Suddenly the creature had another arrow sticking out of its left eye.
Now its scream of rage became agony.
“Holy shit,” I muttered to myself, then said, “Good SHOT!”
Lelia didn’t answer, she just nocked her next arrow.
The woman in furs wasn’t even trying for the rope now – she just stood there in shock, watching everything that was unfolding a mere 25 feet away.
The skiris clutched at its eye socket and jerked out the arrow.
Bad idea. The eye came with it, a round globe attached to a strand of red meat.
The beast roared again in rage and pain.
For my next shot, I aimed at its throat.
I missed, though I still got its upper pec.
Lelia shot the fucker in the jugular, though.
A jet of blood started coursing down its shaggy torso like somebody had turned on a bathtub faucet full blast.
The skiris knew when it was beat. It turned around to flee –
But it was clumsy and wounded, and fell face-first into the snow instead.
Lelia and I fired arrow after arrow into its back, right between the shoulder blades.
All our shots hit home.
Thock!
Thock!
Thock!
Thock!
The skiris tried to get to its feet, but failed. It face-planted again.
Its entire back was soaked in red, and the snow around it was turning crimson and dissolving from the hot blood.
It made a feeble movement forward, stretching out one arm – then collapsed and lay still.
Suddenly Lelia unlocked the carabiner attaching her climbing harness to the limb. She grabbed her spear from where it was balanced atop the branches nearest her, seized the knotted rope with her free hand – and jumped out of the tree.
“LELIA!” I screamed in alarm.
She flew down the rope, basically just using it to slow her descent, but nothing more.
She landed heavily in the snow, then rushed forward, screaming in rage as she gripped the spear in both hands and trundled forward through the three-foot-tall drifts.
I’d been around too many wild animals in my time to believe the skiris was completely down for the count.
But I was too far away from Lelia to stop her, even if I jumped right out of the tree directly into the snow.
So I just pulled out another arrow, nocked it, and prayed that I was wrong about the skiris playing possum.
I wasn’t.
Lelia got in a solid jab with her spear, burying the stone tip in the skiris’s spine –
But then it roared and pushed up from the snow, flipping around onto its back.
One last burst of adrenaline – one last burst of rage before it died.
Lelia’s spear was embedded deep enough in the monster’s flesh that it didn’t pull out –
But unfortunately, as the skiris flipped over, the spear knocked Lelia sideways.
It looked like the shaft of the spear might have hit her in the head as it whipped around… because when she landed in the snow, she didn’t move.
The monster looked around, half-blind, trying to find its tormenter.
I held my breath, said a prayer, and let my arrow fly.
THOCK!
The arrow pierced the skiris’s right eye.
Half its shaft disappeared inside the monster’s skull.
The skiris gave one last roar of torment –
And then collapsed on its back, head on the snow, the arrow jutting out of its socket.
I undid the rope lashing me to the branch, grabbed the knotted rope, and jumped off the limb.
I could feel the knots sliding past my gloved fingers, thup thup thup thup thup.
I hit the snow hard and sank in all the way to my waist. The extra cushioning of the snow kept me from feeling any pain as I landed.
Then I ran through the path Lelia had already cut until I reached her.
Glancing warily at the motionless skiris, I dropped to my knees next to the tiny body in the snow.
“LELIA?!” I cried out.
Suddenly her head turned, and two emerald eyes peered up at me, brimming with tears.
She burst into sobs and hooked her arms around my neck as I pulled her close to me.
My heart was thudding in my chest, more out of fear than anything –
But I hadn’t lost her.
She was okay.
And I had never felt happier or more alive.
“Jack,” she sobbed.
“Shhhhh,” I whispered as I cradled her and rocked her. “It’s okay, it’s okay…”
In all the commotion, we had forgotten why the skiris had come after us in the first place.
We were suddenly reminded when a feminine voice spoke up hesitantly behind us.
“…Lelia?”
Lelia and I turned to see the figure in furs stumbling towards us through the snow.
“…Oona ka lassa… vo naroot Lelia?” the figure asked in a tremulous voice.
“Oona!” Lelia cried out, and leapt up and stumbled through the snow.
The two women raced towards each other. They met halfway, embracing and sobbing and laughing all at the same time.
While they were having their moment, I looked down at the monstrous corpse lying in the snow just a few feet away, its matted white fur soaked and spattered with blood.
The skiris was even more terrifying close up. It was massive… probably 800 pounds at the very least. Its face looked like an extremely realistic Halloween mask, or some special effects prop by Hollywood wizards. It was hard to believe it was actually a real thing… yet there it was.
It was like seeing the Abominable Snowman for the first time and realizing, Holy shit, the legends were right all along…
I pulled out the arrows from the skiris – the ones that hadn’t broken, anyway. I’d heard that Native Americans always retrieved their arrows after a battle, and I could believe it. When it can take you an hour to make something, you don’t just leave it behind.
Unfortunately, most of the arrowheads pulled loose and remained embedded in the monster’s body, but we had a reserve of extras. We could replace them easily enough.
Behind me, the two women were chattering away happily in their native tongue. By this point they had removed their fur balaclavas, and I could see the new woman’s face.
She looked very much the same as Lelia in a general sense – blue skin, white hair, pointy ears
