Masters of the Arches

Early the following morning, they ate breakfast and then left. As soon as they were out of the house, Vincent noticed that the weather was cold and rainy. Nika was very surprised when she experienced the cool and humid morning air. Vincent figured that it was probably because of the fact that she was not used to such cold temperature where she lived.

With both of their knapsacks fully loaded, Vincent was carrying his rifle by the strap over his shoulder while his handgun and knife were around his waist. Nika also had her handgun and knife on her waist while her bow hung around her left shoulder. She had tied a couple of arrows around her neck in case of an emergency while the rest of her arrows were neatly stored with her sleeping bag.

Vincent had insisted that she wear a shirt with the beige shorts he had bought for her. But when he tried to convince her to wear the boots, she refused. She had walked barefoot all of her life and Vincent figured that there was no use to force her to wear boots now.

To an observer watching them, they would have made a strange sight indeed as they slowly walked toward the rock wall where the cave was. He with his rifle in hand and she with a bow and barefoot.

As soon as they were inside the cave, he managed to roll back the large stone so that it would block the entrance to the cave almost completely thus hiding it from men and beasts. Since he didn't know for how long they would be gone, he didn't want to have anyone coming to his cottage looking for him and discovering the entrance to the cave.

Once this was done, he made her close her eyes and he guided her on the flat plate of the arch. They both stepped on it at the same time and held her in his arms while they waited for the arch to take them to Nika's world.

The minute that they stepped out of the cave on Nika's home world, they immediately experienced the warmth of the air. The sun was just rising outside and the temperature was very hot already, even inside the cave it was quite warm.

Nika still had her eyes closed as Vincent helped her to step out into the bright sunlight. When she was told to open her eyes she became very agitated once she realized that she was standing on top of the sacred mountain. She began to talk very fast and she was able to make Vincent understand that it was her wish to get away from this place as fast as possible.

But before they got moving, Vincent took out his compass so as to take out his bearing. Previously he had been uncertain as if the compass would work on Nika's world since he had no way to know if the planet had a magnetic field or not. He was greatly relieved when he saw the needle oscillate back and forth and then always stopping with the tip in the same direction.

He was also glad to discover that the direction that they had been exploring the last time they had visited this new world had indeed been in the general direction of the south in relation to his present position. Whereas the mountain had been his only point of reference before, he now had his compass to guide him.

Since he didn't want to be travelling again in the land of the Arons, he told himself that this time they would explore Southeast. Of course, he had no way to predict what he would find there and there was always the possibility that they could encounter worse dangers than the Arons. But he was now better prepared than the last time and after all he was visiting Nika's world to explore it.

The walk down toward the foot of the mountain went fairly fast. Nika was in a hurry to get as far as possible from her sacred mountain and it did contribute a lot to the progress they made. By noon, the terrain was only a gentle grass-covered slope and when he stopped to look back toward the mountain, he heard Nika once again repeating the word "vopa". It was her way of telling Vincent that the mountain was a sacred place and bad things could happen to them if they didn't get away quickly.

The surface of the land was changing gradually as they moved forward and the grass was getting much taller now. There were bushes everywhere and most of them were loaded with berries, but most of them he couldn't identify and thus he didn't dare to taste any of them.

They went on for another hour, and then they stopped to rest near the bank of the river. The last time Vincent had come near the river he had been walking on a southwest course, now they were moving in an easterly direction and the land was completely unfamiliar to Vincent.

They made use of the pause to eat some dry meat and a few biscuits. He figured that they were about ten miles downstream from the position that he had been the last time he had been near the river. It had been going in a southerly direction then, but now it was blocking their progress southward as it went in an easterly direction.

They walked along its bank for a while in the hope of finding a place where they could cross but it was too wide to swim across, especially with all of their equipment. On the other side he could see that the grass was even taller and growing everywhere. He was thankful for the face that on his side of the river the grass was shorter -- even if it was knee high -- since there was no way to predict what kind of animals could be hidden in that tall grass.

Gradually, as they kept on moving parallel to the river, the topography changed again and they came to an area where trees were growing here and there with plenty of tall grass growing in-between them.

It was a perfect place for an ambush and Vincent was very reluctant to move forward. The grass was growing as high as his head in some places. It did remind him of cornfields that grew on his world. The green blades of the high grass were as wide as those of corn plants. The one big difference being that the grass plants there had grown much thicker than corn would.

The river went straight through the tall grassland and he could see that it covered both sides of the river, since the river was not as wide now. On their side of the river there was a sandbank covered with debris of dead wood from upstream, but on the other side the impassable grass grew right to the very edge of the river. It was clear to Vincent that with the grass being so tall and thick it would be almost impossible to move through it, not to mention the danger involve in trying to do so.

Of course he had to make a decision. Either they could go on and try to make their way through that sea of grass while at the same time walking parallel to the river - which was again flowing directly south - or they could try crossing the river and walk on the other side in the hope that they could find some sort of a trail or clearing. Either choice implied that they would have to move through the grass for a while and he didn't like it.

The river looked so calm, reminding him of a highway through an impassable land. As Vincent studied their position, he thought how much easier it would be if they had a canoe.

Since the sun was getting low in the sky they made camp for the night in a clear area on the bank of the river. He still recalled Nika's reluctance to make a fire the last time he had been in her world and he chose to do without one.

While they were quietly eating, he looked around. There was still enough light to see, and he noticed the abundance of dead trees and branches everywhere around them on their side of the river. The river that had gone through the forest upstream had carried these debris.

He suddenly had an idea that could make their progress easier. Since the river was moving in the direction that they wanted to go, why not build a raft and let the slow current of the river carry them southward? The river was moving in that general direction and it was certainly not the lack of logs that was preventing him from doing this since he could see many of them just nearby.

He figured that they could tie four or five logs together with the ropes they already had and let the river carry them. If the logs were dry enough, the raft would have enough buoyancy to float them downstream. The water was calm and the current was very slow therefore the project was quite feasible he told himself.

The next morning he did build a fire. For one thing, the flames were much less visible than they would have been in the evening, beside he figured that they weren't going to be very long in the this place, they would be gone long before anyone - men or beast - came to investigate. He used very dry wood, of which there was plenty, and thus reduced to a minimum the amount of smoke produced.

Another reason that Vincent wanted a fire going, was his habit of drinking coffee in the morning. Ever since he has been sixteen, he had always begun his day with a cup of hot coffee. He had brought a good supply of it from his home and since they had all of clear water they needed from the river, he saw no reason for changing his habit.

While Nika cooked dry bacon slices that they had brought with them and boiled water, he went to work on building the raft.

It didn't take him long to slide and roll five thick logs parallel to one another until they were at least a third of the way into the water. He wanted the raft to float partially before it was completed. Of course when the logs were going to be tied together it would be impossible to roll them since they were then form a single unit and therefore the whole raft would have to be move as one unit. He soon had the five logs securely tied together at both ends so that they would remain in place and not start rolling once they would be floating in the water.

Before leaving on their new raft, they ate breakfast and they talked a little. He took the opportunity to teach Nika a few more words of English while she made him understand that she wanted to go south since her village was in that direction and many members of her family were living there.

Once the fire was extinguished and everything they owned was packed and tied on the raft, they undertook the task of pushing it into the river. This was done with much difficulty and a lot of sweat from both of them. But half an hour later they were all set to leave. As soon as it was floating and free to move, they both climbed in the middle of the raft and with the aid of the two long poles that he had already prepared, they began pushing the craft further in deeper water.

It proved to be very adequate as far as buoyancy was concern, but impossible to guide once they were in deep water since the poles couldn't reach the bottom of the river then. The current of the river was flowing at about the same rate as a fast walker would go on solid ground and they made good time without much effort.

A couple of hours went by and the grass on both side of the river remained as tall as ever but then they noticed that the trees were getting more numerous and also taller. Once, Vincent thought he detected movement between two trees on the left bank, but he couldn't tell what it was or if he had simply imagine what he had seen. Anyway, it didn't matter he told himself, anyone trying to follow them would have a very hard time to keep up with them while walking in the grass. As long as the raft remained far enough from either bank, he felt they were safe.

By the middle of the afternoon, the raft came to a junction where the river merged with a smaller river. This smaller river was about half the size of the one they had been on and as both rivers became one, it made the river much wider. At the junction where both rivers met, there was a large clearing on the right bank, they could see many grass eaters eating or drinking from the river.

The slow current carried them ahead of the junction for half a mile then they came to a small island of sand that had formed very close to the side of the bank on the side they were moving. The island was mostly made of sand and in the shaped of an egg but in many places it was covered with shrubs.

Vincent decided to anchor the raft on the sandbank of the island. They both needed to stretch their legs and he figured that it would be a good idea to do a little hunting to increase their food supply.

While Nika was watching him, he slowly moved toward a boar-like creature that was busy drinking from the river and before it could charge him, he shot it right between the eyes. The animals in this part of her world were probably not used to seeing humans being and he had been able to get very close to it before it reacted and he had no difficulties shooting it dead.

He learned from Nika that the animal he had shot was called a "rom" and that it was a grass eater as well as a flesh eater. It did look like a boar from his world except that it was a lot bigger and like its counterpart on earth, it had a short temper since it was preparing itself to charge him just before he shoot it.

They both immediately got busy with the butchering and smoking of the best cuts of meat. Vincent figured that the island was a relatively safe place to spend the night, -- even if the water was only a foot deep on one side -- so they made camp there for the night while letting much of the meat smoke slowly over the fire.

On the second day that they had been floating downstream, they noticed that the grass on both sides of the river was much shorter. The assortment of trees -- which were more numerous -- became different also, the great majority of them, even Nika couldn't recognize. At noon, they tied the raft to a low branch from one of the gigantic trees growing close to the shoreline. Again they built a fire and ate some of the meat from Vincent's kill of the previous day.

After eating, Nika took the opportunity, to practice shooting with her bow. As Vincent watched her, he was fascinated with the accuracy of her shoots and it became clear to Vincent that she was very familiar with a bow. Had she been in his world he knew that she would have been a champion, so good was her marksmanship.

The metal tipped arrows that he had bought for her were a source of excitement for her. By now Vincent had realized -- judging by the way she had reacted the first time she had touch the metal of a can -- that she had never seen metal before.

While she was aiming at a tree that was at least thirty yards away, every arrow was a true hit in the middle of the tree. When he managed to ask her -- using a mixture of words and signs -- how fast she could send arrows; she made her point by sending three arrows in the tree in less than ten seconds.

By mid afternoon Vincent figured that they had traveled about seventy miles downstream since they had set off on the raft. Of course, there were many bends and turns in the river, therefore in a southerly direction that distance was much less of course.

Many times they saw game on both sides of the river, most were grass eaters of all kinds but all were different from those on Vincent's world. At one turn of the river where much of the great trees had been replaced by short grassland, he saw hundreds upon hundreds of four legged black furry creatures. They were as tall as big horses with a fat belly and their long black fur went down on each side of their short hind legs almost touching the ground.

So far they had managed to keep the raft close enough to the right bank so as to be able to guide it with the two poles poking the bottom of the river.

Having nothing better to do while he was on the raft, except of course to guide it once in a while when it got too close to one bank, he continued to teach Nika new words. At the same time, he was able to learn a few words of her language but progress was slow in that direction.

With a lot of patience, he was able to learn that she had escaped from a village where she and her two sisters had been held as slaves. The chief of the village, whose name was Gromo, was a cruel man and he had ordered a raid on Nika's village some time before that. Both of her parents had been killed in the raid and half of the people of her village had either been killed or made prisoners.

They had been taken to Gromo's village after many days of marching and once there they became slaves. During the day they would work long hours in the fields where they tilted the soil and took care of the tuber-like plants that she called 'malka' which made up a good part of the diet of Gromo's people. At night the female slaves slept together in a large building located in the middle of the village. But more often than otherwise they were called upon to spent the night with any of the males of the village that had a fancy for one of the slaves.

Vincent was both shocked and horrified to hear this. When he asked her if she had ever been called upon to serve such duties, she replied without any hesitation whatsoever that she had done so more than half of the nights that she had been a prisoner. As a matter of fact, she said she had been one of the slaves that had been the most in demand to serve on these night duties.

Considering the bad ordeal that she had underwent, it didn't seem to have affected her much as she told all of this to Vincent. To hear her tell about her night activities, it didn't seem to be much more important to her than her working in the field. Still, as he listened to her telling him all that she had had to endure while she had been a slave, Vincent wished sincerely that he would meet this Gromo and these villagers one day so that he could teach them how to treat women.

Later she explained to him how she had been able to escape. One day while she had been working in the field with the other slaves, a large animal came roaming near the field where she was working. By her description of the beast, Vincent figured it must have belonged to the feline family, something resembling a lion or a tiger, but it must have been a good deal taller judging from her description. Could it be a big cat in the category of the saber- toothed tiger, he asked himself? He certainly hoped it wasn't since he doubted very much that his 303-calibre riffle could stop one if it should ever come charging at him.

While most of the villagers went to chase away the predator, only four guards were left to watch the slaves in her field. There were at least fifty slaves with her, so the first chance that she got she hid herself in a bush until the slaves were sent back to the village for the night much later. For half the night, she then ran in the direction of the forest toward the north. She wanted to get as much distance as possible between herself and the village before they discovered that she was missing. She knew that if she was caught, she was going to be tortured to death in front of the whole village. They had already done this to Slad sometime before. He was one of the male slaves who had tried to escape and had been caught the next day.

She knew that her only chance of escape was to reach the forest before they found out she was missing. Once in the forest she figured that she would be safe from them since they were afraid of the forest. They had all sorts of stories and superstitions about the strange creatures that lived in the forest and they never ventured near it. Nika had no such restriction about the forest since her people had been living near a forest and they often went hunting there for games and to gather wood.

After many days following her escape -- Vincent couldn't figure out how many days she was trying to tell him -- she came to a grass plain where she saw the tall peak of the sacred mountain that led to his world. From the many stories she had heard and the carvings that she had seen in her own village, she knew by the shape of the strange peak that it was not a good place to be and she did change direction so as to get away from the sacred mountain. That was the day that she had saved his life by warning him about the "rom" which was about to charge him.