Mark Twain
Now fully clothed in wolf and hare fur, I wondered what people would make of me. I think we would be making some interesting first impressions when we eventually made it back to civilisation if we made it back to the compass kingdoms. The clothing was fairly rudimentary, but it was functional enough for us to begin travelling again.
It was going to be a long walk.
There were a couple of reasons I wasn’t attempting to fly. I could have warmth or flight, but I couldn’t have both. It was one or the other, really in terms of mana. I could manage a short flight here and there, but attempting to keep myself warm while flying rapidly drained my mana even more. Furthermore, that wasn’t taking into account the howling winds that threatened to wrench me off course and drive me further north the only time I had attempted a short flight. It looked like we would be walking our way off the ice. Nyx was much the same and still kept safe within our clothing. Whenever we ventured forth, she chilled quickly, and flight was equally, if not completely, impossible for her.
Namir did not accept my efforts at clothing until after the Arctic Bear but insisted I cover myself first. We had turned the wolves' skins into decent boots, trousers, coats and gloves. There was even enough to create a cloak and have fur on the outside of the clothing as well as the inside. I was truly well-insulated and no longer looked quite as ridiculous as I first had. I was not going to win any awards for my fashion attempt, but the wolf and hare fur helped me blend in nicely with the ground we would attempt to traverse.
The Arctic Bear, however, did not go quite as smoothly as my first two attempts at hunting, mainly because it came after us instead of waiting its turn.
I had taken to rotating my senses in a steady arc around me to give greater depth to the distance I could cover, and it was with worry that I noticed the bear had left its own den and headed to where the wolves once lived.
“Namir, the bear is on the move,” I mentioned describing his movements.
“Might be worth creating a few defences then or at least an escape tunnel.” He said.
“Why would we be in any danger?” I asked, not understanding why it moving to where the wolves were would be any problem for us.
“We were not exactly subtle in our defeat of the wolves.” He warned.
“The track back? You think it would follow that?” I asked, concerned.
“It might, it might not. We were just passing through, but it seems to be the largest animal present, so it would consider itself the apex predator. With the wolves gone, it might feel challenged enough to attempt to drive us out of its territory.” Namir explained the possibilities.
At this distance, I could not tell its level, but as it seemed to be turning to follow our track back to our own shelter from scouting out the empty wolf den it looked like it would soon be close enough for me to tell.
I interrupted my preparations to inform Namir of the change in direction, “It’s turned east and is heading in our direction.”
“How is the tunnel coming along?” He asked. I quickly bored through the ice to create a rear exit from our shelter. Dragging our supplies along with me as I went.
“Nearly there,” I shouted back.
“Don’t go all the way through.” He cautioned. “We might not need it.”
“It’s level 24,” I replied.
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“Or we might. Make me a spear or two, and I will face it out there before it reaches us.” He requested.
A spear or two later, he left along our tracks toward the wolves' den. With the desolate nature of the endless ice, we had not taken the time to hide our tracks. A mistake we would need to remedy the next time we stopped. Or perhaps Namir had been looking forward to facing whatever we might have lured toward ourselves.
Having finished with the escape tunnel I exited our shelter to watch the clash.
The bear didn’t know what hit him, literally. With insight running, I could sense its confusion as two spears sailed out of the icy panorama to strike both thighs. It was not enough to cripple the beast but plenty enough to enrage it.
Namir stood up and gave it a target. Without hesitation, it began to run after him and toward me!
I was confused as I had watched Namir in action before and expected him to simply slit the jugular. But no, it was allowing the monster to head on after him.
“Care to have a go?” He shouted as he raced toward me.
At ten times my size and weight, I did not feel particularly inclined to engage in close-up combat with knives that would barely be the size of toothpicks to the beast barrelling down on top of us.
“No, thank you!” I screamed, throwing ice spears and spells at the unstoppable mass of meat heading straight toward us.
It was not stopping.
It appeared unstoppable.
I prepared myself to flee if my defences did not hold. I was quick and made the exit tunnel significantly smaller than the bear. It would struggle if not find it impossible to force its way through it while I would be able to run all the way down it.
I tucked Nyx away within my clothes. I would need both hands free, just in case.
Finally, it reached my hidden trench just outside our front entrance and, just like the wolves, it broke through with a sickening squelch as its own body weight drove the ice spears deeper through its body than I ever could have. Namir calmly stepped forward and dropped down into the ditch, carefully landing on its back before reaching round the bellowing bear to slit its throat, killing it nearly instantly.
I turned to the unconcerned Namir, who had leapt up to stand next to me.
“Did we have to leave it to the last moment?” I asked, incredulous that he would have had any difficulty dealing with the beast a little further from our front door.
“Did you want to carry that all the way back?” he asked. “This way, we don’t have to move it. If you throw up an ice wall or two and a roof, we can work on it here without having to move anything.” He grinned at my silence, “Cat got your tongue?”
It was kind of hard to argue against his logic, “A warning would have been nice.” I responded somewhat icily annoyed by my momentary fear and his smug face as he thought he was the cat’s whiskers.
. . .
I threw up some ice walls, and we got to work.
We had become far more proficient at skinning and harvesting the required materials by this point. It had also taken significantly longer to work on the bear’s hide but with it, we were able to finish creating enough clothing for the pair of us. Namir was also happy enough with our work to wear our attempts.
We also now had enough meat combined with the mana-intensive solar food to round out our diet and head off.
We wasted nothing, and everything was packed away, ready to set out. Nyx polished off anything too small or squishy to make use of.
There was just one last thing to take care of, and that was how we were going to carry all of this.
Namir had carried me just fine for the days I had been unconscious, but with meat, fur and bone knives to carry as well, it would be an awkward load for him to carry it all.
The solution . . . a sledge!
I had a lot of practice with growing boats from the elvish seeds I had been gifted by Lady Acacia. Now, I just had to do the same but to create a sled with the added challenge of doing so without any soil and in subfreezing temperatures too.
It was not an easy or pleasant process.
I planted my seeds in all that remained of the offal and bear, adding to that a mixture of my magically created mana-infused solar and dug up all our faecal matter to provide sufficient soil-like nutrients for the tree's growth. As I said, it was not pleasant, and the day I spent doing this, Namir decided to scout out the route ahead and patrol the territory he believed the bear and wolves had previously roamed in order to avoid the lovely aroma.
The aroma grew worse as I heated the area to provide a better temperature for the tree to grow, then began feeding it my mana and singing to grow the tree into the appropriate shape as it grew from the warming blood and waste-soaked ice mix.
I modelled my attempt at a sledge on my memories of an Inuit sledge called a Qamutiik. We would not have the dogs to pull us, but I did have Namir to pull Nyx and me. Then if we reached downward slopes, he could step up behind to help steer the sled rather than being run over. It would also have enough space for our meat, fur and bones. Also, if we ever did reach civilisation, we would look a little less weird pushing a sledge saying that we had lost our dogs rather than saying we had been shipwrecked on the endless ice and walked our way all the way across it.
Besides, who knew? Maybe we would find some more wolves we could train up on our journey.