Trek For Survival

The elephant had leaned down so they didn"t have to climb much, but the s.p.a.ce was really meant for storage, with a sleeping area outlined with blankets in the middle. Getting all of them to fit only worked because he didn"t have anything to really trade at the moment.

"You"re lucky my ride here is empty, otherwise you would have been out of luck. We hit a nasty snag on the way here from the orcs that pretty much wiped out my stock, so I"m really hoping you get a lot of things carved to get me back up and running," he continued once they had all gotten somewhat settled, and the elephant had stood back up.

They got used to the back and forth movement of the skeleton beast pretty quickly, and Mikey even managed to fall asleep leaning against one of the ribs. Gia was of the same opinion as Carla, in that she didn"t really want to touch anything that should be rotting on the ground somewhere. She did have to grudgingly admit, it did travel faster than she could walk, which would come in handy traveling across the gra.s.slands.

"How exactly does this skeleton work?" asked Vonn as the gathering place drew closer.

"This skeleton was a gift from one of the witch doctors in an orc tribe that doesn"t exist any more. My buddies and I saved their tribe from stampeding elephants. They were just going to let us live, instead of killing us since we were human, but another orc tribe showed up at that point, and we were able to play them off each other to get this beauty," explained Sudar.

"Wait, so they had an animated elephant skeleton just standing around to give to you?" asked Gia incredulously. What kind of orcs were they?

"Oh no!" laughed Sudar. "You see, the two tribes hated each other. When the second tribe showed up, and made a big deal about the first tribe being saved by humans, we took our chance to play up how big and important we were. Afraid of losing face to the second tribe, the first one agreed with us, making us out to be big heros. The second tribe wasn"t buying it of course, so I said that the first tribe was going to reward us with something befitting our ranks as traders and heroes. The second tribe laughed of course, and asked the first tribe what that was going to be, expecting something small and insignificant. Well, the first tribe didn"t have much in the way of anything. The elephant herd had basically destroyed everything they had. I"m not sure, but I almost think the second tribe had something to do with the stampede."

"But how did they come up with animating a skeleton?" asked Vonn.

"Well, since they didn"t have anything to give us physically, I laughed and joked that perhaps they could provide me with a ride to be able to travel around the area in order to trade with all of the orc tribes. I was bluffing hard core by this point, and I"m pretty sure my buddies wanted to strangle me, because all they wanted was to get away from all of the big scary orcs before we were pummeled, but I was on a role and I was not about to back down. I had put on a strong front and needed to see it through, or they might have killed me just for the fun of it.

"The first tribe huddled together, and their leaders began to talk back and forth, trying to come up with something that would not only be super impressive, but would drive away the second tribe. You see, the second tribe was there to loot anything that might have survived the stampede, and it was obvious to everyone they were a larger tribe than the first. This is very common among the orcs.

"They finally decided to sacrifice one of their best hunters in order to allow the witch doctor to animate the skeleton and give me a ride suitable for my hero status."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Gia, holding up a hand as they reached the trading ground and stopped outside the area reserved for Sudar. "Why would they sacrifice one of their people for this? Much less one of their best hunters?"

"I"ll tell you later," said Sudar as several lizardfolk headed their way. "I need to trade for now. Care to climb down so I can reach what little I have left?"

Waking Mikey, they all climbed down out of the elephant, and sat in the shade underneath it as the lizards crowded close.

"Sudar, you bring humans for trade now?" asked one of the lizards looking over at them curiously.

"Idiot! Those are protected humans! The leaders have declared them unfit to eat," snapped another lizard that Gia thought may have been one of the males in the race a while ago. Was he the one that carried Carla?

"Unfit to eat? Why?" asked the first lizard, looking at them puzzled.

"I don"t know," grumbled the second. "I just know that if you eat them, Slovak with eat you."

"Slovak? Fine. Whatever,�� grunted the first, turning back to Sudar with his handful of trades.

Gia relaxed finally, as the lizards conducted their trades, ignoring her and her family after that. By late that evening all of them had finished and disappeared back into the trees with their new treasures.

"We"re probably going to wait to leave until tomorrow," said Sudar, climbing down out of his elephant and stretching his legs. "I like to let the lizards have time to come meet us, if they don"t get a chance the first day. Do you have a tent or something to sleep in? I don"t have room in the elephant for all of you to sleep in it with me."

"We have a tent," said Vonn, taking it out of his bag and starting to unroll it.

"Do you stop to rest every night?" asked Tom, glancing up from his carving to look at him, before turning back to the tiny elephant that was forming under his careful hand movements.

"No, so, we"ll probably have to figure something out," said Sudar, rubbing his s.h.a.ggy hair.

"Some of them can ride with me?" suggested Geth, approaching them and glancing over towards Gia.

"Oh, I don"t think that will be necessary," laughed Sudar, waving a hand at Geth. "My elephant is practically empty. Besides, you probably filled up with those hides I saw the lizards carrying over."

"I did get a lot of hides," muttered Geth, glancing back at his own skeleton.

Gia stepped over closer to Vonn, using him as a shield, as Geth drew closer, and noted the scowl that came over Geth"s face. Vonn noticed her discomfort and stood up straight, glancing over at Geth as he walked by and giving him a nod of acknowledgement to encourage the man to keep walking. Once he had pa.s.sed and disappeared into the bushes, Sudar walked up to them.

"My friend Geth doesn"t normally pay so much attention to someone. I don"t think he will actually do anything, but just in case, please don"t place yourselves in a position where any of you is alone with him, okay?" said Sudar quietly, keeping half an eye on the trees Geth had disappeared into. "I would think the most he would do would maybe show himself off to the ladies here, but otherwise he"s harmless."

"We don"t want any trouble, Sudar. We are just grateful you are willing to allow us an opportunity to get home faster. It would be very difficult for us to walk by ourselves across this expanse of gra.s.sland," said Tom.

"Well, if you change your minds on traveling with me, because of him, I"ll understand. If you do though, I would recommend traveling around along the edge of the mountains, rather than trying to travel through the middle. There isn"t enough water in the plains for you to be able to make it, without an animal of some kind carrying a lot of it. We will be stopping by a river not far from here to stock up before heading out tomorrow. Even the orcs aren"t able to travel the routes we take because of the lack of water."

"Thank you for the advice," said Vonn softly, as Geth reappeared, glancing back over their way before heading back to his elephant.

Gia worried about what might happen if they ran into trouble with Geth, despite the rea.s.surance from Sudar. Geth just seemed like trouble to her. Hopefully it wouldn"t be an issue and they would arrive at the orc trading grounds soon.