E Stricker - The Almanac

Illya built the fire up as big as he could make it, going as far as he dared into the darkness nearby to find bigger and bigger pieces of wood as it grew. He dug a trench in a half-circle around himself and built up fuel in it, spreading the fire into a ring on each side that was not guarded by the rocks.

The yips were still down in the hills, but in the dark, it seemed like the space between them and him had shrunk. He shivered, fumbling in his pile of wood, rejecting a stick with live moss on it. Too often he had crushed an infant fire with a green stick. He would use it later, when the fire was hot enough to ignite any fuel.

The fire grew, burning down into coals and flaring up again into a blaze to devour fresh wood. Finally, he settled back against the rock and relaxed a little bit. It was nothing like the walls of the village, but he had done all he could.

He realized that he hadn’t eaten all day. It certainly wasn’t a first, but it had been a few months since he had felt real hunger. He crept over and drank from the river but didn’t dare to go farther than that. Deciding that it would be too risky to do anything more about his empty stomach, he built up the fire higher to take his mind off it.

The warmth bathed him. He stared out into the darkness, at first jumping at every little sound then fighting the urge to drowse off in the heat. After a long while, he came to the conclusion that it didn’t seem the Terrors were determined to swoop down on him after all. His unease lingered, but he was profoundly exhausted, and eventually he couldn’t fight it any longer.

Morning came.

The early sun shone through the trees onto his face, easing him out of his dreams. Illya blinked and came awake to find that the Terrors had not eaten him after all. The fire had gone out sometime in the night, and he had not woken to build it up again.

He looked around at the sun on the trees, appearing so cheerful, so normal, that it seemed as though nothing had happened at all. He laughed out loud then pinched himself experimentally to check if he still existed. It was real, all of it: the forest, the sun of a new day, and him, alive in it.

A few coals of his fire still glowed under a layer of ash, and it sprang to life easily when he built up a section of the ring to warm his hands. He had camped at the junction of a small stream and the main watercourse. The water swirled as the energetic little stream met the ponderous flow of the larger channel.

It turned out to be a perfect place for fish. Before the sun was high in the sky, Illya had fashioned a fishing line from a carved wooden hook and a piece of string that he unraveled from his shirt. He found fat grubs and a few earthworms under a large rock on the bank, and it was not long before there were two beautiful trout roasting on a bed of coals at the edge of his fire.

Fortified with food, he took off in search of a cave.

It had not been difficult to survive outside. It was no different really than what everyone did in the village every day: making fire, finding food and water. He didn’t know when he would meet the Terrors, but if he had made it through with nothing but a fire, his chances with a cave should be decent.

At midmorning, he sighted a cave in the cliffs far up the side of the mountain. He debated for a bit. It would probably be hard for a Terror to reach him there, but in the end, he decided it was too far away from the stream. It had been invaluable the previous night to get water easily. Besides, the morning fish for breakfast was something he would dearly like to repeat.

The second cave he came to was lower on the hillside but occupied, and he backed away ever so slowly from a sleeping badger. The next he found had recently been inhabited, perhaps by the very Terrors he had heard in the night. He shuddered when he saw the piles of bones in it, some of them with scraps of meat still on them that looked suspiciously fresh. With this image in his mind, he hurried, knowing it was more important than ever to find a secure place to settle.

The Terrors may not have bothered him behind his fire, but they had been close by after all. He would be foolish to relax now, just because he had gotten lucky once.

Then he found a perfect cave; it was near the water but just high enough to be dry. There were no signs of occupants, and it ended before it went too deep; big enough for him, but not big enough for anything else to hide somewhere inside.

He established a good stock of firewood then foraged for roots, greens, and berries. When he had enough food for a day laid by, he set to digging a fire pit at the entrance. With a roaring fire lit at the mouth of his cave, Illya finally relaxed.

As the days went on his food stores grew, and he became more accustomed to his new home. He started giving himself until he had heard the first yips before he piled on fresh kindling, blew on the banked coals, and stayed near the circle of firelight. With the stream nearby, he could fish just outside of the entrance to his cave and still stay near the fire. As the light faded across the water, gnats and flies could be seen flitting across its rippled surface. Fish would jump and bite at the flies then more than they ever did in the afternoon.

He was coming to realize that the villagers had let many things slip their notice for their fear of the dark. Fish bit the best at twilight, right as everyone would be leaving to go behind the walls, and also in the morning before they would think it was safe enough to go out.

One day, he saw a deer come to the river to drink as the light fell. It had been so long since he had seen any big game that he froze when he saw it. He watched it; with nothing but a knife and a new slingshot half made, there was no way he could hunt it. He was well hidden behind a screen of trees and had not built up his fire yet. The deer didn’t seem to know he was there.

It drank from the river, looking up sometimes to stand perfectly still while its ears twitched. Illya barely breathed, enthralled. He had wanted to get a deer for as long as he had been old enough to hunt.

They were extremely rare near the village, and every time he had caught a glimpse of one, it had been running away. He could see it breathing. Then the deer started up suddenly and bounded away through the trees.

He built up the fire and sat at the entrance to his cave, looking out at the reflection of the light on the water. The black field across the river had stars above it, and the water mirrored the moon in a silver ribbon before him. In the field, tiny lights winked in and out of sight in the brush, as if they were mimicking the stars above. He smiled. He had seen fireflies plenty of times before but never quite like this.

There was a rustling noise outside of the sphere of firelight. He squinted past it and saw the back of a small creature as it ran past. Relieved that it was nothing large or menacing, he stepped outside of the firelight to get a closer look.

It was a coyote. Illya had often seen them when he was out hunting. They were not usually dangerous, and the people usually left them alone because they were hard to catch and not good for eating.

An entire pack of them was beside his cave, sniffing and circling. He lunged quickly to chase one away from the pile of fish bones beside the fire. It scampered away, and he threw a rock at it.

By some quirk, his aim found a mark he had not intended, and the rock hit the beast squarely across the nose. It took off with a yelp, and the rest of the pack ran with it. Illya heard the familiar yipping of the Terrors sounding in the night as the coyotes retreated. Quickly, he dashed back into his cave, his heart pounding. He wondered if the little dogs would be attacked. For a long while, he squinted into the night, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on.