A Stop On the Road

 

At the burial place they stopped to feed the babes. Alithea inspected the ground where they had fought the strange creatures. Drindl and Fallon had cleaned up the area, but she found a few spots of blood that they had missed. She scraped the blood from the grass and carefully held it to a spot on her tongue. She drank some water to clear her palate and tasted another sample of the blood.  

"Can we go?" Fallon asked as he looked up to the cliffs and north to the stream. "I would rather not stay here much longer."

She nodded. "Sorry, have you got a knife?" He handed her a flechette and wished he hadn't when she cut her finger with the sharp edge. She handed the flechette back to him and placed the blood on a specific spot on her tongue. He started to ask her a question, but she held up her other hand to silence him. She took a drink of water, then spit it into the dirt and touched her finger to her tongue again. She turned to him. "Their blood tastes like ours."

"What did you think?" He turned back to the others.

She came up beside him. "I don't know. Where did they come from?"

"Down south?" Fallon offered. "Where else?"

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They followed the dry stream bed until they came to the stone staircase that Alpen and Fallon had built. Bebe admired the layered soil strata visible in the cliffs, while Alithea dug out several shells and other remnants of marine life left exposed by the relentless cutting of the ancient river.

Fallon and Alpen stood off to the side and scanned the edges of the cliffs above. "I didn't see them but I'm reading you, brother," Alpen said.

Fallon turned again to the dry stream bed where it curved around the cliffs to the north. "We're too vulnerable here," Fallon said. "I don't want to alarm Bebe or Alithea."

"What a great idea!" Bebe called to Drindl, and they turned to the young warrior, who held the playpen balanced on one shoulder. He had cut a slit in the bottom of the playpen and slid his hand up inside the pen, where the babes licked at his fingers.

"Alsace juice," Drindl said as he waggled his fingers. Darden tried to hold onto one finger.  "I thought maybe they wouldn't bite a feeding hand."

"Good exercise for them," Bebe said.

"I ask my grandfather to warn me if he sees something," Alpen spoke in a soft voice to Fallon.

Fallon kept his attention on the stream bed to the north. He kept expecting more creatures. "Did you ever meet him?" he asked.

"No, he died in the war between the tribes," Alpen said. "Still, he talks to me sometimes."

Fallon looked over at the two women and Drindl. "Perhaps my grandfather will help also. I have only a faint memory of him. A good warrior. I have heard that their spirits can travel through the cracks in the rock."

The group moved on through the canyon to the west, keeping silent as they walked. The dragging of the travois' runners on the hard ground echoed off the cliffs. After several hours, the cliffs sloped down and the land lay out before them. "Green!" Bebe called, then remembered their pledge to stay silent and put a hand to her mouth.