In the Cold

Chapter 2

At some point Tach must have fallen asleep. The next thing she remembered, she was lying in a stone trench and watching the furry titan pass above them. Mio looked down at her, putting a finger to his lips. They both sat, listening as the tremors became quieter and quieter, Mio had the wolf carcass spread out on the ground and was pulling strips of meat off it. Tach looked away. She couldn't vomit anymore, but trying would hurt.

"You need to let me know if we're coming up on something like that." said the android, hanging wolf flesh on an outcropping. "I can't smell, but I've been told they're rather offensive."

Tach looked down at her leg. It was wrapped up in yellowed gauze, along with a splint that was probably a wolf femur. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what it was."

"Well, now you have the honour of being one of the few living people to have seen a woken leviathan." Tach could hear the meat still tearing, along with the growing whine of Mio's servos. "I hope that will satiate your thirst for adventure for a while."

"I don't think I have one of those."

Mio chuckled, handing her the tin cup "Speaking of, you should drink this."

The liquid inside was brown and muddy. It smelled like copper. "What is it?"

"The less you know, the better." Mio turned and crouched next to her. "But you've lost a lot of blood Tach. You need to get better, because sick people don't survive out here, alright? I can only protect you so much."

Tach nodded, taking a sip of the liquid. She fought through the swallowing, and then fought harder to keep it down. "My axe! Did you keep it?"

"I didn't have to. You passed out clinging to it. It's a decent weapon, hopefully it serves you better than its previous owner. Scrap!" There was a grinding, clicking noise, and Mio's left arm flailed. Tach rolled away as he punched the rock wall where her head had been, knocking a few shards loose. The arm fell limp again, and something tore under his coat.

"Tach! Are you okay?" Mio reached out to her with his good hand as the opposite arm fell out of the sleeve.

Tach struggled up onto her feet, leaning against the rock wall. "The heck are you talking about? your arm just fell off!"

"Don't stand on it! You need to let it heal!" Mio rushed to grab Tach's arm, trying to force her back down. He still smelled like the Leviathan. Tach grabbed his wrist, looking hard at him.

"I'm fine Mio. I don't even think it's broken. Let me check out your shoulder."

"Tach! Stop this. Let me take care of you." Tach grabbed Mio's wrist with both hands and shoved him away. His expressionless face seemed menacing as he didn't even budge, and an image of his fist going through the wolf's head flashed through her mind.

Tach took a step backwards, still leaning on the wall. "Take care of me then, I'm starving, food would be nice." she slid back down to a sitting position, her leg throbbing. "If you try to boss me around like that again, I'll take my chances in the cold without you."

"Then you'll die. You need me." Mio finished bending a little tent frame out of wire, then started stacking wood under it. Tach shuffled closer, and picked up the tin cup. She took another sip of the vile sludge, choking it down, and glared at her protector. Her eyes fell on her axe that was leaning against the opposite wall of the trench, the strips of wolf meat, and then Mio's arm, twitching by itself on the ground.

Tach picked up the broken appendage, and peeled back the toy fur near the break. The steel casing was torn and twisted like the tinfoil around a baked potato. Inside, one of the servos had a snapped cam, and another had been crushed between a rod and the edge of the casing. There were some other parts that Tach didn't recognise that were very obviously broken, and some kind of blue liquid was leaking from the arm.