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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 101: Takano 116
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 317
Tommy spun her kawanaga forward in a great circle like a propeller on a biplane. Most of the work of it spinning past her face, and then her feet, and then back up past her face was done by the weight of the hook at the end of the rope with only a little added by a small wrist bob. A simple elbow change (hooking the rope on her triceps and around her elbow while keeping the spin going) allowed her to reverse her foot stance so she was looking the other way toward her nest while keeping the ‘propeller’. A simple low side kick into the rope flung her kawanaga grabbing hook out to snap into the ‘face’ of a deer skull target, breaking off a bone chip, before she yanked it back to grab the hook, and launch into a propeller spin again. She did this ten more times for warm-up, and then worked on double and triple time speeds.
Getting warm in the early spring day, she looked forward to the fish she would cook, even if the cold water of the lake was not a joy. Perhaps in another couple months she would enjoy swimming in the lake. Hearing running footsteps, light and quick so a child or one of the lighter weight adult females and definitely not Varlax who was well rounded from her pregnancy, she did another elbow change and faced the way of the oncoming runner.
Foreboding gripped her as she saw son of Torin coming toward her at a dead run with a look of fear on his face. She spun the rope weapon around the back of her neck and let it pendulum from her extended forearm to slow down before she rapidly coiled it and slipped it into the clip on her belt. She put her shoes on next, as she had been training to toughen her feet, and son of Torin burst into the campfire clearing.
“Help! Come quick,” he shouted in clear distress, and she began to run. He might be inclined to mischief, and getting extra servings for himself and his little kid cohorts, but he had never ‘pranked’ her with a false alarm--probably because in this world, danger was an ever-present thing, and such tricks would have resulted in extreme adult anger. Besides, he had a good head on his shoulders. So she ran, and he turned and headed back.
They reached the lake, and tracked along the shore to one of the feeder streams. Son of Torin waited for a moment for her to catch up, and then showed her the safe path across the rocks, although the water was not as much as knee deep here. He continued to the next feeder, a considerably deeper river with a stronger current, and then began following this upstream.
The ground was rising, which made some sense since water flows downhill, but it was more than that--it was cut away, a drop to the water below. Ahead she soon saw several of son of Torin’s fellow moocher-mischiefmaker-cohorts. They turned as the duo approached them, but one held up a hand, and motioned for ‘slow, slow’. She slowed, following the Hunter’s Signs, a primitive and simple hand language the Tribe was developing. By this point the drop was a good fifteen feet, obviously carved when the river was at flood stage, but the normal water level left a small dry stony beach, maybe four to five feet, between the base of the dirt cliff and the edge of the water.
She looked at the gesturer.
“Moving makes them mad,” he said, and she felt her blood begin to chill. Getting closer, she followed arms that pointed to the beach below. She looked down, and to her relief saw Rami standing up with no apparent broken bones, about twelve feet below them. The beach was covered with shiny pebbles and dirt.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Rami wanted to climb down to get the stones. She got down most of the way, and fell the rest. She says there are no good grabs down low.”
Tommy could see the guilt on son of Torin’s face that he had not been the one to climb down, but she actually thought it was good that he had enough common sense to not want to climb down even if a girl begged him to do something stupid. Suddenly Tommy connected Rami. She had been the little girl who had put the first stone on Boronir’s grave. Evidently she had a serious liking for pretty stones. This desire was enough for her to do something pretty crazy like climb down to the beach of a fast-moving river.
“Can she climb back up? Does she have a broken leg?”
“Well, no and no. But the snakes--” son of Torin said. “We tried to follow her, me and--” he pointed to another boy, “but on going down we dropped rocks by starting down the track, and that made the snakes mad Rami said.”
Aghast, and feeling as if her face had been pummeled, her arms shaky, she bent down and looked more closely. Ah, yes, there was a snake crawling in the pebbles near Rami’s feet. Was there another snake? Oh, slightly upstream near the base of the cliff she could see what might be a tail. It was hard to say. Could be a root.
“Rami, dear, how many snakes are there?” she questioned as calmly and clearly as she could.
“At least three, Tommy. Can you get me out of here?” The child’s girlish little voice, she was not even eight, came back with a tiny bit of brittleness to it.
“Good girl. We’re working on it, Rami.”
Tommy thought. First things first, she decided, try the simplest solution even if she was unsure it would work.. She took out her kawanaga, and lowered it into the pit. At the end of her reaching arm, it extended until it was just short of Rami’s outstretched hand. Quietly, she pulled it back up. Extension, extension. Her eyes fell on her pants. Then smiling, she took off the deer-hide-and-rabbit-fur jacket that had been made for her over the winter. Testing it with several sharp tugs, she looped the kawanaga through one sleeve, and hooked it into itself.
She held onto the coat end, and lowered the hook end to the girl in the pit. Following her directions, but moving as little as possible, the little girl tightened the kawanaga around her forearms. Knowing this was going to be hard, she suddenly wished for great strength, and prayed for help. Pulling as hard as she could, hoping to get the girl past the danger zone where a snake strike could hit her calf, she heard a pained shout from below. The rope was biting into the little girl’s arms even as she went to her tiptoes. The snakes coiled and recoiled themselves below, disturbed, yet not motivated to act.
Perhaps if she went slower, it might work. Redoubling her efforts, Tommy began to pull harder. The rope slid, scraping several inches of Rami’s forearm raw. Unable to help herself, she choked out a gasped sob, and kicked out one leg. It was enough, Tommy saw. The snakes gathered themselves.
She was thinking only one thing: I love them all. My Tribe, I love them. Tommy launched herself off the edge, throwing the kawanaga down to loosen it, and to make it hit the pebbled floor faster. The weighted end hit even as Tommy nose dived into the crevice. The kawanaga hit the pebbles scattering them so that the snakes lunged back--but this reprieve would only be for a second.
Tommy dug a hand into the dirt wall, turning her body so that she came down on her feet. Grabbing Rami by the waist, she flung her up in the air.
“Grab the--ugh,” she groaned as a pair of fangs penetrated her left calf. It felt like someone had thrown a knife into her leg. Rami fell, and Tommy caught her and shoved her up. Another bite. Feeling beads of sweat cover her forehead, she croaked out a command.
“Grab the wall, Rami. Son of Torin, can you reach her?” Rami reached for a small outjut in the bank, and even as another snake coiled up her right leg to sink its fangs into her shaking thigh, Tommy held Rami up until the girl climbed out of reach. Another strike, and another. Either there were more than three, Tommy thought, or the snakes were venting every last bit of venom they had in their rage and fear. These last ones felt as if she had been electrically shocked by a live wire. She stumbled, and fell. Another bite on her face, and she knocked it aside. Eyes tearing up, she looked up as Rami cleared the top edge. Around her a few hundreds of small glittery pebbles dotted the bank.
Unable to control her movement due to the pain, she unwittingly provoked the snakes to bite her again and again. She tried to sit up, but when she did, blood leaked from her eyes, obscuring her vision. Time passed. Filled with pain, she heard Davey cry down to her.
“We’ll get you out.”
“No,” she said, and then took a deeper breath. “No! Too many snakes.”
“I thought there was only three,” Davey said back.
“Must have been a lot more hiding at the base of the drop. Probably bundled up in a snake ball to keep warm in the winter.”
“It’s my fault!” she heard Rami cry out, and she heard some adults saying to take the child back. Forcing herself to speak, as it became progressively harder to do so, and to breathe, she spoke.
“Rami. Rami.”
“Yes, Tommy.”
“I do not blame you. I love you. I--love all of you. But I think I have to go now. Davey, take care of them.” To sounds of weeping and moaning she laid herself back down. The pain was getting worse, and she tried to find a door to hide from the pain. A door inside her mind. It came, and she dropped into a state that would have seemed to be unconsciousness.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
