The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]He walked side-by-side with Aerose for several miles uneventfully until they crested the first rise. Then Aerose sprang into action, slipping an arrow from his quiver, mounting his bow and firing in one fluid motion. The missile arced high through the air and pinioned a creature to the mat of thick moss. Aerose grinned triumphantly and double timed over to his kill.

It was a large ferret-like creature with dull gray fur and an extraordinarily long snout. Its rat-like eyes protruded to an extreme, appearing to actually lay across his face instead of being embedded in sockets.

Aerose made quick work of the animal, pulling his knife – made of some type of polished bone, Ryan speculated – and slicing through his jugular. Then he field dressed the game and tucked its tail into his belt.

“What animal is that?” Ryan asked, more for the sake of having something to say than for any other reason.

Aerose looked at him strangely, as if he had fallen off of a turnip truck, then answered tersely, “geesole.” Then he smiled again and nodded, “for our supper.”

'Lovely,' Ryan thought, 'do fries come with that?' but said instead, “good.” And they continued on their way.

As they traveled the vegetation adorning the mossy carpet changed a bit. The small wiry bushes began to give way to a heavier bush. This one had impressively large, thick branches that splayed out horizontally across the meadows, like diminutive oaks. Their leaves were large, like those of banana trees back home, and drooped to the ground.

Catching on that Ryan was new to his world, Aerose pointed to one of the bushes. “Ketterflek,” he announced. “We use it to make our bows and arrows.”

Ryan nodded in acknowledgment and they trod away across the swale. Each new trough in the terrain now seemed to hold a different variance of plant-life. The next was no exception, Ryan was treated to a bizarre scene. Strange purplish basketballs dotted the tiny hollow, as far as the eye could see. Aerose must have noticed his guest staring for he pointed to one.

“Mezr'n. Good to eat.” And he went straight to one of the huge mushrooms, for that is what Ryan had decided they resembled most. He made a stroke with his knife close to the ground and lifted the bulbous thing into Ryan's arms. “Carry this.” Ryan nodded absently. What else was he going to say? The guy had a knife.

After the next rise they could see smoke on the horizon. Its appearance seemed to cause a quickening in Aerose's pace as Ryan had some trouble keeping up with him now. Up ahead, between them and the smoky horizon he could make out a herd of some type of creature. He looked to see if Aerose was mounting his bow. He was not.

As they got closer Ryan could see they were goat-like animals with long black fur, sprouting long flattened horns from their foreheads. He cast his eyes to the knife in Aerose's belt. It suddenly seemed likely that that is what the blade was made of.

Suddenly a boy rose from the ground, waved and shouted excitedly. His host waved back, laughed and shouted something that Ryan couldn't quite understand. He elbowed the Earth man.

“He will go tell his mother we have a guest,” at which Ryan realized the boy must have been Aerose's son.

“I am looking forward to it,” he assured the hunter and they continued on...