Of Gods & Grunts by Kyrell Kendrick

Author:Kyrell Kendrick [Kendrick, Kyrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

I woke up ready to take on the world. I wasn't hungry or tired, and I was in good spirits. My aches and pains were all gone.

I must have hit the sleep hard, and Arsch allowed me to rest for a full cycle because he hadn't awakened me in the night.

Arsch was a good scout and would not have fallen asleep on shift, so I knew he was just mothering me a little. I would repay the favor by letting him get a full rest too. We needed it. Plus, I felt amazing.

"Arsch!" I said in a stage whisper.

There was no reply, and I began to get worried.

"Where you at, man?" I said rhetorically. By instinct, I checked my M4 and all of my kit. Everything was there, but no Arsch.

The bottom of the caves are not slick rock. Millenia of water rushing through, crickets pooping, and dust settling has created trails of sand.

I started a cloverleaf pattern to try and tell where he had gone. I'm not a tracker, and following footsteps is a lot harder than the movies make it look, but in the sand, it's not that terrible.

My adrenaline hit me hard when I found what I was looking for. There was a puddle of wet sand with drips, showing where Arsch had taken a piss. There were some strange footprints behind where he was standing.

I cursed myself for not waking up and for letting him take the first shift. There was no way Arsch would have been taken by surprise if he hadn't been so damn exhausted.

I looked closely at the footprints.

They were nothing like I had ever seen before. Whatever creature left, it had three toes, but not like a bird, like some sort of malformed human. The inner toes were the largest, with the middle toe about three quarters the size of the largest, and the outer toe was just a tiny speck. The overall foot size was about half that of a human, but noticeably larger than a gnome.

There was no blood, no drag marks, nothing. Arsch had left under his own power.

I checked back by my area, but so no strange prints around my covey.

I guessed they didn't see light. I vaguely remembered Arsch saying something about that.

My options were pretty limited. I could wander around the caves until I died from starvation, or more likely a cricket swarm, or I could find my little buddy. OK, it wasn't like I had an option. I mean, what type of person would I be if I just left?

I followed the footprints through a series of winding tunnels. At more than one point, I thought I lost the spoor. When that happened, I just double backed, picked up the trail where I left off, and went a different way.

Two miles later and I noticed the walls were smoother, the ground more disturbed, and the signs of old tools.

Stop, look, listen, smell, or SLLS, is a tactic grunts use to get to know their surroundings or see if they are being followed.

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