...nnnn….oooeee...oooeee...
The baby bogwarg mewled pitiably.
It didn't have much hair on its body, and what little it had on its head was closer to a down fuzz, but its skin was fairly tough looking. It looked like a little puppy with monkey arms and legs. Its eyes were large and clear. The pupils were yellow with a center black slit, looking very much like the alpha she had put down.
This was no doubt, his offspring.
It reached out its hand and pawed at the air between them. It was still too young to have claws, just some soft stubby paws with a single opposable thumb on each hand. It was too young to even have teeth.
It was obviously still being breastfed by its mother.
The baby had been clinging onto its mother's back at the time of the fight, and because things were happening so fast in the dark of the night, Mira had missed seeing it. For a moment, she felt such sadness, for having killed a lactating mother, but reality seeped in.
She was not the one who started the fight, and she was certainly not the one who struck first. In this ferocious environment, only the strong survived, and self-defense was not a crime.
Mira sighed and reached down to fish out the kukri from the water. The drop did not hurt the blade at all, and in fact, had cleaned it of the gore and funk that came out of the bogwarg when she extracted it. She wiped it on her black jeans and slipped it back into its leather scabbard strapped to her thigh.
She wasn't sure what to do with the baby bogwarg, but first things first.
Mira removed her jacket and hung it on the handle of the carry-on. The chill of the night air hit her hard as the sweat dried from her body. Her shoulder was starting to hurt now that the adrenaline rush had subsided.
She needed to adjust the belly band, and she needed to see how badly she was injured.
Mira fished out extra ammo from one of the holster pockets and refilled the empty Glock cartridge as well as the barrel of the 38, then she slipped them back into their holsters, and readjusted the belly band until it once again fit tightly around her abdomen.
Now to check on her wound.
From inside the jacket, she pulled out a flat packet containing one antiseptic towelette. It was one of the few items she did not throw out with the large bag of medical supplies.
Idiot. Dolt. Stupid fool. Why did she think bullets were more important than medical supplies? What are bullets good for if she gets an infection and dies?
Maybe she had been a little too hasty. It would have been prudent to have kept a few crucial items from that bag----like bandages. Ugh! As it was, she was risking infection from the wound.
Well. No use crying over stupid decisions.
Reaching to her shoulder, Mira pulled off the torn sleeve so she could gauge the severity of the wound. She was bleeding fairly badly, but it was a clean wound that caught surface muscle and not ligaments, so at least she was still able to move her shoulder.
She pulled the large sheet of antiseptic towelette out and covered the area, pressing down hard until the bleeding had been staunched and the open wound had been cleaned by the benzalkonium chloride it was steeped in.
Leaving it in place, she took out one of her bandannas and tied the antiseptic towelette onto the wound, securing it with one hand and her teeth.
It hurt like the mutha, but at least it was clean and no longer bleeding profusely.
She threw her leather jacket back on and then reached out for the handle of the carry-on. She had to get to Tourmaline quickly. There could be another band of bogwargs roaming around out here, and she did not want to have to deal with another pack.
...ooeeeeeee...aaabaaaooo...gaaaaaarrrooooo…
Mira groaned and glanced back at the infant. She couldn't leave that baby here. It would die within 24 hours from exposure, or worse yet, it would be eaten by something hungry, attracted to the sound of a helpless young.
She walked back towards the corpse of the mother bogwarg.
The baby was still clinging to the dead beast. Its eyes were large and tearful. It was pulling on its mother's fur in distress.
"Come," she said, reaching out her hand.
The baby bogwarg stared at her without moving.
...nnnngaaa….aaarrooooo…
It shivered and began to cry again.
...nnnn….abaaaooo...oooeee…
Mira cursed under her breath and reached out to grab the infant.
Instantly, it latched onto her arm and clung onto her shoulder in the same manner as it did with its mother.
...nnnn...ooooeeee...gaaa...gaaarrooooo… it mewled again.
"Is that all you know how to say? Hmmm? Garoo?" She muttered with a tired smile and went back to pick up the carry-on.
..nnnngaaaaaarrooooo…baaoooo it responded.
"You poor child. I have to keep moving so you have to come with me."
It shivered as the cold air touched its body. Mira had no fur for it to snuggle into, so it tried to nestle into her neck.
She pulled another bandana out of her pack and wrapped it around the infant. The fabric was thin, but at least it gave one more insulative layer of warmth.
Then, since her left shoulder was injured, she put the baby on her right shoulder, and it sat there, holding onto her 'fur' which was partly her ponytail and partly the collar of her leather jacket.
At first, she was afraid it would fall off, but the baby was as dexterous as a little monkey. Upon closer look, Mira realized something astonishing. The bogwarg was not really a very large demon wolf able to walk on two legs.
It was a human-wolf hybrid---a werewolf, of sorts.
It had opposable thumbs on each hand, and they really were more like hands than paws, even though the adults could use the hands for locomotion. The adults stood upright, more or less, and they had faces that, although quite fearsome, were semi-recognizable as people.
This little one did not have a fierce face in the least. This one was a little dumpling. Furthermore, he was a little boy---a little boy dumpling that could only babble nonsensical words.
As she continued walking southward, she chattered softly with the baby bogwarg. He seemed to be comforted by her words, but more importantly, she was trying to distract herself from the pain in her left shoulder and the fatigue from having to carry a fifteen-pound baby bogwarg and a carry-on at the same time.
The optimistic thought of reaching Tourmaline in less than two hours had been dashed beyond recovery when the bogwarg pack first appeared. Now that she had to stop every so often to rest her injured body, it was dragging out longer and longer.
And then there was the constant vigilance. With every step, her eyes anxiously scanned the horizon for any movements that were not part of the scenery. She kept pushing down her fear every time it resurfaced. This was not the time to indulge in fear.
Burdened down by the infant, she was severely restricted in movement, but this was a burden she could not put down. She had been responsible for killing his mother. She needed to step in and take care of him.
The moon continued to give her its luminescence. There was just enough light for her to be able to see the compass as it continued to point her in the direction of Tourmaline. It also allowed her to see enough to maintain her vigilant surveillance of the flat marshland.
She knew that as long as she was still walking in the marshes, there was still a very big chance of being attacked again by another pack of bogwargs. Her only option was to keep moving southward.
With the bogwarg baby clinging to her shoulder, Mira continued the desperate plodding steps into the night.
The darkness seemed to go on forever.
The sounds of the marsh droned on around her, a constant living sound of insects chirping and frogs croaking, punctuated by the occasional bird call. If it wasn't for the fact that the bogfrogs and the bogcrickets were so loud, Mira would have been afraid that her constant splashing footsteps would have attracted unwanted attention.
It was a huge surprise, therefore, when Mira obliviously walked past the first of the Tourmaline mushroom houses.