spotted. “I just wanted to thank you for letting us use your island.”
The tentacle rises, the eye looks around, and then it inches closer to me.
I look nervously behind me. Caronerax is watching intently, tense and ready to pounce. But I don’t think he’ll need to.
“It is a super cool island you have here,” I continue as the tentacle-slash-eye comes closer along the ground, looking like the world’s most curious snake. “I’m sure lots of other mon— um… creatures would love to see it. Invite someone, maybe?”
The tentacle is three feet away and rises at the end as the eye takes me in.
“I’m sorry about… you know. The things you saw. He and I haven’t had a good place or time to do those things before.”
The eye inches closer, taking us both in. It’s big and round, with a round pupil and a hazel iris. Of course, she can’t hear or understand anything I say, but I’m hoping the meaning comes across.
“Anyway, I’ll let people know you’re single and maybe looking?”
The eye focuses on Caronerax for a long time, but he returns the gaze coldly.
When the eye comes back to me, I slowly reach out one hand and stroke the tentacle right behind the eyeball. It’s warm and feels a lot like touching someone’s finger. “We’ll leave you alone now. Thanks again.”
I retreat, then straighten up and walk back to the swamp.
“Probably the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” I say as I let my breath out. “But I felt I should.”
“Such a strange monster,” Caronerax ponders. “Not at all aggressive.”
“No,” I agree as I give the eye a final wave. “She needs some company, though. Let’s look out for swamp monsters we can send her way. You ready?”
I put my mudshoes on, figure out exactly which direction is due south, and step into the mire.
17
- Jennifer -
The mudshoes makes it all much easier. The mud doesn’t have the same consistency as snow, of course. But it’s not that far off how wet slush would behave, and I never get close to breaking through the firm layer to the treacherous liquid beneath.
We’re not moving as fast as Caronerax carrying me over his shoulder, but much faster than me walking with bare feet. In the afternoon we reach dry land, turn around, and look back across the swamp. The island is only a bump on the horizon, and I can barely make out a dark line in the distant mist that could be the side we came from.
“No smoke signals today,” I observe, putting my hand into the pouch and fishing out a handful of nuts.
“No need,” Caronerax says as he turns and walks on, into the woods. “They already said all they were going to say.”
There’s no reason to hesitate, so I take my mudshoes off, place them neatly on the ground, and follow him, hoping I won’t miss them.
Again the land slopes down, and the trees here are much more like the ones I know from the jungle. There are still pines, but here they’re not the dominant species of tree.
We walk the rest of the afternoon, and I start to look for a clearing that would be good to spend the night in.
After another hour, we stumble across the perfect one. It’s round and big, with a good distance to the edge of the woods, making it hard for anything to sneak up on us. A stream clucks merrily along the edge, the grass is dry and soft, and one side is all bushes bearing not-currants. In the middle is a mound covered with moss and tall grass.
I stop at the edge of the clearing. “Which monster has made this, do you think?”
Caronerax walks a couple steps past me, then stops. “I’m not sure this is—”
Before he can finish the sentence, a long, thin spear comes flying and hits him in the chest, clanging off the scales right next to his wound. It’s followed by another and another, a real hailstorm of spears that are thrown hard enough to force him back.
To my horror, one of them hits the hole in his scale perfectly, and the shaft of the spear sticks out of his chest.
Caronerax staggers backwards, hissing throatily with pain that I think must be incredibly intense.
Then the clearing comes alive as the mound dissolves into a whole platoon of camouflaged cavemen, and more come from behind and from the sides, sharp spears stretched out towards us. And especially towards Caronerax.