When she reached the branch I’d thrown the rock over, she immediately anchored her harness to the branch so she couldn’t fall. Then she attached the knotted rope to the branch and threw it down.
I grabbed the rope as soon as it hit the snow and started climbing.
More roaring. The skiris was definitely coming down the mountain towards us.
Ten seconds later, I was sitting up in the tree beside Lelia, pulling up the knotted rope behind me.
I don’t know if we made it in 45 seconds, but we came damn close.
The snowshoes were still down below us, a dead giveaway – but it’s not like we hadn’t left behind a trail in the snow as we’d snowshoed our way across it. Anybody – or any thing – looking closely would figure out where we were.
But at least we had the advantage of the high ground.
As I lashed myself to the tree branch, Lelia carefully balanced her spear across two nearby branches, pulled out her bow, and nocked an arrow.
As soon as I was secured to the branch with the rope, I did the same.
The roar intensified. We both squinted through the treetops, trying to see where it was coming from. There was no foliage in our hardwood tree, but we were surrounded by pines, and their needles made it difficult to see far.
Suddenly there was another noise, quieter and harder to hear, but definitely audible.
It sounded like a panicked woman trying to muffle her cries as she ran.
Lelia and I looked at each other in shock.
“A woman from your tribe?” I whispered.
Lelia shrugged, and we both went back to staring intently through the treetops.
There was movement about 200 feet away. I couldn’t see what it was – just a small, dark shape barely visible behind the pine boughs.
But I sure as hell saw what came after that shape.
A lumbering mass thudded through the forest, bending smaller saplings out of its way as it tried to force its way through the trees.
I stared in disbelief.
The pursuer was shaggy white, and was really only visible when it passed in front of the darker tree trunks. Otherwise it blended in with the snow.
It had to have been ten feet tall at the very least. It was broad across its shoulders, and two giant arms almost as big as my entire body swung from its massive torso.
I couldn’t see the details. I couldn’t make out its face through the foliage, for example. But what I could see was terrifying.
So THAT’S a skiris…
Whatever it was chasing had chosen to run through the densest patch of large trees it could find.
Smart – having to maneuver around the larger trees was slowing the skiris down.
But the monster wasn’t giving up – and its prey was leaving a very visible track in the snow for it to follow.
Suddenly Lelia cried out, “Mana sa koola!”
I looked at her in alarm.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“If it’s one of the people, she will know what I said,” Lelia whispered back.
“And what did you say?!”
“‘Come here.’”
It appeared that Lelia’s gambit worked, because the smaller figure suddenly changed course and ran towards us, frantically cutting a channel through the three-foot-tall snow.
Now I could see it: another person wrapped head to toe in furs. Small and thin, the runner reminded me exactly of the first glimpse I’d caught of Lelia.
Except now I knew where to look: at the hands and the spaces between the upper arms and forearm wrappings.
It was difficult to see, but I caught a glimpse of blue skin.
Holy shit, we found one of the tribe!
Unfortunately, Lelia’s outburst had attracted the skiris’s attention, too.
It roared and changed course as well, pushing through small fir trees and angling around the bigger tree trunks it couldn’t move aside.
As it got closer, I got a better look at it –
And my blood ran cold in my veins.
Two curling ram’s horns framed its head on either side.
Its face was white and shaggy like the rest of its body, but I could see two intelligent-looking eyes peering out of the fur.
Its jaws, though… they were worse than a roaring lion’s. A lion basically has a bunch of smaller teeth with oversized canines. But the skiris had over a dozen four-inch-long fangs jutting out of black gums. As far as ripping and tearing went, the skiris would whip the lion’s ass.
And its massive hands were big enough to hold a Butterball turkey like a baseball.
Did I say hands? More like paws, with black claws jutting out of shaggy white fingers that were big as summer sausages.
The monster saw us perched up in the oak’s bare limbs. It immediately forgot its quarry and started lumbering towards the tree.
The tiny figure in furs was floundering towards us, only 70 feet ahead of the monster.
Lelia grabbed the knotted rope, still attached to the tree branch.
I knew what she was planning.
“She’s not going to make it up the tree in time,” I said.
Lelia threw the rope down anyway. “Must try.”
I pulled back my bowstring and got ready to aim. “Well, let’s help her, then.”
The rope flung out through space, and its end flopped down onto the white powder.
The figure in furs crashed through the snow, falling on her face as she scrambled for the rope.
The skiris broke through the smaller trees nearest us and headed to intercept the woman.
“Aim for its face,” I told Lelia as I sighted along my arrow. Then I yelled, “HEY, ASSHOLE!”
The skiris looked up at me and roared –
And I let the arrow fly.
Fwip!
The skiris bellowed in rage, and it looked like the monster was jauntily smoking the arrow like one of those old-timey cigarette holders FDR used back in the 1930s.
I realized I’d shot the arrow directly into the monster’s mouth. The arrow must have stabbed deep into its flesh, because the wooden shaft didn’t move as the skiris roared.
A rivulet of red flowed over its lower jaw, staining its fur crimson.
YES!
As I grabbed another arrow out of my quiver, Lelia
