Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75650 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75650 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
The thing pauses, watching me with avid eyes.
Okay, yeah. It definitely is interested now. My skin crawls, but I force myself to move forward.
It stops hissing and growls low in its throat instead. It’s a warning to me, but I need to show it where the food is before it destroys all of the things we’ve worked so hard to replace since the cave-in. I pick up one of the baskets of dried meat and pull out a dried slab, offering it up.
The creature grabs it from my hand, sniffs it, and then flings it aside.
“All right,” I murmur. “You’re clearly not a meat eater.” I try to remember what Lila said about these things, but all I can think about is that my little Pacy is sleeping in the next room, and I don’t want this creature to know he’s there. I need a weapon. Actually, scratch that. I need this thing gone.
It grabs at another basket, and I wince, because it’s another one full of smoked meat. The creature grabs a handful—a dirty handful—and then casts it aside like it’s garbage. It’s ruining all of our food, and that’s something we can’t afford. I need to do something.
I push the metlak aside, reaching for one of the large, basketball-sized not-potato roots that my mate brought back yesterday. I was going to dry it and save it for later, but if it gets this thing away, I’m game.
The metlak hisses at me again, and it bats at my arm, its claws leaving raised welts on my arm. I bite back my yelp of shock, recoiling. “I’m trying to help you, asshole,” I whisper. I have to keep my voice low so I don’t wake up Pacy. He’s a sound sleeper like his daddy, but he’s also still a baby and easily startled.
The creature clutches at its side, and for a moment I think it’s wounded. But then the fur wiggles and moves —
—And I realize this starving creature has a baby. It’s a she and it’s a mom, like me. I’m suddenly flooded with sympathy. The metlak is clearly scared of the fire, and probably scared of me, too, but she’s desperate to eat. I’m guessing her milk is close to running dry if she’s starving, and it’s fear for her baby that’s making her be so bold as to come into an occupied cave after food.
“Here,” I say softly. I offer her the bulbous root and make the miming gesture for eating again. “Eat.”
She snatches it from me and begins to sniff it. The furry bundle on her chest makes a peeping noise, not unlike a baby chick. With another wary look at me, she takes a bite directly out of the not-potato. Her eyes widen, and she begins to devour it with frantic, enormous bites.
And I notice for the first time that despite the fact that she’s a vegetarian, she’s got some impressive fangs…
PASHOV
Maybe we will spend the brutal season alone, Stay-see and I.
I muse this as I head back to our cave, a freshly slain dvisti slung over one shoulder. One of the many herds happened to be passing through the nearby valley, and so I followed the trails over and picked off a shaggy elder. There are many kits with the herd, and I watch them run past as the herd races away, frightened.
I do not think I can kill the young anymore. Not with my own son so helpless and small.
But now I have even more meat and a new hide for Stay-see to fuss over. We will have much smoked meat, and the cache is still half-full. If the weather holds for a few more hands of days like Rokan said, that will give me plenty of time to fill the cache and to dig up several of the not-potato that Stay-see makes delicious things out of. With only two mouths to feed, it would be no problem for Stay-see and me to ride out the brutal season alone, even if the snows last longer than usual.
And it will give us more time to bond.
I know my chief wants us to return sooner, but I worry it will not be enough time. I do not have my memories back yet. The ones that return are fleeting and disappear as quickly as they flicker through my mind, leaving me only with the knowledge that I did remember something. Each time it happens, it fills me with a sense of loss and frustration, like I am failing both myself and my mate.
She worries, too, I think. There are questions in Stay-see’s eyes when she looks at me. She has concerns, and I think they are not just over my health. She has not yet invited me to sleep in her furs again. I am trying to be patient, but it is difficult.