Arn jumped awake. Part of the grass binding he had made for his face tore as he yanked his face away from the stone he’d been sleeping on. He cried out, half shriek, half moan—his face throbbed with an agony he’d never known every moment that adrenaline did not blind him to it. He scrambled back, as his blurry sight clarified, and pressed his back against a tree. A wooden shaft reached through the nook of his elbow; the stone he had tied to the spear-point rested near his feet, ready to wield.
He was alive, he realized, panting. He was still alive.
He had been such for two days on the cliffs of Scoa, scaling every few hours and sleeping through all the rest. He had been alive then, though it had been a struggle tooth and nail. By the time he reached the top of the precipice, he’d consumed nearly all of the fruits and meat in his little pack.
And then he had lived for a few days, cowered in a rocky crevice, dazed and damaged. His face had bled through whatever bandage he made, his foot had grown too pained to walk upon. On hands and knees, he had foraged berries. Many similar plants grew here—there were only one or two he did not recognize. Even as he had dragged himself through brambles and over uneven rocks, he had bit back the pain. He would survive.
It was in that rocky shelter, two days ago, that he had first heard the heavy breathing and strange chittering of the creatures. He didn’t spot anything from where he hid, wounded and weakened, but he knew it to be there, lurking, waiting. He heard soft pads tapping the stones of the cliffs as a predator looked for him. That evening, he had heard the creature screeching; he heard others too, more distant. It was an unnatural cry, not the sound of a lizard, like the water scales, or a bird cawing.
Today, Arn quickly checked the bandage on his face; though it torn, his scabs had not. He tightened his grip on the spear and rose up from the ground. He walked with a limp still, though he had bound his sandal-less foot with leaves and sinew from the rodents he had caught on the cliffs. He stumbled down a small slope. He needed to move inland, to find more food.
There were more trees on Scoa, it seemed. A few with much wider leaves than the mathhar trees obstructed his views, but he remembered the wide black cliffs he had wrecked upon. The island sloped downward from the cliffs, he could tell so far, but beyond that he knew nothing.
He dropped to his knees against the smooth bark of one wider-leafed trees, when a hissing screech rose overhead. The horrid sound rent the sky in a burst, fading as quickly as it had appeared. It had come from behind him, from the left side of the cliffs. He tapped the spear against his forehead but it only made the pounding in his skull increase. He needed a plan. He didn’t know what hunted him, but no matter how strong or weak it was, he could not fight it blind.
Years ago, on Razaad, a few hunters had been caught in a mud-bottomed cave, only to discover it housed a water-scale nest. They’d dug a pit, jabbed some branches into the bottom, and covered it with their clothes. When the water-scales charged them, they’d only had to finish off those still flailing.
Arn found a good spot, in a damp bowl strewn with leaves and thickets of reeds. A wary glance at the trees around him preceded Arn’s decision to set his spear down on the damp moss beside him. He set to work with his hands, though sometimes jabbed spots of clay or rock to loosen such clumps. The sun rose overhead as he worked. Once, he paused at the sound of scattering foliage and glanced up.
A tall, four-limbed creature, froze in the opening. It had soft fur, pointed horns, and a narrow, angled snout from his raised head. With a twitch of its ears, the creature dashed away from the clearing, as silent as Arn’s beating heart.
The bandaged face of the weathered warrior turned back down into his mud pit, as he continued to dig. He finished the pit an hour later. Some sharpened branches dotted its base. He used handholds he had dug to climb the human-height side of his hole. Reeds and leaves covered it, and at last, he put his back to a nearby tree trunk, exhausted.
He awoke with a start. The rays of sunlight were gone, though the strange, swampy forest was still full of a directionless glow. His trap was still set, so he let out his breath quietly. He pressed his head against the tree again—there was something else clinging to the tree.
A claw swiped down for him, and Arn shuffled lower, rubbing his lower back through the dirt. His forearm guarded his face, only to be rewarded with three wide gashed. With his other hand, he swung his spear round. The attacking creature leapt from its position, it’s four claws shoving off the bark and into its paws. Between Arn and the scattered leaves of his trap landed an animal like he had never seen. All he glimpsed in the moment was its tawny hide and pointed ears. It lowered its front arms, bringing its face close to the ground and barring small white teeth at him.
Arn lashed forward with his spear, but the creature moved faster than he did. It flowed back from him like a swamp serpent, landing squarely on the reeds covered his trap. With a loud hiss, it went down into the pit, and Arn heard the sickening thud of its weight on the sharpened branches at the bottom.
After wiping a thin sheet of blood from his lightly gashed forearm, Arn quietly approached the edge of his pit. A paw appeared at the edge—the big hunter clawed at the ledge, hissing and scrambling, as blood leaked from a few holes in its pelt.
Another poke of the spear might do it—but then the creature’s jaw snapped open and a quick ear-splitting whine struck Arn in the face. He found himself rolling through mud, twisting as waves of pain split his head open. He couldn’t move—he couldn’t do anything. The screech had disarmed him, and stunned him, and he could scarcely feel anything else.
The darkness slowly withdrew and the pain became a dull ache, joining the pounding in his head. He huffed for breath. Given strength to move his muscles once more, he rolled as far away from the pit as he could, coming to rest against another tree trunk.
But the creature didn’t come after him. He eventually managed to stand up, though dizziness still plagued his eyesight. The dirt wall had collapsed under the claws of the cat, or perhaps from its sudden shockwave. Arn picked up his spear again, panting still. He peered over the edge—the furry mammal rested down below, done, beat. The dirt floor had become a red mud.
So that was the screeching he’d heard over the forests and marshes of Scoa Isle. A crippling sonic cry—as he would learn after cutting the creature up for its meat and fur, the deafening shriek was caused by a small set of teeth-like bone profusions at the base of its jaw. He found a strange pouch of jelly around the area, but it smelled putrid so he did not keep it with his supplies.
Arn went through two or three of the sharp rocks he’d collected before he completed his gutting. With enough meat to last him a few days, he threw the beige pelts over his shoulder and set out for the camp he’d made the night before. He needed to clean the hides. That screecher had managed to catch him unawares, but it couldn’t happen again. He counted himself lucky and didn’t stop looking over his shoulder all night.