Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 (32 page)

“So we’ve heard,” Jesse agreed. “An-nef don’t like humans on their side of the river.”

“Yar! An-nef will kill you sure enough, but the real threat’s out in that jungle. There’s beasts out there’ll make the werewolves look like puppies.”

Jesse doubted that was true, but he had seen enough frightful things on his journey thus far that he wasn’t about to argue the point.

“Yar. Yer best bet at not get’n eat’n by the beasts is to stick to the Green Highway. It’ll take you all the way to New Sodom. But you’ve got ten miles through the jungle before you reach it. Very perilous. For another denarius I’ll let the both of you—dog too—sleep in the barn tonight. Good soft hay. No beasties to bother you. You can start fresh in the morn’n and not have to travel at night. What’d say?”

Jesse immediately thought of Elan and his daughter and was about to say “No” when Enoch spoke up and said, “We’ll take it!”

Jesse fished through his purse for another denarius and the deal was done. In a couple of minutes the boat passed under a low-hanging rock outcropping and the bull-heads rowed into a small cove, protected on all sides by steep rock walls. Jakar had made his home and smuggling post in a natural cavern—perfect protection when living in a carnivorous world where you were the prey. Jakar’s “boys” (another reminder of the ill-fated stay at the farmhouse) pulled the boat up on a sandy beach as Jakar lead the three to the barn. Jakar was right, the hay was soft and even the smell of the barn—bad as it was—seemed right. It was times like this, the smell of hay and the smell of manure, that made Jesse feel homesick. What was happening back in the Foothills tonight, he thought. Did his mother worry over his safety? Was Abijah at the White Moose in Albion enjoying a drink with one of his brothers? And then he thought of Adah, taking his hand and begging him to take her with him. Adah was a pleasant thought. He fell fast asleep.

The three were awakened by a rooster crowing as the first light of day made its way into Jakar’s cavern. Inside the barn the light filtered in dimly, but Jesse awakened with a sense of relief that he
had
awakened. No highwayman had drugged him or hit him over the head for the rest of his purse. Jakar was, at least, an honest smuggler. The three ate breakfast in the barn of supplies prepared at Bastrap, and then went outside where they were greeted by one of Jakar’s boys who had come out to feed the goats.

“What’s the best way to get to the Green Highway?” Jesse asked.

“Only one way that I know of,” the young bull-head replied. “You see those stairs?” The “stairs” to which he referred were roughly hewn steps in the side of the cavern’s rock. “Take ‘em all the way to the top. The trail starts there. In about ten miles or so you’ll come across the Green Highway—if you don’t get eaten before you get there.

Words of encouragement, thought Jesse. He had already had his share of wandering around in the forest following the wrong trail, and was determined not to have it happen again.

“What happens if we lose the trail? How can we find our way back?”

“You got a compass?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the Green Highway runs southeast from the river. If you get split up after being chased by a T-Rex or raptor, whoever survives (more words of encouragement) needs to follow their compass west by southwest. That’ll take you to the road.”

Jesse didn’t know what a T-Rex or raptor was, but he thanked the young bull-head for the directions and the pep-talk.

“Anytime!” the bull-head said with a smile.

The jungle started at the edge of the cavern rim; luckily, so did the smuggler’s trail. It was, in fact, surprisingly good considering the poor condition of the mountain road that they had just traversed. Few rocks. Relatively level. The trail wound around an occasional giant cypress or baobabs and every half mile or so they were forced to forge a shallow stream, but even here it was evident that many had forged the stream before them and horses and wagons had worn the banks down so that it was more like wading across a muddy road than having to scale a stream’s steep banks. All-in-all this was a walk in the park, a park adorned by ferns the size of houses and orchids that were both bright and fragrant. Even the birds here were of the most colorful variety. They were feathered in brilliant blues, greens, and yellows. They called to each other in birdcalls that none of them had ever heard in the Foothills. The biggest nuisance that the three encountered in the trail’s first five miles were swarms of mosquitoes the size of butterflies. The boys donned their cloaks in this steamy atmosphere for protection from these flying vampires and were soon soaked to the hide from their own sweat. Jessie even pulled a shirt from his pack and pulled Enoch’s front legs through the sleeves to give him some protection. He looked quite comical with the sleeves rolled up just above his paws, but the shirt seemed to help. Jesse was starting to think that Jakar had highly exaggerated the trail’s dangers. Just trying to get a scare out of a couple of humans, no doubt. And they were making good time. In the first three hours since they had started down the trail Jesse estimated that they had gone almost five miles—half the distance to the Green Highway. At this pace, he thought that they should be at the Highway not long after twelve bells.

“What do you smell, Enoch?” Jesse asked after awhile. “Wolves? Lions? A saber-tooth, perhaps?”

Enoch raised his nose as he trotted along beside Jesse and sniffed, “Frogs.”

“Frogs? You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I smell frogs—and very strongly. They may be really big frogs, but they are frogs.”

“Where are they?”

“Everywhere. All around us. I have smelled them ever since we headed down the trail. I can also smell dogs, but they seem to be trailing us at a distance.”

Jesse slowed his pace just a bit and Perez nearly ran into him. The thought of a pack of dogs in this rainforest was better than a pack of werewolves, but still disconcerting. And big frogs?

“Just how big do you think that these really big frogs are?”

“Impossible to tell. But they are numerous. And there’s something not quite right about the smell. It’s as if they are frogs—but they’re not.”

Jesse slowed a bit more and started to search the surrounding jungle carefully. It was dark in here. The sun’s light never made it all the way down to the rainforest’s floor, but you could still see well enough…maybe. Now Jesse was starting to wonder about what they were missing in the shadows.

“Perez,” Jesse asked, “did you ever hear of a frog with teeth?”

“Nope.” Perez answered. “But I suppose anything’s possible. Especially in a place where mosquitoes are as big as butterflies.”

Jesse supposed that anything was possible, but the confirmation that frogs didn’t have teeth did make him pick up his step a bit. He felt just a tad more confident of their situation. Before long they crossed another of the shallow streams that they had been seeing all morning. The streambed was made up of grayish clay, and as Jesse was trying to watch his step he noticed three-toed prints in the clay. He stepped in one and found that the print dwarfed his boot-print.

“What is that?” he asked Enoch.

Enoch sniffed. “Funny,” he said at last. “It smells like frog.”

Suddenly, Jesse’s assessment of the harmlessness of frogs dissipated, but he pressed on. Up ahead he could see the trail as it ran between the trunks of a couple of baobabs and then just seemed to disappear in the shadows. He was looking at the trees and wondering what lay in the shadows beyond when suddenly he observed one of the trunks moving.

Jesse stopped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Perez.

“See those two trees up ahead?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, one of them just moved.”

“No-way!”

Perez and Jesse stared at the trunks. In a moment both of them seemed to shift. They blinked, and looked again. The trunks shifted again. Then, as they raised their eyes to follow the tree trunks they discovered that both of them terminated in the shoulders of the largest creature that they had ever seen. It was a greenish brown in color and was covered with bark-like scales. It had four legs, its belly was high in the air, and its tail stretched out behind it like a slowly twisting tree trunk. Above them, a long, amphibian neck reached into the treetops as the creature munched on the leaves of the surrounding trees.

“That’s one, BIG frog, Enoch,” said Jesse.

“I suggest that we walk around it,” Enoch replied. “Way around it.”

The three of them left the road and left the giant lizard to its eating. At least it didn’t appear interested in them. The two boys used their swords like machetes to whack through the dense undergrowth until they were confident that they were far enough past the creature that it would not see them as a threat. Then they proceeded back down the trail, suspicious of every tree and fern that they encountered.

They had covered another two miles and were just thinking that they would soon be to the Highway and be able to leave the giant lizards behind them when up ahead they heard a great commotion: voices yelling and crashing—the snapping of trees and the thunder of giant feet pounding the ground. The ground began to shake as if in an earthquake. Running down the trail in their direction came a half-dozen panther-heads, followed close behind by as many ram-heads. The an-nef were running with all their might, and their eyes were wide with fright. Suddenly a giant lizard with a huge head with a mouth brimming with sharp teeth crashed behind the ram-heads. It ran on two powerful hind legs, and had two much smaller front legs with sharp talons.

The creature caught up with one of the fleeing ram-heads. He lowered his massive head and chomped down on the unfortunate an-nef, who died with a shriek.

“When in Eden…” Jesse said.

“Do as the Edenites do,” Perez replied.

Enoch put it more succinctly, “Scatter!”

The three left the trail and took off running. Perez ran to the right, and Jesse ran to the left, with Enoch close behind. Jesse didn’t think about where he was or how far he had run or what might lie ahead. He just ran until he could run no more. Finally, exhausted, he collapsed under the shade of a great tree. He raised his water-skin and drank deeply, and then poured some in a tin bowl for Enoch.

When Jesse had caught his breath, he asked Enoch, “Where’s Perez?”

“No idea,” Enoch panted.

“Can’t you smell him?”

“No.”

“What do you smell?”

Enoch stopped his panting and took a whiff, “Mostly ram’s blood…and frog. Lots of frog.”

Jesse looked at Enoch questioningly, “Enoch, when you were with the legion and you marched through Eden to Sodom, didn’t you see creatures like that?”

“Never! Oh, we did see some triceratops. The an-nef use them for beasts of burden. They were docile creatures that only ate hay like the horses. But nothing like that. Remember, Jesse, we were an army of two-hundred-thousand men. We stuck to the Green Highway. I suspect that carnivores—even of that size—avoid humans in so large numbers. I had heard stories of them though, but I didn’t want to frighten you.”

Jesse shook his head, “That bit of information might have been beneficial.”

Jesse rummaged through his pack and pulled out his compass.

“What are you doing?” asked Enoch.

“Getting my bearings. Jakar’s son said that if we wandered off the trail that we should get a heading of west by southwest.”

“Humph! Compasses are for sissies!” With that Enoch took off trotting through the jungle.

Jesse looked at his compass. Enoch
was
headed west by southwest. He got up to follow Enoch. Dogs were amazing.

Leaving the trail had slowed their progress considerably. Jesse kept hoping that he would come across the smuggler’s route again, but they reached the Highway later that day never finding it. He and Enoch spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon progressing slowly through the dense undergrowth, Jesse slashing away at it with his sword as they pressed on. They did encounter several other large lizards, though. They encountered another of the giant leaf-eaters and several smaller varieties, one of them stood nearly as tall as Jesse, but it ran off into the jungle at their approach. Good enough for Jesse and Enoch, they had all of the interaction with man-eating lizards that they wanted for one day.

By late afternoon they were finally at the Green Highway. The highway was a well-worn road, better than any that they had traveled so far—including the Southern Highway. It was dirt, but trees had been cleared from both sides, and it gave evidence of much use. Everywhere were boot-prints, hoof-prints, and the tracks of what Enoch and Jesse supposed were triceratops. The highway was also well-worn by tracks of carts and wagons. It was plain that the an-nef used this road with regularity, possibly to ferry supplies to the bridge that they were building on the Pishon. This abundance of activity posed a serious problem for Jesse. Approach to the Edenite capital of New Sodom undiscovered would be impossible on the highway unless they were very careful—and they had to use the highway—that much was clear. The jungle was just too dangerous and slow-going. So while they were waiting on Perez to arrive (Enoch believed that he must still be to the north of them because he had run to the right) Jesse and Enoch devised a plan where Enoch would travel the road a hundred paces ahead of them. With his superior sight and smell, he should be able to alert the boys from an-nef approaching from the direction of New Sodom, giving the boys an opportunity to hide off the road until the an-nef had passed. But protecting them from an-nef approaching from the direction of the river posed a greater threat, and the best that Jesse and Enoch could come up with was that the boys would have to wear their cloaks with their hoods up so that approaching an-nef wouldn’t recognize them as men. Even then they would have to dart into the rainforest at the first sign of approaching an-nef to avoid being discovered and killed. The plan seemed to Enoch and Jesse as being an imperfect, but workable one. As soon as Perez arrived they would fill him in on the plan and make any refinements that Perez thought necessary. But as evening approached there was no sign—and no smell—of Perez and the two of them began to worry. They would have to spend their first night alone in the rainforest without him.