Eight: Chapter 26

About two miles south of the cave the ground sloped, leading to a hillside down, as if the layers of limestone supporting the escarpment had been undermined and collapsed. The angle was gentle enough for me to hike, and I only had to climb in a couple of places. Even then, the spans were short, five or ten feet at the most. From there, I traveled north, passing under the chliapp lion’s cave’s entrance and back in the direction of the Glen.

I traveled through the kalihchi bear’s territory. There were several waterfalls along the way; the streams flowed downhill to the flatland to the east. All that water—the qi danced. The taste was clean-cold-delicious.

It was a good chance to heal and wash up too. I’d been a stinking mess for days now, covered in sticky blood and gore. Anything with a nose would smell me coming from miles away. I’d been fortunate not to have attracted trouble already.

My only other detour was to find the spot where the kalihchi bear had encountered the bashu turkeys. I needed their feathers to fletch more arrows for my guerilla war against the bishkawi. I could’ve scavenged the vanes from Kaad’s arrows, but then they would’ve been ruined as trade goods.

The ground was torn up where the bear had driven the turkeys off. The small bushes and plants were broken and scattered. The trees wore scars—some burns were as straight as lasers, while others twisted like snakes. Traces of lightning lingered on the latter.

For the first time, I felt the uekisheile shiver in fear. The qi’s taste was familiar to them. Danger-threat-hide.

“You know this qi?” I asked

Danger-danger-hide. The uekisheile’s qi swirled in anxiety. Threat–recognized-threat. Danger-home-hide.

“I’m sorry. One more time. You had to hide from a kalihchi bear?”

Recognized-recognized-recognized.

All right. It wasn’t just any bear; it was this one specifically.

The uekisheile’s next bundles were particularly laden with meaning. Visit-home-danger. Eat-eat-food. Stray bits of memory and emotion stuck to them, and I had the impression of the bear visiting the Red Room to eat the eilesheile. Somehow, though, he wasn’t harmed by their parasitism.

“Is the bear a symbiote, like us?”

Food-eilesheile-food. Bear-eat-eat.

Ah, the uekisheile viewed the eilesheile as food, and so did the bear. He had the Iron Belly talent—maybe that was the trick to foiling the eilesheile’s tricks? Wait, if the kalihchi bear knew about the Red Room, then that would explain what had happened to Woldec and Kiertie. There were strong indications of lightning damage on both their bodies, and I’d already seen how the bear was wild for lightning. I mean, there was no way to confirm the theory, but it was a decent supposition. As for Biaka and Akbash, perhaps they fled from the bear and ran into a chliapp lion instead? What bad luck for them all.

I gathered what feathers I could and went north, not breathing easy until I was out of the bear’s territory. As I walked, the landmarks became more familiar. To the east and down the hill was the Meadow of the Evil Death Mushrooms. To the northwest and up the hill was the original entrance to the Red Room’s cave system. And up ahead, near the tall pine, was where I’d first encountered the little plant horrors. The deer thicket was another half mile past that.

I swung wide around. Hopefully, the bishkawi were sticking close to the Glen—licking their wounds after their battle with the monster turkeys—but I wasn’t willing to risk running into them until I was ready.

The waterfall that fed the Glen downstream poured over the side of the escarpment, and as I got closer I smelled mint in the misty air. Licking my lips, I shrugged off the backpack and wiped my hands dry of sweat. After a slow breath to settle my nerves, I picked up my spear and crept closer. The scent led me away from the waterfall’s pool, downstream to an area thick with trees. Vines with familiar-looking pink flowers hung from the branches.

I ducked down amid the greenery and checked them out with my Status camera.

This last one inhabited a willow growing directly next to the water, and there was a buffer of unoccupied trees around it. If I approached the vine from the water side, none of the other chishiaxpe would be in a position to interfere or interrupt.

I watched the area for twenty minutes, just in case there were other dangers hidden near the trees, but when none appeared, I moved upstream to wade into the water. The flow tugged on my legs, and the mist clung to me. The waterfall’s roar overwhelmed all the sounds around me.

When I reached the willow, I scanned along the chishiaxpe’s length for the stinging bit, but the branches obscured my view. Well, it’s not like I don’t know what will happen. These things like to drop down behind their prey.

I waded toward the tree and up onto the stream’s bank. A flutter of nervousness ran through my belly as I stood under the willow’s canopy. Any moment now the chishiaxpe would—

The vine dropped from the branch behind me. I swung my spear around, the haft sweeping parallel to the ground. I’d learned my lesson from before—trying to stab a swaying vine was much too difficult. Instead, I struck as if I was holding a staff.

I caught enough of the vine on the spear’s haft that I was able to shove it to the ground and drag the spearhead across its trapped body, like I’d done with the parasitic worms. The smell of mint burst into the air as a three-foot-long section of the chishiaxpe was cut away. The vine darted back toward the willow, its length wrapping around the trunk to retreat up into the branches. The leaves of other trees rustled, as the other chishiaxpe followed suit.

My breathing was fast, but steady. I kept my eyes on the branches. On the ground. On the water. The only movement was the wriggling of the section of vine I’d cut away, and even that stilled after a few moments.

I placed my open pouch on the ground and used the spear to lift the cut vine into it. Holding it at arm’s length, I waded back into the water to return the way I’d come.

I found a spot well away from the waterfall to dissect the chishiaxpe. Ideally, I’d want gloves and goggles for something like this, but since I didn’t have them, all I could do was be careful. Using the sharpest of my knives, I made an incision along the length of the vine, starting at the end farthest from the circle of stingers and slowly opening up the interior as I went.

The uekisheile came out to eat. Their only comment was that the vine’s qi was bitter-food-bitter.

The core had been buried in the vine’s strange biology. All the organs were fibrous instead of meaty, and the most complicated part was near the mouth. There was space for the stingers to retract, which they apparently did once the prey was dead. That made room for a small mouth to open and eat.

Thin tubes connected the stingers to a nodule tucked under the other organs. There was a sheath around the nodule to protect it and—I squeezed—yes, out came venom. A drop of clear liquid oozed from the stingers’ tips.

Not hurrying—most definitely not hurrying—I gathered the venom into the empty medicine bottle I’d found in Kaad’s first-aid kit. It didn’t matter how precious the poison was, it wasn’t more precious than my life.

By the time I was done, there were two thimblefuls of poison in the bottle. I shook my head—that wouldn’t be enough. Not for a whole troop of bishkawi. Hiding the bottle in a safe place, I went back for more chishiaxpe.

It didn’t matter if they were pretty, flowery, or minty, I hunted any of the vines I found in isolated positions. It was like looking at a game board and puzzling out how to remove the pieces, one at a time, so that I could maximize the number of isolated vines.

The process wasn’t that hard, really, not once I knew how the chishiaxpe acted and reacted around prey. The only hassle was waiting for them to come back down from their trees after one of their neighbors was killed. The sun steadily traveled across the sky as I killed five different chishiaxpe.

I was in danger only once, and that was during the sixth encounter when the vine ducked under my sweep and jabbed at me right after. Fortunately, I flipped the spear around in time to knock it away. Then I immediately retreated back to the stream. The poison bottle was only half full, but there was no need to press my luck. Besides, I wanted to leave enough daylight to scout the Glen and hike back to the children I left behind.

It was okay to stop, and as I walked away, I reflected on how the last chishiaxpe would serve as a good reminder to never get complacent, even when things started to become routine.

Half an hour later, I hid among the bushes crowding the top of the Glen’s waterfall. A bishkawi sat among an oak tree’s limbs and kept watch on the surroundings. He was an ordinary-enough fellow, nothing special compared to the others in his troop.

There didn’t seem to be any other bishkawi nearby, just the lone scout.

As I watched him scratch his ass, I wondered if a blowgun might be better than a bow. An arrow was such an obvious attack, but a dart could be mistaken for an insect bite.

The idea was tempting, but I put it aside for the moment. One, I didn’t know how to make or effectively use a blowgun. And two, I wasn’t sure how well a dart would penetrate the bishkawi’s fur. Wait, I was such a dunce—there was another obvious way to poison pests. I eased back from my hiding place to go get some jerky from my pack.

Using a stick, I applied some of the chishiaxpe poison to a strip of jerky. It added a bitter tone to the otherwise meaty smell, so I made a cut on my forearm and dropped some blood on the jerky to mask it. Then I wrapped the whole thing in a frond leaf.

After sneaking back, I scanned the area to make sure none of the other bishkawi had joined the scout while I was away, but the coast was clear. I threw the poison package at the base of the oak tree.

The sound of it hitting was loud enough to catch the bishkawi’s attention. He climbed down the trunk with ease, his head swiveling around to scan the area. I ducked down and rooted myself into one with the land.

The bishkawi picked up the package. He didn’t pay attention to it at first. Instead, he walked around to check if there was anything dangerous nearby. Only when the situation seemed safe did he take a closer look. He sniffed the package, then tore away the frond to reveal the jerky inside.

The selfish bishkawi took another look around, checking over his shoulder to ensure there wasn’t anyone with whom he had to share the meat. Then he hurriedly climbed the trunk, where I lost view of him. A few minutes later, he fell out of the tree with a thump.

I waited another several minutes, but nothing else came out of the trees. Sneaking closer, I found him with his eyes open in terror. His breath came in quick, short gasps, and his jaw was locked tight.

This must’ve been what I’d looked like when I was stung by the chishiaxpe. Unfortunately for this bishkawi, I wasn’t an otter come to rescue him. No, I was his death. I stabbed him in the heart and pulled out his core.

The uekisheile didn’t even bother to comment. They ate the qi and quickly disappeared back inside me. Apparently, they’d gotten used to me hunting and were now much more interested in tinkering with my qi, looking for ways to further condense it. Not that I minded—it gave the uekisheile something to do, and I was looking forward to the results.

I said a few words over the bishkawi’s body, then snuck toward the edge of the cliff overlooking the Glen.

The scene was a mess, just a bloody mess. Literally. Turkey and bishkawi carcasses were strewn about like the litter after Mardi Gras. I smelled the blood, decay, and defecation from forty feet up. What was left of the bodies was steadily being consumed by those left alive.

I counted four bishkawi carcasses among the dead, and seven alive. There’d be another three hidden in the trees around the Glen, assuming the one I’d just killed wasn’t the only sentry. So, ten regular bishkawi in total.

The alpha was alive too, although the fur along his left shoulder had burned away to leave a bright-red, puckered wound. It stretched from the top of his chest, across the shoulder, and up onto the bottom half of the back of his skull.

The alpha chuffed and snarled as he paced back and forth along the pool’s edge. He dove in, but the other bishkawi barely glanced up.

I thought the alpha was cooling the wound, but instead he swam down to the bottom of the pool. He slammed at the stone with his right hand, at the area with the spirit doorway. He pounded at it like he wanted to break it down.

A burst of bubbles broke the surface when the alpha howled, which wasn’t exactly a good idea underwater. Out of air, he swam for the surface and pulled himself out of the pool to resume his pacing.

Nothing else happened for the next half an hour. My main observations were:

• There was no sign of Ikfael. Given the alpha’s behavior, I felt safe in assuming she was still with Diriktot.
• The alpha badly wanted to get through the spirit door.
• About half the bishkawi were injured, including the alpha.
• The bishkawi practiced cannibalism, eating from all the carcasses.
• There was enough meat in the Glen—rotting though it may be—to feed the troop for another day or two at least.

Also, while I couldn’t be sure, I strongly suspected that the cores of all the dead animals had gone to the alpha. There was just something about him—he felt stronger, even though he was wounded.

I’d seen enough. I eased away from the cliff’s edge, then started hiking back to the lion’s cave.