39 – Pika Chew

Growing up on Earth, Jonny never knew how good he had it. Even when he had to go up north during the winter for whatever reason, and he thought things couldn’t get much worse, he still always had modern amenities to save him. Between sprawling cities full of easy shelter, modern heating systems, salted roads, and even those little pocket hand warmers, he was never more than a few seconds away from warmth, and rarely had to worry about losing his footing on ice.

That was not so in the mountains. For some reason, no one was setting up inns out here, and there weren’t even any trails, let alone salt to keep the ice away. Not that he would have used salt for that if he had it. As much as he liked meat, he never realized how much better it tasted with salt until now.

The only clothes Jonny had were the ones he had been wearing when the assassins showed up at the orphanage. They were warm, and designed for the winter, but they weren’t designed for this. Igrette had taught him how to push mana into his skin to insulate himself, but whenever they went without fire for too long, he would start shivering.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Not even close. On top of all the usual environmental issues that came with traveling through an unmapped mountain range in the winter, there were a bunch more when you factored mana into it.

First of all, unlike the relative stability of the mana down closer to sea level, the mana here was more like the wind, yet somehow more fickle. One second, there would be so little it almost felt like it had vanished entirely, and the next, it would arrive in a gust, denser than the stone circle near the orphanage. Sometimes, there were magic beasts riding the gusts. Usually, they were more passive, floating around the two humans, but there had been times where their relatively peaceful walks had turned into desperate scrambles as birds and bats and once even albino flying squirrels decided they looked tasty.

Of course, there were also mana wells like the stone circle, and most were actually even more effective than that one, but Igrette and Jonny had done their best to steer clear of these. Without any humans to cull them, every single mana well was a nest of dangerous beasts, all of whom were extremely territorial. If Igrette was in top form, none of them would have posed a threat. The strongest that they had encountered were fourth layer, which were well beyond what Jonny could handle, but a non-issue for a full-power Igrette.

Unfortunately, Igrette was not full-power. She tried not to show it, but the wound on her side was causing her a lot of trouble. Whenever the beasts did attack, she remained a largely stationary target, letting them come to her and cutting them down when they did. She walked with a limp and made Jonny do all the manual labor. Not that he minded, but the fact that she never got up after sitting down told him all he needed to know about her condition.

Still, despite it all, Jonny often found himself having fun. He might have left the safety of the orphanage behind, but he had also left its restrictions behind as well. He still had to watch his mouth a bit, because Igrette didn’t like it when he cursed, but he was more free to speak his mind than he had been, and without the other children to wonder why he was getting special treatment, Igrette could talk to him like an adult too.

Even better, he was finally getting plenty of fighting experience. He knew how to fight back on Earth, and he knew how to use his body with mana, but the opportunities to actually put those two things together were extremely limited back at the orphanage. Here, not only were battles plentiful, but Igrette was more than happy to let him take the lead against foes he could handle.

“They attack in pairs,” called Igrette from somewhere behind him.

Jonny gave a slight nod of acknowledgement, but never took his eyes off his opponents. If he was back on Earth, he would have felt stupid about taking a fight with literal rodents so seriously, but he had seen what these things could do, and he was not going to take any risks.

Igrette had called them pikas. Jonny thought that was stupid, since they looked more like short-eared rabbits than electric rats, but it was her word, not his. There were seven of them, each slightly larger than the average house cat, and their malevolent, beady black eyes were focused on him. They didn’t look dangerous, but Jonny and Igrette had watched a group of them tear a bear to pieces just the other day. They weren’t even carnivorous, but when something they deemed an enemy got to close, they turned into angry, furry piranhas.

Jonny wasn’t sure about fighting off something like this, but Igrette was, because when they accidentally got too close to this pack’s territory, she had backed off, telling him to take care of it.

It was just barely beginning, but Jonny could already tell this wouldn’t be like any other fight he had been in. The pikas weren’t human-shaped, so that already put them outside his area of expertise, and even worse, they were small and numerous. All the beasts he had fought until that point were larger and solitary, so this was completely uncharted territory.

After a few more seconds of sizing up, the pikas decided not to delay any further. Jonny didn’t notice any signal, but as if they had planned it, two pikas leapt at him from opposite sides, both with their fangs aimed at his throat. He jumped back, and they missed, but they hadn’t even hit the ground when a second pair leapt at him.

This time, he went to the side, letting one fly by, while trying to catch the other with an uppercut. It almost worked, except the pika reacted more quickly and effectively than Jonny expected, meeting his fist with its legs, and using the force of the blow to launch itself up into the air. Between its jump, and his punch, it went absolutely soaring in a way that would have been funny if Jonny wasn’t so annoyed at how effectively it had negated his punch. It probably wouldn’t even be hurt by the landing, with how much snow there was around.

Another pair of pikas jumped at him, and a second pair right after them. The first aimed for his throat once again, while the second went for his legs. Not wanting to deal with all that, he just jumped backward, and when he did, the remaining third pair of pikas jumped at him.

He sidestepped again, and not wanting to repeat the same mistake as the first time, he tried to hit the leaping pika with a hook. Somehow, the pika managed to twist its body midair, and when his fist reached its body, its legs were once again in the way, using the power of his own punch to get out of his range. The force of the separation knocked Jonny off-balance slightly, but he kept his feet, returning to his ready stance a moment later.

Unfortunately for the pika, it slightly miscalculated. Between the punch and its own push-off, it went rocketing off to the side, where it collided head first with a tree. There was a loud crack and a pained yelp, and when it fell to the ground, it was no longer moving.

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Serves you right, you stupid rat.

The first pika Jonny had sent flying had returned by then, bringing their number back up to six, and the three pairs of pikas continued their assault. They did not get any more creative, though, and now that Jonny had roughly figured them out, the fight did not last that much longer.

He launched two more off to the side, both landing in the snow before hitting anything, but the third time, another pika died flying headfirst into a tree. When the third pika died, the other four decided they had had enough, and chose to retreat. Jonny flipped them off as they retreated, not even bothering to hide the gesture from Igrette, since she didn’t know what it meant.

“Grab the bodies,” she told him. “That’s dinner for the night.”

Jonny did as he was told, grabbing the three corpses and tying them around his waist with a makeshift rope he and Igrette had made out of some fibrous grass they found buried in the snow. The journey to find shelter was not a long one, as despite the mountain’s many failings, there was one thing it had plenty of: snow.

There were enormous snow drifts all around, and just burrowing into one of them gave them all the shelter from the elements they could need. Igrette even had a cool method she used to stabilize the shelter, starting a fire in the middle, then putting it out after a little while. The way she explained it, the heat from the fire would partially melt the walls of the shelter, and then putting the fire out again reduced the temperature, which let the walls refreeze again, this time harder and stronger, which would keep them from collapsing while they slept. The drift they found that night was not quite as deep as usual, but that actually worked out better, because it made it easier to carve out an open-air section to make their cook fire.

Igrette gave Jonny the knife she kept near her boot, and gave him instructions as he skinned and prepared the three pikas. The whole time, she leaned against the stone wall that the drift, not moving, and slowly drifting off to sleep.

By the time Jonny got the pika meat onto skewers, she had dozed off, leaving him alone with his thoughts while the meat cooked. Jonny was usually fine being alone with his thoughts, but lately, it had been a little less pleasant than usual. No matter what he couldn’t do, he couldn’t get the end of the battle with the assassin out of his head.

He didn’t feel overly guilty about what he had done. Not consciously, at least. The assassin was trying to kill him. Jonny acted in self defense. Yet when he closed his eyes, he could hear the crack, and he could see the man’s body turn lifeless. The memory refused to leave him alone.

He was glad when the meat finally started to look done, and turned to wake Igrette up so she could eat. When he looked over, though, his heart skipped a beat. There was a thin trail of blood coming from the corner of her mouth, and while he wasn’t sure if the firelight was making him see things, he thought her face looked a little paler.

“Igrette!” he called, sliding over to shake her shoulder.