4. Not A Claw
Bella, a shimmering raccoon, studied Darus for mere heartbeats and knew what to do.
“You look just like you did when you touched those Marker Stones. I’m confident this Smasher uses the same power.”
“Impossible,” Ardex said. “Isn’t that so, brother?”
The wolf could barely speak from the pain. He regularly cursed his brother for sending away Alix.
“Yes, yes, yes.” said Darus with difficulty. “I encased the Marker Stones into larger Saltstones, which are nigh unbreakable. Then I hid them where nobody will ever find them. And then, if we all kept our promise, didn’t tell anybody about their existence.”
Bella kept circling the clearing. She didn’t trust the darkness, didn’t trust what she couldn’t see behind her back. The Goddess of Wisdom knew that being smart could not defend her from a physical threat, and she never fully recovered from being disconnected from life force for many days.
Then her gaze went upward, to a constellation of yellow Gosti eyes looking down on them.
“Ardex, could you please bring some Gosti down so I could talk—”
Ardex buried his nails into the tree trunk and shook until Gosti fell out. With them came a rain of dead leaves and suspiciously straight twigs.
“Start talking, you useless creatures!” said Ardex. “You must have seen the Smasher—”
“Well, that’s, thank you, brother.”
She picked up a Gosti. They were tiny, not much larger than mice. They had slowly adapted to living in trees, but even now their hands did not have claws or nails. You could crush a Gosti by accident and not even notice.
“Why are you scared of us?” Bella asked, her voice as sweet as possible.
“Do we need to answer that?” the largest one said. “Look at us. We have not a sharp tooth, not a spiky tail, not a claw. Please put us back into the tree, before a tiger shows up.”
“We can protect you.”
“Like how you unleashed carnivores on the world? Like how you let the dinosaurs die?”
Bella kept smiling. “But you are special.”
“Yes. We’re smart enough not to trust the promises of gods.”
“Can we get some respect from our own creatures, please?” roared Ardex. He stepped up to the Gosti and proved their point about being weak and defenseless.
There were also dangers in the trees, though, such as predatory birds. And they would need to come down sometimes for food. These Gosti were small, but they were far from underfed or at risk of extinction.
“Please, be honest with us. We will not punish you and,” she glared at her brother, “Ardex will not attack you. Do you know the Smasher? Tell me all you’ve seen.”
The ghosts looked at each other. Finally, the most talkative of them decided to step closer.
“They say they’re huge. Their large muscles allow them to break anything, win against anyone. They have to eat a hundred fish a day to get the energy for that.”
“If they’re so large, why can’t anybody see them?”
“Don’t look for a body, or a tail, or teeth. Follow the energy. Follow the destruction in their wake.”
Follow the energy. Yes. They should see where the Enyrgias were strongest—most numerous—and follow that trail.
In the distance, several trees suddenly dropped. A series of loud cracks hammered their ears. The earth shook; birds fled from the scene; a fox howled. The Smasher had struck again.
“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Bella asked of the talkative Gosti. “You seem to know things.”
“Garith. They call me Garith the Wise. Garith the Megabrain. And Garith the—”
“No we don’t,” said some of his brothers behind him.
Bella accepted it anyway. She looked behind her.
“Sorry … Darus … we must urgently …”
“Don’t leave me alone!” He tried to wriggle free from the stone again, despite knowing it to be in vain. “We talked about this! Why does nobody ever listen to me!?”
“Darus. Tell us where you hid the Marker Stones.”
His expression darkened. “No. It was supposed to always stay my secret, to protect—”
“This family,” said Ardex. He grunted and scraped his tusks against stone. “All talk about being honest and strong together; never any evidence of it.”
“Darus!” yelled Bella. “Tell us now!”
“No! You will leave me alone again.”
But they left him alone anyway.
Ardex and Bella followed the evidence of the Enyrgias. They ought to pile up and shine brighter than the sun whenever they came close to those powerful Marker Stones.
Sure, they asked the Gosti to look after him.
Brave Gosti with not a claw nor a sharp tooth.
Not long after, a tiger entered the clearing. The common enemy of all beings in this time period, like most felines.
“Oh no,” the tiger said with a grin. “So scared. Few mice in my way. God trapped and helpless. What do?”
Silence returned to the clearing. So did painfully dark shadows, clinging to Gosti and tiger alike.
Darus sought a final ounce of energy to chase off the tiger. He found none. The Smasher attack had really drained him. It had almost severed his connection to Enyrgia again. At least, that’s what a fearful voice screamed at the back of his mind.
The tiger lashed out.
The nearest Gosti ducked. To dodge the claw, and also to pick up a twig.
For just a few heartbeats, they were able to stand on two legs and hold the twig. It was an unusual twig. Almost perfectly straight, stripped of any knobbles or notches, and sharp at the end.
They thrust the twig at the tiger. It punctured their side and wounded them.
“Unfair!” the tiger screamed.
The other Gosti had picked up their personal twigs too and thrust them forward, circling the tiger, annoying him from all sides.
His claw connected with one of them, killing it instantly.
Garith wanted to land another attack, but had to stand on all four legs again. With twig between his teeth, he was less effective.
“Fair now!” the Gosti yelled, holding their twigs as if they were nails growing from their fingertips.
The tiger roared and bit. Another Gosti perished.
The others found the strength to stand on two legs again and thrust their sharp sticks once more. The tiger was collecting serious wounds now and looked unsure of himself, his eyes losing focus.
Darus could do nothing to help. According to him and Ardex, gods weren’t supposed to help. But he’d surely have liked Alix to get him out of this situation long ago.
With a desperate lunge, the tiger killed three Gosti at once, and slapped the twig from Garith’s paw.
He had to return to all fours again. His makeshift weapon had snapped. A final thrust made the tiger fall, but he took Garith with him.
As if nothing had ever happened, the clearing returned to silence, and Darus was truly alone. But a handful of Gosti had brought down a tiger, and left behind a set of sharp and strong twigs.
Then he heard the frightening crack of something Smashing nearby flintstone as if it was nothing.