Chapter Fifty-Three: Trap (Patreon)

I wipe sweat off my brow, my breath still coming in tired pants. Feeling low in energy, I pull out some cooked meat and munch on it, putting a little of the raw stuff in front of the cubs and offering some more to Bastet. The adult raptorcat accepts it, just as tired from her own efforts.

Casting a last glance around the area, I make sure that everything is as planned. It’s a bit of a rough job, but we’re short on time as it is. Bastet sends me a feeling of warning – the reptilian bulldogs are within her detection range. As planned, I pick up the cubs from where they’ve been cuddling together in the bole of a tree and climb a little way up the slope to place them in the hollow made by three branches up at about head-height on me. Wrapping my shirt around the outside of the branches, I create a little nest that they shouldn’t fall out of without putting some effort into it. Hopefully Bastet’s warning growl is enough to make sure that they don’t try.

At least these are wild animal babies which are generally more sensitive to danger than human babies – goodness knows a human baby would probably just start caterwauling at the absolutely worst possible moment, as well as probably fall out of the tree just in front of the predator… And no, I haven’t had much experience with kids, but I’ve heard enough from colleagues talking about their toddlers’ predilection to run into traffic that I reckon my prediction is justified.

Enough wool-gathering. Time to take my position. They’re coming.

I hear the creatures crashing through the forest – subtle, they’re not. I see the thick undergrowth shaking long before I see the creatures themselves. Running out of the cave, I hadn’t had time to count them, but as they emerge from the undergrowth and hurry into the gully, I see that my estimate of seven was a bit too many, fortunately.

A spear head of three lizogs crash through the undergrowth and I see more rustling behind that indicate at least one more, maybe two. I doubt as many as three are hiding, though, due to their bulk. Their heads reach just above my knee – definitely big enough to mess me up, especially with those bone-crushing jaws. I’d best make sure they don’t touch me, then. Well, hopefully all the effort Bastet and I have put in will ensure that they don’t.

Bastet is hiding, following my plan, and so the lizogs’ beady black eyes fixate on me, standing right there out in the open. With a snarling rumble, the leader bares its teeth at me and leads the charge. The other two just behind it follow immediately, two more emerging from the bush behind.

I won’t deny it: standing there while five killing-machines run full-pelt at me makes me wet myself just a little. It’s terrifying seeing those teeth coming towards me while knowing they were biting through raptorcat bone not that long ago. Nonetheless, I stay still and do my best to project an air of confidence. I have a plan, I try to remind myself. It helps. Barely. Enough to stop me from running and ruining everything.

Two feet away from me, close enough that I can see the saliva dropping from the jaws of the beasts, the lizogs have a nasty surprise. The leader is far too close to avoid the stakes which I’ve prepared and hidden with the mud and plants covering the bottom of this narrow ravine, running straight into two of them. I couldn’t cut down anything particularly big, since the best I could think of doing was using my axe-blade as a hand-axe, so I’ve gone for quantity over quality.

For one petrifying moment, I worry that the layers of stakes are going to break under the force of that heavy charge, or that they’re just going to be pushed out of the ground and stick out of the lead lizog’s flesh while the others come to tear me apart. Fortunately, neither scenario comes to pass. None of the lizogs are dead, nowhere near it, but their charge has been stopped and the stake wall is still intact.

Also fortunately, I hadn’t been counting on my first step killing any of them, though it would have been nice. Time to spring my trap.

I haul on the bark-fibre cord I’ve sacrificed for this task and behind them, another wall of stakes woven together with vines is pulled upwards to point up at the lizogs at an angle. I’ve no real hope that this wall would stop them anywhere near as well as the one I’d planted firmly in the ground in front of me, perhaps not at all, but I don’t need to. This wall isn’t meant to kill or injure but to provide a deterrent. Hopefully the stakes properly planted on three sides of the beasts and the memory of being injured will be enough to stop them breaking away as they realise the next, and final step of my plan.

Really, Bastet is far too clever for a supposedly dumb animal, but she activates the killing bit of my trap perfectly. A rumbling crash from above marks the finale and the lizogs look up to see death descending on them. They have enough time to try to dodge, but the stake walls prove their worth as the lizogs are unable to force their way past. With a final rumbling snarl, they’re buried in the rocks I carefully balanced on the slopes either side above them. Bastet had triggered a landslide by moving the few precariously laid branches of dead wood which had been - barely successfully - holding the rocks back. Frankly, the trap is more powerful than I had anticipated and I have to take a few hurried steps back along the gully to make sure I don't get hit myself.

Bastet leaps to the ground behind the pack to make sure she’s out of the way of the rocks which are still avalanching, though the flow is petering off as the final part of my trap finishes delivering its payload. As a side-benefit, if any of the lizogs have survived the rain of death, she’ll be able to help me deal with them.

The stones – which range from the size of my fist to the size of my head, shift and roll as they settle in their new positions. Bastet and I keep a close watch on the pile and as soon as one starts moving in a way that seems counter to the pull of gravity, we creep closer.

A lizog’s head forces away a stone, looking somewhat worse for wear. Both eyes are missing completely, pulverised by a stone, and the front of its skull is caved in. I’m reluctantly impressed by its fortitude – I couldn’t have taken an injury like that and kept going. Maybe its Constitution is significantly better than mine… I'm impressed enough that I decide I'd like to try Dominating it - with its high constitution and powerful jaws, it would be a good addition to the team. Trapped and injured as it is, the Battle of Wills should be fairly simple too.

"Dominate," I say firmly, looking into the pulverised flesh where its eyes used to be. It's a sickening sight - is that its brain peaking out? When nothing happens, I repeat the Skill activation command while trying to focus on re-entering that strange space. Nada.

Perhaps that saying 'eyes are the windows to the soul' is true and that's why I have to meet their eyes to initiate a Battle of Wills? I consider trying to heal it enough to make eye contact, but frankly, I don't want to get any closer to those jaws than necessary.

In the end I just shrug and lift my mace. The lizog doesn’t long survive my Strength-driven strikes and within less than a minute, we’re back to watching for more signs of movement.

After things have been quiet for a few minutes, we spend the time necessary to dig out the rest of the lizogs. Not only do I want to make sure that there aren't any living members which might come chasing us down later, but I also want the hearts. Fortunately, it seems like the avalanche has done in the rest of the pack.

On the upside, I've been able to determine that I do get Energy from killing creatures in a trap: the Energy I've gained is too much to have come from the single creature I killed otherwise.

We also managed to kill five lizogs without losing one or more limbs, which seems to me like something to celebrate when I see the massive jaws and sharp teeth on these things. I wish I could mark the occasion with something more enjoyable than digging out the bodies and eating their hearts but that's the world I live in now: working hard to survive one encounter just means working even harder to survive the next.

Thankfully, once we’d rescued the cubs from the tree and hidden them once more in a safe spot on the ground, Bastet was willing to help me clear off the stones, just as she was willing to dig holes for the stakes and chew them into points, allowing me to concentrate on stone and wood collection and then creating my precariously balanced rocks on the slope above. Believe me, my heart rose into my throat a few times when the wind blew or stones trickled down and it seemed like my trap would be triggered ahead of time, but it all came right in the end.

By the time I’ve got the hearts from the bodies, I’m hot, tired, and desperately in need of a bath. I quickly make a small fire and cook the hearts quickly by cutting them into slices and sticking them on a spit above the fire.

“Hey, eat as much of these as you want, Bastet,” I tell her, indicating the bodies. “You’ve earned it!” She sends a wave of pleasure tinged with tiredness at me and goes over to the closest lizorg corpse, digging straight into the belly. Well, fair enough – I figure that those are probably just as or almost as dense in Energy as the hearts, but I wouldn’t dare eat them myself for fear of parasites or food poisoning or something. No need for them to go to waste, though.

When Bastet’s finished, she encourages the cubs to come forward and start chewing some of the more tender pieces too. They take to it with gusto – this clearly isn’t the first time they’ve been able to have a go at a carcass. Just as well, I suppose, since I don’t know where I’d get milk for them otherwise.

Finally, everyone is sated and I’ve been able to cook my hearts well enough to risk eating them. There’s still a good three and a half lizog carcasses hanging around, so I stick them in my Inventory – with four meat-eaters to be responsible for now, I’m going to need to up my game on hunting. Maybe Bastet can help me with that? I still have several days of labour before I’m likely to be able to finalise my weaponry situation, after all. Perhaps then I’ll actually be in a position to hunt for Kalanthia too – needing to provide her with enough meat would no doubt significantly increase the speed of my Energy collection.

Tucking the cubs back into their chest sling, I start walking, Bastet prowling next to me, her ears swiveling every which-way. The cubs, their bellies full, don’t take long to drop off to sleep and I can’t stop the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I look at their sleepy adorableness.

As I walk through the forest, my own eyes flicking one way and then the next, ready for another attack, my mind chews on something I hadn’t even realised I was considering until it spat forth a theory which made me temporarily freeze. What killed the raptorcats, considering how powerful they are? What….or who?

An icy certainty creeps into my belly. There can’t be that many creatures powerful enough to take on a full pack of raptorcats on their home-turf and walk away without significant injury. And I know it was without significant injury because Bastet had run away when she was injured instead of going for the jugular on an incapacitated foe. Clearly the firepower was simply too overwhelming.

So, that raised the question again, what, or who, would be powerful enough to do that? Who was out yesterday hunting to fill up for another three day fast? And if Kalanthia was the culprit, how will she react when I turn up on her doorstep with a surviving adult and three cubs? Heck, how will Bastet react, meeting her pack’s killer?