Soul Caller 1 - Chapter 22 (Patreon)

As Merrick ran, he began to try and organize the equipment that he had picked up. He still had both of Barak's short spears and his dagger in its sheath. Additionally, he had picked up a long steel knife from Dugan's corpse, and he knew that there was another in Evan's pack. As he ran, his feet automatically picking the best spots to land, he swung one of the packs in front of him, opening it up from the side as he began to search through it. This was Vale's pack, and most of it was things he wasn't interested in. The young man had surprisingly nice clothing, and had he been granted more time, Merrick would have kept it, but since Vale was at least three sizes smaller than him, none of the clothing would fit anyway so it was discarded and thrown to the side of the path. Merrick wasn't worried about creating a trail for Vale to follow, as they both had the same objective. Get out of the canyon and up into the mountains. Vale, so he could stop Merrick from escaping, and Merrick, so that he could get lost in the wilderness.

His hand encountered something hard in the pack, and he knew he had found what he wanted. There were two manatech devices that Vale kept in his pack, the map and the compass. Both were slightly too big for Vale to keep on his person, and when he hadn't seen them in Vale's hands, Merrick had thought he might find them in the pack. A quick scan of the rest of the pack found some emergency rations, another knife, a spool of metal string, and a small bag with two carefully wrapped manastones. Transferring everything that he found of value into Evan's pack, Merrick dumped everything else out of Vale's pack onto the ground, and then stuffed the empty bag into Evan's. This lightened the load he was carrying, but only by 30 pounds or so. Most of the camping gear was kept in Evan's pack so he quickly began to sort through that as well, tossing out the extra tent and a few of the pots that Evan had carried. Unfortunately, the stove was kept in Dugan’s pack and if he had not wanted to ensure that the map and compass were not able to return to Vale, Merrick would have taken Dugan's pack instead.

After getting the pack down to about one hundred pounds, he did his best to speed up. His goal was to make it to the first incline, but he was concerned that Vale, coming behind him, would still get close enough for a shot. So after some thought, he shifted his direction and headed deeper into the canyon. The spot where he and Barak had started a fire and eaten the boar meat was up ahead, but Merrick skirted around it, continuing to run. After forty-five minutes of running with a heavy pack, he was starting to slow down noticeably, but still he kept going, occasionally dropping down to a slow jog to try to recover his energy.

Merrick remembered that there was another slope on the other side of the small forest where he and Barak had hunted the wild boar, and it was this that he was aiming for, hoping that Vale would take the first one, completely missing him. Once he climbed the slope, his plan was to move into the forest, following it until he reached the mountains. It wouldn't be hard from there to navigate his way back into the Sky Mountain tribe's hunting grounds. As he ran, Merrick's thoughts burned with anger. The strangers had betrayed their trust, and every single one of them would pay. They had spoken of more of their people on the edges of the mountains, and the Sky Mountain tribe would visit them to exact retribution for what they had done.

Up ahead, Merrick could see the slope of land, and after another half an hour of running, he finally reached it, only to stop in dismay. The slope seemed to have been caused by a landslide where part of the canyon wall had broken off after the elements had eroded its base and smashed down into the canyon below. Looking at the treacherous ground going up, Merrick could hardly suppress his groan. It would be tough, dangerous work climbing the unstable earth and stone up to the top of the canyon wall, and there was very little cover. He had assumed that this, like the other one, was older and not so fresh, providing a stable place that he could simply run up.

Instead, he found the area at the bottom of the slope was thick with trees and bushes, and for a moment, Merrick stopped and crouched there, catching his breath. His eyes raked the top of the canyon wall, looking for any sign that Vale might have gotten ahead of him. He thought it unlikely, as the young prospector wasn't that fast, but still better to be safe than sorry. He was about to cross a space without any cover and would be a sitting duck if Vale was in range. He didn't see anything, and so slowly, cautiously, he began to make his way up the slope, leaving the safety of the trees behind.

The slope was steep enough that he had to use his hands and feet to climb, and as he moved up, the occasional rock, dislodged by his weight, would roll down to the canyon floor below. It was hard work, especially carrying a big pack, but Merrick kept himself entirely focused on his next step. By now, his energy was starting to flag, and as he stepped on a stone he thought was solid, it shifted under his feet. Quickly sinking to one knee, he grimaced as his knee slammed into another stone, whose sharp edge cut into his skin, drawing blood.

Hissing in pain, he stabilized himself as the large rock slid down the loose pile, catching sight of the canyon spread out behind him. Struck for a moment by its beauty, he took a deep breath. Normally, he would have taken a few seconds to pause and appreciate it, but there was no time for that now. As his head swung back around, he saw a flash as the sun glinted off something down in the forest below. Without even time to think, he threw himself to the side as a searing beam of energy tore through the pack on his back, sending white-hot pain lancing across his ribs. Slamming into the rough, loose stones, he began to tumble down the side of the slope, bouncing off rocks as he fell all the way back down to the forest floor below. Distantly, he could hear the crack of the rifle, the sound seeming to follow seconds behind the beam that cut into him.

Protecting his head and neck as best he could, he tumbled over and over, slamming into rocks and skidding down the loose dirt, until he slammed into a tree, blacking out. It could have been a few seconds, or even hours, but when he awoke, Merrick had no idea how long he had been unconscious. A spike of primal fear filled him as he realized that he was lying out in the open and with a groan he pushed himself up. The pack on his back had been torn nearly to shreds during his descent, but with a scramble, he gathered as much as he could, crawling across the ground to stuff it back into the tattered bag.

Pausing, he listened for the sound of Vale as he tried to staunch the bleeding from the wound in his leg. He had already been wounded back at the gorge, but now, after his run and the fall from the slope, the wound had worsened. He also had a throbbing pain in his head, and could feel the blood dripping through his hair. Not allowing himself to be distracted, he listened carefully, and soon in the distance, heard the snap of twigs breaking underfoot. Vale was coming his way.

Thanking the spirits that he had woken up early enough, Merrick lifted the bag of things he had gathered and quickly crawled into the bush. Reaching a tree, he tried to stand, but found himself unable. The damage done to his leg was too great. With a shaky breath, he tried to hobble to the next tree, but found even that too strenuous. Spotting a log that had fallen at an angle into some dense brush, he fell to his knees and crawled over, burrowing down underneath it. The bag was pulled in behind him as far as it could go, and taking a few handfuls of fallen leaves, he did his best to mask the spot where he had entered. To his knowledge, Vale was not a hunter, and lacked any sort of understanding of tracking, but he wasn't about to bet his life on it, at least if he could help it.

He waited in his hiding place, feeling his heart hammering in his chest as he did his best to staunch the blood that flowed from his leg. The fall had aggravated it badly, and now, taking a piece of Evan's clothing, he bound it as tightly as he could. Soon, the sound of Vale approaching caused him to still, not daring to move. Had Vale been one of the People, he knew that he would have been found in an instant. The smell of blood was simply too strong and he had left too many signs, but thankfully, Vale did not seem to share the same heightened senses and connection to the song of the world that the people possessed. Hearing some angry muttering and the sound of Vale smashing through the woods, Merrick held his breath, not daring to even look in Vale's direction, afraid that he might unconsciously draw the young black-haired prospector's attention.

Only the glimmer of the sun on the metal bands that surrounded the manatech rifle had allowed him to get out of the way of Vale’s shot. Otherwise, the charged beam of mana would have gone straight through his ribs, tearing apart his intestines even as it boiled his blood. Though he had no idea where this knowledge had come from, he could see it vividly in his mind’s eye. As it was, he could still feel the stinging burn on his back, where the beam had chewed away his skin. For what seemed like eternity, he heard the sound of Vale stomping around as he searched for a body. It was clear that Vale thought he had successfully killed Merrick, but the fact that there was no body was a clear indication that he had missed. Silence fell, and still Merrick did not move. He felt his consciousness fading in and out, but desperately tried to keep himself awake, even biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood.

As the metallic taste filled his mouth, it reminded him of the pool of blood under Merrick's body and anger burned in him once again, sharpening his mind and helping him maintain his concentration. After a few moments, he heard Vale's voice near the collapsed edge of the canyon.

"At least I got the compass back. But where's the map?"

Fear flickered through Merrick’s chest as he realized that the compass must have gotten knocked out of the bag. He didn’t remember picking it up in the mad scramble to collect everything after falling from the slope, but he had managed to find the map and had shoved it in his bag. Biting his lip, Merrick prayed that Vale wouldn't come looking for it. The Great Spirits must have heard his plea, because just as he heard Vale's footsteps starting to come closer, entering the forest where he had crawled to hide, he heard another sound far in the distance. The long, drawn-out howl of a wolf. The footsteps stopped, and Vale cursed again.

"Wolves. I hate wolves. I hit that young savage, and even if he's alive, he's wounded," the young man said, speaking to himself. "There is no way he’ll survive out here with a rifle wound. I'll just leave him to the wolves."

With those words, Vale turned and his footsteps quickly faded into nothingness. Merrick, not trusting that it wasn't a trick, remained still, not moving one inch. For what seemed to him like hours, he stayed there, not daring to move. His mind was focused only on remaining still and he lay on his side, one of Barak’s short spears held against his chest, ready for anyone that would disturb his hiding place. A loud wolf howl rang out over the canyon, this time sounding much closer and almost immediately following it, Merrick heard the faint crack of what sounded like a manatech rifle firing, followed seconds later by another.

There were more shots, followed by more howls, all of them getting further and further away, and Merrick realized that Vale had truly left. With the threat of imminent, burning death removed, Merrick finally relaxed, his tensed muscles uncoiling as darkness claimed him again. Like he was dead, he lay in place, hidden from the world by the brush and fallen tree, remaining there for hours until the sun had fallen and the bright moon had taken its place.

When Merrick awoke, he was ravenous. He felt the pangs of hunger before he felt the ache in the rest of his body. It was dark, and the little light that filtered its way into the forest came from the moon and the stars up above in the night sky. His body was stiff after lying in one position for so long, and as he tried to shift, he could feel some of the scabbed-over cuts starting to open again. With as much care as he could muster, he dragged himself out from underneath the log, pulling the pack after him. Vale, as far as he knew, was long gone, though the thought of a sudden beam of mana being shot from a rifle sent shivers down his spine. Leaning his back against the fallen log, he thanked the spirits that he was still alive. It had only been Wolf's intervention that allowed him to keep living. Unfortunately, he was afraid that Wolf was a fickle spirit, and the beasts that had scared off Vale were just as likely to come after him.

Digging through the remains of Evan's pack, he pulled out the empty pack that he had stored and transferred everything over, not discarding the ragged bag in case pieces of it could come in handy. There was a little bit of emergency jerky in the bottom of the bag, just enough for a few bites, and he wolfed it down. Trying to stand up, he found that his left leg wouldn't support him, and so he pulled himself along the fallen log tree trunk until he reached a small group of saplings. Using the steel dagger that he had taken off of Dugan's corpse, he cut himself a sturdy walking stick, and leaning on it heavily, he began to make his way through the forest.