Chapter 31 - The Cave of the Gray Stone People part 11

It is no surprise how quickly the members of our war party were hunted down in the forest of the Gray Stone People. Knowing my own vampiric talents, the fact that five of us eluded detection and survived through the night gives testament only to the contempt our enemies had for us. By daybreak, the only ones left alive-- though we did not know the full count ourselves– was Kort-Lenthe, the half-breed Tavet, my companion Brulde, my father and myself.

We followed Halde's cry and found him lying in a shallow brook. I cannot say he was lying facedown in the water because he had no face. His entire head was missing. Brulde made a belching sound as we stood over Halde's body, fighting to hold down his breakfast. As Halde's blood drained from the tattered stump of his neck, swirling in strange patterns down the slowly moving rill, I was glad I had eaten very little that morning. I don't think I would have fared as well as my companion.

"Where is his head?" Brulde whispered, gazing at me with fear-bright eyes.

I shrugged, trying to stay low and look in all directions at once. "They took it, I suppose."

"Who took it?" Brulde hissed. "And why would they take his head?"

Before I could answer—not that I had an answer for my friend, only platitudes—we heard a rustle of movement. We crouched, fingers tightening on our weapons, hearts jumping into our throats.

But it was only Tavet.

The hybrid Neanderthal rounded the hill. Something wet and tangled hung from his fist. It was Halde's head. He saw the body lying in the rivulet and stopped. After a moment, he continued on. He drew alongside us and dropped the head beside its body. "Did you see Halde fall?" he asked, wiping his bloody hands on his thighs. "Someone threw his head at me, but I did not see who it was. Or what."

"I've seen nothing but our own corpses," I answered, scowling fiercely. Halde stared up at me, jaw agape. His eyes were wide and empty, like the eyes of a dead fish. I reached down and pushed them shut with my fingertips but they sprang open again. I looked away with a shudder, focused on Tavet, who stood surveying the forest with his fists planted on his hips.

"I've lost sight of Git and your father," Tavet confessed.

"What do we do now?" Brulde asked. "We're just getting picked off one by one."

"We should regroup," Tavet replied. "We've allowed our enemy to separate us."

I marveled at the hulking man. He was so nonchalant! Stony nerves were a trait of his Neanderthal ancestry, I knew, like his coarse red hair and broad, heavily muscled physique. Still I was impressed. Would that I could be so dispassionate! There was a small but piercing voice in my head that kept crying, Run away! Our enemy has out-maneuvered us! Run away! Run away now before it's too late! Every man has a coward inside of him, a craven little spirit that cares for no one but himself, nothing but his own comfort and safety. Courage is having the will to ignore those shrill cries.

I forced myself to look into Halde's bulging, dead-fish eyes. I thought of my wives and children and said to that voice: Quiet, you! I will not run away!

We searched for them then, moving as stealthily as possible. My father and the rest of our band could not be very far away, but we found only faint traces of their passage—a footprint here, a broken branch there—as the sun rolled steadily across the sky. We did not dare call out for them, nor move with careless haste through the woods. And then night came and we gave up the search to find shelter.

We found a fallen tree roofed by a mound of detritus, a natural lean-to. The opening of the hide was camouflaged by ferns, which had rooted in the accumulated mulch atop the log. "This will do," I said with a nod, eyeing our sanctuary critically. I hoped I sounded more sure than I felt.

Tavet, Brulde and I spent the night huddled beneath that tree. We crowded together in that dank hollow, blinking out through the fronds of the overhanging ferns, our breath steaming from our lips, while unseen things moved in the darkness beyond. We heard them from time to time-- quick, stealthy movements, a snapping branch, a menacing snarl-- but dared not go out to confront the creatures. Not at night. Not in the darkness, where we would be blind and all but helpless. So we crouched in that moist crevice, knees to our chins, shuddering in helpless despair each time we heard another member of our band of warriors cry out in their final agonies.

None of us spoke, and none of us slept.

Once during the night I heard a bestial howl, a shrill cry of triumph that was terribly familiar. It was the piercing cry of the beast that had stalked our search party so many nights past. It was the Lizard Man. Hearing it, my skin rashed into goose bumps and I began to tremble with dread. If Tavet and Brulde had not been at my side, I think I would have given in to my fear and betrayed myself to the hunter. Of the three of us, I alone had seen the creature with my own eyes. I alone knew what was hunting us in the dark. I could see it in my mind's eye. Those stake-like teeth. Those baleful, lambent eyes. That strange white flesh, and the unnatural way it twisted its body as it crawled on all fours. It was only Brulde, gripping my hand when he sensed the direction of my thoughts, who kept me from leaping from my hiding place and running away through the forest... most likely into the fiend's fatal embrace.

When the woods at last fell silent, it was even more terrible.

I waited for the monster to find us, to come snarling out of the darkness, eyes burning like coals, and snatch us from our hiding place. After awhile, my imaginings became so terrible that I almost wished for it to happen. At least then, this terrible waiting would be over!

But it did not find us.

I think it gave up its play, glutted perhaps or simply tired. Maybe it had grown bored with the game. That is all we were to it. A game. A faintly amusing distraction. We no more threatened a creature like that than a gnat can threaten a man. One slap and the gnat is dead. As we were for it, or so I'm sure it believed. After a while, the forest went quiet, terribly quiet, and when dawn broke and we could see again, we moved with exaggerated caution from our hiding place and went in search of our lost brothers.

The three of us crept shoulder-to-shoulder through the dense morning mist, ears straining for any sound, bodies stiff and aching from our long vigil. The forest was an alien world in the fog, unnatural and hostile. The trees were dark obelisks in the mist, the sun a faint disc. Rain felt imminent, or perhaps it would be sleet or snow. It was certainly cold enough for snow. The air was heavy with the threat of bad weather, like a promise of violence.

"Should we depart for home?" Tavet murmured. "I think our task is hopeless. We are defeated."

"We should return home and come back with more warriors," Brulde said. "Ten was not enough."

"The cave of the Gray Stone People is not far. We should at least go and see if our enemies have encamped there, then we can decide what we should do next," I answered.

I did not wish to abandon the others, to abandon my father, but what if they had retreated during the night? What if they had already fled home? What if we three were all that remained? Someone had to return and warn the others.

"What if we are all that still live?" Brulde asked, speaking my worries aloud.

"I am sure we were not all killed during the night," I tried to reassure him.

"I am not," Brulde replied.

"Be brave, men," Tavet steadied us. "We can only die once. Let us proceed to Gray Stone. But let us go quietly. Let us be cunning. Perhaps we can study our enemy before we retreat. It would be a great benefit to know who it is we fight."

We had not advanced far when we came upon the remains of the Gray Stone People.