At which point I stepped back through the gap in the trees to the other side.
But now I had an arrow ready.
As it swung around to roar at me, I fired directly into its mouth – point-blank range. Couldn’t miss.
Because of how much shorter I was, the arrow went up into the roof of the creature’s mouth –
Right into the brain.
Or at least that was what I assumed when it collapsed against the two trees and slid into the snow, motionless.
I immediately nocked another arrow and stepped back into the fray.
The women were firing at the two mortally wounded skiris. One finally expired with a dozen arrows in its back; the other tried to crawl away, but I came up on its left and shot it in the side of the head, at which point it gave up the ghost and stopped moving.
That meant there was one more – the beast that had attacked the rear of the camp.
“Everyone follow me!” I yelled as I headed back towards the cave.
They fell into line behind me, arrows at the ready as we passed the campfire and found the plowed-out path left behind in the skiris’s wake. The snow was spattered with blood, which looked black in the moonlight.
We found it a hundred feet from the camp, already dead.
We shot a couple more arrows in its back to be sure, but it never moved.
I was breathing heavily, and I noticed the women were trembling.
“Good job,” I said. “Excellent job.”
They all beamed at the praise.
“Everyone alright?” I asked.
One by one, they nodded.
I was astounded. All that drilling and practicing had paid off.
“There were more of them this time,” I muttered. “And they were smarter than I expected – they surrounded us.”
“We should leave,” Teeka moaned.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “If we go, they’ll just keep following us. But if we follow their trail to where they came from, we can find out more about them. Whoever sent them won’t expect them back for a while, but our snowshoes are faster. If it took them three days to get here, we can go back in two. Maybe even one. We can figure out what’s going on, and maybe save the other women from your tribe.”
Lelia translated for the others to make sure they understood.
“What if go there and too many skiris?” Fieria asked warily.
“Then we can leave before they know we’re there. We don’t have to attack; we can figure out something else. But if we keep running, they’ll keep coming after you. And at some point there will either be either too many of them, or they’ll catch us by surprise. If we go to them, we can surprise them.”
After Lelia finished translating, Fieria looked around at the others. “I say we go.”
Hala started to protest in her native tongue.
“Speak Jack,” Fieria commanded her.
That was what the others called English: ‘speak Jack.’
Hala looked at me furtively, then said to Fieria, “Skiris killed our men. How can we kill them?”
“You killed four of them tonight,” I pointed out.
Hala shook her head. “Too many up there.”
“Which is why we can just go and look. We don’t have to fight,” I said gently. “We just go and see.”
“Remember Nakla, and Ara, and Kees, and Plom, and Jey,” Fieria said. “Will we leave them?”
I was assuming those were the names of the other women.
“They maybe are dead,” Teeka said mournfully.
“We not know,” Fieria pointed out. “We find out.”
The women were silent for a long moment.
“We could vote on it,” I suggested.
“Vote?” Oona asked.
“Yes. Everyone says whether she wants to go or not. There are seven of us, and if four say yes, we go. If four say no, we stay here and figure out what to do.”
They looked at me like I was insane.
“No!” Mazaria protested.
“We do what Fieria say,” Hala rebuked me, like I was an asshole even to suggest otherwise.
“No… we vote,” Fieria said. “I want know what all the people think.”
“Well, I say we go,” I spoke up.
“We go,” Lelia said, nodding.
One by one, the other women paused… and then nodded their heads.
“Go.”
“We go.”
The last to answer was Oona. She looked particularly frightened.
“What do you say, Oona?” I asked.
She looked around at all of us.
Finally she said, “If Jack vote we go… I vote we go.”
I smiled at her, and she smiled shyly back.
“Then it’s settled. Should we try to get some sleep before we leave?” I asked.
Fieria shook her head. “I can sleep not. Not after this.”
The others murmured their assent. I had to admit, I probably wasn’t going to catch any shuteye, either.
“So – we leave at first light?” I suggested.
Fieria nodded. “Leave at first light.”
28
We retrieved our arrows from the skiris corpses and packed what we had. The bulk of it was the skins from the floor of the cave, which we bundled up individually and divided amongst the group. Then we set out shortly after dawn.
We quickly realized we didn’t need our snowshoes. The skiris had plowed a route for us through the forest, gouging out a massive path through the snow drifts and packing down the snow beneath their heavy feet. We were able to move almost as quickly as if we had been on dry ground.
By late morning we reached the spot where Lelia and I had saved Oona. It had taken seven hours, downhill, on our former snowshoe prototypes; uphill and with our way already carved out for us, it took about five.
We encountered no wolves or skiris, which allowed us to move as fast as possible.
We stopped for the night when we found a hollow near the skiris’ path. We didn’t light a fire for fear of drawing attention. We just ate and then slept in shifts, to make sure we weren’t attacked again in our sleep. No sex, either. Everyone was too exhausted and on edge – including me.
The next morning, we got up and did it all over again.
The gigantic, needle-like spire was the first
