4
“Well done,” he shouts.
I glance back. He is a machine, chopping and slicing and taking out snakes all around him. The ground in our wake is a swirling mass of long writhing bodies. He keeps it at bay with his sword as he removes snakes to his left and right and from above.
I race on and finally reach the opening. I charge out onto soft ground and into fresher air. The atmospheric pressure is different. But I don’t stop. My legs keep on going. I am imagining the snakes following me, continuing their chase.
“Tammy!” Dan-Y calls. “They won’t come out of the gorge. Stop. You are safe.”
My chest is tight and my heart feels as though it might explode.
I slow and then walk and finally turn.
Dan-Y is close behind me holding his sword and panting. “Did you get bitten?”
“No, I don’t think so.” I hold out my arms, checking for puncture wounds. “Did you?”
“No.” He drops his sword to the ground and reaches for me. He pulls the gown, what’s left of it as it’s so damaged now, from my left shoulder. “You had one on you.”
“I flicked it off.” I am battling to catch my breath. “Didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” He peers at my flesh. “But let me check you?”
“Can you see a bite?” I couldn’t feel one but that wasn’t reassuring. I was so hyped up I could barely think.
“No, there’s nothing there.” He slowly runs his palm over my flesh, tracing the shape of my neck ear to shoulder. “It’s perfect.”
“Good.” I step away, pull up my gown and rearrange its tattered ends. “Let’s get out of here.”
He nods, puts his sword away, and glances back at the canyon. “I hate those things.”
“Me too.” My belly clenches. If ever I were to escape Dan-Y and this cave, I’d have to navigate the canyon of two-headed snakes again. But next time I wouldn’t touch the wall because that seemed to alert them to our presence.
“Come, this way.” He curls his arm around my waist.
I have no choice but to walk with him.
A gust of wind batters me from the right and a spot of rain lands on my nose.
“Damn it,” he says. “The sky god is impatient. We have to hurry.”
Once again we break into a run.
I struggle to gain pace. My legs are like jelly. I’m exhausted and scared and want to be anywhere but here.
He grabs my hand. “You see those tall jagged peaks,” he shouts over the wind. “The cave is nestled in them, we will be safe there. Hurry, please.”
I know that if I don’t he will toss me over his shoulder so I do my best to keep up with him.
Another spot of rain hits me, this time on my shoulder. It spurs me on. We are running into the wind, it’s buffeting strength is not helping.
He pulls us off what isn’t really a track and we head upward in a steep trajectory. My hair is being tossed around, my gown flicking up and then pressing down. The air rushing from the towering peaks screeches, circling and battering us as if being thumped by lots of fists.
He grimaces and points. “To the left, over those boulders.”
I do as he says and climb them, my ankle turns but I ignore it. The rain is coming down hard now, and he was right, it’s freezing and stabs at my flesh.
“It’s there,” he says, his hair is flattened to his head and his horns shine and sparkle.
“What? Where?” I can’t see anything in the direction he’s pointing.
“Just there. Come on.” He pulls me by the hand and we go up another ten feet or so. And then I see it, the mouth of a cave almost hidden from view because of the stalagmite-style rocks around it
I dash my hand over my wet face. The rain is coming down so violently it’s making it hard to see.
We rush into the entrance. I stop. The absence of the wind pushing at my body takes a second to adjust to and the sudden quiet makes my ears ring.
“Finally.” He releases my hand and places his hands on his hips. He looks around. “We are here at my cave.”
I glance about. It’s clearly somewhere he’s spent time. It has some crude wooden furniture and several large storage containers.
“I will light a fire,” he says nodding at a pile of wood. “You should take off your clothing.”
“What? No.” I shiver. “No way.”
“Take off your clothes, Tammy. You won’t be needing them here.”