Throughout the afternoon, Aidyn continued to distance himself from the area where he had observed the dragons. He had considered approaching the corpse of the gold dragon. Still, he was suspicious of the shapes he had seen moving across the body. Based on the dragon’s size and relative size, each scavenger was the size of a small horse. He was not prepared for that yet.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about his current situation. His body felt amazing. It seemed like he had been given another chance to start over. Since he was 18, the Army told him where to be and what to do. Now, he had an opportunity to explore, to discover untouched lands. He had always envied the European explorers who had traversed the new world. Maybe not for their methods and thoughts on manifest destiny, but for their opportunity to see new lands. The idea that you can make anything of yourself. It felt like that was gone in his life on Earth. Here, he had an opportunity to use some of the skills he learned on Earth and maybe thrive.
What would human society be like? Joe said that he had transported humans from multiple mass die-offs in China, Europe, and the Americas. It would be interesting to see how those cultures had integrated or if they had. Many of his questions would have to wait until after he discovered humans. But for now, survival was his primary concern.
The simple majesty of the forest he transversed continued to amaze him. He was once stationed in California, learning Spanish while attending the Defense Language Institute. He had visited both the Redwoods and Sequoia National Parks. The forest he was in more closely resembled the Sequoias, with massive trunks easily the size of most modern homes in diameter. But no sequoias he had yet to see had matched the sheer size or height of these. A detour around some of these trees could take minutes. It certainly strained his ability to maintain his orientation South.
As afternoon faded into evening, Aidyn began searching for a place to camp for the evening. He used every skill he processed to avoid attracting attention while moving south. Twice, he had seen wildlife, the first a small creature resembling a squirrel but closer to the size of a small dog. Like a flying squirrel, it had webbing between its limbs, allowing it to jump from one massive tree limb to another. He had considered hunting one to add to his food stores but opted to wait as he was still determining what type of predators prowled the area.
The second creature he saw resembled a boar in shape and size but with muscles that resembled roots and moss for hide. The horns looked like angry red thorns that tapered to a needle-like point. He had to wait 20 minutes for the creature to lose interest in rooting in the ground along his path.
Eventually, Aidyn came across what he was looking for in a fallen tree whose root ball allowed him to climb within a dozen feet of the large tree branch that still stood. Utilizing his rope and a rock, he could climb onto that first branch and move up another 30 feet to a third layer of branches. Standing 80 feet above the forest floor, Aidyn stood upon a branch ten feet across at its base. The view was spectacular. While these massive trees dominated the landscape, the area below their first layer of branches was relatively sparse.
Setting up a harness to ensure he didn’t fall during the night was simple, and Aidyn studied his surroundings as he ate his rations for the evening. There were plenty of bird calls throughout the forest, though picking a singular bird out was difficult. Occasionally, he would hear the call of a bird of prey or raptor, and all the noise around him would silence. This indicated that the predator avians hunted below the canopies above. Once he settled down, creatures slowly began to appear in the area. He saw the large squirrel creature he nicknamed a Dire Squirrel, only partially in jest, begin to scavenge along the ground and in the lower branches.
Once darkness began to envelop the forest, noises acquired a threatening feeling. Any noise outside the normal had him on edge. He slept fitfully until he was awakened to a slow beat sometime in the dark of night. The beat had a cadence he could feel along the branch he used as his bed.
“Thrumm-Thurrmm, Thrumm-Thrumm, Da-Da-Da-Da-Da, Thrumm-Thrumm,” Repeated over and over, slowly getting closer. Aidyn dared not drop from his perch and raised himself just enough to observe. The ground below him seemed to move as if covered with insects. Man, I wish I had Night Vision, he thought. The darkness was increasingly interrupted with torches illuminating a winding path a short distance to the South and West. Soon, the number of torches dwarfed the stars in the sky moving below Aidyn to the southwest. Peaking over the edge of his perch, Aidyn observed a horde moving southwest without worrying about being spotted. Large, bipedal creatures, topping seven feet in height, marched in formation toward leaders in distinctive helmets with plumes. The plumes were not in feathers or ferns but in ornament displays of bone and fang. The creatures possessed rudimentary bronze and stone weapons and leather armor.
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The numbers staggered Aidyn; thousands upon thousands marched below his perch, never appearing to tire or scout their surroundings. They seemed confident in their ability to overcome any threat presented to them. Slowly, after hours of observation, the numbers dwindled. By daylight, the noise and danger of the passing Army had proceeded southwest. Aidyn slowly lowered himself from his perch, intent to continue south, but not along their path. He intended to proceed southeast. This path should allow him to enter the mountains and avoid the horde he had observed. This will allow him to disappear into the lands south of the mountains.
Again, he attempted to move as quickly and quietly as possible. He had no interest in drawing the attention of the massive horde of creatures that had recently passed by. Pushing southeast seemed his best bet, and he was able to proceed with little issue for the next few hours.
Eventually, his path was interrupted by a river flowing from Southeast to Northwest. The river was massive, rivaling stretches of the Mississippi he had seen, close to a mile wide and moving at a generous clip. The river’s width afforded him an unprecedented view of the mountain to his South. While he had never personally seen the main Himalayan range, he had seen the Karakoram and Hindu Kush Mountains, and what he saw before him dwarfed his previous experiences. A few miles south of the river, the land progressively rose until the mountains dominated the southern horizon. How am I supposed to cross these mountains to reach human lands? He thought, staring in awe. I need a plan.
Looking along the North bank for a suitable tree, Aidyn began to climb. Utilizing his rope, dagger, and all the skills he learned, he slowly began to climb the tallest suitable tree in the vicinity. It was an uphill task that wasted a good portion of the day, but as he approached the canopy, he felt it was worth the effort. The branches still held a width suitable for him to stand without fear, even as he was close to 400 feet in the air. The land to the South stretched out before him, and he could study the forest, foothills, and mountains along the southern horizon. In addition, he could observe a large swath of the river to both the Southeast and Northwest.
The mountains dominated the horizon, and he was sure they would dominate the Himalayas if he could measure their height. Which made the prospect of crossing them even more daunting. He did observe a few possible passes, one to the Southeast Near where the river seemed to flow from. One is directly south, and another is to the southwest but barely visible in the clear sky. He also got a fantastic view of the forest South of the river. To this point, he could not see above the canopy to get a lay of the land; South, the trees appeared to not grow quite as tall in the run-up to the foothills, affording him a clear view along the way. The forest did extend all the way to the mountains but seemed to become denser and did not reach the heights of the forest along the north bank. This was most likely why the horde had traveled along the north bank. There was one exception, though: to the southeast, 20 miles away, a grove of trees reached far above the surrounding canopy. Aidyn could not see how far as the area was surrounded by a dense fog that seemed nothing more than low-hanging clouds. It didn’t make sense, but that was his first impression.
Finally, the river. He had a clean view along its path; though it undulated in and out of view, he could see for miles in both directions. His first thoughts were that everything seemed clear and should afford an easy crossing until a glint caught his eye to the southeast. A mass in the center of the river was slowly following the current. He spent the next hour observing the river as the mass slowly moved in and out of his view. He had always had good eyes, one of the few things that worked like they were supposed to, but as he maintained his focus on the mass, he felt something he didn’t understand. He felt an itch behind his eye as he watched the mass approach, not behind his eyelid, but behind his eye. Slowly focusing as he had learned in marksmanship training, he could concentrate past the itch, and suddenly, things snapped into focus.
What the fuck! The snap had focused his eyesight on the approaching mass as if he were looking through a spotter’s scope. If he had to guess, he felt like his eyesight had a magnification of 40x. The mass he had been observing came into clear focus as a barge moving along the center of the river utilizing the current. The barge was a train of redwood logs lashed with massive amounts atop each section. Each section appeared to be around 40 feet in length and 20 feet wide. From his observation, the entire barge was easily over 100 sections long. Guards moved with bows every fifth section, but only one or two.
Had he just discovered the supply train for the Army he had observed? He thought. It made sense to move an army along a river where supplies could move along the current. He had a bad feeling about this one. Should he get involved? Where were these fuckers moving to? He could get across the river, move towards human lands, and ignore this. What had they done to him? How would he even stop the supplies? GAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Why can’t I just explore!