Authors: Mark Lavorato
Between the spaces of my arms, and against the backdrop of a star spotted sky, I saw a figure run in front of me. I would have described it as looking like a man, but its silhouette was smaller, more petite, its waist crouched low, the legs gawky and awkward, the knees having to bend with acute angles. However, almost contradictory to these gangly limbs, it ran with an incisive posture, a grace, an extraordinary speed. I could hear the thudding of their feet on the soil, could feel the thumping reverberations on the ground as a few of them jumped out of the trees. While the frantic scattering whirled around me, one of them must have stepped quite close, because a bit of dirt bounced onto the skin of my hand, making me cower even more. And with my head buried deep into my arms I couldn't see anything anymore; I could only hear hectic sounds that could have signified any number of things: their fleeing, regrouping, encircling me, or maybe preparing for something unknown, an attack - anything was possible. I could predict nothing. I had no idea how this was going to end.
After a few seconds, the sounds began to recede. They were running over the lip of the terrace and down the hill, and I listened to the pounding of their footsteps until they faded into the whisper of rustling branches and the hiss of the river. And just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
I didn't take my head from my arms for quite a while; and when I finally did, I only ogled around at the dark, still afraid to move. It had crossed my mind that some of them might be lingering in the trees - perhaps a few scouts that would be watching for what I was going to do next, and who would then slip away to inform the others so that they could react accordingly; maybe readying themselves for a battle, which, as was plain to see, they would effortlessly win.
Before I'd even gotten to my feet, I heard a set of long, haunting calls coming from the slope below. I recognized them as the same sounds I'd heard when I slept on the doorstep after finding my knife; the same three melancholic notes repeated over and over again. Only this time, I also heard what must have been a kind of answering call, echoing in the distance. And after that, I could have sworn I heard another, even further off. But while I listened to them, I realized that it hadn't only
sounded
like a flute that I'd heard that second night on the mainland, but that it really was one. Which, I think, was the most intimidating realization I could have come to.
Because it meant that, not only were they advanced enough to communicate with other groups of the same species, but that they had the intelligence to make musical instruments (or at least warning horns with variable notes). And as all of these haunting calls had sounded exactly the same, it also meant they could construct flutes that were in a consistent key from one to the next, which would require their cutting tools to be incredibly precise. And if they were producing and using cutting tools of that calibre, one could only guess at the type of weapons they were capable of making.
Which made me wonder what this group of Creatures was so urgently communicating to the other groups, after having seen me. (I'd already made the link that these animals
were
the Creatures, which, as I would find out when there was enough light to look at the bite marks in some of the fruit they left behind, was an assumption I was right to make.) Were these flute calls only a warning, something urging every Creature to be extremely careful because a human had been spotted? Was it perhaps a signal to take flight? Or was it a command to gather for an assault, to come together and protect their territory as a united group?
I knew the Elders would have told me about an intelligent hominid living on the mainland if they'd known about it, which obviously meant that they didn't. No, this had to be a new animal, probably one of the strange mutations Dana had warned me about, a product of the horrible weapons we'd used at one point in our history. This was something that no one, anywhere, knew anything about. I was blind. I didn't even know enough to begin helping myself. All I really understood was that if they decided to come in large numbers with weapons, there was no way I could defend myself against them. I understood that if I wanted to survive, I had to think of another strategy. And soon.
I got to my feet, brushing the dirt from my clothes, shaking soil out of my hair, constantly looking over my shoulder as I did so, still half doubting I was really alone. I went back to the hut, ducking under the cage in the doorway, and sat on the edge of my bed for quite a while, as if trying to find the right words to break all of this news to the raven. "So - uh... I think we're in a bit of trouble," I finally said. The bird opened its wings, flapped once, and then tucked them back in, the sound of settling feathers scratching at the quiet.
I didn't sleep for the rest of the night, worrying about the Creatures returning, and with what I was going to do in preparation for it. But by the time the sky began to blanch with the light of morning, I had at least formulated some kind of plan; and though I understood it would take a lot of work, and more than a few days to complete, I imagined it would be a fairly effective one. I couldn't wait to get started, and I was out of bed at the earliest hour possible.
But before I could begin, I had to satisfy my curiosity, and walked out into the terrace to study the tracks that the Creatures had left behind. I realized that I'd seen them once before, in the mud along the river while I was looking for the hut. They resembled a human hand in many ways, though the fingers looked shorter and contorted. I carefully picked through the peels and fruit that they'd eaten as well, trying to learn something new about their habits, but didn't really come up with anything further.
Then I returned, hung the raven's cage from the ceiling in the middle of the hut, left it some fruit, and closed the door as best I could. I picked up the length of rope that I'd taken from the cluster of houses, and the sharpest cutting tool I had, and set out to complete the first part of my plan.
Because it was clear that between running and fighting, running was my only option, I didn't bother wasting time carving spears or trying to make bows and arrows. Though, I did go for a few minutes to carefully inspect the wire cage of boulders that was reinforcing the bank before the entrance to the canyon. It had occurred to me, when I first looked at it, that this cage would break open once the rusted wire had corroded enough, sending the heavy rocks tumbling down the slope to the river. Which meant that if I weakened the wire at strategic points, and could invent a kind of release mechanism, I could let the boulders loose as a trap, or at the very least, as an imposing display. (It was doubtful I could kill more than one or two of them with a barrage of slow moving rocks, but I could probably inspire some caution, making them reluctant to pursue very close at my heels; which was enough.) That's where the second part of my plan came in.
Thinking about how the Creatures had run away the night before, I realized that they had completely avoided the shrubs, despite the fact that they could have crawled into them and disappeared by slithering only a body length inside. This only made me assume that they were as unfit to travel through them as I was, and sparked an idea to use the bushes to my advantage. I thought that, if I could fight my way through the shrubs for a day, and find a spot to drop a rope into the canyon, I could then use it as an escape route. If they came, I could run up the canyon from the hut, climb the rope, and pull it up after me, thus having already gained an entire day on them, as they would have to struggle through a day's worth of bushes before they could get to the place I'd tied the rope.
That first day was spent with this aim, battling my way along the top of the canyon. I thought I would weave through the shrubs where they were thinnest, following the lip of the gorge as closely as I could. But the branches hung over the canyon's rim like mud oozing over an edge, and if I wanted ground under my feet, I had to pass through vegetation that was just as dense as everywhere else. I also discovered that the shrubs weren't only dense, but were also littered with thorns and spines that relentlessly scored your skin. But I still wrestled my way through them, lifting the heavy limbs and crawling beneath; at some points, I had to climb up and traverse small sections by squirming through the prickly forks of higher boughs, and then scuffle back down to the ground again, my skin grated and raw. I avoided cutting as much as possible, especially at the point where I first began making my way through. I didn't want to leave any clues that it was possible to pass through there, which meant when I had to cut branches, I did it strategically, scarring the wood in places that wouldn't easily be seen.
At the very end of the day, with blisters of blood lining some of the deeper scratches on my arms and legs, I made my way to the steep edge of the canyon, and looked down into the river from some of the overhanging limbs. I tied the rope to one of the trees at a point where it would be easy to climb my way to safety, and then lowered down, a little nervous that the rope might not be strong enough to hold my weight; but, thankfully, it turned out to be fine.
This was great. Now that the rope was in place, I could use the cutting tools from the hut to construct a trail, which would begin from the point where the rope was tied. This trail would hopefully circumvent the impassable section of the gorge, following the edge of the canyon, and would access the river further upstream, where I could then travel along its banks and continue my escape, deep into the plateau.
I returned to the hut at nightfall, and brought the cage outside to feed the raven there. It complained as much as usual when I moved it, but, happily, if uncharacteristically, it didn't peck at my hands when I placed pieces of fruit between the bars. It was looking healthier by the day, and was certainly becoming more animated, more vocal, watching my every movement with more of an interest than with intimidation. I brainstormed aloud in the dark, leaning on an elbow, talking through different possibilities for the release mechanism of the boulders, the raven almost managing to sound interested with its well-timed gurgling noises.
I didn't sleep well that night, waking to every movement the bird made in its cage, thinking that it was another warning, that it might be the signal to make a mad dash for the rope, which, I was at least comforted to know, was dangling in the gorge, bright yellow against the marbled green rock, ready to save me.
37
I had imagined that I was going to clear a clean path that tunnelled through the limbs of the bushes, a tube of slashed branches that would allow me to run through the plateau and arrive on the other side of it within minutes. But if there was one thing that I learned on my first day of clearing, it was that this plan would need some serious rethinking. After tying my cutting tools to the end of the rope and climbing it, and then hoisting them up behind me, I began chopping and thrashing the bushes with the greatest of determination. But at the end of the day, I hadn't really made any progress - maybe five to ten metres - which only brought me to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be cutting a trail through the shrub plateau at all. Instead, it would have to be a kind of chaotic line that followed the path of least resistance, a meandering route that I would set out to weaken, define, and memorize.
While I did this, every night after returning to the hut raw-skinned and exhausted, I would carry the raven's cage out into the grove of fruit trees and sit down to eat something. And as I put pieces of fruit in my mouth or tossed them in front of the bird, I couldn't stop myself from giving the land below slow, worried glances; my senses alert, waiting for signs of the Creatures.
However, as stressed as I was about them, there was one thought that would sometimes calm me, which was that if they hadn't returned yet, it almost seemed likely that they never would. True, they might have been using the days to gather and organize as a single force, but they might also have simply chosen to run away and steer clear of me. Maybe I was safe. Maybe I was overreacting and didn't have anything to worry about except growing enough food for myself. I couldn't know. The only thing I knew for certain was that I had to continue working as hard and as fast as possible on the route through the bushes. Just in case.
On the fifth day of weaving back and forth, chopping certain limbs, shaving off the spines of others so I could pass over them, or cutting away the vines and thorny underbrush so I could pass underneath, I made my way toward the river to check the depth of the gorge for the last time. As I'd hoped, the canyon walls had become low enough to jump inside, and the ravine of the rushing stream was wider. I was also happy to find that the vegetation right beside the water had been cleared away (as had been done further downstream) from the frequent flooding of the river. I imagined I would be able to continue into the plateau with relative ease from that point on, following the shore of the river. I now had a functional escape route.
I devoted the next couple of days to weakening the rusted wires that held back the boulders, and building a release mechanism that I hoped would free the massive rocks when pulled. I had placed a thin log into a kind of makeshift bracket that I'd made, and then tied the meshing of wire to it. Once this was done, and I was sure that it would hold, I unfastened all the joints of the wire until the entire weight of the boulders was on the log, so that if I could bring it above the shallow brackets, everything inside would come toppling down the hill. (Though, I obviously couldn't test this. It would have to remain in the abstract world of theory, until the moment came that I would need that theory to be absolutely surefire.)
Yet, despite all of these precautions, I still didn't really feel safe, and I managed to think of one last thing I could do to prepare for a potential ambush. It occurred to me that I knew nothing about the land
beyond
the plateau, the terrain I would actually be fleeing through - were it to come to that. So, in order to prevent getting cornered or lost while being chased, I decided to do some exploring. At first, I planned to venture further upstream for a few days, but this would mean leaving the raven behind to fend for itself; and as it had been spending so much time suspended in the hut, which it absolutely hated, I thought it would be best to spare the poor bird the added stress. Instead, I decided to explore as much as I could for only half a day. That way, I could be back by the evening, as usual.