Chapter Twenty
Slowly picking the meat out of the bones I pinched some more of it up and considered how sure I was that I wanted to attempt what I was considering. This had so much potential to go wrong. This was a wild bear, how much did he really understand? I was planning on pulling a bone out of his stomach and putting a piece of white, hot metal in to replace it, which would then sear everything shut.
Forget a wild bear, I wouldn't have done this to a human to who I had articulated everything without strapping them down. Shoving some more of the fish into my mouth, I washed it down with about half of the remaining beer. Part of my mind, as always, started spinning out more options, right now he trusted me at least a little bit, it would be remarkably simple to instead of trying to help I could just drive the spear into him and end it.
Taking another bite of fish I thought about it some more. This isn't the novels you have read… you haven't formed a bond with him other than the one in your head. He almost certainly doesn't know what you are doing. Downing the rest of my beer I continued down that line. The chances of this even working are slim to none, if the bone got into the stomach or bowels he is almost certain to die anyway so why should I risk my life on a long shot?
You've eaten bear before, the amount of meat on this guy will set you up for months if you can smoke it all. You can build a base camp here and slowly work your way outward, figuring this planet out. Shaking my head I kicked the cowardly hamster off his wheel and downed the rest of my beer. All of it doesn't matter, at the end of the day he was on your team, you fought side by side, no questions asked and everyone did their job. You know you aren't going to abandon him now. It doesn't matter if he lashes out and hits you. He risked his life for you tanking that troll. So stop looking for reasons to back out and get this done.
Stuffing some more fish that managed to maintain a decent amount of umami, despite not getting any seasonings, into my face. I stood back up and walked over to my pack. Digging into it I pulled out the cooler again as well as beer's number three and four. Opening them both up I headed over to the big lug and sat down. Looking down at the bucket that still had a good amount of water in it, I sighed. Not willing to drink it myself I hated to waste it, but if my upcoming gesture was going to be worth it, I wasn't willing to water down the beer either.
Taking it over to the grass, I dumped it out and walked back to sit down next to the giant carpet. Popping both beers open I poured one into the bucket and then clunking my bottle onto it I put the bottle to my lips as I brought the bucket up to his. Under no illusion that either of us would be getting drunk off of this. I spoke to him softly. “Hey big boy, I hope this works, but I can't guarantee it. I'm not a doctor or vet, the closest I've come is gluing up my own gashes when I didn't want to deal with the ER.”
Looking into his eyes as he lapped up his part of the beer, I continued talking softly as I rubbed his right ear. “This is a long shot but I’ve got nothing better. I can’t think of any other options, this is the only thing I can think to do, that might have a chance of helping you. So please don’t bite my head off, but the only thing I can guarantee you is that this is going to hurt.” I said emphatically.
Knocking back half of my bottle I dumped the rest into his bucket and walked over to the remaining wood not in the fire, finding the thickest branch I picked it up and went over to grab the spear as well. Pulling it out of the fire I saw that I hadn't managed to get it to a white glow, instead, it was still orange with a cherry red farther down its sockets, starting to cause the hardened shaft to smoke just a little bit.
Sighing and hoping for the best I walked quickly back up to Gaian, putting the length of green wood up to his muzzle. As he looked into my eyes questioningly I said. “I would appreciate you biting down on this instead of me. Quickly if you will, the hotter the spear is the better chance we have of this working.”
Looking at me he begrudgingly opened his mouth and I once again wondered if he had gained some ability to understand my speech or if what I wanted him to do was so blindingly obvious that… shaking my head I stopped myself, no more wasting time, you are going to have to go for it.
Reaching out with my off hand I placed it on the buried troll bone and yanked it out in a spurt of red blood. As the bear moaned loudly he managed to remain somewhat still and instead of marveling in amazement at his self-control I buried the spearhead against his stomach in the worst possible reward for great behavior ever.
ROOOAAARRR! He yelled out before crunching through the branch like it was a twig, but other than that he managed to keep his lower body still, in a truly superhuman effort, I was sure I wasn't capable of doing unstrapped down. Holding the spear in as it continued to hiss and cook the flesh close I could see the heat rapidly leaving the hilt of the spear.
Giving it a few more seconds as the hilt went back to a blackish gray and when the blade dropped down to a cherry red I ripped it away. Fortunately, no flesh came with it. Tossing the spear to the side, I added to my stupidity got down on a knee, and leaned in to examine what I had accomplished. The harsh smell of burning hair wafted up into my nose as my face got to within inches of the wood. As I looked at the flesh beneath, it was already starting to bubble up, as fluid rushed over to try and begin the healing process, but I seemed to have succeeded in my task as no more blood was shooting out.
Rolling back onto my heels, I stood up and looked over at the massive maw that had turned the three-inch branch into kindling. Standing completely still I waited for his verdict. Nothing I was going to do from this point was going to change my fate, I was completely in his power. While not in swiping distance, I had no doubt that even as injured as he was he could be on his feet and have me under his paws before I got more than five steps into a run.
Rolling onto his feet, he glared over at me and then ignoring me for a second, brought his nose around to sniff at the wound. Licking it a couple of times, he once again looked at me with indecipherable eyes. As he rolled back onto his side and went back to lapping up the last of the beer from the bucket, I sighed in relief at the reprieve.
Some dark part of my mind was sure that he was going to kill me and was welcoming it on. Shaking my head to clear the darker impulses out. I wondered how much of charging down the hill to fight first the goblins, and then the troll after, was just the part of me that didn't want to go on helping throw me into a fight, in an effort not to walk away.
Shaking my head again, I tried to put the darker thoughts out of my mind. I have always had a reckless side, but that was usually when pushing up against the environment. This was the first life-and-death actual hand-to-hand fight I had ever been in. Sure I had been in a couple of fights in high school, but the most that had ever happened there, was someone walking away with a black eye. No one had been trying to kill the other.
Here, I had charged down a hill and thrown a spear into another thinking being. If you wanted to argue the point, this was a being that could use magic. So it could easily be said that I was the lower life form, as I had just started fumbling with mystic forces and couldn't begin to replicate what it was doing.
After throwing a spear into his back, I had immediately turned and tossed two more goblins into a ball of fire before running away. While the running away gave me some hope that I wasn't turning suicidal in my grief. Looking at a future without my children staring into my face, I knew the smart calculating part of me, would have normally let the bear and goblins wipe each other out.
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I had no connection to him before the fight with the goblins and troll. Hell, had we been back on earth and in the right season, I would happily be feasting on him right now. Well probably not happily feasting, he had been eating a lot of seals before the trip, I was much happier when going after a berry bear. I doubt I would have wasted a tag on him back in California.
Looking over to the fire, and then up at the sky, I realized if I wanted to get as much moisture out of the fish as possible before I went to sleep, I was going to have to get started. Walking over to the green branches, I started laying them across the trench, pushing them slightly down into the damp dirt.
I was looking to run them down the trench a couple of inches apart from each other. Finishing that task, I got my shovel to move some more coals down the line from the pile at the air vent. Shaking my head at the quick and dirty effort I had managed, I wished for the smoker I had built behind my house at home a world away.
Snorting, I dragged the travois over closer to the fire and started unpacking the fish. Giving them the sniff test, I was happy when I got the whiff of ocean rather that any sign that they were starting to turn. Hopefully as high up and early in the year as the trees had indicated, whatever fish was left over at the arrival point would still be good tomorrow.
Rather than wrapping the fish like I had when I had steamed the fish I had eaten for dinner. For these, I wanted as much moisture out as I could get to help the meat keep as long as possible. So first I wanted to lay down the seaweed that would be keeping any broken bits that would be falling into the fire. Then I planned on putting the filets down on top of the still-damp leaves.
While that would slow down the moisture from getting cooked out of the eel flanks, it would also stop the bits of flesh from falling off the bones and into the fire. Eel being incredibly flaky, I wanted to preserve as much of the meat as possible and that meant going slow and getting all of the moisture out. Without having a large pan to put over the trench that would catch anything that dropped I just had to improvise.
With the last of the fish being placed onto the improvised grill, I had to make a decision about the rice I had brought along. Was it worth using about half of the water I had remaining, to cook it now or did I want to save it for later? Only enough for a couple of meals, once I cooked it, it also would only be good for maybe about two days before I needed to add some more water to freshen it up. Not that I really thought it would make it that long.
Sitting down next to the fish I had cooked earlier I started picking the remaining meat off while figuring out the remainder of what I needed to get done. Going back to my survival manuals I went to the rule of threes: Three minutes without air, while I had trained myself with free diving to go slightly past those limits, that didn't really seem to apply right now with the ocean gone.
Three hours without shelter. Again still having clothes, a tent, and a sleeping bag; I could check that box. The next ones were the big two, three days without water and three weeks without food. With the river from home gone over the cliff, and only about a quart left in my pack that would seem to be the greater fear.
But I still had a clear plastic tarp in my pack and I was confident with how damp the ground was I could build an evaporation trap to take care of my needs. The rub was going to be if Gaian could get back up onto his feet soon enough to take care of his own water needs. I had no plans to make this a permanent camp, but I wanted to be set up with a greater supply of food before started making forays into the surrounding wilderness.
With the cliffs over the ridge behind us, I could be relatively confident I had nothing to fear coming from that direction. Which left only the foothills heading into the valley as both a source of danger and running water. Not seeing any smoke on the horizon, I didn't let that be a source of comfort as lore had goblins about 50/50 in cooking their food. Also, I was pretty confident they weren't the source of the metal that they carried based on how few had access to it.
If any of the metal spear wielders had been involved in the fight, it would have doubtlessly had a different conclusion before I had gotten involved. I also had to consider why the fight had happened: Were they drawn over to the release of Chaos and Order, or they had just been in the area and stumbled into Gaian as a lucky encounter?
Shaking my head I once again kicked the hamster off his wheel. I've got about three hours until the beginning of planetfall and probably another hour, hour fifteen until it fully disappears over the horizon and I get to see what night is like on this new world of mine. I doubt enough heat is going to remain to make water gathering worth the effort, so I may as well gather the sled back up and go get some more fish before they start to go bad.
As cool as it is on the top of these foothills I think I can probably make at least one more trip again in the morning before they start to go bad. Decision made, I pick up the spear that I had just unstuck from the giant bear a couple of minutes before. Tapping the head with the hilt of my knife, I could tell the temper had taken a big hit, but it was the best hope I had for a ranged weapon so I still decided to bring it with me.
Tossing it onto the sled, I took another bite of my earliest attempt at quick sustenance, but with daylight burning, I wasn't willing to waste any more time, so I brought the remaining bits of the fish I had been picking at over to the bear. I asked him if he would mind watching over the camp, but to please refrain from gorging himself as I would generously have some more sushi for him while I would suck it up and stick with the unseasoned, soon-to-be overcooked and dry fish.
Grabbing some more rope and a couple of the trash spears from the pile and putting everything on the canvas sled. As I picked up the rope, I wished I had more tarps but before I could let the hamster out from the run. I started dragging it all back to the little bit of Terra Firma that had made the trip with me.
Making the trip up and down the ridgeline without any incidents, I unwrapped the first sled I had made. Putting down the four trash spears I quickly assembled two separate sleds from the extra rope I had brought with me. Taking one with me I marched out to the open sand of the now waterless inlet, picking my way across the now-drained sand, I watched for patches of mud that would bog me down, as I went to each fish I could find.
Quickly gutting them, I tossed the guts to the side before laying the fish on the sled, setting my knife down. I picked up the rope and looked out for another fish to head to before beginning the process all over again. Skipping over anything that would be too small I kept to anything that was over a foot long.
A lot of fish was going to go to waste and while I didn't see any of this world's equivalent of vultures in the sky circling yet. I had no doubt they would be here eventually, so I wanted to get as much as I could back to the camp before leaving them to their feast. Filling this sled I brought it back to where the first one lay before taking the empty one out to the now sand ocean floor looking for any big fish that managed to avoid the quick death of falling over a cliff to instead slowly suffocate as a reward for their quick reactions.
Hoping it wasn't a foreshadowing of my own future, I walked the sands until I hit the grass that marked where my new world met my old. Searching for the few Lingcod and Halibut that were worth taking back. I found six of the latter, including one monster thirty incher. The flat fish had probably been lucky in that they had no doubt been able to get under the sand and avoid the gravity-induced tidal wave. Although I guess seeing as how they probably died of suffocation, I guess it was more like I was the lucky one.
I also found one Lingcod that had managed to avoid the cliffs. Testing the rope holding the sled together, I was a little nervous at the weight. So shoving the spearhead through the gills of the massive halibut and lingcod. I rested the haft on my shoulders. Then I settled the rope around my waist and started marching my way back over to my first sled. Looking down at it, I abandoned my plan to drag both at once. So I quickly passed it by as I brought the second one over the path I was slowly carving into the hillside with my passing.
Making it back to camp, I quickly dropped the rope and shook the two monsters onto the tarp. Looking over at Gaian, I saw he was panting a bit. Hopefully, it was just his way of dealing with the residual pain from our operation and not him starting to get an infection. Thinking about it I dug the cooler out and poured the water that had melted out into his bucket while keeping the remaining ice back for now.
Checking on the fish, that had been living their best life just a short twelve hours, or multiple lifetimes ago, depending on the perspective one picked. Either way back on Planet Earth, I would have already considered this overcooked, and while I still would have eaten it so as not to have wasted it. I wouldn't have been happy with myself. Now I could only let it continue to cook as much of the moisture out as possible while I headed back for the remaining sled using the now slightly warped spear as a walking stick.