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7
EVE
Ipressed my back against the tree. I thought about poking my head out to see what he was doing, but decided to trust him and keep my eyes closed.
The first thing I heard was an inhumane squeal. It wasn’t just inhuman though, it was definitely inKhetar too. It was the Buckjack. Then I heard a roar, which was definitely Tschenkar.
The last thing I heard was a loud, horrendous crack and snap sound that I felt vibrate my entire spine.
I jumped out to look, to hope that what I thought I heard wasn’t—
Tschenkar was standing over the corpse of the Buckjack, grinning sheepishly and waving to me. “I gave it to the quickest, most painless kill I could think of.”
I glared at him, but realized he was probably right. No kill was going to look or feel good, was it? But we needed to eat to survive.
Tschenkar hauled the Buckjack back to our camp over his shoulder. He threw the thing down onto a big rock and looked up at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t want to see this part either.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Butcher it with my bare hands.”
I immediately left, and this time I wasn’t tempted to even peek for a second.
I came back only when Tschenkar gave me the all-clear. And to my utter delight, there was a fire. It was the smallest thing you could really call a fire, but in the near total darkness that had fallen over our camp, I could see the flames and their pale light.
I bent down next to it and held up my palms.
“It’s only to cook,” Tschenkar said, “and only until the meat is done.”
I nodded, remembering why it wasn’t safe to have a fire, but fully willing to enjoy it while we had it.
He’d spit-roasted cuts—or tears—of meat, and he set it over the fire on a two-pole apparatus he’d built while I was cowering in our shelter. I was probably looking at the full extent of Tschenkar’s engineering skills.
“Also, look at this,” he said, holding up a disgusting, bloodied pelt. “I got you a blanket.”
“I’m not touching that thing.”
“Oh,” he said, “I’ll get all the gunk off. Don’t worry.”
When the meat hit the fire, all was forgiven. The succulent, fatty smell of the fat hitting the flame was like a magical spell.
I couldn’t wait to eat, but Tschenkar said the meat—which clearly was still raw—was done after just a minute or so.
“I’m not eating raw meat.”
“Is this a human thing, or a woman thing? I remember being fascinated by this in the Lexikon. You really want to cook all the juice and blood and good stuff out of this meat?”
“I’ll tell you when it’s done,” I said.
Despite my clear indication, Tschenkar kept frowning at the meat, and then at me, every thirty seconds or so. “Love, are you certain?”
“Yes.”
When it finally seemed ready, I used one of Tschenkar sharp sticks to poke a bit into the meat, making sure it was well cooked inside. Buckjacks could carry parasites that were very harmful to women—to humans.
