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This first trudge to Marsh should be the most dangerous part of my journey, at least if you mark it up hour by hour. Daddy and I know it okay, and more, we know each other’s strides. On a good day, I reckon we could reach Marsh in seven hours, maybe a bit less.
Daddy and I find our rhythm quick enough as we make our way through the rush of overgrown trees and shrubs, ducking around the vines and side-stepping the fire-berry bushes. We even start to breathe in pace with each other, taking heavy pulls through our noses—though not to show off our wilder fitness or nothing. It’s just the swarms of clossies are so thick here it seems they’re trying to suffocate us as we stride on. Leaving your jaw slack invites in an unwanted meal.
We’re about three hours in when Daddy’s eyes snap left and he slows to walking. I hear the rustle of leaves in the bush before my eyes find the creature. My body goes still, lungs and all. Then I catch sight of the tail whipping back into the bushes.
“Skrag,” I say, breathing again and falling into line with Daddy’s slowed-down pace.
Daddy nods, but his eyes are still turned to the bushes where the critter was. No doubt searching to see if there’s more than just the skrag we saw. A minute on, though, and he seems satisfied enough that it was just the one. We resume our quicker pace.
See, a skrag isn’t much danger all on its lonesome. Not that it could never be. Just that it’s not likely to square up against one of us if it’s on its own. Once, when me and Andy were kids, Daddy brought home a skrag carcass to show us they were still worth running away from. It was an ugly thing, like the barn rats in Marsh they say are this creature’s distant cousins. Only the skrag had bristlier hair with a gray-green color. And a shorter, sharper snout. And squinting white eyes that dart their little black pupils about in a flurry. And no whiskers. And a far heftier body. And a curve down to its spine instead of a curve up. (Hey, I said “distant” cousins, didn’t I?)
“Skrag may not seem like much, but it’s plenty big to do what it needs to,” said Daddy. This was when I was maybe ten, so the skrag sure on looked big enough to me. Took my whole arm to measure the length of it back then, and even with my grown-up arms a skrag could measure from elbow to fingertips, tail not included. Then Daddy spread the creature’s mouth apart to show us the teeth. Andy gasped.
They say things in the wild survive by either getting real small or real big. Skrag did a bit of both. While its body got bigger, seems its teeth decided to take the other path. Me and Andy stared into the creature’s maw, every bit of it filled with long, thin teeth, each one maybe three times as wide as a seamstress needle. And twice as sharp. Andy got rightly mesmerized by the creature and stayed up late practicing her newly-learned numbers, trying to get a count on the critter’s fangs. She kept losing track, but her final guess was at seventy-seven.
So, like I said, a skrag on its own could rip out parts of you just fine. Good news is there’s but three reasons a skrag will attack you outright: It’s starving (which you can usually spot out thanks to the thinning boddy and the missing patches of fur). It’s protecting a nest (usually dug under big old trees). Or it’s traveling in a pack. Packs go out hunting for leftovers the larger beasts abandoned, but in a group skrags will gladly dive in against any prey they think they can take down. Which, to be fully clear, would include us.
The time has been passing too fast and too silent for my liking. Sun barely gets through the thick canopy here, but it seems to be right close to noon based on what I see of it. As to our staying quiet, it’s only good sense. If we drew the attention of bigger beasts in these parts, there’s little hope that me and Daddy could triumph all on our lonesome. Still, I’d hoped we’d get a bit more of a chance to say … I don’t know what, but something, maybe.
Daddy’s head snaps to the right and he freezes. I go still and try to see what he’s seeing. It’s so quiet I can hear my heart striking hard against my ribs. Daddy could be a tree, he’s gone so unwavering. After a couple minutes of long, careful breaths, I whisper, “Spy something?” He waits a breath or two more, then says, “Not close. I heard something, but it’s …” he closes his eyes for a few beats “… I think it’s moving away, whatever it was. Let’s keep moving.”
My heart settles back down and we plow forward. The trek stays fairly quiet, and Daddy seems to be moving us further away from whatever it is he heard.
It’s an hour later when there’s another rustle in the bushes up ahead and I see a skrag come out from behind them. We’re some thirty strides off, but Daddy and I stop so as not to get closer until we can appraise the critter’s intentions.
I note a couple missing patches of green-gray fur. A redness to its darting eyes. Then it starts moving toward us at a scurry that could be worth laughing at it weren’t so damned fast and bloodthirsty.
Daddy’s pulled his bow and knocked an arrow to it. My right hand’s gone to one of the knives on my belt. The creature is maybe ten strides from us and still coming on fast.
Looks like somebody’s hungry.
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