Читать книгу Worlds Apart - William L Frame - Страница 14

Chapter 8

Attacked

Fragmented and distorted images of Peter’s burial flashed within Taric’s subconscious mind making his attempt for some restful and much-needed sleep nearly impossible. During the night, he had lain awake within the furs listening to Jennifer’s smooth rhythmic breathing and the heavy silence of the cave ringing loudly in his ears. His conscious mind was struggling to understand the unsettling, confusing and fragmented images within his dream while trying to make sense of Jennifer’s sudden and unexpected demand.

Before the onset of night, they buried Peter’s bones downwind of their cave within the golden speckled light of the forest canopy of amber leaves swaying and rustling softly on the breeze. They placed Peter’s bones near the edge of the grasslands among the twisting roots of an old gnarled tree with a trunk that stretched upward only to vanish in the twisted maze of the canopy’s branches. The view from the base of the tree revealed the entire grassy plain. Jennifer was pleased with the view. She marveled at the wonderful sights of the animals roaming the grasslands. She hoped her brother would find peace in the spot she had selected for his grave.

She was searching the area for a stone to use as a marker. She soon found a large gray stone with its surface speckled with red and green bits of sparkling crystal ore. The sight of the pretty crystals embedded within the stone’s pale-gray rock reminded her of a mosaic sculpture made of tiny rubies and emeralds. It took both of them to move the stone and set it to rest above her brother’s grave. Jennifer knelt beside the stone and smoothed the loose soil around it with her hands. She knew with a little passage of time, the stone would appear as if it had lain there since the valley was carved out by glaciers of ice and stone. She then quietly began to cry, sobbing out her remorse for his death in long mournful wails of a lost and grieving soul.

Taric stood patiently by her side, touching her shoulder with a gentle hand as Jennifer cried. When she finally gained her composure, he heard her quietly whisper a simple prayer to her God. “Dear Lord, please welcome my brother into your loving embrace and grant him an eternity of peace and happiness. Peter was my friend, companion, and confidant of all my childhood secrets. He was a brother who charmed everyone he met with a kind smile and a little laughter. His loving heart and kind actions revealed a soul truly touched by your grace. Bless him, dear Lord, and tell him, I’ll love him all the days of my life. Amen.” Without saying another word, Jennifer rose slowly to her feet and, without looking back, walked away in the direction of their cave.

Sensing her friend’s distress and sadness, Jaxx trotted up beside her and every so often would jump in the air to nudge Jennifer’s hand with her damp nose as if to reassure her. Taric watched them go, respectfully letting Jennifer settle her grief according to her beliefs and customs. He understood the significance of her prayer and what it meant for her.

As the odd pair disappeared into the trees, Taric gazed down at the stone and made a promise to Peter’s spirit. “Rest easy, young brother. I hope your spirit finds peace with your god and may he find your spirit worthy for another life on the land.” He then started walking back to the cave, and after a few paces, he stopped, turned back around, and called to Peter’s spirit one last time by saying, “Goodbye, my brother.”

Jennifer was sitting beside the fire idly, poking the glowing embers with a stick while waiting for Taric’s return. It wasn’t long before Jaxx hearing his approach ran out of the cave to greet him and escort Taric the rest of the way home. Jennifer smiled as she heard Taric’s hearty laughter in response to the little puppy’s energetic playfulness. A moment later, Taric entered the cave and sat down on the furs beside her. Jaxx squeezed, wiggled, and nudged herself in between her packmate’s legs for a comfortable, warm spot to lay and garner their soothing affection.

Mindful of Jennifer’s grieving heart and unsure of what to say, Taric waited beside her in silence. He watched her brows flex up and down on her forehead as she thought, while absentmindedly continuing to drag the stick back and forth through the hot embers. It was interesting watching her think, trying to formulate her thoughts. After a few more quiet moments sitting side by side, patiently waiting for her to break the heavy silence, she abruptly announced with an unexpected underlying tone of desperation and fear in her voice. “It’s only a matter of time before we meet other people. Don’t tell them I fell from the sky!”

“My love, have I not told you my people are kind and loving? I don’t understand why you’re telling me not to say anything? I’ve assured you many times, no one will harm you here. There is nothing to be afraid of!” Taric replied once again in an effort to soothe her fears.

“Do you really want to hear why I don’t want you to say where I’m from? Do you really want to know the truth! There are some aspects of the human species, you won’t like!” Jennifer loudly stated, almost to the point of yelling. Suddenly angry with him for being so damn condescending toward her when they talked about his people.

“That’s something,” Taric calmly answered and then asked her with a benign glint reflecting the firelight in his eyes. “Then tell me this truth you fear so much.”

“Okay, here goes and don’t say you’re sorry when I’m done,” Jennifer said, pausing to make sure he understood.

“Humans are by nature aggressively violent creatures. We had to be aggressive to survive the countless perils in our world, and I’m not talking about Earth’s wild animals. I’m talking about humans. We’re a predatory species by nature. Humans are selfish, greedy, and often violent, even among our families. Cruelty and violence of our past have made my species distrustful. It’s a basic human instinct to be wary of strangers, but a stranger from another world? No, that can’t be known. No one can know the truth!

“Although our body’s physical structure and appearance may be similar, were not of the same species. I’m human, my difference in appearance and my origins may be too much for some of your people to accept. It only takes a wild imagination combined with an irrational fear to incite a group of people into a state of uncontrolled panic. We call it mob mentality because sometimes people driven by fear or revenge will actively seek out and kill the focal point of their fear. You’re the only one who knows the truth about me.

“If we’re to share our lives in this world, I must be accepted as a native of this world. The differences in my appearance can be explained as defects from a complicated birth. You must keep my secret!” Jennifer demanded in a low-pitched, authoritative voice that momentarily sent shivers up and down his spine.

He saw for the first time within the depths of her human eyes, a glimpse of her true strength. Within that brief glimpse, Taric saw a strong-willed woman staring back at him, who was decisive in her actions and reasoning.

Although he believed Jennifer’s fears of discovery were unwarranted, he offered her a plausible story to appease her. “We can say you look like everyone else of your tribe, but unfortunately all but you were tragically killed when your cave collapsed during a landslide. We met each other afterward, when our paths crossed while we were hunting in the grasslands.”

“That might work,” Jennifer said thoughtfully with a slight nod. “Yes, that will work just fine.” Then in a softly spoken voice, she changed the subject of their conversation with a question. “What animal are we hunting tomorrow?”

“Gorocs,” Taric answered and then spent the remainder of their evening until they lay down to sleep, explaining his technique for hunting a goroc.

Goroc hunting required a stout heart and a fearless approach when armed with long, sharp, bone-tipped laces and sharp stone-tipped arrows for their bows. The goroc herd ruled the open plains with impunity, claiming the best grasses and shrubs for themselves in return for their protection from predators. Gorocs relied on numbers and brute force to defend the herds on the grasslands. Gorocs were the only animals living on the grasslands capable of repelling a kessra pride’s coordinated attacks.

A goroc was a wide burly and mean-tempered beast that roamed on the outskirts of the grassland in small family groups. Gorocs had a dense warm underlayer of fine fur next to their skin and an outer layer of long coarse strands of matted dark brown hair that dragged on the ground as they walked. When grazing, goroc heads could be extended outward toward the ground, but when threatened, it could be drawn into its chest by their strong elastic and muscular necks located between the animal’s wide shoulders. When fully grown, their head and shoulders stood as high as a man’s chest on thick, stocky, short legs that supported their heavy bodies.

Above their heavy brows, a stone-hard plate of thick bone grew to crown the top of their skulls. On each side of the bony plate, gorocs were armed with a pair of curved horns, which made them extremely deadly in a fight. Below the plate, black eyes peered out from flat-nosed faces of wrinkled and hairy jowls that sagged below their chins with a slow, steady flow of spittle spilling out from each side of their mouths as they chewed on the dry grass.

Tired of thinking about his dreams and her fears and fed up with trying to sleep, Taric decided to get dressed and scout the gorocs’ location before Jennifer awakened. He quietly slipped out of the furs they shared in the night and dressed quickly in the cave’s dim firelight. Jaxx awakened by his movement was lying on the edge of the furs near Jennifer’s feet. The dog, as she called it, raised her head and watched him curiously, but Taric motioned with one of Jennifer’s hand signals for Jaxx to stay where she lay. As always, he was astonished to see the lycur obey and lay its head back down on the furs with her eyes following his every move about the cave.

Using the cover of darkness, a pride of hungry kessras climbed down from their mountain lair to the rocky base and stepped onto the river’s sandy embankment, lured by their hunger and the strong scents of goroc musk and urine drifting in the wind. The lead kessra’s bronze eyes and ears were fixated on the opposite shore, listening intently to the varied animal noises created by the herds as they grazed on the dry summer grass in the early morning darkness. Sniffing the enticing aromas of their diverse prey, the lead kessra urged his pride toward the water. With a low rumbling growl, the pride’s alpha male and leader stepped into the swiftly flowing water and began to swim across the narrow river.

Once on the opposite shore, heavy impressions of their wide clawed padded feet sank deep in the soft sand were the only signs of their passage until they reached the long grass crowning the sandy embankment. There they split into two groups and instantly vanished in the tall grass. One group moved silently northward around the herds to position themselves for a three-directional rushing attack. They were to drive the herds south and distract the formidable goroc bulls that would rush toward the source of danger in defense of the herds.

The pride’s leader moved easily through the dry grass near the outskirts of the herds. Moving silently into position, the three kessras waited anxiously for their packmates to initiate the hunt. The leader knew the hunt would begin when it heard the grassy plain erupt with the combined noises of frightened beasts stampeding toward them. The pride’s alpha male lowered its sleek body even closer to the ground as the anticipation of tasting warm, sweet bloody meat grew within its consciousness. When the hunt began, they would wait as a team for the bulk of the swiftly moving mass of animals to pass them by, as they preferred to ambush the stragglers too slow or weak to keep pace with the thundering mass.

Taric added more wood to the fire to deter any small scavengers from entering the cave and warm the cool air inside. Assured, Jaxx would remain with Jennifer and not follow him outside the cave. Taric grabbed his weapons and left the warm confines of their comfortable little cave. He moved cautiously southward in the darkness, barely able to see the solid trunks of the forest trees growing on the hillside around him. Taric silently moved through the trees to the edge of the grasslands leaving a faint scent of his passage in the loose soil under his feet as he advanced closer to the herds.

Slightly south of the cave moving slowly within the trees toward the grassy plain, a prideless kessra stood, sniffing the scents drifting in the air. It was too old and weak to hunt effectively and was verging on the cusp of starvation when it smelled a familiar scent of a favored prey. Instinctively, the old kessra turned to follow the intriguing scent toward its source.

Taric wasn’t the only hunter creeping slowly through the tall dry grass, making sure to stay downwind of the roaming herds. Sniffing the strong savory scents of their prey floating in the air, the kessras moved cautiously through the grass, stopping in instinctive intervals to raise their heads above the tall grass. The stealthy predator’s keen eyesight and sensitive noses immediately located the huge goroc bulls grazing on the outskirts of the amassed herds. Once again, the kessras, with their senses heightened by the pungent odor of goroc musk, silently vanished back into the cover of tall grass. Each kessra, so accustomed to hunting as a coordinated pride, moved invisibly toward their assigned spots with practiced ease.

Taric felt a slight breeze of cold air on his skin and shivered just as the first rays of sunlight crested the mountain peaks to slowly lift the night’s veil of darkness. The sight of wide swaths of trampled grass and brown soil stretching down the northern plain were sure signs that most of the smaller animals would soon begin their long migration to the warm southern flatlands for the duration of the north’s bitterly cold moons.

Once Taric located the gorocs in the morning light, he decided to return to the cave in time to make Jennifer her morning meal. He slowly began crawling away from his vantage point on his hands and knees, keeping his eyes and ears alert for danger. Once he was safely back within the trees, Taric relaxed his guard and turned for home, quickly disappearing within the forests’ dark shadows, unaware that his quickened pace and familiarity of the area gave away his presence to three pairs of alert eyes. One pair of eyes turned to follow as Taric moved through the forest, thinking about the bounty a goroc kill would provide them. The hide and fur were ideal for making body wraps, leggings, snow boots, and other necessary items to keep warm despite the regions freezing temperatures.

Asleep under the warm furs of her bed, Jennifer heard a low rumbling puppy growl issuing from Jaxx’s clenched teeth. The warning snapped Jennifer instantly awake. “Jaxx, stay!” she commanded sternly in a low whisper while reaching out with a hand to grab her collar as she felt Jaxx’s slight body weight lean against her hip and stiffen as if to bolt.

Although Jaxx was not full-grown, she was still a wild animal of the grasslands and driven by her natural instinct to survive. If she could not escape to safety, she would face her adversary and fight fearlessly to the end. But Jennifer knew now was not the time for her to be brave and held on to Jaxx’s collar with her fingers.

Within the early morning songs of birds fluttering in the trees and over Jaxx’s low growling, Jennifer heard barely perceptible clicks and clacks of long, thick claws striking stone from multiple footsteps of something big pacing the rocks above the opening that led to the interior of her cave.

She looked around for a weapon other than her knife and saw the pair of lances Taric had made for their hunt, but she realized they were too long to be of use in the cave’s crowded confines. Despite her size and tender age, Jaxx managed to wiggle loose and jumped to her feet in brave defiance to stand her ground beside Jennifer with her little puppy hairs bristling up along her spine in response to the unseen intruder.

Jennifer reached down and once again got her fingers curled around the collar of the squirming and excited lycur puppy. She lifted her furry bundle of fury up into the safety of her arms and held her. She then remembered the lockbox with the gun and, with Jaxx held firmly to her chest, scrambled over to where she had stashed the box in order to keep it out of the way and out of sight. She pulled the box out from under a mound of soft animal furs next to the firewood along the back wall a few paces above their sleeping furs. Her fingers trembled over the lock as she heard a thump of something heavy landing in the dirt outside the cave as Jaxx’s defiant puppy growls grew increasingly louder.

Jennifer was alone and afraid, but Jaxx’s brave defiance actually calmed her nerves to make her trembling fingers enter the correct code for the lock to open the box. Once open, she pulled the gun out of the foam lining, slapped the loaded magazine inside the stock, then quickly pulled the slide back to load a bullet into the chamber.

Jaxx’s persistent growling suddenly turned into a frightening howl when the light in the cave noticeably dimmed behind her, followed by a deep wheezy rumbling noise. The menacing rumble instantly terrified her, and as she turned around, she saw a kessra no more than fifteen paces away standing at the cave entrance blocking the morning sunlight.

Driven by an insatiable hunger that would not be suppressed, the animal ignored its instinctive fear of fire and stepped into the cave with its eyes fixated beyond the flames. The old kessra could not endure the agonizing pain of hunger anymore and committed its reserve strength to its four hind legs. It leaped upward emitting a deafening and terrifying roar that reverberated off the walls. Outside the cave’s confines, the roar alerted the unwary herds of danger.

The kessra propelled itself over the flames in a graceful arc, while stretching and reaching forward with a pair of thick clawed forelegs poised to grab its prey. Bravely in spite of her terror, Jennifer managed to raise the gun just as the kessra was at the crest of its terrifying leap and instinctively fired three shots at point-blank range into the animal’s head in rapid succession.

Blam! Blam! Blam! The deafening gunshots sounded from inside the cave, allowing the reverberating echoes to escape and prematurely initiate the mountain pride’s attack on the alert herds by panicking them into a massive and uncontrollable stampede. Blindly the animals ran across the trampled and muddy grasslands away from the kessra roar and the unfamiliar noise of Jennifer’s gun.

Unable to avoid the full weight and extended claws of the old kessra, Jennifer braced herself as it landed on top of her with dead unresponsive limbs. The forceful impact against her body pressed the breath out of her lungs. Terrified and suddenly struggling to fill her lungs with air, Jennifer frantically began pushing, kicking, and squirming her way out from beneath the dead weight of the beast.

Once she had herself free, Jennifer sucked in, heaving deep breaths of air filling her lungs and easing the pain in her chest. Shivering from her fright, she looked at the animal that attacked her. The kessra’s distorted, bullet-riddled head was bleeding out odd copper-colored blood onto the dirt while two of the hind legs began to sizzle in the fire. After what seemed like an eternity, Jennifer managed a trembling smile and provided a gentle, soothing touch for her brave little companion’s timely warning. “You’re a good girl, Jaxx. I’m so proud of you.” Hearing her words only between her ears, Jennifer cried, grateful for the tiny puppy that saved her life.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she lay naked on the cave’s cold dirt floor half out of her sleeping furs. Her body was still shaking from the ordeal but lifted the growling puppy up to her face and kissed its tiny face over and over again. “It’s dead. It can’t hurt us anymore,” she said softly, letting Jaxx hear her voice even if she could not hear herself speak.

When the kessra roared and leaped over the fire at them, she recalled seeing the animal’s wild eyes and deadly claws reaching out for her and thought death had come. Instead, she was amazed to be alive and without injury all because of her brave little lycur.