Taking A Tumble
NO-TONGUE SMILED, THEN a gigantic hand came down and swept him out of sight.
Charmian blinked, and instantly he was gone. Her mouth fell open and she let out a startled yell--not even forming an actual word--before glancing wildly from left to right. It took her a moment to notice the Wendigo--despite its immense size--as it pulled away from the hill, drawing its gigantic hand up toward its face and leering at them as if pulling the world's biggest joke. Charmian just briefly saw No-Tongue clasped between its fingers, struggling and gasping, before he was again gone from sight.
Her eyes went wide enough to hurt. "NO-TONGUE!!" She launched herself out of the cave opening without thinking, but as soon as she took one step, her foot went out from underneath her and she lost her balance, falling flat on her face. She shook her head, not even noticing the sting of pain as she pushed herself up and tried to walk, but for some reason she couldn't go; she completely forgot about her ankle, adrenaline numbing the throb away. She clawed along the ground for a few inches before yelling again. "LET HIM GO, GIANT--CRAP-BREATHED--MORON!!"
The Wendigo just grinned and held its hand up higher. Charmian remembered how hard Augwak had squeezed her when he'd been about that big, and knew that No-Tongue wouldn't be able to breathe for long. She heard Winter Born cry out above her and tried once more to get to her feet, when a shadow swept over her head, which jerked back to look up. She saw Augwak's silhouette go flying out and away from the hill; he launched himself at the Wendigo, drawing one hand back and then flinging it forward as hard as he could. Charmian could actually see the gust of wind that shot out from his palm--the icy air slammed against the Wendigo's head, but all that it did in response was shake itself a little bit and let out a rasping noise that might have been a laugh. It tilted its hand and showed No-Tongue to them, then started to ponderously turn back toward the mountain.
"Charmian--!" Winter Born yelled.
"Stay back!" Charmian screeched. She grasped onto a sapling and hauled herself up, then started hobbling along as best as she could. "MOVE!" she yelled; Augwak veered to the side, glancing back at her, and she ground her teeth and hurled her hand outward just as he had done. "FIRE!!"
A big fireball blasted from her palm so hard that she fell back over. It sailed past the GeeBee and struck the Wendigo on the brow; it let out a fearsome bellow which made the rocks quake, and turned back toward them. The ground thudded as it came stomping back.
Augwak threw up his arms. "NICE MOVE, IDIOT!!"
"SHUT UP!" Charmian shouted. "And try HELPING me for once!!" She jerked her hand at him; he blinked stupidly, furrowed his brow in disbelief, then came flying back down toward her. He hovered over her as he grasped onto her arms, scowling.
"Keep in mind I'm running low, fleshling, and carrying YOU around won't exactly help much!" he muttered as he started to lift her.
"Just fly me toward that thing!" Charmian snapped. "Then you can drop me on its HEAD for all I care!"
"Not a bad idea," the GeeBee grumbled under his breath, but accordingly picked her up and they went flying toward the Wendigo. Its eyes flashed yellow and it bared its teeth; Charmian focused on No-Tongue, whose face had gone gray, his own eyes wide and wet. She sent a thought out at him, not sure if he could hear it or not, but it was the best she could do.
Hold on, No-Tongue!
She sucked in a shaky breath; Augwak zoomed up high and over the Wendigo's head to avoid getting hit, and she felt like she was riding a rollercoaster. She'd never much cared for rollercoasters. The air around the creature was frigid and she started chattering as frost formed on her fingers; she shook it away before raising her hand again. "FIRE!" she yelled, and a firebolt shot down and hit the Wendigo in the ear. It let out a horrid screechy yelp and batted at itself as if bitten by a mosquito. It turned its head and for a fraction of a second their eyes met; she knew that it would bite her head off if given the chance.
Augwak started wheezing. Charmian glanced up at him, then twisted her head around. "PAKWA!" she yelled. "COME HELP!"
It was a moment or two before a little gust of wind struck the Wendigo and it snarled and batted at the air. Pakwa might not have been as powerful as the rest of the GeeBees anymore, but right now he seemed to be more powerful than Augwak. He zipped around the great creature's head like a hummingbird as Augwak veered to the side and Charmian tossed off another fireball, hitting the Wendigo's arm. Its hand opened up and No-Tongue plummeted toward the snowdrifts below, arms pinwheeling. Charmian yelped when the Wendigo's hand just missed hitting them, and Augwak gasped and bobbed crazily like a buoy on a stormy lake, pitching from side to side.
"H-h-here's an id-dea," he wheezed. "How ab-bout I put YOU down and s-s-see to this MYSELF--?"
Charmian blinked. "See!" She cupped her hands to her mouth. "Pakwa! Go for the LEFT EYE!"
Pakwa drew his arm back and hurled a gust of freezing air at the Wendigo's eye. It struck, and the giant creature let out a rasping sound, gnashing its teeth and clapping one hand over it in pain. "FIRE!" Charmian yelled again, and tossed a firebolt at the other eye. The Wendigo, apparently catching on, started to turn--but not in time to avoid the blow, which got it right in the corner of the right eye. It let out a horrific bellow which made the air vibrate, and Augwak started pitching even more wildly, yelping himself.
Charmian glanced downward to see No-Tongue busily digging himself out of the snow and making a run for the hill. She let out a breath of relief. "Back down!" she yelled at Augwak; he let out a shuddery breath and started to descend. He let go of her while they were still several feet in the air, and she pitched forward and landed on her elbows, but ignored the sting of pain and got to her feet, managing to jog/limp toward No-Tongue as he made his way up the slope. His eyes were almost as huge as Augwak's and he started frantically signing something.
Charmian shook her head, not comprehending. "Later!" She pointed at the cave. "Back up! He can't reach us in--"
She let out a shriek when something grabbed her arm, and Winter Born fell back in the snow with a puff. Charmian put a hand to her chest to try to still her hammering heart, then screeched at her without thinking. "WHAT'RE YOU DOING OUT HERE?! We have to go back IN!!"
"Charmian--!" Winter Born exclaimed, and pointed at the Wendigo. "I have a really bad feeling--!"
"DUH!" Charmian yelled. "Wendigo--bad feeling!!"
"Nuh-uh!" Winter Born shook her head hurriedly, then pointed back at the hill. "It's so small! His hands are so BIG!"
Huh--? Charmian thought, then saw how No-Tongue was signing the same thing at her, and her face went white. "Back to the MOUNTAIN!!" she shouted, and accordingly turned, starting to sprint/limp down the valley toward the mountain. It seemed impossibly far away now--but she too saw how the Wendigo left gigantic, mini-lake-sized tracks behind it, and with the way it was now blindly stomping around in enraged circles, it was likely to flatten at least some of the foothills at any moment. At least on a mountain, they stood a better chance.
The race back across the valley was agonizingly slow, as the snow seemed to have deepened in the Wendigo's presence, and they had to keep looking back just to make sure it hadn't caught on to them yet. It still shook its head and roared, smashing down trees and turning boulders into rubble; Charmian paled when she saw the cave that they would have taken shelter in get obliterated. No-Tongue grabbed her arm to hurry her along and she bit down her pain, hobbling as fast as she could. When he slowed down and gestured for her to get on his back she didn't object, seeing as she was holding up the rest of them; they moved a little bit faster when he carried her, and started winding their way back up the steep mountain trail.
"We have to get back to the middle mountain somehow," Charmian had to exclaim--the wind was howling by now, tearing at their hair and clothes and seeping through their skin. "Maybe if we reach Kabebonikka he'll call them off!"
No-Tongue quickly drew the map in the air and nodded. They started rounding the curve of the mountain.
A terrible screaming bellow made them all stagger and nearly fall over, the mountain rumbling. Thunderous thuds started coming closer, and Charmian craned her neck back but couldn't see anything. Augwak gamboled back down the trail a bit, looked, then turned and came frantically running back.
"FLESHLING!!" he yelled, his voice going high pitched. "HE'S COMING THIS WAY!!"
No-Tongue veered left and started clambering back up the mountainside rather than in the direction of the bigger mountain. Charmian opened her mouth to protest before she spotted the faint remains of the tracks they'd left before--he was heading back up toward his own cave. Her brow furrowed until she realized what he must be doing.
There's no WAY we can reach Kabebonikka's mountain with that thing following us! We'll have to wait it out somehow--!
She clung tighter to his back, chattering in the blustery cold. She glanced back at Winter Born, but decided not to worry too much; the girl was an even better climber than No-Tongue, and she promptly scrambled her way up the steep slope and into the cave opening. She reached out to wave at them.
"Hurry up!" she called out. "Before it smushes us!"
What do you THINK we're doing--? Charmian thought, grinding her teeth, but kept the thought to herself. Augwak and Pakwa dashed up the slope and disappeared from sight; No-Tongue slowed down to let Charmian off, and they both started climbing the remaining few yards separately. Just as they neared the rim of the opening, the Wendigo's head appeared around the mountainside, and it looked down at them, its lips curling back and an awful grinding, rasping noise escaping its throat. Charmian's eyes nearly fell from her head before she doubled her efforts and clawed frantically at the snowy rocks.
Winter Born bobbed up and down and waved her hands. "Come on!!"
Charmian pulled herself over a boulder and sank a little in a snowdrift before pushing herself out and reaching for the cave opening. Everything immediately around her suddenly grew dark, and she blinked and looked up to see the Wendigo's hand coming down at her. She let out a squeak--when No-Tongue jumped up and swung something upwards, into the Wendigo's palm. It let out another bellow and Charmian saw a tiny trickle of blood spatter the snow, a knife handle protruding from the heel of its hand. The weapon looked like nothing more than a sliver embedded there, but at least it was an effective one.
Charmian grasped onto Winter Born's hand and turned back. "No-Tongue, hurry up--!" she yelled, but he ignored her, dancing to the side and pulling out another, slightly bigger knife. "NO-TONGUE--!" Charmian screamed at the top of her lungs, Winter Born and Pakwa dragging her in; the Wendigo swung down at him again, but he just stabbed it in the base of its thumb now, and it shrieked and jerked its hand back up. Somehow the knife remained embedded there--and No-Tongue had to grab on to avoid falling off the mountain as it raised its arm, knife and No-Tongue and all.
Charmian's face screwed up as the creature brought its hand up toward its own face, teeth bared. She threw up her hand and aimed at its chest, which was wide open to attack.
"FIRE!!"
A fireball--even bigger than any she'd ever called up so far--blasted from her so hard that she fell backwards, taking Winter Born and Pakwa with her. She watched it sail through the air, somewhat more slowly than her other fireballs, but when it hit the Wendigo it was as effective as anything. The Wendigo's eyes goggled, flaring bright yellow, and its mouth opened horrifically wide for an equally horrific racket to split the air--but at the same time it brought its hands down, slamming them against the mountain, and with that No-Tongue disappeared from sight. Cascades of snow and rock went tumbling in an avalanche; Charmian's breath left her lungs, and she blinked the blur from her eyes, but couldn't make out anything in the mess aside from the giant itself. Even as she watched its eyes started to dim, then it began pitching sideways, eyes rolling back as it started to fall. When it struck, it hit the bigger mountain, a deep BOOM reverberating through the other mountains and the glacier and the ground, small rocks breaking loose from the ceiling and pelting against Augwak and the others. The Wendigo slid partway down the slope, snow and rocks rolling down after it, to come to a slow stop in the little glacier valley between the two mountains. Snow flowed over it like water until everything fell still again, the wind dying down and the echoes fading away; and somehow the giant creature almost seemed to be part of the landscape itself now, all white and gray and ice. Even its eyes faded until they blended in with its surroundings, and after a moment or two Charmian would have been able to swear that it had perhaps always been there, just not visible until someone bothered to look for it. The other four crouched frozen in place as the last echoes rippled into nothing, then let out shaky breaths, their tensed muscles relaxing.
Charmian blinked. "No-Tongue!" She started pushing herself up and scrambling for the entrance.
Pakwa and Winter Born hurried to grab her arms. "Fleshling!" Pakwa said. "Gone now! No way to survive a fall like that!"
"Charmian! Don't go out, he might get you too!" Winter Born cried.
Augwak stuck his head up beside her, scowling. "Are you completely stupid--? Use your head! He's DEAD after all that! You'd get us killed, too--?"
Charmian struggled against them for a moment, before the realization dawned on her that they had to be right; she'd seen the avalanche of snow and car-sized boulders; and there was no way anyone could have lived through such a thing. Not with how the debris was now piled up in the little glacial valley, completely filling it up in the area around the Wendigo. Her muscles slowly relaxed and her eyes filled with tears which promptly froze to her eyelashes; she blinked the flakes of ice away and gnawed on her lip. After another moment she let out a shaky breath, and carefully pulled her arms away from Pakwa and Winter Born. She wiped the ice from her eyes.
"Come on," she said in a flat voice. "We have to get to Kabebonikka. Before another one shows up."
The others were silent for a moment, peering at her uncertainly, then they got to their feet and began crawling out of the cave opening. The mountains were still--meaning that no other Wendigoes could be anywhere nearby at the moment--but that could always change. It took them longer to get down than it had taken to get up, considering the obstacles now placed in their path; Charmian scoured the altered surroundings for any sign of No-Tongue, but found none. She found her limping step faltering now and then, until she finally halted where the glacier's surface had been before, and let out a breath. The others looked at her.
"We can't just leave him like this," she said.
"Who?" Augwak said. "Him?" He pointed at the Wendigo, then frowned and scratched his head. "Well...maybe I could manage one arm...but just part of it...and as for the rest..."
"No, ASS!" Charmian shouted, and hit him with an iceball. "No-Tongue! We can't just LEAVE him like this!"
Winter Born frowned this time and peered at the rubble. "What should we do, then...?" she asked, perplexed. "He must be buried pretty deep..."
Augwak huffed. "You can HARDLY expect us to dig him out!"
Charmian's eyes watered again. "I don't know! It just--seems rude to just leave him, without doing anything!"
"Do you mean like say goodbye or something?" Winter Born asked.
Charmian let out a breath. "Yeah," she said, suddenly realizing why just walking away had seemed so wrong. "Like that." She gnawed on her lip. "Where I come from people build memorials and stuff! But I don't have anything to build a memorial with!"
Winter Born pursed her lips thoughtfully. "We just build little houses," she said; when Charmian looked at her, she put her hands together to form a triangle shape. "Kind of like the ones your people like to live in," she said. "Only a lot smaller. We make them out of wood."
Charmian looked around them. "There isn't much wood...not without an ax..."
Pakwa poked at her leg, and gestured at the rubble. "Plenty of rocks," he said mildly, and Winter Born promptly ran into the rubble field and began picking up the smaller rocks, using her dress to hold them.
"That'll work!" she exclaimed. "Just tell me where you want it and I can build one!"
Augwak made a face. "If it's all right with you, fleshling, I'm going to go gorge myself on that beast's arm! Seeing as I haven't had a decent meal in FOREVER!"
"Knock yourself out," Charmian said, and the GeeBee blinked in surprise before turning and dashing off toward the Wendigo. It seemed to be just a second later that he was gnawing away on the giant's forearm, and Charmian grimaced and had to look away before she could get sick. Winter Born was now carrying so many rocks that she looked ready to fall over. "I think this is a good spot," Charmian murmured, stopping in the middle of the rubble field and looking down. She thought that she'd lost sight of No-Tongue somewhere in this area, and she supposed that the middle was as good as anything.
Winter Born staggered to a halt and dumped her rocks on the ground. "This'll only take a few minutes!" she promised, and began setting the rocks down in a pattern, building a little rectangle, then forming it into four walls; she ran off and came back with a small slab of rock, which she attempted tilting against the side of the wall, only to pause and frown when she saw that it might knock over the stones. Pakwa disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with a couple of pine boughs in his hands, tossing them down at her; her face lit up and she used these instead to cover the top, then used a smaller piece of the slab to set out front of the odd little house. Charmian stepped to the side to see that she'd left a tiny opening in the front.
"Stick-In-The-Dirt made one of these for Yellow Turtle when he died," Winter Born murmured, brushing the boughs into place. "I go to look at it and talk to it sometimes." She pointed at the little slab out front. "We usually leave food here, for four days, so the spirit doesn't get hungry on the Spirit Road because that's how long it takes to walk it."
Charmian stared at this for a moment, feeling her eyes sting, then she frowned a little and pulled off her pack. "I don't really have food," she admitted. "But I guess when you're traveling anything is better than nothing." She set a candy bar on the little slab, and the three of them stood around the little stone house for a few moments, staring at it. Then Pakwa turned and ambled off toward the Wendigo, and after a pause Winter Born stood, brushed herself off, and did the same. Charmian hesitated before stooping down beside the little house, biting her lip.
"I'm sorry I didn't get to keep my promise and bring you down into the camp," she murmured softly. "But I'll make sure to tell Mudroot about you...so everybody knows you weren't what they thought you were." She touched one of the boughs. "Bye, No-Tongue."
"Charmian?" Winter Born called out. "Are you coming?"
"Yeah," Charmian said, standing up again and turning to limp toward them. Her ankle felt swollen but numb; she knew it was wrong to keep walking on it, but there was no other way to keep moving. "Let's get going," she said when she reached Winter Born and Pakwa, Augwak still slobbering over the dead Wendigo nearby. "Back in his cave No-Tongue drew a map of where to find Kabebonikka's place...so I think I know where to look. We have to get back onto the first trail around the big mountain. Where we first met him. Come on, Augwak, dinner's over."
"Charmian," Winter Born said as they passed the Wendigo; Charmian tilted her head to the side to show that she'd heard. Winter Born bit her lip and hesitated. "If Kabebonikka's really like they say...do you really think he'll help us?"
Charmian was silent for a while, their feet making the only noise. It was a long time before she spoke.
"Best to just wait and see," she said, and they spoke no more on their way up the mountain.
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