A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL
A NaNoWriMo challenge Chapter 9
9
I tied each one of them without any thought of mercy. I tied their hands behind their backs, looping one end of the rope over a branch, and then hoisting each man up so that he was on his toes, screaming in agony. I tied them up on the other side of the clearing, away from the camp.
“If you make a lot of noise, you’ll just attract attention to yourselves,” I said as I examined the stolen weapons they had among themselves. I took the nicest sivic of the three. “You don’t want to do that,” I said.
“We’re not alone,” one of the men managed to spit out.
“Good,” I said, looking up at him with a smile. “Nothing I like more than hunting Scavengers. It’s fun.”
“I’ll see you dead by sun-up,” he said.
“If you see sun-up,” I said. “With all that noise you’re making, the attention you attract won’t be your friends. Did you forget, these woods are full of predators? Why do you think I tied you up over here? I don’t want any predators coming into my camp.”
“There are no predators out here. We would’ve seen them.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” I said, picking up my bow and rope.
“You can’t just leave us here!”
“No? Is what I’ve done to you any different from what you were planning to do to us? That’s a Slaver army up ahead. They’re always willing to take more victims for the arenas. If you would’ve caught me napping, maybe I’d be where you are now. But they’ve been known to make a trade, Slavers have. You should consider yourselves lucky. If I would’ve put an arrow through you and brought you to them, they’d just kill you. You’re not much use to them if you can’t fight, are you?”
I walked across the clearing, looking up at the stars and the dying light of the fire. I looked at the rabbit, and carefully flipped it over. One side was charred, but there was still plenty of good meat left.
I lifted the raft up and looked under it.
“Come. Have some rabbit,” I said, and then sat down.
“Are they…gone?” she asked.
“A few of them are. I decided to keep a few of the others alive.”
“Keep them? You mean they haven’t run off?”
I smiled. “Did you really think I was just going to scare them off? What they should’ve done was wait out there until we were asleep. Then they would’ve come in here and we’d be going to the Slavers instead of them, well, after they all worked their way through you.”
“What?”
“They failed to understand one thing about me.”
“And what would that be?”
“I’m a born and bred Huntsman. I played at the foot of the Vandals and hunted predators most of my life. I can hear better, smell better, and see better than they can. They don’t know the first thing about hunting a man; it’s the easiest game to hunt, but also, the most dangerous. Sometimes, we fight back,” I laughed, leaning back and almost falling off the log.
An hour later the rabbit was picked clean and the sun was down. The Vandals stood out in relief against a tapestry of stars that floated over the edge of the world and disappeared into what looked like was forever. I’ve always liked the stars, though I could never read them. My father used to read the stars, and so did Jarel, Jaleen’s brother. We’d sit out some nights and he tell me the names of different stars. It was a memory that brought tears to my eyes.
“We need to get under the raft,” I said.
I brought my bow, picked up the quiver—I’d find the arrows I used in the morning, along with what other weapons I could find—then spread whatever clothing I could find, on the ground.
*
“Fuck me, Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” I said into the darkness as the raft slid over me.
“Ricky? Is that you?”
“Jen? Jen! Is that you? The real you?” I said, recognizing her voice in the dark.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“What the fuck’s going on? Where’s Jimmy?”
“All I can think is that when you and Helen opened the portal, you did something to the space/time continuum—”
“The what? Is that even a thing?”
“You stepped out of your time, and into the minds of two people in this time.”
“Jesus Christ, Jen, their minds? Is that how it’s supposed to work? Because I’m telling you right now, that sounds like the old Vulcan Mind-Meld Mr. Spock used to do on Star Trek?”
“Star Trek? Really, Ricky ?Why would you think that?”
“Dad always said he was a warrior. He had long hair and a wife, as well as three kids—”
“I know about the kids.”
“You know about the kids? How? What do you know?
“The girl’s body Helen stepped into, is your father’s daughter. I think that’s why you ended up here in the first place.”
“You mean my father is my father-in-law on this side?”
“There’s irony for you.”
“How do you know all of that—about my father, I mean?”
“The bracelet I had was synched in to every computer on the planet—the future of the planet, not this time. It’s how we do things in the future. Every person’s history, and the history of their family, is traced back through their DNA. This is as far back and we’ve been able to get.”
“How far into the future are you from?”
“Two thousand years.”
“All that knowledge, and you come to this shit hole?” I had to laugh at that idea. “Speaking of your bracelet, where is it?”
“Gone.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s lost somewhere in time.”
“Lost? But somewhere in time. Does that mean you’ll get it back some time? And where’s my brother?”
“I lost him, too.”
“What about my father?”
“What about him?”
“You brought him here. He has dementia. What were you thinking? Is he lost as well?”
“He has dementia on the other side. Not here.”
“Why the hell do you call it the other side? The other side of what?”
“The other side of Time.”
“Jesus fuck, Jen. What the hell have you got us mixed up in?”
“I’ll sort it all out.”
“How? You don’t have your bracelet.”
“No, but you have yours. If I can get you to stay in this consciousness long enough, we can use your bracelet to find your brother and get what we came here to get.”
“What did we come here to get?”
“It’s complicated.”
*
I pushed the raft off of us slowly, my bow notched with an arrow in case we had unexpected company. The fire was a pile of smouldering ashes. I crawled out from under the raft and tossed whatever was left of the rabbit onto the ashes, a small cloud of dust rising up into the air. I slowly crept to the other side of the raft, grabbing the rope hanging from it and began pulling it up, wrapping the rope around a small branch.
“Okay, you can come out now,” I said.
“Are we safe?”
I sniffed the air, searching for any unfamiliar scents that might be lingering. I could smell the three prisoners across the clearing; there was a stench of dry sweat and fresh urine about them, and I nodded.
The air was full of the scent of game.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
Having lived in the Wilds my entire life, I knew any chance to eat was something you should never deny yourself. I walked to the river’s edge and looked at the water, dappled with silver slivers of sunlight breaking through the trees, I nodded to myself.
“Do you like fish?”
“Fish? I’ve never eaten fish before.”
“No? Well, let’s find out,” I smiled, and sitting on the log in front of the fire, picked up a length of rope, untwining it until I had a thin length I felt was long enough. I tied it to the arrow’s head, coiled the length and tucked it into my pants.
“Let’s go,” I said. “You can pick up some firewood along the way.”
“Where are we going?”
“Fishing.”
We followed the little trail to the river. I stayed off to the side, and told her to follow my lead, trying, if she could, to match my footsteps. Although I put little stock in the threats my prisoners called out as I pulled their bonds tight, I knew not to dismiss them out of hand. Scavengers were known to travel in packs, like the wild dogs they are, I told myself, and while several foraging parties could be sent out in three different directions, if one of those parties failed to return, the others would set out in search as soon as possible.
The water was calm, and the fishing plentiful.
After rekindling the fire and bringing it back to life, I cut and gutted the fish, laying it on the rocks. Picking up my bow, I made my way across the clearing to look in on my three prisoners. I searched the air for any unfamiliar scents and stopped.
One of the prisoners was missing.
I notched an arrow and dropped down to the ground, slowly making my way to where I’d tied my prisoners the night before. Keeping the wind in my face and my back to the camp across the clearing, I could hear the blood rushing through my ears with a steady beating that matched my heart. I lay silent, slowing down my breathing, listening to everything around me.
I searched the air for his scent, knowing that I’d be lucky to find a trace of it if I found anything at all. I searched the grass ahead of me, looking for tell-tale signs of ambush. A man couldn’t lay hidden in the grass without exposing himself. It was the same with the larger predators, and when it comes right down to it, man is just another predator. It’s a matter of reading the signs around you. A man hiding in the grass gives off a distinct odour; it’s the fear and adrenaline of the anticipated attack; an accelerated heart-beat that comes with knowing; the rustling grass that moves with every breath he takes.
I stood up, turned to my left, and released the arrow. I heard the man’s death rattle, followed by a scream as a man twenty paces behind me stood up, and coming at a fast run, threw a large spear. I jumped to one side, catching the spear in one hand and pivoting, drove the spear into the man as he approached, unable to stop in time, impaling himself. A reached out with my foot, pushing the man back; withdrawing the spear and at the same time, pivoting and throwing the spear with all I had, covering the clearing and flying clean and true, caught another man in the back.
I drew my sword and ran as fast as I could across the clearing. I heard an arrow passing over my shoulder, lodging into a tree with depth. That told me the man had my range. I ducked to the left and three paces later swerved right and placed a tree behind me as another arrow found its distance.
I could see the woman ahead of me—by the gods, I’d yet to learn her name!—held captive by five men, three of whom stood a spears’ length away from her. I pulled the sivic out of its sheath and cast it on the run, striking a man in the back burying the blade to the hilt. The second man I took with my blade, driving it into his side as I rolled to my left, slashing at the back of a man’s knees. He went down with a scream and I was quick to take his weapon from him, a large war axe, and with a two handed heave, released the weapon and watch it cleave the fourth man’s chest, while the last man dropped his spear in an attempt to run. I picked up the spear and threw it, as I grabbed her and pulled her toward the raft.
“Quick! Now!” I screamed at her, and she grabbed the gunnels and whatever line of rope she could, helping me pull the raft into the river. I could see five more men coming through the trees. I dropped to a knee as I pulled an arrow from my quiver and took down the first man. I reached for another arrow in my quiver only to discover that I was out of arrows.
I scanned the woods about us and saw the man whose leg I had slashed. He was crawling toward a tree, but he was also carrying a full quiver of arrows. I made a quick run for him, kicking him in the ribs as hard as I could, and taking the quiver from him as he rolled to the side holding his ribs. I was quick to notch an arrow and take aim without a moment’s hesitation, taking down a second man.
Three men were still running toward me.
I turned and ran toward the raft again, grabbing whatever I could and pulling it toward the river. She ran out as far as she could, pulling and then jumping into the raft as I grabbed the steering oar and tossed it into the water ahead of me. She reached out and pulled it into the raft. I secured myself and notched an arrow, taking the first man as he cleared the woods and ran three paces full into the river.
He died with an arrow in the throat.
I reached for the steering oar and attached it to the back of the raft as best I could, hoping it wouldn’t fall off. We were quick to out distance them as we made our way to the farther shore, catching the current in the middle of the stream and quickly floating around the bend.
“What was that!”
“Scavengers,” I said. “I guess he wasn’t lying when he said they weren’t alone. They’d managed to untie one by the time I got there. Nothing like a little battling to get the blood flowing!” I laughed.