This might be my favorite simile of all time: "los ojos amarillos como dos malignas luciérnagas." Eyes like malignant fireflies, really, who can top that? Enjoy!
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When he bid
farewell to those men, he felt proud of his own bravery. Now, at night, surrounded by the dismal
presence of the forest, that bravery had been vanishing while the silhouettes
of the trees faded in the twilight.
"I wish
I had never followed Yatom,” he repeated, for the comfort of hearing his own
voice. “I would be in my parents' house,
watching the reflection of Taniar in the ocean...”
He was lost
for an instant in a daydream. Malirie,
his city, was one of the most beautiful places in Tramórea, and life there was
easy and warm. Now, however, he was stiff
with cold. Through his cape, the bark of
an elm, wet and rough, dug into his back. He did not dare to light a fire because, as
they said, fire, far from frightening the coruecos, attracted them. It was better to continue moving. He got on his feet and turned on his heels,
until the pine needle stopped stirring under his skin. He felt around in front of him with his stick
and set out anew on the road.
Later, at
some point, he noticed that the hair on the back of his neck had risen, and
after a few seconds he realized why: someone
was there.
Or something.
He cowered
behind the trunk of an oak. But he didn’t
know where the threat was coming from. Perhaps the danger was hidden just behind him. He turned, frightened by his own idea, and
brandished his stick. His heart was
pounding out of control and he was panting like a bellows. Surely, any creature found within five hundred
steps could hear it. He recalled his
military training, dug a knee into the ground and remained motionless.
You must be the
ones stalking, their survival instructor had told them. If you think that you are the prey, then you
will become the prey, and you will be lost.
He had not
chosen a good place to stop. He was in a
ravine covered with ferns and surrounded by brush, where he could not see an
attacker until it was too late. And if he
saw it, and it was a corueco, what could he do? Better to not think about it. He concentrated and little by little managed
to quiet his pulse.
When he sat
up, ready to continue, he discovered a new smell, fetid and metallic, like that
of the jaws of a great carnivorous beast. He recalled the counsel of the mushroom hunters:
if the smell of blood comes to you, run!
He got up and fled from the stench. He ran without direction, without plan,
looking only for an open path between the vegetation that planted snares in his
way. He tripped over a raised root and
fell face down on a cold and wet patch of earth. It was then that he heard a howl, half a human
scream and half the roar of a beast. It
came from behind him; his instinct had made him flee in the right direction. He sat up and turned to run. Branches whipped his face. Something sharp struck his brow. His own
blood trickled warmly over his eye. Another
howl, more furious and close than the last; it was said that the smell of
wounds excited the coruecos. Was it a
corueco? From the racket raised during
its race, this creature was as heavy as a boar, perhaps a bear.
The thicket
opened without warning and Mikhon Tiq met with a slope that dropped into a
stream. The ground was slippery; he lost
his footing and tumbled down. He was hit
in the right elbow by an outcropping and his fingers were caught between his walking
stick and a stone, and the water was icy, but he hardly noticed it. He tried to get up and slipped again. He turned toward the bank, where a large dark
shape had just emerged from among the trees. By the red light of Taniar, Mikhon Tiq could make
out the enormous and bulging thorax, the long arms, the short and muscular
legs, the bony crest that crowned its head and, above all, the yellow eyes like
two malevolent fireflies.
The creature dropped
into the creek, supported on its long arms.
Mikhon Tiq looked around, unable to decide whether to flee downstream or
upstream. The phosphorescent gaze of the
corueco had hypnotized him. He had
become prey.
The corueco placed
a foot in the water. It was less than
two meters from Mikhon Tiq, so close that its blood-tinged breath turned his
stomach. Finally, the youth reacted and,
with the force drawn from his fear, swung the walking stick against the corueco’s
head. The beast covered with his arm at
a velocity unthinkable in a creature so large. The staff ran into bone, and Mikhon Tiq felt as
if he'd hit against a pile of granite. All
the damage projected in that blow he took in his wrists and fingers, which
opened limply and let the stick fall.
He closed his
eyes, bowed his head, and waited for the final darkness.
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