Message-ID: <34676asstr$1010884202@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: X-Original-Path: not-for-mail From: mandil_k@hotmail.com (mandil) X-Original-Message-ID: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Jan 2002 22:36:41 GMT X-ASSTR-Original-Date: 12 Jan 2002 14:36:39 -0800 Subject: {ASSM} Masters of the Arches chapter 7 Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 20:10:02 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: kelly, hecate Masters of the Arches by Mandil Chapter 7 "I was big afraid. Me though Victor dead." The voice was very clear and he was able to tell that it was Nika talking to him. He then remembered the raft, the rapids, and the falling sensation. How could they be still alive after that fall he thought? Was it possible to survive such an ordeal? "What happened? Where are we?" "We are on big, big river. I thought you dead." Vincent managed to turn his head slowly, everywhere he looked there was water. They were on a large body of water either a lake or even the see. "Tell me, does the water taste salty?" "Water is bad, not good for drinking. Nika did try and was sick." "No, you mustn't drink that water, we are on a sea. Why didn't you push the raft toward the shore earlier before we got so far onto the sea? " But he didn't give her a chance to explain. When he tried to move, he felt a lot of pain in his leg and he couldn't move it. Instead, he asked her if his leg was broken. "Yes, leg broken. Very bad". She then went on to add. "But Nika fix it now, you will be well soon." With her help, he managed to get into a sitting position. The pain was almost unbearable. When he looked down at his right leg, he saw that it was broken indeed and the bone just below the knees must have pierced the skin since there was a long ugly gash there. She had placed half a dozen of her arrows tied with a length of rope around his leg. Vincent realised that there was nothing else she could have done. It might heal properly given time, but he doubted very much that it would ever have enough strength for him to ever walk again properly. Nika explained what had happened after he had passed out. Both of them had fallen off the raft before they reached the bottom of the fall. It was because of this fact that they were both alive now. Otherwise they would have struck the logs of the raft and been killed instantly. When her head finally came out of the water, she was within an arms reach of the raft, which had miraculously fallen right side up with their supplies still intact on it. She then noticed that their raft had partly broken in two parts and it had now only one rope holding it together as two of the logs had opened up thus creating a wide separation. This was a real danger for their supplies that risked at any moment to fall through the opening. She was then able to grab the end of one of the logs and she did hold on to the raft. The waters were now calm and since she wasn't seriously hurt, she was able to pull herself onto the half-broken raft. But while doing so, she felt the rope around her waist pulling on her. Remembering that he was still tied at the other end she immediately pulled him toward her, then at the expense of a lot of her energy she was able to pulled him on the raft after many long minutes of great effort. Their supplies were her next preoccupation. Since they had taken the precaution of tying them up securely, everything seemed there but in great danger of falling through the ever increasing crack caused by the increasing separation of the two logs. It took her a while to tie both halves together and close the split in the raft. When she checked to see if anything was missing, she discovered that all of their smoked meat was gone but everything else was there. Only then did she pay attention to Vincent's leg. Before she could do anything about it, the raft emerged on the large body of water and the current carried it away from the shore. Having lost the two long poles to push it, she was helpless. Gradually she lost sight of the shoreline and this had happened a day and a half ago. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and Vincent although in great pain, was still realistic enough to understand how precarious their situation was. There could be all sorts of danger on this sea, from high winds to underwater creatures that could overturn the raft. That was not taking into account the winged creatures such as the giant condors they had seen earlier. They were in great danger and the sooner they could get to land, the better their chances of survival would be. Throughout the night, his fever was very high and he became delirious. The fever persisted for most of the following day also. When he was conscious again, it was dusk of their second day at sea. He noticed that Nika looked very tired and upon talking to her, he learned that she had been awake during all that time so as to keep an eye on him. She said that twice he had almost rolled overboard while he was delirious with the fever. So there was a need to keep a constant eye on him As soon as he realised how exhausted she was, he told her he was much better and he made her lie next to him. Barely a few minutes later she was sound asleep. His leg was still hurting him a lot and he thought that it was a good sign, had there been no pain it could have meant that there was gangrene developing. The sea was calm and a very light wind was blowing from the west, it was just enough to cool them and make the raft move a little over the water. While Nika slept on the half-soaked sleeping bag, he examined her beautifully shapely breasts in the starlight. She would have been a beauty queen on his world and while she was breathing regularly next to him, he let his hand stroke her hair. They were both pulled out of their sleep in the middle of the morning by a spray of cold water all over their half naked bodies. The wind had greatly increased and the sea was responding to it with five and six foot waves. They immediately set themselves to the task of securing all of their supplies. Vincent even used the remaining rope to tie the logs of the raft more securely. By mid afternoon the wind got worse and he was no longer sure if the raft would remain in one piece for much longer. But it did, and all of that night the wind blew and the waves pounded the raft and sent showers of cold water over its two occupants. On the morning of the fourth day, the wind died down completely. When the sun came out, they both fell into a deep sleep since all through the night they had been rocked by the sea and sprayed by the waves. They slept until past noon and they felt much better after that. They had been at sea for four and a half days now and their water supply consisted of only half of one of the transparent plastic bottles he had brought. Before leaving his cottage he had filled from his well a couple of two litre bottles that used to contain soft drinks and just before they got on the turbulent waters he had filled them again from the river. If they were very careful, what was left of the water would last two more days but after that, they would suffer from thirst and dehydration of course. Even though his leg was still very painful, it did seemed to be healing well. But whether he would walk again on it remained to be seen, Nika had done a superb job of resetting the bone and if he ever walked again it would be because of her fast intervention. They watched the horizon for the following two days and there was always one of them awake during the night, but they did not see any sign of land. Then the last of the water was gone and they knew that the end would be near if they did not get to fresh water soon. That night it rained. The water came down in sheets and they were easily able to fill both bottles using as a collector one of the plastic bags in which the food had been placed. They remained on the raft for two more days before they finally saw land. Vincent figured that they had been at sea for nine days by then. Judging by their rate of approach toward shore, the current was very fast, and it took them only an hour from the time they saw the land for the first time until they were able to set foot on solid ground with all of their possessions. While they were getting nearer to the shore, Vincent noticed the abundance of trees near the shoreline and the luxuriant vegetation everywhere. Far in the background, they could see a low range of mountains covered with trees. As for the growth near the shoreline, it consisted of unknown plants to him; even Nika didn't recognise most of them. With the forward momentum of the raft, they came to rest on the white sand of the beach. The clear sea water was only a couple of feet deep there and it took Nika only a few minutes to carry all of their supplies ashore while victor was busy removing the ropes that were holding the logs together. With Nika's help and while enduring much pain, he was able to reach the first of the trees where she had already deposited their supplies. When he looked back in the direction of the raft, he saw only five logs that were being scattered here and there on the beach by the movement of the sea. Anyone seeing them would only see a few tree trunks that had been washed ashore and would think nothing more of it, at least that was what Vincent was hoping. As soon as they were well under the cover of the trees, Nika went looking for a suitable place where they could spend the night. Neither of them had any idea as to what to expect in this place, and of course, they weren't willing to take the chance of remaining in the open during their first night in this new land. Even though Nika searched everywhere for a suitable place where they could lie down in relative safety, she saw nothing but trees and rocks. After an hour of looking for a safer spot, the best she came up with was under a tree where there was a recently fallen tree trunk on one side and a small stream on the other side. It was very painful for Vincent to walk there but he did, and he even carried his knapsack too. As soon as they were seated on the ground, they ate the last of the meat then both of them fell in a deep sleep, being too exhausted to be on their guard for predators. The following morning Nika went looking further away for a better place where they could wait for Vincent's leg to heal. She seemed very confident that it would not take many days for his leg to heal properly and this was bothering Vincent since he knew otherwise. She came back in mid -afternoon carrying a big bird that she had killed with an arrow. "Nika found place to stay, we go there." She was pointing in the direction she had just come. "Yes we will, but first we will cook that bird and eat, if someone detects the smoke of our fire, we will be gone by the time they get here, I hope." For the first time in a dozen days, they ate a warm meal and Victor was able to make himself a cup of hot coffee. They then undertook the long walk to the place Nika had discovered. It was about a mile further into the dense jungle-like forest and by the time they got there Vincent's leg was extremely painful. He had made use of a stick to help him support his weight but the repeated stress on his healing leg was not very recomended and it did increase his level of pain. It was a small space between two large rocks with a couple of trees growing closely on one of the open sides. On the other open side there was a fallen tree with bushes growing densely there. He wondered how she could have discovered that spot in the first place since it was completely hidden from all sides. Once he got well in-between the rocks, he realised that one of the large rocks had a deep depression that could act as roof over their head if it did rain. Nika went hunting every other day while they remained there. After 12 days, Vincent's leg was able to support his weight for a short while and he could walk around without much pain. Even the scar where the skin of his leg had been punctured was completely healed and there were no longer any marks to indicate that the bone had perforated the skin. This Vincent could not accept since he knew that no herbs, no medications and no treatments whatsoever could erase all the traces of a skin scar and do it so quickly at that. It then occurred to him that there was something about this place. In the last couple of days, he had also noticed a bothering pain in his mouth. When he passed his tongue over his gums where he had a missing tooth at the back of his mouth, he discovered that there was the point of a new tooth sticking out. It was in the process of piercing his gum, just like it would happen to toddler. He had to know more. Since they had plenty of time to talk he began to ask Nika more questions about her world. It was plain that she couldn't understand the concept of getting old. To listen to her, one would think that she had never seen anyone older than he was. At first, he thought that all of her relatives as well as the people she knew must have died before they had had the chance to get older, but even then she was bound to know or have heard of her grand parents. He next tried to make her tell her age. But he soon discovered that the concept of a year was completely unknown to her. So far he had seen no indication that there were seasons in this place, therefore she was certainly not familiar with the length of time that a year represented. Furthermore he had never seen a moon at night in the heaven; thus, this method of measuring time was out of the question too. The only length of time that she knew was the day, so he got an idea. "Each day that Nika has ever lived is a grain of sand. Now take some grains of sand and place them in my hand so that there are the same number of grains as the number of days you have lived." She looked at him for a few seconds, then she took a handful of sand and she let some of it slip through her fingers. She examined what was left and again she let some escape. Vincent could see that she was trying to evaluate what she had in her hand. Again she did release more sand. She then looked at him and she extended her hand toward him. When he opened his hand to receive the sand she had in her closed fist, he was stunned. There were much too many grains of sands; judging by what he had in his hand, she must have been a few hundreds of years old. But worse still, he did believe her. ( end of chapter 7) -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+