Dark Eden

there were giant bats and giant slinkers up here, how could we know what else there might be up here too?
    The others that couldn’t get their backs to the tree used the embers we’d been carrying with us from Cold Path Valley to start two small fires – there were fallen twigs and buckdung to use as fuel – and they huddled around those until it was their turn against the trunk, using the time to mend footwraps with the spare skins we’d brought with us. Mehmet Batwing, Angie Blueside and Dave Fishcreek grouped round one fire, Gela Brooklyn, Harry and me by the other. Bucks don’t like flames, so Jeff stayed with Def and Whitehorse as far from the fires as possible, cuddled up between them. John moved restlessly about the little space around the tree, sometimes going up onto the ice with Mike, sometimes coming over to me.
    ‘It’s going well so far,’ he said at one point, squatting down beside me, Gela and Harry. ‘It really wasn’t so hard at all, was it?’
    Not everyone else was so pleased, though.
    ‘Nice new place John’s found for us,’ Mehmet Batwing said to Angie and Dave as he got up to drop a bit more dung onto his fire. ‘Bit small maybe, bit damp, but well worth leaving Circle Valley for, don’t you reckon? Only thing is, I wonder what we’re going to do for food?’
    He glanced over towards us. I looked at John. He looked back at me, then shrugged, stood up and went up onto the ice, without saying anything at all.
    ‘He’s in a right state!’ said Mehmet. ‘Talking to bats, crying . . . and this is the bloke who’s leading us into the unknown!’
    ‘You lead us then, Mehmet,’ said Gela stoutly in her strong deep voice. ‘Go on, Mehmet,
you
lead us. You seem to know better than John what to do. So you take over. You make the decisions from now on. Go on. Tell us now what your next move is going to be.’
    For a moment there, Mehmet looked afraid. Then he smiled.
    ‘Oh no,
oh
no. You don’t get me
that
way, Gela. John got us into this. He can get us out of it.’
    ‘Oh I see,’ Gela said, ‘so you
do
trust him to see us alright, do you?’
    ‘John? No. He’s lost it. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
    ‘But you’d still rather follow him than decide things for yourself, just like you did before back at Cold Path Valley when John gave you the choice. That doesn’t make sense, Mehmet, and you know it.’
    ‘Why are you poking your nose in, Gela?’ demanded Angie Blueside.
    Harry, beside me, gave a sort of groan. He was rocking on his heels and breathing hard, like he did when he was getting wound up and was going to start yelling. I stood up to try and calm things.
    Then John came to the edge of the ice above Mehmet, looking down at all of us in our muddy hole. I thought he was going to join in the argument, but he didn’t say a word about it. He didn’t even seem to notice that it was going on.
    ‘Take over from Mike, Mehmet,’ he simply said. ‘Mike’s footwraps are all wet. He needs to sort that out.’
    Mehmet gave Angie a look, but he obeyed.
    Hmmph
,
hmmph
,
hmmph
, went the tree, sending out its puffs of steam into the frozen air.
    One of the babies woke up and began to cry.

    Four five hours later, when the second lot of people had taken their turn round the tree and we’d all eaten a little bit of meat, we put on all our wraps again – we made ourselves back into weird, shapeless animals – and got back up on the ice again, Jeff in front on the back of Def, then John, then the whole line of us with Whitehorse at the back being led on a rope by Jane. I walked in middle with Dix.
    Gela’s tits, it was
so
cold when we went back out there again. And our wraps were damp, and we were tired, and both the babies were screaming, and we had no idea where we were going. But Def seemed to know, plodding along ahead of us down the snowy valley. We looked back at the tree sometimes, longingly, and for a short time its light shone on the snow around us and made it sparkle and glitter. It was strange strange how that lonely tree in its muddy hole, a tree that we knew had a horrible giant slinker hiding inside it, could still look welcoming and safe compared to where we were going now.
    But pretty soon the valley turned, and we lost the tree and its light, and we were in complete darkness – even Starry Swirl was covered up again by cloud – with only the light from the woollybucks’ heads to guide us. Big fluffy flakes of snow began to fall into that pool