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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 4
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The Blood Lands
WARNING - SOME SWEARING
This is the first part of another story I have been kicking around. The 1st chapter is setup and background so not that exciting. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. BTW, Aiden is my son's name and I like to use it in drafts.
Prologue:
A young warrior stumbled blindly across a seemingly never-ending bog, teaming with mud-filled pits and tall clumps of razor sharp swamp grass. The world around him was shrouded in a deep mist and the air under the moonless sky was pitch-black. He expected at any moment he would crash into the black impenetrable wall he imagined standing before him. His desperate cries for help seemed to hang suspended in the thin cold air.
Only a few hours earlier he had been a part of a large Blood hunting party. An elder had sent him northward from the party to hem in and drive the herd, funneling them to warrior archers who lay in ambush. However, something had gone wrong and whether it was due to inexperience or over-excitement, he had become lost. As the sun retreated behind the horizon and the air chilled, a mist crept over the land, swallowing him.
He heard a hiss and his head swiveled to and fro and then he saw it. A black shape chased, looming darker than even the blackest of nights, and it was steadily drawing closer. He tried to run faster but with every step the muddy earth clung heavier and heavier to the tattered moccasins, becoming as unbearable weights clamped upon aching feet.
He twisted and fell upon a mound of switch grass, slicing his fingers as they thrashed through it. A soupy mud rose to his bent knees and he wrapped his arms around a clump earth bulging out of the ground before him. Over his shoulder a sudden white light blazed across the sky and he heard an eerie hiss. He rolled over and looming over him stood a figure of deep blackness, pale red eyes fixed upon him. It hissed again, and before him appeared out of the shadow a gloved fist with long spines and clinking claws of iron. The fist shook and then it drew up into the black sky; a crack of thunder rang out, muffling his cry.
Chapter 1: An unexpected detour.
Aiden spit dust from his mouth while his brother Nicky lay moaning on the canyon floor next to him; a climbing rope tangled about his feet. They had no warning before the taut rope suddenly turned slack and abruptly sent them tumbling nearly fifteen feet to the canyon floor.
“You ok?” asked Aiden, sitting and picking granules of dirt from his bloody, scraped arm.
His brother winced as he rolled onto his back. “I think so,” he answered.
Aiden held up the rope, its end twisted and bent like a withered snake. “Nice knot,” he said with oozing sarcasm and he tossed it aside.
“Sorry,” replied Nicky, “It looked good to me.”
Frustrated, Aiden fruitlessly kicked at the dirt. “Were damn lucky we aren’t lying here with broken necks,” he said. “Christ Nick,” he continued, “What the hell are we doing here, we aren’t climbers?”
Drawing a deep breath, Nicky struggled to his feet and brushed himself off. “Your right bro, but this canyon isn’t exactly Everest.”
Aiden sighed. “I got ya,” he said concededly, and then suddenly feeling chilled he shivered and crossed his arms close to his chest. “Damn if it isn’t cold down here,” he said. “I bet its twenty degrees cooler here than up top, don’t ya think?”
Nicky stared up at the wall towering over them; green moss blanketed the cliff as it fed upon cool water seeping from deep cracks high above. At the base, water trickled from icicles of limestone into gray pools that seeped along the canyon floor before disappearing under the pale stones, likely draining into an underground stream or lake. All about them, evergreens and ferns and moss-covered stones littered the canyon floor.
“I suppose,” he said finally, half listening as he untied the arms of his jacket from around his waist.
“You know,” said Aiden, peering down the dim canyon, its sheer walls imprisoning them in its depths. “It isn’t going to be easy getting back up this damn thing.”
Nicky tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Shit,” he said quietly.
Aiden gestured toward his brother’s cargo pocket. “But hey,” he said, “who says we need to come back this way? Let’s have a look at that map of yours.”
Nicky retrieved a weathered old map from his pocket; gently unfolding and holding it out in front of them. It was stained yellow with age and unfamiliar markings ran along its edges. The roughly sketched lines were primitive, like charcoal etched upon a stone wall, and the details appeared vague at best. The trail was lined with landmarks, such as streams, rock formations, and the canyon, but it lacked scale and the distance from the canyon to the etched waterfall could not be guessed.
Aiden pointed a pen-sized flashlight at the map and ran his finger along the trail, stopping at the point he supposed they were standing. “It would have been nice if this old thing would have showed elevation,” he said. “Where the hell did you get this piece of crap anyways?”
Nicky turned and jerked the map from Aiden’s hands. “Feel free to go back to the truck any time,” he said, “and I’ll go find the waterfall myself and all the gold that’s hidden there.”
Aiden chuckled. “Go back to the truck; very funny. In case you forgot our asses are stuck down here. And who sold you this map anyways? Did they feed you that line of bull?”
“Piss off,” said Nicky, focusing on the map.
Aiden threw up his arms. “Fine,” he said. “I just wish we had a better guide on this little treasure hunt of yours. I mean-,” He looked up and down the canyon. “Man, if I’d a known the terrain was going to be like this I would have printed a satellite image or at least bought a better map of the area and God damn I wish I had my jacket.”
Nicky ignored him, mumbling something under his breath while he refolded the map and gently slid it back into his cargo pocket. He then proceeded to walk down the canyon along the broken path. Aiden stood there like someone left alone to figure a riddle.
“Hey,” he said, “Where the hell you going?”
Nicky ignored him and kept walking. Aiden rolled his eyes, knowing all too well how sensitive and terribly stubborn his little brother could be.
“Ok, I’m sorry, all right. I just wasn’t planning on spending the night here, and that is exactly what will happen if we don’t figure out how the hell are we getting out of this canyon?”
Nicky stopped suddenly and turned, slipping off his backpack and dropping it to the ground. “Here,” he said. “Everything you need to ascend that path is in this pack. I am going to go scout on ahead. I’ll meet you back here in one hour. If I am not back by then, come looking.”
“Nicky-,”
“Your right, ok, you’re right. You’re always right.”
“Hay man, I didn’t-,”
“I know,” said Nicky. His voice calmed and a sense of agreement came over his face. “Look, the fact is we can’t wait until dark to try to climb our way out. I’m the idiot. Ok. I was in such a hurry to find the treasure I made a crappy knot. Kick my ass later, ok. Right now it’s too skinned and red to kick.”
With that Nicky turned and continued down the path. Aiden smiled as he watched him walk away but then suddenly remembered something and yelled out.
“Hey Nick,”
Nicky turned, seeing Aiden some distance back, his hands around his mouth like a bull horn.
“Where did you get that piece of crap map,” he said, laughing, his voice echoing through the canyon.
Nicky yelled back. “That old Blackfoot in Livingston,” he said.
Aiden thought for a second, suddenly remembering seeing Nicky talking with some ancient looking old man outside a stop-n-go the day before yesterday. He was sitting outside the entrance in a rocking chair and wore a white Stetson that shadowed his face and didn’t realize he was a Blackfoot Indian. Aiden chuckled, waving Nicky on. He watched him until he disappeared behind the canyon wall as it bent and ran to the southeast.
Upon opening the backpack, Aiden found several more ropes, various climbing gear, and a first aid kit. “You gotta be shittin me,” he said to himself, gathering up the pack and walking back to the wall.
There, he dumped the contents of the pack on the ground and fumbled through it. He looked up the rock wall looming before him and then back down at the various clamps, pulleys, and ropes and then cussed under his breath. He hadn’t a clue how to properly use it and it was likely Nicky hadn’t either. Like the previous rope it was new and still tagged. Aiden figured he must have bought the gear back in Livingston after getting that map from the old Blackfoot.
“Why do I let him talk me intothis crap,” he said to himself.
Only two days ago he was sitting comfortably in some hole-in-the-wall tavern in Livingston, enjoying a particularly cold beer with a friendly local, when Nicky walks up and says, “Want to go find a hidden treasure?” He looked up at his brother, who was standing there holding some old map, wearing a backpack, and having a wide-eyed look on his face. “Why not,” he remembered thinking. After all, they were on one of those impromptu, “Hey, let’s go drive around the country for a few weeks,” kind of vacations. No real plan, just seeing what was out there. The road had been leading them to Yellowstone, but a stop in Livingston, Montana had sent them on this unexpected detour two days earlier.
Aiden sat there feeling depressed. The canyon around him was cold and dark and the brightness hanging above him seemed miles away. He wasn’t a climber, nor was Nicky, and neither had much experience in the wilderness, especially where dangerous animals still roamed.
“I need a beer,” he thought to himself, sitting there fumbling with a pulley.
Last edited by Xirtic88 : 04-14-2008 at 03:15 PM.
Reason: Warning - Swearing
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