REGENESIS by D. Scott Dickinson

Author:D. Scott Dickinson [Dickinson, D. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40. The Land of Clouds

Blinking at reflected light streaming off the slick stone walls of the valley, the leader stretches his furry arms. He looks out from the entrance of his cave at the wide ice field flanking the glacial floe from the reach of the near mountain to the ocean below.

It has been many sleeps since the band moved into their new home, and he is thankful for its many provident advantages.

The sheer valley walls provide a multitude of high, dry caves, and every member of the band is safely domiciled in this protected place.

Both earth and sea are docile here. Where there is no fire and the ground is still.

The band’s depleted strength has been restored with the birth of the two who will replace the Old One and the hunter consumed by the mud-lurkers.

The blue-green sea provides ample bounty. Their ice-locker is so full it will be a very long while before they must hunt again.

The hunters have ranged far afield to scout any danger in the area. And have found none.

The leader has every reason to celebrate their good fortune in this place that is so much like the valley home they fled.

Still . . .

He is troubled.

The Old One is ever in his dreams. Visiting him in his sleep and beckoning him to leave this place. The alarming urgency of his ghostly gestures portend great misfortune here.

And the leader cannot shake his frequent visions of the Chosen Place they have left. Where the ancestral spirits of his band dwell forevermore.

The frantic urgings of the Old One and visions of the neatly arranged markers of the departed gnaw at his conscience and tug at his soul. Theirs is the siren song of home. Of cherished bonds and indelible memories.

Home is not where the band is, he now knows.

Home is where the band yet must go.

Only there can they consign their own spirits to a new Chosen Place.

Only there can the band be whole again.

As if confirming the leader’s epiphany, the earth beneath him . . .

Moves!

It is a temblor, and it shakes the leader to his core.

He has experienced the quaking ground before. And the ensuing cataclysm that destroyed their ancestral home. That cast the band into the wide world.

Now, that evil has followed them here!

Other members of the band, jolted awake, gather at their leader’s cave. They are instructed to collect food from the frozen larder and march quickly away from this valley.

Shouldering what food they can, the band proceed at once up the gentle acclivity sloping down from the near mountains.

The leader’s immediate objective is the mountain pass, the closest high point from the valley they are leaving.

The pass is a saddleback in the high mountain range. The majestic sierras are huge pillars reaching up to and supporting the massive, unbroken bank of clouds.

From the valley, the windswept pass looks like the sagging back of the near mountains. Bent and bowed from the billowy burden they bear.

The hunters who have approached the pass,

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