Big Salmon Lake ready to rumble

INVADES

They had left Moonspear and headed east, chaining their travels together and heading towards the mountains that she and Tonravik had scouted out some time ago. Their original designated place from choice cuts, of all things, but opportunity came calling and instead they had seized the Spine for themselves. Only now it was in utter ruin, the storm having lain the squat mountains and their basin-bowl valley to waste. She ventured at her own pace, never straying too far ahead or behind of the group. It was in part of her desire to be apart from them a bit, to collect herself and examine what the storm had wrought, but also out of the desire to be near to her aokkatti. Tonravik's time was near, that much Echelon could figure. In spite of the issumatar's demeanor, there was something much more maternal about her now, and not because of the swell of her belly.

As she brought herself through the mass of tangled limbs and undergrowth alike, Echelon was drawn in by the scent of the lake. It was hot, like every other summer day, and the humidity lingered somewhere on the mirage-blurred line between tolerable and not. She felt a drink would suffice, though the inclination to take a dip was tempting and pressing. Plus it may have helped to make her look a little less like the half-pint scrawny creature she was, all caked with mud and whatever other assortment of weather-ravaged terrain had clung to her in their travels.

Yet it was a pair of voices that drew her away from her full on pursuit of the lake, cool eyes scanning through the wreckage. Her eyes rested on them as she neared, but she stayed to the cover of the summery growth. Not to be sneaky, but in awe of where they stood. It was clear something had come through close to the lake — the damage there was very much like what she and Iqniq had stumbled upon at the Spine. Flattened terrain, though not really. Just the details, the trees laid to their sides, sometimes snapped. Sometimes bare. Sometimes in half. Granted here the forest thinned out, but even the grass was rendered to lay flat.

Damn, what a mess. She did not fathom what the rest of their trip would be like.