Chapter 12: The First Chamber

Chapter 12: The First Chamber

While his leg healed, Eli drank water and tried to fashion a rope from moss-roots, to tie the club around his wrist to make climbing easier. He failed, so he ate the moss instead. He'd already finished the squash-like fruit. The moss tasted like ... well, moss. Still, trolls could eat anything--rotting flesh, molding vegetation, handfuls of clay and gravel (though he wasn't sure if his new teeth could handle those)--and he needed to stay strong.

He threw another pebble and watched the clister emerge from its den, tongue flicking.

"Over here!" he called.

The lizard crawled across the cavern toward him. Too far to see much, so he kept talking until it approached close enough to give him a better view. Then he felt himself smile. The clister still looked pretty battered, while he was almost completely healed.

"What's going to happen now," he told it, "is I'm gonna keep beating on you then running away until I finish you."

The lizard hissed and paced, and finally returned to its den. After a few minutes, he threw another pebble. He didn't speak that time, though, and the lizard searched for him for twenty minutes before leaving.

Twenty minutes later he threw another pebble. And another and another ... until the clister didn't even bother checking the noise.

Then he climbed down--one-handed--from the ledge and followed the spark across the cavern. Looking for the right spot. Every so often he threw another pebble, just to maintain the pattern. He didn't know if clisters were smart enough to notice that kind of thing, but he didn't want to find out by getting his face chewed off.

He finally found the right place: a row of thick pillars with widening bases that joined together at knee-height. He could step over them, but the beast would struggle--if it could squeeze through the gaps at all.

He swept the area with the spark. Looked okay, so he whistled once, then threw a few more pebbles.

The clister emerged from what looked like a mud puddle and raced toward the sound.

Eli stayed hidden, watching with the spark for the right moment. Then without exposing his face, he brought the club down on the base of the clister's spine.

He closed his eyes and withdrew his awareness from the spark--at least most of his awareness, as a faint link remained. Even as he slept the spark floated an arm's length above him, and a muffled part of his mind monitored his surroundings.

When he woke, the double-vision bothered him a little less ... though mostly because he'd learned to ignore his eyes, even when open. The spark worked better. His calf was almost fully-healed, too, with just a single patch of shiny skin.

He checked the chamber for the clister. He didn't bother throwing pebbles that time, he just climbed across the wall, then to the ground to grab another club--and the lizard scrambled at him from just beyond eyeshot. Sparkshot. Whatever.

That time, he didn't run.

He crouched. "C'mon, Blinky. Time to finish this."

The clister looked rough. One eye gone, tail dragging, moving with an unsteady gait. Still, its teeth were as deadly as ever.

Eli shifted his weight toward its blind side, which he'd hammered during each of their previous encounters, and the lizard immediately snapped that way--falling for Eli's feint.

He lunged forward instead, feeling the impact of the clister's heavy flank as he brought his club down in the same spot on the scaly neck that he'd slammed three times before. The clister stumbled, then slammed into a pillar.

Eli struck again, and again--and the clister fled, squirming across the chamber toward its den. Not fast enough. Eli sprinted in chase, following the spark's path, and with a two-handed swing he caved in the creature's skull.

It collapsed, but didn't stop breathing.

Not until he hit it four more times.

Then he bashed it one last time and howled in victory.