A Snowy Barrens Trilogy Teaser Tale
Bone-Cracker roused to darkness and pain. Disoriented, he tried to remember where he was and why, but shock clouded his thoughts and dirt clogged his mouth and nose, preventing him from thinking much at all. He gagged and choked, digging blindly at the musty earth that threatened to suffocate him. Eventually, he cleared away enough to breathe freely again, but his sides ached terribly with each inhalation. To make matters worse, his mouth was too dry to allow him to clear the taste of rancid soil from his tongue simply by spitting and swallowing. He felt as though the ground had opened up and swallowed him, only to partially regurgitate him again.
“Hello! Can anyone hear me?!”
Bone-Cracker’s voice echoed around him, like a doppelganger hiding in the darkness and mocking his plight. He managed to lift his head a couple of inches and caught the barest hint of light from overhead. Apparently, he wasn’t entirely submerged in the dirt.
Nobody answered.
Fuzzy memories gradually began to return. He had been on a solo hunt, hoping for his first tattoo. He wanted to earn some status in his tribe, and he would never find any respect as long as he remained unmarked. They had just let loose a slave who had been deemed undesirable and Bone-Cracker had been hot on her trail, reaching her before any of the other hunters-in-training. He had been lifting his blowpipe to his lips, inching forward in the brush, when suddenly there had been only emptiness beneath his feet, and he had fallen. He couldn’t recall anything beyond that moment – until now.
His prey had no doubt escaped and that made Bone-Cracker angry. There would be no tattoo for him this time.
He couldn’t understand how he had fallen. He had taken that pathway through the forest and there had never been a hole there before. Somehow, it had miraculously just appeared there, an unexpected hazard where none had existed
Bone-Cracker called out several more times, as loudly as he could muster with a throat gratingly dry and hoarse, but he still received no response. Nobody necessarily would happen upon him. He had been all alone on the trail of the frail woman, an older slave who had been mistreated and malnourished – an easy win until his fall. She would be long gone, grateful for chance to get away. It wouldn’t last. Someone would catch up with her before she reached the border of Black Talon terrain and claim the mark that should have been his. He gritted his teeth and tensed his fingers at the idea.
Since no one was likely to come to his rescue, Bone-Cracker decided he would have to scale his way out of the darkness and back to the surface, not that far above him. But as soon as he made his first move to try to get to his feet, his body was wracked by the severest agony he had ever experienced in his life. His leg feeling like it was on fire, the darkness claimed his senses again.
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Bone-Cracker was horribly dizzy when he came around the second time. His face was pressed into the dirt again and he was fairly certain he had both swallowed and inhaled some of the earth this time, the inside of his throat lined with gritty residue. His tongue lay swollen and dry within his mouth like an old piece of hardened leather, and his lips were beginning to crack and bleed.
His hole had grown frigid and when he lifted his head, he could no longer see any light above from where he shivered in the dank cool soil. Night had fallen. They might have already noticed him missing back at the village.
Two thoughts dominated all others, aside from just being grateful that he was still alive. He had to locate his water-skin and get some water back into his dehydrated system, and he had obviously injured his leg in a serious way as a result of his fall. He edged his fingers along in the blackness, down to his belt. A torrent of relief flood his shivering body when he found the cured-hide vessel was still where it was supposed to be, undamaged and two-thirds full. It took great effort for him to remove the cap without seeing what he was doing and lift the water-skin to his lips with trembling hands. It took even more effort for him to stop himself from gulping down the full contents all at once. He took a few wary sips instead. It could be several more hours or even days before anyone might find him, and he had to make the water in that skin last, rationing it carefully.
