Chapter 45 - The Charnel Pit part 11

I heaved myself out of the pit and stood on the rocky rim of the opening. The stars were like chips of ice in the sky. Moonlight silvered the mountaintops as they humped away into the darkness. To the south: the land of the Gray Stone People, forsaken and still. To the west: the valley of my own tribe, the People of the River. The wind smelled of the glaciers to the north, sharp and pure but somehow desolate. As far as I could see, the world was blanketed in snow, stark and white, like my own bewitched flesh. For a moment, it seemed I was the only living soul in the universe, standing on the peaked roof of a world that had been abandoned in my absence.

I remembered that the Foul One had visited my people at Bubbling Waters, kidnapping poor Pendra and carrying her here to her doom. I could only guess what other terrible deeds he had visited on my tribe the past few nights. I prayed to my ancestors that my wives and children had been spared the fiend's depredations, that the bloodthirsty beast had not ravaged my people as thoroughly as he had the Neanderthals.

No time to bask in my freedom. No time to celebrate the destruction of my adversary. I had to return now. I had to make sure my wives and children were safe!

I set out immediately for Bubbling Waters.

I had been removed to a great distance by the creature that had abducted me, even from the cave of the Gray Stone People, but I could see the way back from my high vantage and I started down the mountainside straightaway. At first I walked as a man would walk, on the earth, on two bare feet. In some places the drifts were as high as my hips and I waded through them as a man might wade through water: arms out to my sides, driving through them with my legs. I noted with some dismay that my breath did not steam in the air, nor was I distressed by the drifts of snow I waded through, despite the fact that I was completely naked. I could feel the cold, but it was only slightly uncomfortable, like a remembrance of pain rather than the suffering of it. When I descended past the tree line, I recalled how the Foul One had traveled through the treetops and wondered if I dare attempt the same thing. It would be faster than trying to plow through all this snow!

I did dare it.

In fact, it was easy. I sprang up onto the bough of a tree and then launched myself through the forest canopy, hopping from limb to limb, even swinging from them like a monkey from time to time. I found that I need only think a thing and this strange new body could perform the act with very little effort. My muscles were tireless, my strength unbelievable. My only limits appeared to be the speed of my thoughts and the bounds of my imagination. I envisioned what I wished to do and my limbs translated that image into reality. I made a few mistakes, and earned a couple nasty scratches from pointy branches, but the wounds healed quickly and did not impede my progress in any way.

It was not long before my nervousness was replaced by exhilaration. I laughed as the snowy woodland rushed past me, the wind blowing through my hair, the ground rushing past below me. The branches blurred past me with a sort of low whistling sound, like a fusillade of arrows. It was like I was rushing through a windy gray tunnel. It was like flying.

I came upon a natural break in the forest, a gap in the trees where a creek ambled through the wilderness. I launched myself into the open sky without hesitation, trusting in my newfound abilities to usher me to the other side without injury. I flew across the space like a bird, catching my own reflection in the water below-- just for an instant!-- then plunged into the treetops on the other side and continued on without so much as a bobble.

Before an hour had passed, I had gone half a day's journey by my old standard of travel. I slipped earthward near the spot where poor Bukhult had perished, killed by a speartooth after trotting behind some bushes to shit. I squatted near the cold ash of our war party's campfire and stared westwards pensively.

What would my wives think of me now, I wondered. Would my children still want to climb in my lap, or would they recoil from this cold white flesh as if I were a monster? Would my family welcome me home or would they flee from me in terror, thinking me some devil that had stolen my form? For that matter, were they even still alive?

Please, grandfathers, let them still be alive!

I don't know if my heart could bear the anguish if the Foul One had visited our home in the night. My father was lost to me. Brulde was probably dead as well. No mortal man could have suffered such a blow and survived. I did not think I could survive the blow to my heart if any more of my loved ones had perished at the hands of the Beast. The guilt would consume me, though I knew there was nothing more I could have done. I was lucky that I'd survived at all-- if this was what you considered surviving, this cursed white flesh!

Please, ancestors, I prayed. Please, let them be alive! Let them be well!

I scratched my head in agitation, then inspected my hands, realizing for the first time just how filthy I was. My hands were crusted with brains and blood and bits of torn flesh. My chest as well, and probably my face. I looked the very part, even if my soul was still my own. My wives would run screaming in terror from our wetus.

I hurried on to Big River and waded in to the waist.

Oh, this water! I thought, closing my eyes in pleasure.

Grandfathers, bless this river, the lifeblood of our tribe. Long has it cleansed our bodies! Long has it quenched our thirst.

The water was swift and cold. The chill should have set my teeth to chattering, and my body to uncontrollable tremors, but not tonight. Tonight, it felt pleasant. Bracing. Pure.

I cleaned myself in the burbling waters. I scooped some gritty mud from the bed of the river and scrubbed my hands and arms and chest. Taking a breath, I submerged myself completely and washed my hair and beard. I did not need to take that breath, but I did not know it yet.

Cleaning myself in the ice-flecked river was like a Christian baptism. I felt the horrors of the previous week washing away from my soul as the filth and gore washed away from my flesh. I emerged from the water blameless, reborn, like a man conceived of glacial ice. When I examined my hands and arms in the moonlight, my skin was so clean and white it seemed to glow with its own interior light.

I washed my legs and ass and balls, and then I left the water.

I traveled to our old campgrounds, my wet body steaming in the cold night air, and searched through the detritus we'd cast off when we moved to Bubbling Waters. Poking around the deserted village, I gathered enough scraps and bindings to fashion myself a crude outfit: a loincloth and a shoulder mantle. I bound my wet hair with a leather thong and continued on my way.

I returned to the treetops and moved through them effortlessly, flashing through the boughs and branches like a pale bird. I prayed to my ancestors as I flew home. I prayed that my wives and children still lived.