The Great Escape Chapter 6, Part 4 of 6

The Great Escape
Chapter 6, Part 4 of 6

"Up to the eyeballs?"

"Yes, the eyeballs!" she affirmed confidently.

He laughed. "Well, I don't deny the efficacy of your seduction technique, Annela, though I lament your execrable English."

"Execrable! What a lovely word! 'Irresistible Annela's execrable English!' I like it!"

"It's not a compliment."

"Are you sure?"

"Come on, we should go back to the orchard. We can't leave the others to do all the work."

He pushed her off him, stood, and helped her. She leaned into him, and they kissed.

"I could seduce you into staying here with me," she said as he held her. "I could use my execrable English."

"You're incorrigible."

"Even better!" she exclaimed. "Incorrigible Annela's execrable English. Or should it be Execrable Annela's incorrigible English or Adorable Annela's irresistible English? I am adorable, aren't I, Ezra?"

She was in a girlish mood, almost euphoric. She danced around him as they strolled back to the orchard.

"You are adorable to me, but I have poor taste."

She was going to punish him but decided to turn to pirouettes instead. Eventually, she got dizzy and fell into him, laughing. She loved that he held her so firmly whenever he caught her.

"How about Incorrigible Annela's adorable English?" she asked, skipping off again.

Annela prattled like this back. He was pleased she was so happy and hoped Sharne would also be satisfied.

It was late afternoon when they met up with the woodcutters. The foragers had already gone. Sharne and Dagma were collecting the cut branches to take to the camp. Annela skipped over to Sharne, kissed her cheek, and whispered, "Thank you, Darling."

"Did it go well?" Sharne whispered back.

"Oh, yes! I explained to him what's what. He understands. You don't have to worry about pleasing him. But, Sharne, I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Does Ezra ever talk to you about me?"

"Not really."

"I don't mean trivial stuff, like my favorite sex position on top, leaning back, by the way, which you can ask me yourself any time, but something secret or embarrassing, like what I scream when I climax?"

"Of course not."

"I know it. He's discreet. That means you can trust him. So, talk to him. Tell him everything that bothers you and everything you want, need, or hope. Don't be shy. And never doubt that he loves you."

Sharne was silent a minute. Annela had read her mind perfectly.

"You're a witch, Annela."

"I know. Would you like us to go back to the camp? You'll be disappointed that Pepi doesn't miss you as much as she ought."

"That's enough witchcraft, Miss. Besides, Pepi is doing fine."

"I know, I'm just teasing."

So, after loading Ezra up with a pile of wood so big he couldn't see over it, they trundled back to camp, chatting gaily.

Sharne did speak to Ezra, and they reached a state of real communion in the last few days of her month, when her period had passed, but there was no hope of her getting pregnant. It didn't matter. They had sex - sweet, loving, indulgent sex - once more, for its own sake, and vowed to come together to try again. And so, with a smile, Sharne let Ezra go on to his next bedmate.

After a slow trek through the forest, the intrepid young explorers took three weeks to reach the terminal lake with its swans and geese. The glacier towered over the lake like an ice cathedral. Here, they stopped to decide their best route onward.

The most extended way was around the lake, through a thigh-deep stream with ice-cold water, and across the valley to the west of the volcano. They would be exposed and vulnerable to a posse of horse-riders, though it was unlikely any Herders would be this far from the coastal plain.

The shortest route was straight across the glacier where they were, and the most demanding route was to skirt the forest edge for a few miles and then cross the glacier at a narrow point higher up, which would put them east of the volcano. But it was a steep climb and was just as steep on the way down.

They left their backpacks at the forest edge and, taking their water bladders, climbed the rocky escarpment that brought them onto the glacier's edge.

It formed a dam a hundred feet above the lake. The ice was streaked with blue and grey from crushed rock and had deep crevices worn down by melt-water rivulets that poured into the lake as small waterfalls, sometimes carrying blocks of ice with them.

There were a few patches of snow in the shadows of overhanging crevices where the hot sun couldn't touch them, and the ice formed finger-like sculptures. Carlin had never seen snow or walked on ice before. She bent down to touch the cold ground. She lifted a handful of snow to her mouth to taste it.

Wildchild found a clear pool and tasted the water. It was sweet. She drank her fill and then charged her water bladder. The other girls did the same.

It was time to venture onto the glacier to survey their route.

It was soon evident that the shortest route would only be possible with climbing equipment. The crevices were too steep and jagged. Bare hands could not purchase the sheer ice walls, and who knew how much bigger the notches would be further out and where the brooks were proper streams?

Now, they had to decide whether they preferred a challenging climb for the rest of the day, hoping to cross the glacier higher tomorrow or make for the dry valley floor, which was dry and had neither shelter nor food. While discussing, they heard the screech of a large bird of prey high above them, wheeling across the glacier. They looked up.

"She's an eagle," Tamar said to Carlin. "We see them in the southern hills, where the Herders pasture the sheep. If we don't observe, sometimes they take lambs."

"I've not seen one before," Carlin said. "I've seen peregrines. They fly above the forest and go after the pigeons.

What can she eat here?"

Wildchild had been asking herself that. She didn't think eagles ate other birds, so maybe there were animals for the eagles to hunt—and for her to hunt. Seeing the eagle helped her make up her mind. She returned to her pack, picked up her bow, and pointed up the glacier. The other girls concurred, and the three set off on a steep climb over the grey rocks, occasionally dipping into the forest for an easier path with roots to haul themselves up by.

They erected the tent early that evening and slept in the forest's shelter, leaving themselves a short climb up to the glacier. It had taken Carlin a couple of nights to get used to sleeping in a tent, almost exposed to the night rain and on a hard, lumpy surface, but she liked it now. It was more companionable than a bed in a hut because the three girls slept together in a bag with Tamar in the middle, who loved being cuddled on both sides.

The sleeping bag was an innovation that Tamar and Wildchild adopted from their new tribe. Before, they had slept in their clothes, keeping each other warm as best they could on the cold open plain. It was warmer in the forest, though, and they adapted quickly to sleeping naked in a light cotton bag. Even now, at four thousand feet altitude, where the night rain fell as large drops of snow, it was plenty warm enough in a tent under the protection of the trees.

The following day, they foraged for breakfast (keeping the dried foods for when there was no more foraging) and then set off to cross the glacier, which was less than a mile wide at the point, walking on a bed of fresh, soft snow.

They could appreciate the raw beauty of the clean white glacier, which turned at a right angle higher up and disappeared behind a wall of mountains to their right.

On the far side of the glacier, they stopped for a view of their future route and to look back where they had come. They could see the end of the terminal lake five miles away and a thousand feet below on their left. In front of them was the dirty grey murrain wall, and beyond that was the brown volcano, white smoke rising from its peak. Behind was the forest, which crept up as close to the glacier as possible and climbed as far up the hillside as climate allowed.

More white-tipped mountains were far away, beyond the volcano and across the dry valley.

"How do we know the miners live in those mountains over there and not in the mountains here?" Carlin asked, pointing first to the distant hills in front and then to those to their right.

"We don't, for sure," Tamar replied. It's just what we were told—go past the volcano to a lush green valley, and there are caves where the miners work in the valley."

Wildchild grunted something to remind Tamar:

"That's right. Ezra said what to look for. He said the mountains are all volcanoes. They've grown so high because the younger ones have pushed up, the older ones."

Carlin gave a puzzled exclamation.

"I don't know what it means, either. That's what he said. The miners would have dug near the younger volcanoes because that's where the precise metals would be."

Wildchild laughed.

"'Precious' metals," Tamar corrected herself.

"So those are the youngest volcanoes?"

"The highest is the youngest, he said."

Carlin stared into the distance, shielding her eyes from the morning sun.

"I can't see a green valley."

"Nor can I," Tamar agreed. The land between the volcano and the further mountains was flat but scorched yellow and brown.

"So the valley might be on the other side of these mountains here," Carlin suggested.

Wildchild signaled to the others, took a handful of gravel, and threw it onto the glacier's flat icy surface. Then, using the end of her bow, she drew a map.

First, she made a long, shallow crescent with a crude fish in the middle.

"The ocean," Tamar said unnecessarily.

Then Wildchild drew a three-sided box to the ocean's right, leaving the far right edge blank. She pulled a tree in the middle and, in the gap between the coast and the forest, she drew an animal, which was probably a cow but might have been an elephant or a giraffe.

The girls tried not to giggle.

Ignoring them, she filled in more details. There was a mountain range to the south she didn't bother drawing a sheep and a sizeable north river flowing east to west. The river started in the mountains in the northeast, which is where they were. An extensive squiggling line represented a much larger range of mountains that curved from the north and down the east side of the forest. The northern range was those they could see beyond the volcano. The eastern range was invisible from within the forest, though the mountain they stood on was one of its foothills. The valley before them cut into the northeast range, but where the hills started and ended was vague.

Lastly, Wildchild made a series of jumping dots with her bow from her 'cow' (apparently a horse) up the coastal plain to the northeast mountains and then pointed at Tamar.

It was clear: Wildchild believed the Herders who snatched Tamar had taken the coastal route to the White Mountains, where they met the miners.

With Carlin satisfied, they set off down the soft gravel slope of the murrain wall, slipping knee-deep into the powdery clay and sliding some of the way on their bottoms. Halfway down, a rocky ridge connected the mountain to the right to the lone volcano in front. They scrambled up the ridge and strode toward the volcano, which they would meet halfway up its side.

As they approached, they could see the lip of the volcano shimmering in the hot air, changing color in patches from grey-green to yellow and back again. It was a curious phenomenon, and the girls were interested in knowing what was causing it.

They agreed to climb over the volcano rather than around it to get an even better view of their route from its peak. They didn't fear the volcano's soft white plume feathering into the sky, but they climbed the muddy slope, sometimes finding handholds in dry pumice slabs.

At the top, the rim was obscured in wispy clouds of what they had taken to be smoke. They could now tell it was steam. They could also smell it: an unpleasant vapor with the stench of rotten eggs. They carried on regardless and, from the lip of the crater, at last, saw what was causing the steam. The crater had a muddy, flat surface with many rock pools, gently bubbling with internal heat. The water was sulfurous, staining the rocks yellow and black.

The crater floor was a yellow and grey-green mat, changing its colors like a kaleidoscope. Tamar took a few steps down from the lip into the crater, and the floor shimmered, leaving a brown semi-circle around her where the bare floor was revealed.

"It's lizards!" she cried out.

The crater's floor was a mat of thousands of large and small reptiles of different shades of grey, green, and yellow, plus some brown ones that were hard to see. They had scattered out of her way into the shadow of the lip of the volcano. It explained what they had seen from a distance when the lizards were sunning themselves on the volcano's rim.

Another puzzle was solved: these must be the animals the eagles feed on. Sure enough, they heard the shriek of an eagle in the sky overhead. Wildchild and Carlin thought of trying for one of the more giant lizards with their bows, but they decided they'd save their arrows for more delectable fare.

From the north side of the volcano, they could see their route. A small green valley was visible across the dry plain and tucked into a notch in the foothills of the distant mountains, almost at the limit of vision on a hot, hazy day.

"How far?" Carlin asked.

Wildchild shrugged an eloquent gesture that meant she didn't know, but now that they could see their target, it didn't matter. She made a couple of gestures and a grunt, which Carlin understood to be concerned about their water supplies. Carlin grasped much of her friend's minimalist language, though she needed to gain Tamar's telepathic interpretation skills.

Wildchild ordered them always to finish their water bladders and not try to save any because it was better to carry the water within them than to die with a supply left in their bags.

Thus instructed, the girls took good swigs of their water bladders, hefted their packs onto their backs, and started the long trek to the distant valley, filled with the hope that they would find the Miners there.

For month three, Ezra belonged to Dipti. That was the right way to put it; the girl was so possessive about her bedmate.

On the day Dipti and Ezra were to be bedmates, Urulla moved her clothes and essential things out of their hut and into her mother's hut, Casti. At the same time, Ezra plonked his bag of meager belongings under the awning of Dipti's hut in preparation for moving in that night. Then, he went to work with Sharne and Dagma as usual.

Dipti and Urulla returned to the camp at lunchtime. Every day that week, they returned early from foraging to work secretly on their project. Today, they checked that their preparations were done and then bathed at the pool, taking their time, rinsing, and repeating.

Urulla drenched her naked lover, covered her with clay from the bank, spread it conscientiously into every nook and cranny, and then dunked her again, carefully washing her all over. Dipti had never felt so clean.

They dried themselves in the sun as the others came to the pool to bathe. Ezra was one of the last. The girls had already left when he arrived.

He had mixed feelings. He felt regret at leaving Sharne when she had not yet conceived. He felt an intense longing for Annela, which was made worse because she was so understanding and patient. No sane person could be that good-hearted, he felt. And now he would be bedmate to Dipti, a woman he barely knew. A woman who already had a lover. A lover, moreover, who was as keen for Dipti to be bedmates with Ezra as Dipti was herself. Woodlander customs seemed just so odd and unsettling.



To be continued