As Peter climbed back into the wagon, Marla sat up and smiled. “Where were you?”
“Needed to pee.”
“What took you so long?”
“Turns out I wasn’t alone.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“I turned around and was face-to-face with some sort of wolf-bear. Girl called it Bently, as if it was her pet. Strange, her. Really short, knew I wasn’t from here. Wanted to know why I was travelling, suggested she might go to the Capital too, said her day was watching me. Offered me some mushrooms. I came straight back here before things could get weirder.”
“Wolf-bear?”
“Well, a wolf is like a dog except wild. Carnivorous mammal, long snout, pointy ears, hunts in packs, howls. Bears are larger, spend most of their adult life on their own, rounder, more scavenger than hunter. This was somewhere in the middle.”
“Oh, I think I know what Bently was. The girl sounds like a dryad. People think they’re bound to their tree, but they aren’t. They are just even more fond of their first tree than the others. They can be very curious and stay focused for a long time. Usually harmless, though. Sometimes even useful. I don’t suppose you got her name?”
“The conversation was too bizarre.”
“Well, she isn’t likely to come into camp or make herself known to the caravan. Shall we get breakfast, or do you need some more sleep?”
“There was no sign of anyone up and about, so I’ll wait a bit.”
“Strange, the sun is up. I’m going to step out for a bit.”
Peter watched Marla leave and crawled back into bed, sleep calling.
Either Marla returning to the wagon or the wagon starting to move woke Peter again. He sat up, confused. She handed him a hunk of bread and a cup of tea. Even feeling how hot the cup was, he took a sip and burned his lip. “Ow! Stupid.”
“You really can’t handle hot drinks? Never mind. Somehow the entire caravan overslept, but it doesn’t seem to have been anything nefarious. The master was so insistent on making up the time I think we actually started moving earlier than usual.”
“You don’t think we were drugged? Is there such a thing as magic that could cause everyone to sleep? It happens all the time in mythology.”
“I doubt your dryad stalker could have managed that kind of magic, at least without help. I didn’t mention her, though, as some people have strange urges and beliefs.”
“I know enough of what happens where I’m from, I don’t want to know what stuff people get up to here. Everything else is business as usual?” Peter finally took a bite of the bread. He was getting used to it.
“That saying is a bit strange. You mean things are going how they usually do? According to plan?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” he mumbled around a mouthful of bread.
“Then yes, business as usual.”
Peter took a sip of the tea and flinched. It was still too hot, and now his tongue was sore, too.
Some time later, Peter lay on the roof of the wagon, dozing in the afternoon sun filtering down through the trees. He was amazed that the road could be so wide yet nearly closed over. There was a distant sound, barely distinct from the now familiar sounds of the caravan. A shout went up, but it sounded normal, not an alarm.
Something hit the wagon hard enough to swing the back end ninety degrees. Peter found himself in the air, seeming to hang there for longer than should be possible, then he collided with something massive and covered in brown fur.
Whatever it was, it was moving. Fast. Instinctively, Peter grabbed at the fur and held on. He was still being tossed around, but at least now he could get his bearings and see what was going on. The beast he was now riding wasn’t alone. There were mammoths, or maybe mastodons, he didn’t know the difference, stampeding around him. Not many, but even one was a destructive force.
Yipping barks and growls behind provided an answer to why these ordinarily sedentary creatures were moving so rapidly. They were being hunted. Peter took a mental inventory of what possessions he had had on him on the roof. Nothing he could use to defend himself from something that threatened a mammoth.
The only knowledge of using such a weapon Peter had would have been gained from playing video games, anyway.
As he bounced on the back of a mammoth, he watched as the land the forest covered got rockier and more uneven. Soon they were in a sort of canyon, a valley with sides too steep for the big animals to climb. A waterfall poured into the back of it, and the mammoths slowed to a stop.
One trumpeted, and to his surprise Peter heard the sound as words. “Why did you lead us here?”
“There is something on my back,” the one beneath him said, quietly in comparison.
“You picked up a human when we crossed their road. It isn’t a threat.”
“How do I get it off?”
“It stayed on while you ran, so I doubt shaking will do the trick. Maybe pick it up?”
“I can get down on my own, if you stay still long enough.”
“You can speak?”
“I was more surprised to be able to understand you than you could know. Is it safe?”
“That pack hasn’t caught up yet, which is strange. Maybe they got distracted?”
Peter rolled to the side and let go, sliding off and dropping further than he expected to the ground. His legs gave out and he found himself sitting in the mud. “I forgot how high up I was. Sorry for holding on, I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Yes, well, it was a bit rude.”
“What would you call knocking my wagon out from underneath me?”
“Fair point. Why are you still here?”
“I don’t know where here is, am worse than your leader at navigating, and have never had a chance to talk to a non-human before. Where I come from there haven’t even been mammoths for thousands of years.”
“Why do you say our leader is a bad navigator?”
“I overheard some complaining about being led here.”
“Have you tried memorizing an entire continent?”
“Of course not. Humans like to draw maps and not venture far from their beds.” As Peter finished speaking, one of those howls rose too close for comfort. The mammoths started moving, and one lifted him with its trunk and carried him along like a doll.
Within minutes, Peter found himself deposited in the waterfall pool with the youngest mammoths while the others formed a wall of tusks facing outward. Since he was already soaked, he waded towards the falls.
One step he was waist deep, the next he was in over his head. After a second of shock, Peter got his head above water and started swimming. In movies and video games, there were always caves behind waterfalls. He wanted to see if it was true here.
It wasn’t. There was a slight hollow, enough for him to get out of the water, but no magical cave or random chest full of treasure. No gold or crystals were sparkling in the rock wall. Disappointed, Peter dove back into the pool.
As he was walking back to dry ground, Peter slipped and fell face first into the water. He caught himself before he faceplanted into a rock, but his hand closed on something unnaturally straight and smooth. Something heavy. Once he got his feet back under him, he heaved and pulled whatever it was out of the mud and stood there staring at it.
It was a bit hard to tell, but Peter was pretty sure he was holding a sword. He bent and dipped it back into the water to rub off the muck. Yes, a sword. Almost as long as his arm with a weird blade shape that flared out symmetrically before coming to a point. The handle was badly degraded, but he gripped it and gave the sword a swing.
Trumpets of alarm brought Peter’s attention back to what was happening around him. “Above! Behind!” Most of the adults were already engaged in tossing the predators back. Peter turned and looked up just as something splashed into the pool.
Awkwardly holding the sword with two hands, Peter backed up until he had better footing. As the first creature emerged from the water, two more splashed in. It was a bit hard to tell with their fur being soaked, but he believed them to be more of the wolf-bears, but not as friendly as Bently.
The first one leapt towards Peter, and he clumsily swung his rusty blade. It made contact, and there was a yelp. Blood dripped and spread on the water, fading as it became diluted. Enraged, the wolf-bear lunged again. Peter felt oddly calm and watched as if the beast moved in slow motion.
Unfortunately, as he started his swing, he found he was also moving in slow motion.
This time the wide part of the blade struck the neck and bit deep, dropping the attacker. Peter managed to yank the sword free just as another rushed him. As he turned and brought the blade up to point at it, the wolf-bear’s momentum drove the sword to the hilt in its own sternum. Peter was knocked backwards, struggling to get a breath.
By some miracle, the massive animal rolled over him and beyond, leaving him able to regain his feet when he finally got air into his lungs once more. As his vision cleared, Peter could see the third wolf-bear nipping at the young.
Without thinking, Peter ran at the beast. As the creature turned, he remembered that if you got your hand around a dog’s snout, you could control it somewhat. That thought the only one in his mind, Peter made a grab for its mouth.
He missed.
Peter’s hand went between jaws lined with terrifying teeth and continued down the throat. It felt disgusting. Peter thought he was going to retch. There was one small stroke of luck, though. His arm was large enough that it wedged the wolf-bear’s mouth open, rendering its bite ineffective.
Thinking they were at a stalemate, Peter looked around, hoping to see something useful.
One of the young mammoths reared up and slammed its feet down on the predator’s back. There was a sickening crunch, and Peter was pulled to the ground. His face slammed into the wolf-bear’s, and his vision blackened.
When Peter was aware of his surroundings once more, it was through a haze of pain. His right arm didn’t feel right, he couldn’t move it properly. That he was lying somewhere dry stood out to him, and he didn’t recognize the importance at first. When it finally clicked, he sat up.
He was still near the waterfall, but the mammoths had spread out, clearly no longer worried about being hunted. It took a few minutes of thinking and more than one attempt, but Peter managed to stand up. The dead wolf-bears lay where they had fallen, though the appeared to have been trampled for good measure.
A single step revealed that he was unlikely to manage without support, so he searched around him until he found a long enough stick that wasn’t rotten. With his new staff to lean on, he managed to make it over to the carcass that had the sword stuck through it. Trying to reach for it with his right hand turned out to be futile, so he gracelessly plopped himself down to the ground so he could plant his feet against the beast’s chest and grip the hilt with his left hand.
Completely focused on his struggle, Peter wasn’t sure how long he strained without budging the sword. He fell over when a mammoth spoke right next to him.
“What is it you do?”
“I was hoping to keep this sword I found in the pond. It’s pretty stuck, though.”
“Let me try.”
Peter crawled a little way away. As he sat down and watched, the mammoth wrapped its trunk around the hilt and heaved up, lifting the wolf-bear off the ground before gravity suddenly ripped it free. The mammoth turned and dropped the gore-covered sword by Peter.
“The least I could do. You defended our young. Killed three wolf-bears on your own.”
“I didn’t kill the third one on my own. One of the little ones stomped it to death with my arm stuck in its throat.” To Peter’s surprise, the mammoth laughed. Was this translation stone really that subtle?
“It couldn’t move or breathe. It just didn’t know it was dead yet.”
“Do these things attack you often?”
“No, it is rare. When their numbers swell, they get bolder.”
“I don’t suppose one of you is willing to carry me back to my wagon, I’m in pretty rough shape. Even if I could find my way back, it would likely take far too long.”
“We will discuss it in the morning. For now, the sun sets.”
The mammoth moved on, rejoining its own kind.
Peter tested his shoulder carefully. It was as if his humerus wasn’t seated properly. Swaying his whole torso and guiding with his left hand, Peter clenched all the muscles involved when he felt it align. It hurt, but he could move his arm properly now.
With his stick, he was able to stand, but he still couldn’t carry the sword with his injured arm. Catching sight of what seemed to be grapes in the last rays of the sun, Peter hobbled over to taste them. A little on the sour side, but it felt good to eat something. As he stuffed them into his mouth, he realized that they grew on vines. Vines were like rope. Maybe they could be tied.
It wasn’t easy without proper tools, but Peter managed to make a sling to immobilize his right arm. After making a sort of harness to hang the sword on his back, he realized he could simply slide it behind his belt. That was uncomfortable, though, so maybe it wasn’t a waste of time.
Belly full and satisfied that he could manage, he found somewhere dry and sheltered to curl up and get what sleep he could manage.
A trumpeting mammoth woke Peter when the sky had barely lightened. Despite the chill, he crawled out and drank from the pool, washing his face. His stomach protested, likely because of only being given fruit the night before. As the mammoths gathered, they quietly murmured to one another. As quiet as a mammoth can intentionally make noise, that is.
Peter hobbled over to them, wondering if something was wrong.
One of the young ones intercepted him.
“They’re talking grown-up stuff. Won’t want to be interrupted. You got hurt in the battle.”
“Battle? I suppose you could call it that. Yeah, I dislocated my right arm and probably got a concussion. Maybe some cracked ribs, everything hurts when I move. I’ll be fine if I can get back to my wagon.”
“That’s what they’re talking about. One of the things. If we should help you. I say yes, but my vote doesn’t count.”
Peter lowered himself onto a rock, leaning against a tree trunk, and closed his eyes as the young mammoth rambled on about things he didn’t know enough about this world to understand.
“Human, are you ready to go?”
Peter blinked. Had he seriously fallen asleep again? How could that be possible when he was in so much pain? “I suppose. Maybe I should relieve myself first, though.”
“A strange thing to worry about.”
“A human custom,” Peter replied, realizing that like most animals, mammoths likely went whenever and wherever.
“Very well. You will be sitting on my back so that you can be returned to your people as quickly as possible.”
Minutes later Peter stood atop a boulder with a sheer face on one side, as the mammoth positioned himself and leaned against the rock. From there it was easy to get onto his back, and Peter sat cross-legged since there was so much room.
It really wasn’t far, and the caravan was still making repairs. When he slid to the ground and bid the mammoth farewell, Marla crashed into him and hugged him.
“There you are! We were just about to start searching.”
“I’ll tell you all about it over breakfast,” Peter said.
“What do they do there?” the mammoth asked.
Turning to look, Peter answered “they’re trying to lift the wagon to put a new wheel on it.”
“Oh, I shall help.” As Peter watched, the mammoth walked up to the wagon and nudged it with his head. There was a lot of amazed chatter, but Peter had lost interest.
“Were you just talking to a mammoth?” Marla asked, incredulous.
“Uh, yeah. Turns out this translation stone works on non-humans, too.”
“I wonder if he knows just how powerful an enchantment he pulled off,” Marla said quietly to herself. She blinked and realized Peter was looking at her. “Let’s get you that breakfast.”