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The Great Escape Chapter 8, Part 3 of 9
The Great Escape
Chapter 8, Part 3 of 9
"Yes."
"Do you want to stop?"
"Please, no!"
There was humor in his voice when he said, "Are you a slut, Dagma?"
"Yes, but I'm your slut, Ezra."
"That'll do. Now, spread your legs wide, slut."
She did so, and he kissed down her belly, around her mound to her thighs, and, after teasing a little, took his first taste of her salty slit. She bucked and squirmed and felt her old sense of uninhibited joy again. She was moaning loudly, her breaths short, the fire in her pussy spreading to her belly and back. She arched again, pushing her pussy up into his face, wanting more, needing another climax.
He pushed a finger into her wet snatch and diddled her clitoris with his thumb. She was soaking. He pushed a second finger in and rested it on her sweet spot.
"I'm going to make you squirt, slut," he said and began a gentle rub on her G-spot.
She could barely talk, but she wanted whatever he wanted. She shut her eyes and held her breath. He bent down to lick her clitoris while he rubbed her G-spot. The pleasure was intense and spread out all over her body. She felt a strain in her nipples and a constriction in her throat. It took less than a minute to get her off. The release was like a shock. She arched, hunched, arched again, and went silent, but her thighs shook in her convulsion, and the ripples in her vagina squeezed out dribbles of cum.
Ezra kept wanking her, and she convulsed again, dribbling some more cum. Her bucking slowed until, with more vigorous wanking and a tight squeeze on her clitoris, he took her completely over the edge. A fountain squirted from her quivering pussy, and she shrieked for joy. The pleasure drained her energy and made her lie still and silent.
Ezra looked at the resting girl, her chest heaving, her legs spread wantonly wide. He stroked her hair to see if she would respond. She seemed to have blanked out, but after a minute or two, she turned her head, took hold of his hand, and kissed it. She smiled up at him and held his hand between her breasts.
"Are you ready for me?" he asked.
"Yes."
"It may hurt at first."
"I want it."
He lay on her, and she raised her knees. It felt like lying on firm cushions. She was warm,
moist, and sensual. He put his mouth to hers and positioned his cock. He was hard and ready.
His cock pressed against her slick entrance, and he pushed shortly. She gasped and then held her breath.
He didn't make her wait but pulled out a little and thrust back in hard. She screamed, then stifled her scream, settling into a throaty moan that was more pleasure than pain as he pumped her to a steady rhythm.
Not wanting to prolong it for her, he was close after a couple of dozen thrusts. He began to ram her fast. She kept up her rhythm in response. Almost at his climax, he squeezed a nipple.
She felt the sharp pleasure and raised her knees, her thighs shaking. Now, it was his time. He groaned loudly as he made the final few thrusts, his breaths deep and heavy, as he sank deeply into her. The blank joy of orgasm overtook him, and his cock pumped its juice into her.
Resting, he lay heavily on her, and when he recovered, he tried to kiss her, but she had turned her face to one side. When he turned her head up, he felt wet tears on her cheek.
"Why are you crying?"
She said nothing.
"Dagma, tell me why you're crying."
"I don't know."
"Are you sad?"
"No, I'm happy thrilled. I want to cry. I told you I'm not normal. Do you mind?"
"Not at all."
He kissed her, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held tightly for a minute while the feeling overcame her.
The following day, when Ezra came out of Dagma's hut, a few women making breakfast winked and smiled at him, but he signaled them not to make a fuss of Dagma. He needn't have worried. She came out of her hut beaming with pleasure and pride. The first thing she did was take Sharne away for a private chat. Afterward, she had an embarrassing but necessary talk with Mirselene. Then, it was publicly announced that Dagma and Ezra were bedmates for the rest of the month.
Sharne had given her blessing to Dagma with joy. Annela approved because it was her idea.
Now, Ezra had to make it right with Dipti and, perhaps more so, Urulla. After all, it was partly Dagma's fault that Urulla was injured and unable to be his bedmate this month. As for Dipti, she was so horny in her fourth month of pregnancy and so reluctant to give up her bedmate rights that it was only the recovery of Urulla that saved Ezra from disappointing a woman he would love not to disappoint.
As Urulla gained in strength, her sex drive consistently very strong returned. With her urges centered on Dipti for now, Urulla took the news surprisingly well despite looking forward more than anyone to being bedmates with Ezra. Still, she knew that she couldn't cope with pregnancy in her weakened state and satisfied herself with wistful longing and Dipti's loving embrace. Ezra promised to do his sexual duty to her as soon as he returned from the Mariner Settlement, so even Urulla was happy for Dagma.
Starting that night at the Honeymoon Lodge and over the next three weeks, Ezra released Dagma's natural eroticism from its self-imposed prison.
He treated her like a slut, and she responded eagerly, begging to be used roughly. He pulled her around by the hair, spanked her, called her "bitch" and "whore" and pinned her down while he fucked her hard. He said, "Suck my cock, slut!" and she immediately fell to her knees, sucking greedily, swallowing his cum without question. There was nothing she refused when he commanded her with confidence. As a submissive, she was uninhibited and insatiable.
Dagma squirted every time they had sex. Always when he fingered her, sometimes on his cock; and occasionally when he used his tongue. He loved it when she came hard, spraying her cum over her thighs, often blacking out as well, sometimes for ten minutes.
She complained only once. It was about two weeks after they became bedmates; as he lay on her, sucking her tits, he slipped a finger into her vagina to massage her g-spot. It didn't take him long to bring her to a first dripping convulsion. He continued fingering her, trying to get her off again, but Dagma wanted something different. She closed her legs and twisted them to one side.
"I've already come, Darling," she breathed. "Let me please you now."
This was encouraging. Kalyndra's submission was natural, but Ezra dominated Dagma only because it overcame her inhibitions. He didn't enjoy calling any woman a "slut" and didn't want to perpetuate Dagma's mixed-up view of sex. He tried to make her think sex is clean and healthy.
She sucked his hard cock nicely, using her tongue well and humming in her throat. But she didn't suck him to the finish. She had been thinking of this for a time and encouraged herself enough to get him to lie back. She lowered herself onto his cock and began to swivel her hips in a sinuous figure-of-eight pattern. After a while, she became even bolder. She leaned back, saying, "Please rub my clit, Darling."
He put two fingers into her mouth, and she sucked on them. With nicely lubricated fingers, he began to toy with her clitoris gently. With a feather-light touch, he traced a pattern to the same rhythm as her gyrating pelvis. She moaned her pleasure, and he rubbed harder. When she came, it was sweet and intense. She rode him to the end, thrusting with her strong thigh muscles and squirting again before he groaned, pumping his load into her.
From then on, Dagma was unafraid to ask Ezra for anything she wanted in sex, though she never stopped thinking of sex as dirty and still liked it when he called her "slut."
4Journey to the Mariner Settlement.
Dagma and Ezra fucked every night until the day of the monthly trade meeting with the Mariners.
Most of the Woodlanders went to the meeting. Annela insisted on going and had to agree not to carry a basket, but Lenta, Mirselene, Casti, Dipti, and Urulla stayed behind. Pepi, maturing quickly, also made hardly any fuss about the long, tedious journey.
The trade session was successful and fun. Ten Mariners, including Ferne, Kalyndra's mother, and Calliope, Thalassa's mother, hugged their daughters before being taken to meet Ezra. It had been a while since there had been so many Woodlanders at a trade meeting, and old friendships were revived and gossip exchanged.
There were hugs all around when it came time to say goodbye, though the farewells were kept short at the insistence of Pepi, who was keen to get back and check on Jemima the calf, whose food and water were left in the amateur charge of Casti.
Dagma and Annela cried when they kissed Ezra goodbye, but the other women were more resilient. Then, with promises from Kalyndra and Thalassa to revisit the Woodlanders, the two groups made their way home.
It was a hot day, with a relentless sun overhead in a cloudless cerulean bowl. As they ventured across the vast grassy plain down to the ocean, Ezra noticed that Kalyndra and Thalassa walked apart. They were friends in the forest camp and chatted at the meeting place, but now there seemed to be an estrangement between them. The Mariners had split into two groups for the walk home, centered around Ferne and Calliope.
He didn't puzzle much about this but recalled his journey in the other direction about seven months ago when Wildchild and Tamar had rescued him from the sea. Injured and exhausted, it had taken him two days to reach the forest from the sea. Here, a long way north, the plain was not so vast, but the shadeless heat was just as oppressive.
Wildchild and Tamar had saved his life and introduced him to the Woodlanders, thus starting this sexual adventure. He thought about the girls now and, despite knowing how hardy and resourceful they were, indulged in a few moments' concern.
The five adventurers reach the mining valley.
On their trek to find the Miners, the girls took five days to cross the dry plain. Lack of water was a problem on the high plateau because the clouds disgorged themselves onto the foothills. The little night rain that fell landed as large fluffy snowflakes. When the girls woke to find their tent sprinkled with a dusting of snow, they squeezed the flakes together and dribbled them into their mouths or water sacks. The next night, they spread their cloaks on the ground, capturing enough moisture to last a day on the barren highland.
For the two days it took to climb to the high point in the middle of the plain, the valley of their destination was hidden from view. It was a hard slog, but the direction was clear from the outline of the mountains, and their spirits rose when they glimpsed the valley again from the highest point of the plain. Fed by a river, which turned the nearby hills green, the valley was beckoning like an oasis, though it was still three days' hiking away.
Thirsty and hungry, they nonetheless efficiently managed the next two days. It was downhill, and their goal lay straight ahead. The girls rose early on the final morning, buoyed by the prospect of leaving the dry tundra and drinking from the cooling stream. They saw black specks circling in the sky over the valley - eagles for sure- proof they would find animal life there.
The girls stopped talking and picked up the pace. They could smell the vegetation long before their feet touched the small outlying clumps of grass.
They began running when the tussock grass gave way to a lush meadow.
The vegetation jostled as they sprinted toward the shimmering river, and hundreds of small animals escaped out of their way.
The girls didn't stop identifying them as birds, lizards, or whatever. Still, they leaped and skipped through the meadow, barely taking time to drop their backpacks and sprinkle their clothes onto the grassy bank before jumping into the shallow stream to wash off the grime and dust of their journey, dunking their baking heads in the cold, fresh water.
Sitting naked on the muddy bed of the river, they splashed for joy. Around them swam large brown fish: hungry trout, nonchalantly grazing the girls' legs as they gobbled at insects on the surface. Tamar was the first to try grabbing one of the fish, but it wriggled free. She lunged after another, but it also escaped. Carlin took up the chase, and the girls laughed as they flailed around in an energetic but forlorn quest for a piscine dinner.
Wildchild decided to try a different method. She climbed onto the bank to fetch an arrow, which she plunged into the water like a spear. However, she had no more success than the others, and soon, the river turned muddy brown from the girls' frenetic efforts.
Then Wildchild stood still. She had noticed what the movement in the long grass had been.
Small brown and white animals with bulbous eyes and long, floppy ears cautiously emerged from the clusters and gathered to feed on the sweet, soft grass of the meadow.
Wildchild recognized them as rabbits and meant to eat one or two roasted for dinner that night. She didn't know they were descendants of children's pets that, alone of all mammals, had avoided the sterilizing X-ray storm by living in caves.
Wildchild climbed out of the river and crept carefully toward her bow and arrows. Carlin saw her leave and followed, crawling silently on her belly. The girls reached their bows, attached the strings, and tied their quivers onto their backs. Naked as the legendary Amazons, they went to hunt feral bunny rabbits.
Tamar stayed in the river, waiting for the obscuring mud to flow away. She planned to be more patient, taking a position a few feet from the bank and crouching with her arms underwater, her hands flat on the riverbed, palms upward. She waited for the fish to come near. One did so, seeking the protection of her shadow.
Tamar was too sudden. She tried to throw the trout out of the river, but she didn't make good enough contact, and the fish hit the bank, wriggled a few times, and fell back in.
Tamar bent down again and was more patient. Her back was hot from the sun, while her arms and legs were turning blue from the cold water, yet she endured. Sure enough, another trout sought the shelter of her shadow, and this time, Tamar waited for it to swim directly over her hands. She bent her fingers up in preparation for throwing the fish and accidentally touched the fish on the bottom of its belly.
She expected the trout to swim away, but it stayed put. She touched it gently on the underside with her other hand, and it moved backward over her fingers. By accident, Tamar had rediscovered trout-tickling. Now, she gently tickled the trout until it was directly over her hands and, in one swift movement, stood up while raising her hands and threw the trout far enough onto the riverbank that it couldn't wriggle back.
With triumph, she clambered out of the river to claim her prize. There, she found Wildchild and Carlin grinning in satisfaction at their hunting expedition. They had a rabbit skewered on an arrow slung casually over their shoulders.
Wildchild gutted the rabbits and trout by the river-side and washed them while Tamar plucked long tussock grass to wrap the food and store it in the empty swag bags. Dried in the sun and dressed again, the girls continued their quest, happy that there was plentiful food to sustain them.
A swift movement over the river caught their attention as they gathered their packs. They turned to see an osprey dive low over the shallow river to snatch up a trout that had carelessly stayed too long near the surface. The fish was almost as heavy as the bird, but she beat her mighty wings and turned her catch so it was streamlined, facing the way she was flying, carrying it to her nest.
The girls admired their skilled fellow hunter as she disappeared into the shadowy crevices of the looming cliffs. Then, they continued their quest, plodding upstream in search of the Miners.
The cliff edges of the valley were pock-marked with holes too neat and regular to be natural.
The nearest cave was empty, but there was evidence of the mining works they sought. A little way inside, a heap of fallen rocks prevented further passage. The next mine was the same. As they wandered up the valley, visiting each mine on the south side of the river, they found all were sealed a few yards inside by piles of rocks—doubtless a safety measure of the Miners when they finished digging.
On the first day, they found no other sign of the Miners, though the valley was ideal for a settlement. As they explored, the girls picked up dead branches that had fallen from the trees, bravely clinging to crevices in the cliffs. They stopped exploring before evening and decided to spend the night in the last cave they visited. They left their backpacks and went to find straws and twigs to use as kindling. They also dug some tubers that could be roasted in the juices of the rabbits.
Wildchild made sparks by smashing the heel of her knife into a piece of flint and soon got a fire going. The fish was ready first. It was delicious. They also ate one of the rabbits but left the other for tomorrow's breakfast.
The following day, the girls headed upstream into the mountains. All the caves they saw were closed off, but they started to find abandoned machinery: small pieces, such as drill bits and wedges, then more extensive apparatus designed to crush rocks or sieve gravel.
Toward the end of a fruitless day of searching, Tamar showed the older girls how to tickle trout, but they were all unsuccessful. So the archers took their bows, Tamar took her slingshot, and they went after the rabbits. Both archers were successful and shot another dinner and breakfast.
The following day, they explored more empty caves. Leaving their packs in the last cave, they spent the afternoon hunting and fishing. The archers were unsuccessful this time. The rabbits were hard to kill unless they bunched together, and Wildchild got angry. She growled in frustration, but when Carlin came up to offer comfort, Wildchild snapped at her and ran away.
Carlin had never seen Wildchild lose her temper before. It frightened her, and she didn't try to follow. An hour or so later, Tamar came back with a small trout. She found Carlin sitting disconsolately on a rock. When Carlin told her story, Tamar said:
"Leave her alone. She may snarl, but she never hurts anyone. Don't worry; she'll return tomorrow as if nothing happened."
"I only wanted to show I cared," Carlin whispered.
"She doesn't like that."
Tamar dismissed the problem with an elegant shrug and turned her attention to a more immediate one. She held up her fish.
"Can you light the fire?"
"No, Wildchild's got the flint."
"Have we got any other food?"
To be continued
Chapter 8, Part 3 of 9
"Yes."
"Do you want to stop?"
"Please, no!"
There was humor in his voice when he said, "Are you a slut, Dagma?"
"Yes, but I'm your slut, Ezra."
"That'll do. Now, spread your legs wide, slut."
She did so, and he kissed down her belly, around her mound to her thighs, and, after teasing a little, took his first taste of her salty slit. She bucked and squirmed and felt her old sense of uninhibited joy again. She was moaning loudly, her breaths short, the fire in her pussy spreading to her belly and back. She arched again, pushing her pussy up into his face, wanting more, needing another climax.
He pushed a finger into her wet snatch and diddled her clitoris with his thumb. She was soaking. He pushed a second finger in and rested it on her sweet spot.
"I'm going to make you squirt, slut," he said and began a gentle rub on her G-spot.
She could barely talk, but she wanted whatever he wanted. She shut her eyes and held her breath. He bent down to lick her clitoris while he rubbed her G-spot. The pleasure was intense and spread out all over her body. She felt a strain in her nipples and a constriction in her throat. It took less than a minute to get her off. The release was like a shock. She arched, hunched, arched again, and went silent, but her thighs shook in her convulsion, and the ripples in her vagina squeezed out dribbles of cum.
Ezra kept wanking her, and she convulsed again, dribbling some more cum. Her bucking slowed until, with more vigorous wanking and a tight squeeze on her clitoris, he took her completely over the edge. A fountain squirted from her quivering pussy, and she shrieked for joy. The pleasure drained her energy and made her lie still and silent.
Ezra looked at the resting girl, her chest heaving, her legs spread wantonly wide. He stroked her hair to see if she would respond. She seemed to have blanked out, but after a minute or two, she turned her head, took hold of his hand, and kissed it. She smiled up at him and held his hand between her breasts.
"Are you ready for me?" he asked.
"Yes."
"It may hurt at first."
"I want it."
He lay on her, and she raised her knees. It felt like lying on firm cushions. She was warm,
moist, and sensual. He put his mouth to hers and positioned his cock. He was hard and ready.
His cock pressed against her slick entrance, and he pushed shortly. She gasped and then held her breath.
He didn't make her wait but pulled out a little and thrust back in hard. She screamed, then stifled her scream, settling into a throaty moan that was more pleasure than pain as he pumped her to a steady rhythm.
Not wanting to prolong it for her, he was close after a couple of dozen thrusts. He began to ram her fast. She kept up her rhythm in response. Almost at his climax, he squeezed a nipple.
She felt the sharp pleasure and raised her knees, her thighs shaking. Now, it was his time. He groaned loudly as he made the final few thrusts, his breaths deep and heavy, as he sank deeply into her. The blank joy of orgasm overtook him, and his cock pumped its juice into her.
Resting, he lay heavily on her, and when he recovered, he tried to kiss her, but she had turned her face to one side. When he turned her head up, he felt wet tears on her cheek.
"Why are you crying?"
She said nothing.
"Dagma, tell me why you're crying."
"I don't know."
"Are you sad?"
"No, I'm happy thrilled. I want to cry. I told you I'm not normal. Do you mind?"
"Not at all."
He kissed her, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held tightly for a minute while the feeling overcame her.
The following day, when Ezra came out of Dagma's hut, a few women making breakfast winked and smiled at him, but he signaled them not to make a fuss of Dagma. He needn't have worried. She came out of her hut beaming with pleasure and pride. The first thing she did was take Sharne away for a private chat. Afterward, she had an embarrassing but necessary talk with Mirselene. Then, it was publicly announced that Dagma and Ezra were bedmates for the rest of the month.
Sharne had given her blessing to Dagma with joy. Annela approved because it was her idea.
Now, Ezra had to make it right with Dipti and, perhaps more so, Urulla. After all, it was partly Dagma's fault that Urulla was injured and unable to be his bedmate this month. As for Dipti, she was so horny in her fourth month of pregnancy and so reluctant to give up her bedmate rights that it was only the recovery of Urulla that saved Ezra from disappointing a woman he would love not to disappoint.
As Urulla gained in strength, her sex drive consistently very strong returned. With her urges centered on Dipti for now, Urulla took the news surprisingly well despite looking forward more than anyone to being bedmates with Ezra. Still, she knew that she couldn't cope with pregnancy in her weakened state and satisfied herself with wistful longing and Dipti's loving embrace. Ezra promised to do his sexual duty to her as soon as he returned from the Mariner Settlement, so even Urulla was happy for Dagma.
Starting that night at the Honeymoon Lodge and over the next three weeks, Ezra released Dagma's natural eroticism from its self-imposed prison.
He treated her like a slut, and she responded eagerly, begging to be used roughly. He pulled her around by the hair, spanked her, called her "bitch" and "whore" and pinned her down while he fucked her hard. He said, "Suck my cock, slut!" and she immediately fell to her knees, sucking greedily, swallowing his cum without question. There was nothing she refused when he commanded her with confidence. As a submissive, she was uninhibited and insatiable.
Dagma squirted every time they had sex. Always when he fingered her, sometimes on his cock; and occasionally when he used his tongue. He loved it when she came hard, spraying her cum over her thighs, often blacking out as well, sometimes for ten minutes.
She complained only once. It was about two weeks after they became bedmates; as he lay on her, sucking her tits, he slipped a finger into her vagina to massage her g-spot. It didn't take him long to bring her to a first dripping convulsion. He continued fingering her, trying to get her off again, but Dagma wanted something different. She closed her legs and twisted them to one side.
"I've already come, Darling," she breathed. "Let me please you now."
This was encouraging. Kalyndra's submission was natural, but Ezra dominated Dagma only because it overcame her inhibitions. He didn't enjoy calling any woman a "slut" and didn't want to perpetuate Dagma's mixed-up view of sex. He tried to make her think sex is clean and healthy.
She sucked his hard cock nicely, using her tongue well and humming in her throat. But she didn't suck him to the finish. She had been thinking of this for a time and encouraged herself enough to get him to lie back. She lowered herself onto his cock and began to swivel her hips in a sinuous figure-of-eight pattern. After a while, she became even bolder. She leaned back, saying, "Please rub my clit, Darling."
He put two fingers into her mouth, and she sucked on them. With nicely lubricated fingers, he began to toy with her clitoris gently. With a feather-light touch, he traced a pattern to the same rhythm as her gyrating pelvis. She moaned her pleasure, and he rubbed harder. When she came, it was sweet and intense. She rode him to the end, thrusting with her strong thigh muscles and squirting again before he groaned, pumping his load into her.
From then on, Dagma was unafraid to ask Ezra for anything she wanted in sex, though she never stopped thinking of sex as dirty and still liked it when he called her "slut."
4Journey to the Mariner Settlement.
Dagma and Ezra fucked every night until the day of the monthly trade meeting with the Mariners.
Most of the Woodlanders went to the meeting. Annela insisted on going and had to agree not to carry a basket, but Lenta, Mirselene, Casti, Dipti, and Urulla stayed behind. Pepi, maturing quickly, also made hardly any fuss about the long, tedious journey.
The trade session was successful and fun. Ten Mariners, including Ferne, Kalyndra's mother, and Calliope, Thalassa's mother, hugged their daughters before being taken to meet Ezra. It had been a while since there had been so many Woodlanders at a trade meeting, and old friendships were revived and gossip exchanged.
There were hugs all around when it came time to say goodbye, though the farewells were kept short at the insistence of Pepi, who was keen to get back and check on Jemima the calf, whose food and water were left in the amateur charge of Casti.
Dagma and Annela cried when they kissed Ezra goodbye, but the other women were more resilient. Then, with promises from Kalyndra and Thalassa to revisit the Woodlanders, the two groups made their way home.
It was a hot day, with a relentless sun overhead in a cloudless cerulean bowl. As they ventured across the vast grassy plain down to the ocean, Ezra noticed that Kalyndra and Thalassa walked apart. They were friends in the forest camp and chatted at the meeting place, but now there seemed to be an estrangement between them. The Mariners had split into two groups for the walk home, centered around Ferne and Calliope.
He didn't puzzle much about this but recalled his journey in the other direction about seven months ago when Wildchild and Tamar had rescued him from the sea. Injured and exhausted, it had taken him two days to reach the forest from the sea. Here, a long way north, the plain was not so vast, but the shadeless heat was just as oppressive.
Wildchild and Tamar had saved his life and introduced him to the Woodlanders, thus starting this sexual adventure. He thought about the girls now and, despite knowing how hardy and resourceful they were, indulged in a few moments' concern.
The five adventurers reach the mining valley.
On their trek to find the Miners, the girls took five days to cross the dry plain. Lack of water was a problem on the high plateau because the clouds disgorged themselves onto the foothills. The little night rain that fell landed as large fluffy snowflakes. When the girls woke to find their tent sprinkled with a dusting of snow, they squeezed the flakes together and dribbled them into their mouths or water sacks. The next night, they spread their cloaks on the ground, capturing enough moisture to last a day on the barren highland.
For the two days it took to climb to the high point in the middle of the plain, the valley of their destination was hidden from view. It was a hard slog, but the direction was clear from the outline of the mountains, and their spirits rose when they glimpsed the valley again from the highest point of the plain. Fed by a river, which turned the nearby hills green, the valley was beckoning like an oasis, though it was still three days' hiking away.
Thirsty and hungry, they nonetheless efficiently managed the next two days. It was downhill, and their goal lay straight ahead. The girls rose early on the final morning, buoyed by the prospect of leaving the dry tundra and drinking from the cooling stream. They saw black specks circling in the sky over the valley - eagles for sure- proof they would find animal life there.
The girls stopped talking and picked up the pace. They could smell the vegetation long before their feet touched the small outlying clumps of grass.
They began running when the tussock grass gave way to a lush meadow.
The vegetation jostled as they sprinted toward the shimmering river, and hundreds of small animals escaped out of their way.
The girls didn't stop identifying them as birds, lizards, or whatever. Still, they leaped and skipped through the meadow, barely taking time to drop their backpacks and sprinkle their clothes onto the grassy bank before jumping into the shallow stream to wash off the grime and dust of their journey, dunking their baking heads in the cold, fresh water.
Sitting naked on the muddy bed of the river, they splashed for joy. Around them swam large brown fish: hungry trout, nonchalantly grazing the girls' legs as they gobbled at insects on the surface. Tamar was the first to try grabbing one of the fish, but it wriggled free. She lunged after another, but it also escaped. Carlin took up the chase, and the girls laughed as they flailed around in an energetic but forlorn quest for a piscine dinner.
Wildchild decided to try a different method. She climbed onto the bank to fetch an arrow, which she plunged into the water like a spear. However, she had no more success than the others, and soon, the river turned muddy brown from the girls' frenetic efforts.
Then Wildchild stood still. She had noticed what the movement in the long grass had been.
Small brown and white animals with bulbous eyes and long, floppy ears cautiously emerged from the clusters and gathered to feed on the sweet, soft grass of the meadow.
Wildchild recognized them as rabbits and meant to eat one or two roasted for dinner that night. She didn't know they were descendants of children's pets that, alone of all mammals, had avoided the sterilizing X-ray storm by living in caves.
Wildchild climbed out of the river and crept carefully toward her bow and arrows. Carlin saw her leave and followed, crawling silently on her belly. The girls reached their bows, attached the strings, and tied their quivers onto their backs. Naked as the legendary Amazons, they went to hunt feral bunny rabbits.
Tamar stayed in the river, waiting for the obscuring mud to flow away. She planned to be more patient, taking a position a few feet from the bank and crouching with her arms underwater, her hands flat on the riverbed, palms upward. She waited for the fish to come near. One did so, seeking the protection of her shadow.
Tamar was too sudden. She tried to throw the trout out of the river, but she didn't make good enough contact, and the fish hit the bank, wriggled a few times, and fell back in.
Tamar bent down again and was more patient. Her back was hot from the sun, while her arms and legs were turning blue from the cold water, yet she endured. Sure enough, another trout sought the shelter of her shadow, and this time, Tamar waited for it to swim directly over her hands. She bent her fingers up in preparation for throwing the fish and accidentally touched the fish on the bottom of its belly.
She expected the trout to swim away, but it stayed put. She touched it gently on the underside with her other hand, and it moved backward over her fingers. By accident, Tamar had rediscovered trout-tickling. Now, she gently tickled the trout until it was directly over her hands and, in one swift movement, stood up while raising her hands and threw the trout far enough onto the riverbank that it couldn't wriggle back.
With triumph, she clambered out of the river to claim her prize. There, she found Wildchild and Carlin grinning in satisfaction at their hunting expedition. They had a rabbit skewered on an arrow slung casually over their shoulders.
Wildchild gutted the rabbits and trout by the river-side and washed them while Tamar plucked long tussock grass to wrap the food and store it in the empty swag bags. Dried in the sun and dressed again, the girls continued their quest, happy that there was plentiful food to sustain them.
A swift movement over the river caught their attention as they gathered their packs. They turned to see an osprey dive low over the shallow river to snatch up a trout that had carelessly stayed too long near the surface. The fish was almost as heavy as the bird, but she beat her mighty wings and turned her catch so it was streamlined, facing the way she was flying, carrying it to her nest.
The girls admired their skilled fellow hunter as she disappeared into the shadowy crevices of the looming cliffs. Then, they continued their quest, plodding upstream in search of the Miners.
The cliff edges of the valley were pock-marked with holes too neat and regular to be natural.
The nearest cave was empty, but there was evidence of the mining works they sought. A little way inside, a heap of fallen rocks prevented further passage. The next mine was the same. As they wandered up the valley, visiting each mine on the south side of the river, they found all were sealed a few yards inside by piles of rocks—doubtless a safety measure of the Miners when they finished digging.
On the first day, they found no other sign of the Miners, though the valley was ideal for a settlement. As they explored, the girls picked up dead branches that had fallen from the trees, bravely clinging to crevices in the cliffs. They stopped exploring before evening and decided to spend the night in the last cave they visited. They left their backpacks and went to find straws and twigs to use as kindling. They also dug some tubers that could be roasted in the juices of the rabbits.
Wildchild made sparks by smashing the heel of her knife into a piece of flint and soon got a fire going. The fish was ready first. It was delicious. They also ate one of the rabbits but left the other for tomorrow's breakfast.
The following day, the girls headed upstream into the mountains. All the caves they saw were closed off, but they started to find abandoned machinery: small pieces, such as drill bits and wedges, then more extensive apparatus designed to crush rocks or sieve gravel.
Toward the end of a fruitless day of searching, Tamar showed the older girls how to tickle trout, but they were all unsuccessful. So the archers took their bows, Tamar took her slingshot, and they went after the rabbits. Both archers were successful and shot another dinner and breakfast.
The following day, they explored more empty caves. Leaving their packs in the last cave, they spent the afternoon hunting and fishing. The archers were unsuccessful this time. The rabbits were hard to kill unless they bunched together, and Wildchild got angry. She growled in frustration, but when Carlin came up to offer comfort, Wildchild snapped at her and ran away.
Carlin had never seen Wildchild lose her temper before. It frightened her, and she didn't try to follow. An hour or so later, Tamar came back with a small trout. She found Carlin sitting disconsolately on a rock. When Carlin told her story, Tamar said:
"Leave her alone. She may snarl, but she never hurts anyone. Don't worry; she'll return tomorrow as if nothing happened."
"I only wanted to show I cared," Carlin whispered.
"She doesn't like that."
Tamar dismissed the problem with an elegant shrug and turned her attention to a more immediate one. She held up her fish.
"Can you light the fire?"
"No, Wildchild's got the flint."
"Have we got any other food?"
To be continued
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