Page 3 of Feast

At last Mara reached the top of the incline on buckling legs. Above, the storm had started to break. The wet snow had transformed into half-frozen tears of sleet that pelted her back and shoulders with stinging cold. In front of her, the dark mouth of the cave yawned. It seemed to exude a warm and welcoming breath scented of granite and charred wood.

As she stepped across the threshold, Mara’s legs finally gave out. She dropped to her knees, no longer able to stand or walk.

She crawled the rest of the way into the cave on all fours like an animal.

The floor of the cavern was cold but mercifully smooth. The stone walls and ceiling shielded her from the sleet and biting wind. Mara crawled several yards inside and flopped onto her back.

Her contractions were coming faster now. Faster and harder. The pain was almost too intense to bear, but Mara bore it in silence. She was simply too exhausted to even groan or whimper.

Her heart squeezed weakly in her chest. The blood felt thick and sluggish in her veins. Her consciousness was gradually slipping away.

Outside, blue-white lightning flashed, illuminating the interior of the cavern. That’s when Mara noticed the drawings on the stone walls.

Her pulse jumped.

They were like the cave paintings Mara had seen in history books back on Earth. Only these drawings looked fresh. Black lines drawn with the charred end of a stick. Animals were depicted. Bizarre alien creatures Mara had never seen before, and others that she recognized as nith. Tall, hideous beings with black scales and long crocodile snouts.

But there were other figures drawn there too. Figures that looked like men.

Mara blacked out from pain and exhaustion.

When she came too, she was aware of something pushing below her. It was her own body, but in her delirium, it seemed to be miles away.

Pushing. Pushing…

Mara slipped in and out of consciousness. She was only dimly aware of the storm raging outside. Of pain, of something being expelled from her body.

When she came too for the last time, a tiny, fragile voice was shrieking. The sound reverberated off the stone walls. It was incredibly loud. Louder even than the voice of the storm outside. Angrier too.

Something squirmed between her legs. Tiny feet kicked at her inner thighs.

Mara tried to sit up, tried to move into a position where she could see her child, but her muscles wouldn’t obey. Her body was dead weight, heavy as a bag of sand, insensate as the stones of the cave where she lay dying.

Something moved at the entrance of the cave.

The sound of footsteps.

With a great effort, Mara managed to loll her head to the side, turning her eyes toward the cavern’s mouth. Another burst of lightning lit up the opening, backlighting a figure who stood there in silhouette.

It was not a nith. No, it was far too big for that.

It looked like a man, a primitive man dressed only in a simple fur kilt, his muscles hard and rough hewn like a chunk of mountain rock come to life. Though she could not see his face, he seemed to be staring at Mara. Staring at her and the wriggling, screaming baby between her legs.

That was the last thing Mara Thompson saw. A moment later, her exhausted heart stopped working—a clock that had finally wound itself down. Her ribs squeezed one last time, pushing a final breath from her lungs, which she used to form a word. A single plaintive syllable.

“Please…”

Mara closed her eyes, and the darkness took her.

CHAPTER 2

Rolf stood at the entrance of his den, struggling to process what he was seeing. Behind him, lightning flared and thunder rumbled through the stones of the mountain while cold sleet peppered his bare back.

He had been caught out in the storm like a fool, and now he was freezing. His long hair and grizzled beard were dripping wet, and so was the kilt of animal pelts that covered his lower body.

He needed to get inside and start a fire. Get himself warm again. But for the space of a dozen heartbeats or more, he just stood fixed in place, staring wide-eyed and gape-jawed at the two uninvited creatures that lay on the floor of his den, one big and one small.

Another strobe of lightning illuminated the scene with a shuddering glow.