way into a large clearing through the thick line of trees that the memory crystallized and I could see it more clearly. This clearing was in my dream. I was here. I dreamt about this place. There are times, though not all that often I have precognitive dreams. I can literally see glimpses of things to come. I once won two hundred dollars at a casino in Tunica, Mississippi. I’d dreamt a few nights before that a coin had been left in the tray of a slot machine next to a bank of six ATM machines. Normally when I go to a casino I stay near the Blackjack tables because I detest slot machines with a passion.
Anyway, I had gone through my Blackjack money – one hundred dollars - finding myself wandering through the casino. I stumbled upon the area in the casino next to the ATM’s I’d dreamt about spying a machine called “Break Your Cherry”. Inside the tray rested a twenty-five cent token and the rest you know. Though now I realized my dream about this place was more than a glimpse it was a frigging double matinee and there would be danger here. My hand went instinctively to the Colt on my thigh. I drew it out of the holster pointing the barrel at the ground, my finger resting upon the trigger guard. I gripped my battle staff tighter rubbernecking around scanning for danger.
I cautiously made my way into the clearing figuring being out in the open would give me an edge I’d need against the creatures that might be lurking around this place. I heard a twig snap to my right. I jerked my head bringing the pistol to bear on the sound. I tensed ready to fire stopping short of pulling the trigger. Before me stood seven huge Caribou, their backs coated with a light dusting of snow, one of which had a magnificent set of antlers on its majestic head. They scuffed their hooves at the snow uncovering the frozen grass that lay beneath. The buck - I assumed because of the rack - raised its head leveling his gaze directly at me. My heart pumped a furious rhythm as the buck’s ears flicked this way then that, searching for danger chewing on a mouthful of frozen grass or twigs. Satisfied there was no danger - I mean to the buck, a cold, tired Wizard holding a gun obviously wasn’t - he went back to scuffing the snow with the others.
I inched around the herd giving them a wide berth as to not agitate that big fellow with the antlers. I was averse to having my skinny ass impaled by them. I took my eyes off the Caribou, adjusting my course
heading for a gap in the trees. When I turned back the caribou were gone. The only evidence of their exit was swaying branches marking the path of their egress.
There was no sound or warning of the danger until it presented itself. Five huge, hairy white ape creatures charged toward me from a concealed spot among the trees a few feet to the right where the caribou stood. A sixth creature emerged a few moments later from the trees a pace or two behind the others. In my dream there were only three of these creatures, now I had six to contend with. How lucky can a guy be, right? I faced them aiming my pistol at the lead creature. I fired three rounds in quick succession. The first went wide missing completely, the second hit the creature in the shoulder staggering it’s furious pace, the third hit it’s left thigh. The lead ape which was badly injured by my shots, hit the ground in a tumbling heap tripping up two of the others following closely behind. I adjusted my aim firing off the four remaining shots in the magazine at the two that hadn’t been tripped up.
I missed.
I holstered my weapon turning to flee, something strange happened however. My body acted of its own accord. I wanted to run like hell. I even recall my mind screaming out for that action, but my body felt rooted in place as though I had no control over my actions. My left hand transferred the battle staff to my right. Then raising the arm holding the staff I involuntarily smote the end down into the snow striking frozen ground. My arm pushed the staff forward like the bottom was part of a fulcrum. Inside my head I heard an unfamiliar voice utter.
“ Undo of terra quod navitas,”
A wave of energy lashed out from the end of my staff in a cone shape spreading wider as it went. Snow mixed with frozen soil churned up ten feet into the air forcing the creatures back thirty-five feet or more. The tidal wave of power left a two and a half foot gouge in the ground wherever the magic spell touched. I was in complete shock. I felt my eyes had grown to the size of saucers because they hurt behind the protection of my goggles. The debris cloud dissipated and I perceived the ape creatures getting groggily to their feet. In my head I literally felt the force of someone slapping me across the face - my cheek actually hurt - as well as the same voice that cast the spell yelling at me,
