Gima The Beginning : Gima: Taken by barkingdog |
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Warning: The author has noted that this contains strong violence. Warning: The author has noted that this contains strong language. Dear Reader: 'Gima' is Fantasy-Adventure with a touch of Horror. This chapter is the first of several that contain aspects of Horror. The author notes ' GLOSSARY is included by request. It's not a required part of the reading. It's merely to assist a new audience. Have fun reading. :) barking dog Previously: Gima, a vertant, left camp to find healing herbs, was bitten by a rattlesnake and pursued by a cougar. She eluded the cougar and treated the bite with the paw-paw plant's protein digestive fruit. After a week, recovering in an oak tree, she's hungry and needs water. Her vision still blurred, she travels until she finds Duck Lake. She rests with a water lily in her hair, thinking about Trell, her mate. Chapter 28 Blue jays argue and dive bomb around their nest site while a wild canary whistles then stops. Ground twigs crack under step. A blur lumbers toward her. “Trelly?” It laughs. It’s not Trell. Other footsteps rush from behind. A foul, musky stench with a hint of fresh skunk encircles her, and she hears familiar mumbling. Fear flashes a warning. Escape, but where? Gima tries to make it into the water. I know they can't swim. Slowed by weakness and clumsy with fever, she slips on the lakeshore's muddy bank and falls forward. With her one good hand, she frantically digs the earth, barely inching forward toward the water's edge.
CHAPTER 29 It’s too late. She feels a claw dig into her scalp, and its hand twists her wet hair. The white and yellow lily falls. Gima, naked but for brownish-red lake mud, is lifted up kicking and screaming from the bank to a chorus of raucous laughter. The hand holds tight and swings her back and forth in the air, a mere plaything. Her shrieks silence everything belonging to Upper Earth. Ducks' wings lift from the glassy water to fly high, far into daylight's distance. The trees are empty, save for speechless leaves. There are no witnesses. Gima hears voices and remembers the clicks and chorts from her early years below in Subby Side. The old language carries sadistic suggestions as the shadowy figures bob about, snorting drool and putrid breath in her face. They hold her struggling hands and feet while sandy tongues lick the fresh mud from her face and body. "Delicious," chorts a small one, licking Gima's thigh. "A human feast," clicks another, his double rows of pointed, green teeth bared at her breast which oozes the last of its milk. Gima curses them with words she knows from the Papas. They still think I’m human. As a Vertant, I’m worth nothing. "Fuck off, you asshole ... piece of shit." She scratches and kicks violently, wounding several of the warty, one-eyed attackers. "Back off; not yet," a loud, commanding voice orders his crew. “Move aside.” Pike's three fingered hand cups her nose, and a lifeless sweetness overwhelms her. All goes black into a spinning tunnel—gradations of gray silence rotate faster and faster to nowhere. ****** Trell wakes at dawn and after milking a doe, he gives the full pouch to Hunter. He stands, bronze and fearless, and chorts, “I go to find my Gima, now.” Trell points past the cornfield toward the northwest. Amber eyes watch crouched beneath the stalks. “Wait, I’ll go with you,” Hunter stumbles to his feet. “No,” Trell chorts and gently pushes Hunter back, “you are needed here to feed and heal the others.” Trell sweeps his broad hand toward the many faces who sit intently listening: Blathen, eager and curious, eats apples; Zee, white, freckled and comfortable in Hunter’s arms, nurses the fresh warm deer milk from its leather bladder; Asmel, dark, resilient and bold, slaps his splinted knee with disgust; Hunter, willing but knowing he’s not able for another trek, lowers his head; and Beh, oblivious to the situation, contentedly plops down smack in the middle of the apple pile, and stuffs his cheeks. “I am swiftest alone. Blathen will guard you.” Trell’s bright blue eyes meet the small vermel’s faithful, gleaming one. Blathen nods, salutes with a toothy grin and clicks, "Sir, yes sir." Without another word, Trell grabs his knives, stuffs one into his boot, cuts off a large slice of bear meat, smoking over the fire with the other, and after wiping its blade on the grass, he houses the second bone handled knife in its scabbard at his waist. “Wait … but," Hunter calls out only to be ignored. He stands with his walking stick, watching Trell run across the field into the stand of corn. “Fuck me. I’m a useless piece of shit,” Asmel yells. He, repeatedly, tries to stand and falls, leg splinted and shoulder still bound to his chest. “Damn it to hell!” Except for Beh's chomping of another mouth full of apples, and the stream rushing past, taking with it yesterday’s playtime, the camp is quiet. The air feels heavy and damp as Trell runs through the early morning fog. He follows Gima’s long striding footprints to where she turned west from her initial northerly path and beside them he sees indentations of the deceased mother cougar's large paws. Trell continues through the grueling heat. Sweat beads unite to run down his sleek frame to cool him with the breeze from the shade of the birch and sycamore. Occasionally, he pauses to drink and pour water over his head from his water pouch but, immediately, resumes his pace, maintaining an even speed, driven by thoughts of Gima. By mid-afternoon he enters a small clearing, where he finds Gima’s shredded deerskin clothing and boots that he’d stitched for her. There is nothing more. Trell squats, gripping torn memories in his hands. He weeps, shaking them high above his head, cursing Gima's fierce struggle and apparent death--from the many prints, it was the cougar. Placing them in a pile, he takes his knife and draws a circle around the tattered remnants. And after adding ancient letters to the outside of the circle, he calls to his gods. “Gods of my fathers’ fathers, as it may be your will, grant that truth may heal me!” Shaken to his core, Trell reaches around behind his head, takes hold of his long hair, and cutting it off with one swift swipe of his sharp blade, he places it with reverence on top of Gima’s torn garments. A slight breeze flutters, and his golden strands intertwine amongst Gima’s tattered, blood spattered deer hide. Trell leaves them to rest together forever in this lonely, now sacred, place. His heart broken, seeing his future lost, Trell weeps as he rushes to return to the meadow and his sons-- their sons. Small amber eyes watch and follow. ****** Beside the northwest lake, the bounty hunters continue to argue over Gima. “What are we gonna do with a split-tail human?” Ruel asks. “And a dark haired one at that?” chimes in another. “Only one thing she’s good for, and I’m ‘up’ to it,” Ruel bellows, touching his rising groin and moving toward Gima’s unconscious form. Pike, the bounty party’s leader, whacks Ruel, sending him side-stepping. “Back off, scum. Jacknel wants the fugitive vertant male—big pay-out on his head. We've no time for this. Attend to business.” “Sadie’ll pay more,” puny Lut, standing in the rear, suggests. “I work forJacknel,” the large, burley leader chorts, drool sliding through metal teeth. “Yeah Pike, but Trolious will out bid them both,” adds Lut, and as if he could ever challenge Pike’s authority, he looks around for group approval. Pike swats the small, mutinous one quivering to the ground and presses a metal spiked boot to his throat. “Jacknel pays us well and will keep us working. You speak of a onetime profit … not a lifetime of critons. Cross Jacknel, pig scum, and you starve.” The others nod and hum agreement in support of Pike, the largest Vermel in the pack. They shuffle away from Gima, to listen to Pike. “Jacknel paid good money to find our tunnel up to this land of demons. He even wasted several important Dissident Army connections. Remember, it is written and Trolious warns that we don’t have long before we die from the cloud ceiling’s fire and the drying of the air.” He pulls the hood of his pig-leather cloak over his head. “Let’s get on with it.” “Yes, sir.” Lut jumps back to his feet. “Over there,” Pike points to the lakeside's bank with a metal claw, “what did she say?” “Trelly, sir.” Several chorus. “Yes, Trelly.” “Trell, son of Trolious. Ahh, she knows him.” Pike rubs his wart strewn chin and scratches his crotch while he contrives a plan. Meanwhile, Ruel, with only one thing on his lascivious mind, pulls Gima up to look her over, again, and probe a deeper taste. He lances her arm with his long black claw and licks the blood. He drops her like garbage. “Vertant female, boys. Not even a good human meal. Worthless find. Let’s have her.” Upon hearing this, the drooling vermel band encircles Gima’s drugged body, pushing for priority. Frontal dangles protrude, pressing to escape from their pouches toward pleasure. Ruel stands at the front of the line, pushing the other panting vermel to the rear. His eye glares and yellow foam drips from his full crooked lips. “No, you don’t, pig brains.” Pike throws his knife to land at Ruel’s clawed feet, momentarily interrupting the groups feral intent. “Unlike us, Vertants bond for life. Trell will track her, and THEN we’ll have him.” Ruel sneers and bellows, “Fuck you, Pike!” and tears open his frontal pouch allowing his dangles their freedom. He turns Gima over and starts to mount her from the rear. His dangles search relentlessly across Gima's back for a port of entry. Pike moves in and stands behind Ruel. “I told you ... Back off.” Ruel's full attention is toward his conquest of Gima. He prepares for his first thrust but his dangles interfere with penetration as they argue for priority. I never can control these things. Pike spits on his massive three-fingered hands, reaches forward and, with an echoing snap, Ruel's head lolls backwards. Pike kicks the disobedient's body to the side. “Anyone else have any questions?” The others grumble, shaking their deformed, one-eyed heads and waddle to and fro swatting and punching each other as they back away, adjusting their multiple swollen disappointments. “I would have had her next.” “Why do we have to wait our pleasure?” “We have earned her.” Pike ignores their complaints and motions. “Make a clear trail. Trell will follow it. And you,” he points to Lut, “bring the bait!” The skinny, now submissive Lut, drags Gima, still drugged, the distant dark miles through the night to the gaping mouth of the mountain. Before rushing inside to its cool, dampness, they hang Ruel’s fat carcass by one clawed foot with an arm rigged to point the way. It’s not intended to be subtle but starkly clear— a classic Vermel taunt, a challenge that Pike knows Trell cannot refuse.Just to be sure, Pike places a hank of Gima’s sleek black hair in Ruel’s dead grasp. It’s dark and cold … where am I? Gima shivers, still naked, her hand throbs in the depths of the tunnels. Hallucinating from Pike's drugs, she dreams of her family. She moans three names throughout the night, “Trelly … Blathen … Zee …”
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