front of his coat. ‘What brings you this far out from other people?’
‘Other people are dangerous,’ she replied warily. ‘Between them and the Hunki I decided I was much safer out here on my own.’
‘For someone who knows little about Rippers, I’m surprised to find you alive,’ he stated with a bewildered shake of his head. ‘You need training young lady and I suggest you get it as soon as you can.’
‘From you!’ she near shouted. ‘I could have killed you four times over before you knew I was following you.’
‘So you think,’ he replied with a smile, ‘and far be it for me to argue over it. If you have no faith in my abilities I still suggest you look for help elsewhere; believe me a Ripper will rip you to shreds before you know it has seen you. How is it you know so little of the Ripper?’ he asked as an afterthought. ‘How long have you been here on Newth?’
‘I was dumped here about four months ago,’ she replied. ‘The first night here I was nearly raped by some dirty crazed pervert who hadn’t had a wash in years. I was put in a small room inside an underground cave; the place stank to high heaven so after fighting off the pervert I stayed awake all night in case he came back. I lasted a week, a week of constantly having to be on my guard against attack from others, in the end I stole that big knife and some food and headed for the woods. I’ve been here ever since managing quite well thank you, I don’t stay in the same place for more than a few days and try to avoid contact with others. If I see someone else I either follow them like I did you or hide if there is more than one of them.’
‘You’ve got guts, I say that for you,’ Fred smiled at her, ‘but you must also have the luck of the devil to have survived out here for as long as you have on your own. Granted the only thing liable to kill you is a Ripper, but they’re numerous this far south; I’m amazed you haven’t already run into them. Anyway a more pressing danger to you now is winter, sorry to inform you but it will soon be upon us. Four weeks from now will see snow on the ground; it’s not like Earth here with seasons gently blending into each other. Winter follows summer and summer follows winter, why I don’t know it just does and has done for the last 100 years that I know of. You need clothing that will be warm enough to see you through a winter, and those long skirts of yours will be the death of you; I have some old buckskin trousers and a shirt that with a few nips and tucks can be made to fit you, but you need a top coat, boots, some sort of sock and a hat that will cover your head and ears. You have about four weeks to get them; if you don’t you’ll freeze to death, even this far south.’
He could see the fear and panic spread across her face as he was speaking. She had never considered the dangers this planet posed to her living alone; the horrendous conditions in the tunnels of Hawkspoint had been enough for her. She had run without looking back feeling herself to be free and without fear of abuse once away from the dank smelly conditions everyone else appeared to accept and live in without complaint. Now forced to face a new array of dangers her resolve began to crumble with tears threatening to well in her eyes. Her biggest fear and question was, could she trust the giant who sat opposite her? She had no illusions; if this man attacked her she would have little chance of fighting him off.
Fred could see the fear and questions she now had thanks to his dire warnings of Ripper attack and freezing to death. He felt sorry for her. Her misplaced courage would be the death of her if she refused help; either his or someone else’s and he hoped for her sake she accepted his offer.
‘One thing I have learned about this place,’ she said, ‘is you get nothing for nothing here; if you help me, what’s in it for you? How can I trust you? Everyone else in this God forsaken place doesn’t care an ounce about anyone else, just what they can grab or steal. Why are you different?’
‘Trust is easy,’ he smiled at her. ‘If I wanted you dead or wanted to rape you, you would be dead or raped by now. As to what’s in it for me? Not a lot if I’m honest, except maybe for a bit of company on my journey to East Harbour. Think on it and before you make your mind up, I suggest you backtrack and pick up your pack while I make a more secure and comfortable camp here. We can stay the night here and you can let me know what you want to do when you decide what it is you want.’
Her name was Elizabeth Freemont and Fred had done her a discourtesy, she was only twenty four years of age, not the thirty he had imagined. She was a poacher’s daughter and knew better than him how to lay a trap to snare rabbits but lacked the skills with a longbow that would bring down a deer or the native sheep. She had also been wise enough to save the rabbit skins she had caught; too late to tan before the winter but perfectly good to trade for a halfway decent hat and coat.
His old buckskins soon fitted Liz (as she liked to be called) and within a day of their meeting the pair set off for Mossybanks, a small village at the southern end of the Inland Sea. There Fred hoped to be able to get winter clothes for her and a few essential supplies they would need on their trek north. Mossybanks was a detour that Fred knew they could well afford as it would still take six or seven weeks of a difficult and tiresome journey to reach their final destination. They would be cutting it close with the onset of winter but if they got the clothes for Liz it would be worth it.
Fred was as good as his word teaching his young companion the art of noiselessly moving through woodland and forest. It would take a long while before she would be as good as him, but she was a quick learner and Fred was impressed by the seriousness she displayed following his footprints and mimicking his every move. She was also a talkative young woman who kept up a constant flow of inane chatter about everything and nothing and Fred wished at times she would be quiet. Instead he explained how quiet let the ears become attuned to the forest about them taking great delight in teaching her how not to talk when moving through the woodlands. Evenings around their campfire was a different matter however, he couldn’t think of a good enough reason to keep her quiet.
Three
Mossybanks is a small hamlet with less than two dozen people living there. Strange really Fred thought; it was close to the tree line and gave people the chance to run to the trees and cover when the Hunki came. He did ask about it from a Mossybanks resident who agreed with Fred but explained that if the village was any bigger, people would be trapped when the Hunki came as not all would be able to get out with any degree of safety. Those left would be at the mercy of the Hunki, as it was however, people had more than a reasonable chance of escape before the Hunki began to discharge their weapons at them.
Being small the place had little in the way of stored provisions, what they did have they would need over the winter. They were lucky enough however to get the clothes for Liz, her old skirts and heavy brocade tunic more than enough to trade against a ‘sheepskin’ coat and a pair of deerskin boots that Fred carved and fixed wooden soles to. The rabbit skins were traded for a rabbit skin hat and a small Ripper claw was traded for a pair of warm mitts. In all Fred thought they had traded well especially as the Ripper claw also bought them a roast chicken dinner. Not much really but chicken was becoming scarce on Newth, the idiots would rather kill and eat what they had as they got it rather than breed them for eggs and meat.
He understood their mentality; the Hunki would obliterate anything they considered to be civilized. That included buildings of any kind, cultivated fields and any sign of farming, but given the fact the Hunki only came hunting every ten years or so, Fred was bemused why once they had finished the hunt and repopulated the hunted areas people didn’t farm in between hunts. Each to his own he had often thought when thinking about this over the years, he preferred the way in which he lived, and he supposed the people in the likes of Mossybanks and Haroldstown preferred theirs.
The journey north to East Harbour was tedious and difficult over rough terrain. The way people lived here without horse and cart made trade between villages’ none existent. In turn there was no road structure or well defined tracks; they had never evolved to make travel betw
een communities easy. Each step had to be taken with care; one wrong step that brought a foot down on a lose rock could lead to a twisted ankle at best, a broken leg at worse; if that happened to you, your fate was sealed out here in the wilderness of Newth’s northern climes.
Over the next few weeks what was in the beginning a reserved relationship grew until the two travellers were firm friends. Like everyone else on Newth you didn’t speak of your past before coming here other than a cursory mention which in Fred’s case was ‘I was a farmer’s son who ran away to sea.’ Everyone here was in the same boat, there was no aristocracy, no Dukes or landed gentry to tell you what to do; each had only his or her own wits to live on. It was a surprise one evening as they sat back after eating for Liz to announce out of the blue that back home she had been married and had left her husband alone with two children, both daughters to bring up.
The news initially took Fred by complete surprise. This wasn’t something that was usually discussed and about to say something akin to that he was only stopped by the tears that began to run down her face. Fred was clumsy when it came to women; for all his size,