Unto the Ages

>Husband Grud! Husband Grud! Husband Grud! Wake up!<

 

Grud came to consciousness with the light of the sun penetrating his eyelids and the sound of Mita shouting in his mind. When he tried to take a breath of air he felt he needed, he gaged, coughed up water, and kept coughing for the next few seconds to expel the water stuck in his windpipe.

 

And when he was more aware of his surroundings, Grud realized he was hugging something big, heavy, and leathery on top of him. When he looked down he realized it was the same thing that acted as a fallen log and attacked him.

 

Grud would have freaked out more if he was not so tired, and also because he could not feel the pulse of life from the creature.

 

Just as he was staring at the creature Mita said, >Husband awake! Feel fine?<

 

Grud released his chokehold on the neck of the long-mouthed beast and winced in pain as he tried to unwrap his legs from the body of the beast. 

 

Grud looked down at his left leg which was causing him pain, and saw that the puncture marks matched the teeth of the beast that was currently on top of him. Besides some torn flesh, the other obvious problem with the offending leg was that it was bent in the opposite direction that it was meant to bend.

 

After seeing the damage to his leg, that was when Grud’s brain registered the extent of the damage and made him truly register the pain.

 

“HHNNGGG!!!” Grud groaned as he shoved the body of the beast laying on top of him to the side and held his mangled and bent leg to support it.

 

“No Mita…*huff*... I don't think I feel fine…*huff*” Grud grunted. And after a few more seconds of trying to compose himself and really getting a look at the condition of his leg, he knew what he needed to do, and he was not going to like it.

 

‘Luckily I am no longer bleeding and there are no broken bones… I think… This is going to be extremely painful. Hopefully, this will be just like how Dhuk showed me how to relocate a shoulder. But before that, I need to check something.’

 

<Mita, can please help search around the area to see if there is anything dangerous around, I am going to try to fix myself and I may make some noise> Grud mentally said to Mita.

 

After a few minutes, Mita came back with a report <Some creatures around, mostly in trees, not look dangerous.>

 

Grud nodded and crawled his way to a nearby tree, grabbed a fallen tree branch that was slightly thinner than a spear shaft and when he reached the tree, Grud broke off an appropriate chunk and bit on it.

 

Grud then put his bent leg to the tree, took deep breaths for a few seconds to psych himself up, and kicked forward. Along with the sharp grinding sound of the lower leg popping back into its knee socket, was the crunch of Grud biting thru his impromptu mouth guard, followed by his muffled screaming with his mouth closed.

 

After giving himself a few minutes to settle down, Grud began to take stock of his situation. <Mita, how long was I asleep?> Grud asked mentally.

 

>You not respond to Mita all night.< Mita responded, which prompted Grud to apologize to her and looked up at the position of the sun.

 

‘It is late morning, the sun had not set yet when I was caught by this river beast, but it has been more than half a day since I have been separated from the expedition.’

 

Grud’s planning was brought to a stop by an audible rumbling, which made Grud look down to his belly, and realize how hungry he was. Lucky for him, there was a meal that he somehow killed laying a few meters away from him.

 

Grud tried to get to his feet only for him to wince in pain at his still tenter feeling knee joint. Grud hobbled over to examine the beast that attacked him yesterday.

 

The beast looked like a huge lizard with a long toothy snout, it is what we know as a crocodile or alligator.

 

Grud looked at it and a smile came to his face, “I don’t think anyone has seen this beast before, and it is all mine for the naming.” Grud thought about a name for the creature for a few minutes, “River Lizard?.... Long Jaw Tooth?.... Damm, I am bad at names.”

 

After feeling his stomach protesting to be fed once more, Grud decided to just name it Snapping River Lizard and proceeded to take out his stone knife to start butchering it.

 

As Grud looked for an insertion point to make the skinning easier and failed to find any, he thought to himself, ‘How in the world did I even kill this thing.’ then shrugged and started skinning it.

 

After the skinning was done and a fire was started, Grud ate the beast’s heart as an appetizer and got to cooking as he rested his healing leg.

 

When Grud butchered the neck meat of the beast, he finally got his answer of how the beast died, apparently he somehow broke its neck while it was in a chokehold.

 

After Grud was done filling his belly, he began to think of what to do next, ‘I do not know where I am, all I know is that the rest of the expedition will be heading south… maybe while I rest to heal my leg for today, I can send Mita out to look for the expedition. Let's just go with that for now.’

 

<Mita, can you go look for the expedition while I make camp and rest here for today?> Grud asked.

 

>Ok! You safe alone?< Mita asked worriedly. After a minute of assuaging Mita’s concerns, Grud waved Mita off as she flew up in the air.

 

“Well, better make myself comfortable for the rest of the day while I heal up.” Grud then proceeded to hobble around to find materials to make a shelter for himself.

 

—

 

It was mid-afternoon by the time Grud was done hobbling around to put together a shelter, but this time, instead of just a simple shelter to protect him from the elements, Grud decided to play it safe and build a shelter with full cover. 

 

Hopefully, he would be able to avoid fighting any beast attracted by the smell of the half-eaten carcass from the crocodile beast, or from himself for that matter. Grud was hoping for the rest of the crocodile beast to be his dinner.

 

But nature is rarely that kind, the fact that he was able to cook and eat half of the crocodile beast without anything coming to interrupt him was almost a miracle in itself.

 

As Grud was making the finishing touches on his shelter, he picked up the distinct smell of a predator, over the months ever since he got the enhanced sense of smell, Grud had learned to distinguish the smells of carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. And the smell approaching him right now was definitely a carnivore.

 

Grud put some pressure on his injured leg and still felt the jolt of pain, ‘Still not in a good condition to fight.’ Grud thought to himself as he quickly pulled the cover over his shelter, withdrew his knife and axe, and prepared to defend himself in case his concealed shelter was not enough.

 

‘Even if whatever that thing is does not find me, it is most likely going to steal my dinner, and I get especially hungry when I am recovering.’ Grud lamented to himself.

 

A few tense minutes of holding still later, Grud peeked thru the crack of his shelter to see what came out of the thick foliage. What he saw looked like a smaller Big Tooth Cat, but without the two huge fangs protruding out their mouths, and instead of brown fur, the beast had black fur with grey stripes going along its spine.

 

After its appearance, it did not take long to lock onto the half-eaten carcass Grud left behind and make an enthusiastic trot towards it after giving the air a few more sniffs, soon it was stuffing its face while Grud observed it.

 

The more Grud watched it eat with its back turned to him for a few more seconds, the more a voice in his head saying “I could probably take it.” got louder until he thought, ‘Yeah… it is not as big as a Big Tooth Cat… and even with my injured leg I could probably kill it easily. I mean, nowadays I can take on a Big Tooth Cat barehanded, this smaller cat should be no problem.’ Grud thought to himself as he psyched himself.

 

Coming up with the impulse plan to defend his food, Grud began to slowly crawl out of his shelter and when he was close enough, Grud dug the foot of his good leg into the dirt and waited for the cat beast to stick its head into the carcass again before pouncing.

 

When the cat beast lowered its head to take another bite, Grud prepared himself to pounce with dagger and axe in hand.

 

But just as he was about to make his move, Grud heard the sudden shifting of dirt somewhere from his left out of his peripheral vision, and the primal part of his brain started screaming danger.

 

Immediately, Grud gave up any plans of ambushing the beast in front of him and swung his axe at whatever was coming at him from the left.

 

Before his axe could hit anything, the forearm with the axe was bitten by another of the cat beast he was about to ambush.

 

‘Shit! There was another one of them.’ Grud cussed as he grunted in pain while the cat beast with his arm in its mouth was letting out muffled yowls, which naturally drew the attention of the cat beast Grud was about to ambush.

 

Grud immediately swung his knife around to jab at the temple of the cat beast that was currently biting and clawing him.

 

The knife penetrated directly into the brain of the cat beast using his arm as a chew toy, killing it on the spot. But even after death, its jaws were still clamped tight around Grud’s arm with its whole body weight on him.

 

This did not give Grud a lot of room to maneuver, especially with the other incoming cat beast aiming to bite Grud’s head.

 

The only thing Grud was able to do was tilt his head to the side and offer his right shoulder, which the cat beast gladly took a bite of.

 

The moment the bite landed, Grud was subjected to a flurry of claws raked across his body. And try as he might, with the cat beast biting his right shoulder, he could not bend his right arm far up enough to stab the cat.

 

This left Grud with no choice but to use this arm that was still being clamped by a dead cat beast. Grud dropped his axe knowing he would not be able to take a proper swing anyway and reached up his hand being weighed down by the dead cat beast.

 

Grud grabbed the head of the cat beast savaging his shoulder and dug his thumb into the cat beast’s left eye, and started tightening his grip with his considerable strength like he was about to rip off a part of the cat beast’s skull.

 

This caused the cat beast to yowl in pain, let go of Grud’s shoulder and take some distance from Grud.

 

Grud got to his feet as fast as his injured leg would allow him and locked eyes with the now one-eyed cat beast that was sizing him up.