Urbis
Chapter Nine

Crispin marched all day at a brisk pace through country that he had known all his life, barely sampling the ample provender in his knapsack. He was retracing his path back to the place where he and his men had found the mammoths. He had followed the stream from the village until it flowed into the larger river, then had continued along that. By afternoon he had reached the gap in the hills where the river passed through. Following as straight a course as he could, he made his way down a steep slope between rocks the size of a house, remembering how they had had to find a shallower slope for the wagon to climb, how the horses had strained, and how the twelve of them had grunted and sweated behind it to get it up to the higher ground.

At the bottom of the slope he paused to kick the blackened logs in their old fireplace, and smiled at the memory of nights spent talking softly around such fires, telling tales and singing songs, and trying not to think about the inky blackness beyond the fire’s glow.

Today there was little for Crispin to smile about. At each familiar spot he would find himself wondering if he was seeing it for the last time. His head was a blur of emotions: some anger at the refusal of the other men to join him on this trip, but at the same time the recognition that they were probably right, that the cause was hopeless. But he was determined that he would see it through to the end. He found himself recalling times of joy spent with Tana, how they had laughed together, and how they had talked about the children they would have, and how sweet and passionate had been their love-making, and suddenly he found himself consumed with longing for her.

He walked on, pouring all his energy, his anger and frustration into walking, walking blindly towards his fate. He parted company with the river and crossed the gently undulating plain, walking along the path the wagon had cut through rustling grass that was as tall as he was. The hours passed, and the tall grass gradually gave way to shorter, greener grass. With the sun thrusting out his shadow before him, he came to a low prominence and stopped, with the glittering water of the lake before him. Slowly he strolled down to the lakeside and found a shallow dip, sheltered by hawthorns, which would make a good place to stop for the night.

Kneeling at the edge of the lake, he cupped his hands and drank. The water was cold, but tasted good. He looked into its clear depths, where small fish darted, and saw the dark shape of a fresh water cray ambling across the bottom. He lifted his head and saw the ruddy glow of the evening sky mirrored in the smooth surface of the lake. A short distance away a coot creased the smooth surface as it paddled unhurriedly towards a nest amid the bullrushes, and the evening chorus of frogs carried on the air.

He set a trap for fish in the lake and built a fire. As it got dark, he pulled a good sized carp from the water, cooked it, and then slept.

He set off again at first light, walking at a swift pace around the lake and up the rise on the far side. It was not long before he was in the forest, with its different atmosphere, the cry of the birds echoing among the trees, the smell of decaying vegetation and the sharp crack of twigs underfoot.

And then he was out of the trees again, standing in the wagon tracks and looking at the mammoths’ graveyard. It did not take much observation to see that the meat of the animals was crawling with maggots, and that soon there would be nothing but stark white bones to bear witness to the absurdity of their slaughter.

He took stock of the changes in the place. The two dead men had been buried, but there were no footprints around their graves. The earth on the graves had been tamped down with something flat and square, and the ground round about had been churned up, with tracks left like those in the village. The flying machine had gone, and with it the mammoth tusks, and the tracks from the grave led to a spot near where it had stood. There Crispin found parallel depressions on the ground: another flying machine. There were also footprints there, leading this way and that across the grass, and he distinguished two pairs.

He turned his back on the carnage and began to consider the way ahead. Once he crossed the river and the ridge beyond, he would be in unknown territory. But, he mused, it was unlikely to change dramatically from what he was familiar with. The landscape did not pull tricks the way that people did.

The first consideration was how to cross the river. There appeared to be no choice but to wade or swim. The current did not look to be too fast. He crouched down and put his hand in the water. It was icy.

He took off his clothes and bundled them up inside his cloak. He put his knapsack on his bare back and shouldered his crossbow. The only problem which remained was what to do about his boots. He decided he would make a second trip for them. He put his hat on his head, and, holding the bundle of clothes on top of his hat, he tremulously dipped his foot in the water. He shivered.

He stepped into the water. The current was faster than he had realised, and he was almost swept away. Feeling his way gingerly over weed covered rocks on the bottom, he edged forward, and was soon waist deep. The far bank was not far away now. And then suddenly the river bottom seemed to vanish. He sank to his armpits, and now he was swept away. He gave a mighty heave, hampered by his bow and the knapsack, and his clothes landed in a heap on the bank, and then he submerged. He struggled to the surface, and was just in time to grab his hat before it was swept away. A couple of strong strokes had him clinging to the bank of the river. He hauled himself out and sat for a moment, staring at the deceptively placid flow of the water before him, and silently cursed.

His boots were standing forlornly on the opposite bank. With an oath he plunged back into the river and half swam, half waded across. He picked them up and waded back to the point where he judged that the bottom of the river dropped away, stopped, and hurled them onto the grass on the far side before swimming the last two or three metres.

On the bank once more, he sat with his arms clasped around his knees, trembling with cold, waiting for the sun to dry him. He stared long and hard at the river, the mammoths, the forest, and the distant hills beyond which lay his home, seeking to impress the scene upon his memory as something to draw on later.

He checked the contents of his knapsack. The only item that was missing was his flint. He would have to find other more laborious means of lighting fires from now on. The bread was ruined, and he threw that out. The meat and fruit were wet, but still edible, and the seals on his three remaining flasks of ale were intact.

Soon he was dry, and he dressed and gathered his things about him. He gave a final valedictory glance at the things he knew, and began the steep climb up the escarpment, crossing the nearest slope diagonally. It was a long hard climb, and he was sweating and panting when he reached the top and emerged from shadow into sunlight again.

The view from the crest of the hill gave him some indication of what lay in store for him. Beyond some gently rolling hills stood a dark forest which stretched away into the distance. The land rose progressively, and took on a harsher appearance, with prominences of rock rising abruptly from among the trees, and along the horizon, a jagged, razor toothed wall of mountains stretched in an unbroken line from north to south.

Crispin stood and stared at it, his heart sinking into his boots, for it represented a truly formidable barrier. His eye moved across the peaks, seeking a pass that he could use, but seeing little that offered any hope, just pyramids of glittering snow, ridges of granite, and here and there hints of a glacier among the clouds.

There was nothing to do but keep walking. In the open he drank in the warm sunshine, marching with a light step and listening to the song of the lark high up in the blue. He was able to roll up his cloak and put it in his knapsack, and quickly covered the ground to the edge of the forest.

There he stopped to eat some meat and fruit, and drank a flask of ale. He then donned his cloak once more, and with a sigh ventured into the gloomy interior. It smelled musty and dank, a place of moss and fungus, and strangely silent. The ground was wet underfoot, as if there had been recent rain, and he had to negotiate steep hillsides with caution, stepping sideways to keep from slipping. Roots like gnarled black bones broke the surface of the ground, and the earth that accumulated behind them made natural steps, for which he was grateful. A crack and a rustling made him spin round sharply to see a branch falling through the air, and then wings beat loudly overhead as a startled bird flew by.

Presently, the sound of fast flowing water came to his ears, and he found himself walking alongside a creek, which, at the bottom of a valley, crossed his path, running over its own deposits of soft sticky mud. Crispin picked his way across natural stepping stones in the bed of the creek and continued on, walking steadfastly in the same direction, paying heed to the topography, and with the passage of time becoming aware that the land was rising more often than it was falling. He was ascending into the foothills.

Thus the day progressed. Towards evening he began to encounter craggy outcrops of rock rising up to thirty or forty metres to either side of him. The forest seemed to thin out a little, so he could see patches of blue sky from time to time.

Then evening crept over the forest. Crispin felt weary to his bones, and began to look for a place to sleep.

When he had found a suitable spot, in the lee of a fallen beech tree trunk, he made a bed of soft foliage, with some small branches arranged to hold it in place.

In a clearing close by he set a snare, hoping to catch a deer or other small game. He carefully suspended a noose between two forked branches pushed firmly into the ground, and tied the rope to a trigger, a branch inserted into a slot carved in the trunk of a tree. The remainder of the rope then ran from the trigger up to an overhanging branch of the tree, bent like a bow under tension. Any animal blundering into the noose in the night would release the trigger, and the bent branch would spring upwards, snaring the beast.

When the trap was set to his satisfaction, he settled down on his bed, ate a little more of his rations and fell asleep.

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