Chapter #26Where the Wild Things Are, Part 3 by: Seuzz   You cast aside the Zippo as though it has burned your hand, and return a hard grip to the phallus. You stroke it slowly, but murmur the incantation so quickly you can barely articulate each word without tripping over them.
The figure glows dully, with flames that are closer to brown than orange running up and down it. It wavers and shivers, and makes a slow, stately arc in front of you, around the rim of your rampart. You raise your voice to an audible pitch, and limbs spring from the figure's side; it raises them high over its crown, and continues to weave from side to side. It spins slowly in place, and seems to split in two, for another figure, slimmer and shorter than the first, appears by its side, and begins a separate, shimmering dance.
You slow your chant, dropping into a regular rhythm, but quicken your caresses of the wooden phallus. It warms, and a vibration like a tiny shiver thrums deep within it. You hunch over it, protecting it, but keep your eyes on the two spinning figures—
And then on the third, and then the fourth, that loom out of the night. These are paler, and their fire is like a cloak of sheet lightning, and they dance more quickly, spinning and orbiting the others.
Your eyes are growing heavy, and your voice is growing hoarse, but you press on. The phallus seems to swell within your palm, the long-dead sap within it rising and coursing thickly. You feel a priapic prick of sympathy of your own, but clench your eyes shut and channel it into the phallus. When you open your eyes again there are more than a dozen figures spinning in a stately gavotte about your position.
You have ceased to mutter and to murmur by now; your throat is tight, and the throbbing in your head matches the unmistakable throbbing in the phallus. Your breath is becoming short and labored. The dryads crowd each other, but neither trip nor entangle. The rustle of their roots on the floor of the forest is like the sound of the wind creeping through the leaves.
And as the phallus with one sudden and ineluctable movement rises and gathers and hangs and releases with a stone-shattering blow, you fall backward—
And continue falling, into the arms of soft, springy branches, which set you on your feet. You are already dancing—another dryad like the others—when you touch the ground, and with them weave a fence of protection about the tiny figure sprawled on the rocks. The music you dance to is the percussive knocking of limbs against limbs, the rattle of leaves against bark, and the whistle of wind through branches. You dance until the sky is gray with morning and the forest halls are wet with dew, and until the tall, twisting figures have drifted back into the depths of the forest. And when you open your eyes and sit up, blinking stupidly into sunlight that streams in low through the still trees, you find the ground all about your rock trampled flat, and scoured of vegetation.
The phallus is again only a dead stick, but the first thing you do is carefully bury it by the roots of a Douglas fir, and give it a quiet benediction.
As you fix your breakfast—powdered soup and fruit—you listen to the forest. Birds chirp, and small animals rustle through the bushes. But you never again that day—or the next—hear the knocking that told you that you'd passed under the eaves of a forest that still Lived.
You take out your cell phone, but after pausing over it, put it away without entering your GPS coordinates. You'll repay these woods for their protection by not telling Ishtar about them.
* * * * *
The track continues to curve back the way it came, but then twists sharply about again—so sharply that you lose it and have to circle in a very wide gyre for nearly an hour before picking it up again. Following it, you step out into another wide mountain glade.
It is very quiet. The birds have stopped.
Quickly you drop your pack and take out your biggest knife, the nine-inch one with the rune work and the serrated edge. You glance around, carefully and slowly, and draw first one flat of the knife and then the other over your tongue, wetting it. You hitch the pack onto one shoulder and quickly trot into the middle of the glade before dropping it again.
You loose three short, piercing whistles through your teeth, and listen. No reply, and the birds continue silent.
Three more whistles. You turn slowly on your heel, staring hard at the eaves of the forest.
A bank of clouds goes over the sun, and a chill breeze springs up.
You catch a whiff of smoke. You loose three more whistles, and wet the knife again.
You almost miss it as your eye picks over the landscape.
A yellowish mask of long, dangling fur, like a mop, pokes out from around a tree trunk fifty yards off. You softly whistle, and with a jerk it turns toward you. Black, saucer-like eyes stare you down, unblinking.
You take two steps back, putting your pack between you and it. You lick the knife again, and hold it across your chest.
The ettin explodes from cover and charges you.
It is eight feet tall, with a long torso on short legs, and on its long, thin arms it gallops along like a gorilla. Yellow, matted hair flies around it, and tusks like a walrus's frame a gaping red mouth that shows knife-like fangs. It falls at you with the speed and force of a landslide, covering the distance in only seconds, and as it rears over you it roars: a yowling noise mixed with a chittering from the back of the throat. It raises one arm high over its head: talons six inches long flash out. It swings.
You seize your pack with your third hand and hurl it under the ettin's feet. It stumbles, and you raise your left arm to ward off a blow that goes wide. But though it connects with only a fraction of its killing power, it's like a blow from a white-hot sledgehammer, and you grunt as you feel your forearm snap. But the ettin stumbles, bowing its body, and with your right arm you slash at it as you fall back.
Then you lose your own footing. As you roll away, two thoughts form simultaneously: Protect the arm and Grant me peace, for you are certain the ettin will fall upon your back, rending you to pieces.
But you when come out of the roll, crouched, you find the thing huddled up and screaming. One of its arms hangs limply.
You don't hesitate, and leap in to slash at it again, this time at the neck, and the thing is too stupid to ward off your attack: its head rolls halfway off its shoulders. One last, killing blow, and the head falls away.
You pant heavily, bracing your unhurt arm on your knee as the other dangles. You watch as the ettin's headless torso sags, sinks, and dissolves. There is no body to the thing, despite its strength, only matted hair that flies up and floats away, dissolving into a traceless smoke that no field biologist would ever find snagged on a bush or rock.
The head remains, but you can deal with that at your leisure. You clumsily pull out your medical kit, and after peeling off your hoodie examine your arm. The skin is not broken, and with teeth gritted you carefully reset the fracture, splint it, bind it up tightly, and slip it into a makeshift sling. It won't be any fun getting back to civilization, but you doubt you're in serious danger of going into shock.
You grasp the ettin's head by its top, and with its face turned away you start marching in a circle. Like a dowsing rod, it dips in certain directions, and you follow them until you find its nest.
It's the tallest larch in a tangle of them up the side of low hill, webbed all about with hair like the ettin's. You suck on your teeth, studying it for a bit, then drop the thing's head at the base of its trunk. Nests only drop one ettin at a time, and it'll be a year at least before it births a new one. Instead of burning it, you note its location in your cell phone and return to your backpack. Project Nerio will be very interested in this thing.
You gather your shit and begin the trek back down to the trailhead. With the monster gone, you spend another night under the trees again, this time sleeping soundly and contentedly.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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