Chapter Sixty-Four: Tough and Chewy (Patreon)

When I realise the loud noise was just a pot exploding, I grimace. One item bites the dust. Let’s hope for not too many of those. It sure shows how keyed up I am that a noise the equivalent of a car back-firing is enough to almost give me a heart attack.

Mind you, at least I’m not the only one shocked: all five of the felines - or whatever they are - have also leaped to their feet and are either staring at the source of the noise (the cubs), or looking around suspiciously for any danger (the adults). When they realise that there is no danger and it’s just my strange hot thing that’s caused the issue, they look at me with disgruntlement.

“Sorry,” I apologise, feeling embarrassed for some reason. “False alarm.” We all settle back into the relaxed poses we were in previously. The cubs were tussling over something I can’t see from this angle, and the adults were enjoying the last of the sun. At least, that’s what they were doing until my pot exploding put them on full alert.

I continue my processing of the sinew, pleased with its condition: I should be able to make a decent bowstring with the longer bits, and use the shorter bits to attach feathers and arrowheads to arrows. I’ll need a lot more of both, but this is only about a third of the sinew I have. Plus, I have other corpses I haven’t dismembered yet which might have more. All supplies considered, I should be able to complete my armour fairly soon too.

Actually, on the subject of corpses… Tucking away the sinew I’ve processed so far and returning the pieces which are not quite dry enough to pound, I go over to the lizog corpses that are sitting in a shady spot not far from the cave. I wrinkle my nose as I get close – almost two-day old corpses smell pretty rank.

The raptorcats have done a number on the bodies, but they’ve mostly torn at the meaty bits on the body and haunches, leaving the areas with the most sinew reasonably intact. I doubt that’s a coincidence – sinew is tough and chewy, not the kind of meat most carnivores would bee-line for if they had the choice.

I slice away the sinew off each lizog corpse, then pull out a couple of other bodies to process, figuring that I might as well use my time wisely. This includes the mini-triceratops which has surprisingly short ones considering its size. Maybe it’s because it didn’t seem particularly flexible? Once I’ve processed the bodies into raw meat and other constituent parts, I’ve managed to clear up my Inventory a fair amount. Fortunately, several types of meat seem to stack: carnivores seems to be one accepted category, as does pure herbivores. It’s the omnivores which seem to cause an issue, often needing separate slots even from other omnivores. Why? I don’t know, though would hazard a guess that the nutrients in the meat are sufficiently different.

By the time I’m done all my butchering, I desperately need a bath and the sun is once more near to touching the horizon. It’s amazing how quickly the days go, despite how much longer they are than the days on Earth. Perhaps it’s partly because once the sun goes down, I go to bed, whereas at home I would have stayed up several hours after the sun went to bed. Here, when that requires me to use more fuel for light and then be too tired to wake up with the sun the next day, it’s a bad idea all round.

My night is a bit disturbed. Although I sleep, I wake up the next morning feeling barely rested and like I’ve been running all night in my dreams. Which, considering what I’ve been doing recently in real life, I probably was doing in my sleep.

After a quick breakfast of meat and potato-replacement – the taste of which is definitely getting old – I head into the forest with Bastet and the cubs. Although I considered leaving the three babies behind, I don’t feel comfortable asking Kalanthia to look after them – or asking Bastet to leave the remains of her pack with the creature that killed the rest of them. I mean, Bastet might not be bothered, but I’m kind of bothered on her behalf, illogical as that might seem. All I can hope is that the two of us working together can keep the cubs safe: I’ve learnt my lesson about going out without my most combat-capable Bound accompanying me.

So, the cubs are with us, slung once more across my chest. There may be better ways of carrying them, but I’m reluctant to put them on my back as ambush predators tend to target that. At least on my front I can see the attack coming and do my best to avoid or deflect it. As long as they don’t wriggle too much, it’s OK. When I have my armour, I may have to rethink the arrangements, but I’ll figure it out when I get there.

I’m actually a little excited to go hunting with Bastet by my side – the natural killing machine which so terrified me when I was the pack’s prey is now on my team, terrifying my enemies.

We walk through the forest carefully. I activate both Fade and Stealth where possible, but Fade is of limited effectiveness when I’m not walking at a snail’s pace. Plus, I reckon the wriggling cubs on my chest make it more difficult for me to fade into the background.

For all that, we’re not attacked. The forest is actually pretty quiet – perhaps it’s Bastet’s presence which is making the local fauna hide since I still see plenty of evidence of the animals’ passage.

Eventually, we land on some tracks which raise Bastet’s interest. She sends me a wave of emotion that I can only identify as anticipation-focus-thoughtfulness. Along with the feeling, she sends a picture of a small herd of...something. Honestly, I have no point of reference for them. I’d say they were like ostriches, except that they don’t have any wings and they have a long tail which counterbalances their long neck. Actually, perhaps they’re a bit of a mix between an ostrich and a diplodocus, though their necks are nowhere near as long as the prehistoric dinosaur’s was supposed to be.

Along with the image comes a sense of warning – just like the ostriches of my home world, these creatures can also pack a hefty kick or slam with their tails or necks. If I had my bow, I’d feel a lot better about picking a few off; as I don’t, I’m going to have to use a bit more strategy.

Following the tracks, I pay more attention to Stealth, noticing that Bastet seems to have something similar by the very fact that I don’t notice her for elongated periods of time. She seems to come and go in my awareness, though not if I touch the Bond. I’m briefly distracted by the realisation, though it’s almost self-evident: if the holder of the Bond couldn’t find his Bound when they are in Stealth or invisible – if there is such a thing – it wouldn’t be great.

By the time we start catching up to the herd – or flock, or whatever the correct collective noun would be for strange ostrich-diplodocus cross-breeds – I can actually hear them. They’re making an odd honking noise, with clucks and, of all things, purrs interspersed. It’s the first time I’ve heard a group of animals here so clearly communicating, and doing so audibly. Maybe that’s because most of the time I’ve spent near groups of animals, they’ve been hunting me. And I haven’t really encountered many groups of prey animals. Not up close, anyway.

Once more, I’m not keen on actively choosing to enter a fight with the cubs strapped to me: although they’re in the most defensible position there, I’d rather not have to defend them, and for sure they reduce my ability to throw myself around since I really don’t want to fall on them and, you know, flatten them.

It’s a risk to leave them on their own too, but not great choices here. Considering the possibility of stampeding ostridocuses, I figure that the ground is not the safest place and once more strap them up in the tree. I try to use my shirt to create a little nest – one of those that completely surrounds the chick on all sides – and cross my fingers that the cubs won’t find a way to either wriggle out of it or tear it to pieces in the few minutes I’ll be gone. Frankly, with Trouble there, anything could happen.

Cubs tucked away out of trouble – no, Trouble, that’s not an invitation – Bastet and I decide on our strategy. It’s not complicated: we don’t have the resources for complicated. If I could, I’d put a few traps on one side of the clearing and chase them all at it but as it is… Something to think about later. Traps could seriously reduce the amount of time I have to spend hunting if I can find the right places to put them. Plus, the extra Energy gain would be very useful.

Anyway, no traps, and no time to go and set them up, so our strategy is simple. I enact the first bit, pulling rocks from my pockets that I had just put there from my Inventory and throwing them at the closest ostridocuses.

I’m aiming to distract, frighten, and hopefully injure some of the herd. I seem to succeed in at least the first two aims as the herd goes into a tizzy. They don’t seem to know what to do with flying rocks and the closest herd members start running around aimlessly in the small area between their herd-mates. The further ones look over, visibly distressed, but not actually doing anything at the moment. That will soon change.

Bastet leaps in, a whirling tornado of death and injury as she puts her claws and teeth to good use. She slashes at one neck on the way to grabbing and biting at another, leaping at a third just as she avoid the kicks and swipes which are heading her way. When I’m confident I won’t hit her, I throw rocks at the ostridocuses, doing my best to keep them off balance and prevent uninjured members from going to the defence of the injured ones.

Leaping out of the fray, Bastet engages her Stealth – or whatever her version is called – and then jumps back in from a different angle, attacking several more previously uninjured ostridocuses.

I keep throwing rocks and land some lucky blows, my aim improving with practice. I can definitely notice the difference of my improved Dexterity – even in comparison to the last time I threw rocks, my accuracy is much better, as is my judgment of distance. Wait, is that last linked to Dexterity or Constitution? A battle-honk from the fray ahead of me draws me back to the moment: I can ponder those kinds of questions when my Bound is not in the middle of an attack.

It doesn’t take much more to break the nerve of the ostridocuses. The combined attacks of flying rocks of death and a raptorcat tearing at them tooth and claw are too much for the herbivorous birds to cope with. The fear communicates itself throughout the herd, even those members which were too far away from the action to really realise what was going on turning tail and running.

With an odd swaying, though speedy gait, the ostridocuses disappear into the trees as quickly as possible. Now to clear up as many of the injured survivors as possible. Together, we make quick work of the majority of the limping and staggering ostridocuses which were victims of our attack. A couple were only lightly injured and manage to follow the rest of the herd with little trouble, but by the time the clearing falls silent, there are bodies all around.

Before starting the processing, I quickly head back to the tree with the cubs tucked into its junctions of branches. My heart is in my mouth as everything that could have gone wrong plays like a movie in my head. We were only away for a short time, perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes, but in this world where minutes or even seconds can be the deciding factor, I can’t help but worry.