Thanks to all who've been reading! And customary disclaimers about what I don't own.
Dean was even more sluggish and sore in the morning, if it was even possible. When he grumbled something to that effect Concha cheerfully informed him she'd been riding since she was three or four. She didn't even remember the days of aches and pains.
Well bully for you!
As a matter of fact the change in Concha since the day before was dramatic. She didn't seem to have the need to be cautious with her words anymore, probably feeling she'd gotten the proverbial beans spilt. She was downright chatty! Dean was cheerfully informed about a lot more of her life than he really wanted to know. She possibly out-shone Sam in the question asking department. For an hour or so that morning he honestly thought they were having a contest, which one could ask more questions and spew forth more mundane information. Feeling his gun comfortably in his waistband he thought maybe he should just put a slug in them both, just to shut them up. She'd lived most her life in this area, he learned. Her parents died, together, in a car crash when she was eleven (ok, he felt badly about that), probably nothing supernatural related she added as almost an afterthought. Sure, just bad luck. Her mother had done research, though Dean never quite figured out for whom, or in what, and Concha had followed along in her footsteps. Something the woman was obviously very proud of. When she started babbling about what colleges…..colleges??? plural???...and one was the one he and Sam were supposedly from, wonderful! Good thing he didn't have to keep up that stupid rouse… she'd attended and Dean saw Sam sink a bit into his saddle and decided it was time to put a stop to this.
"So, you never did tell us, what's your horse's name?" Dean reached over, grabbed a fist-full of her horse's mane and jostled it for a few seconds before letting go.
Smiling shyly Concha said, "Orion."
'Nuff said.
When lunch time rolled around Dean said a silent prayer to whatever deity lived in these mountains, at least when they were eating Sam and Concha didn't talk… much. Dean considered sneaking off to quietly check how many rounds he had left in his gun. A brief rest, not nearly long enough to work out the kinks in his legs that kinked yesterday's kinks and they were off again.
They'd ridden maybe another hour. Dean was bored, he yawned and wondered if anyone would mind if he found Bambi and shot it? Oh yeah, Sam probably would, he liked fuzzy critters. And Concha probably would too, Dean bet she also liked cute and fuzzy critters. Damn, he was surrounded, no escape, no hope of survival, best he just shoot himself. Problem was, he was so damn sore, he'd supposed he'd just miss and take out a sparrow. Which would no doubt make Sam irritable. That whole liking little fuzzy critters thing. He'd try taking Dean's gun, the little scene played out in Dean's head. Somewhere around the time he got his gun back and was taking pot shots at that damn annoying, infernally noisy Sashquash Dean's horse stopped so fast….Did he hear Concha say 'stay?'….he was jolted against the animal's neck. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Concha's hand reaching out and flattening against BJ's chest for the briefest of seconds. She repeated one word, "Stay."
Leaning forward she whispered into her horse's ear….."Sshhhhhh…"
When Sam grabbed his arm and tugged, dude! Yank me off the horse already! Dean's attention immediately shifted, Sam mouthed the words, 'gave them a command,' pointing down at his horse.
Concha rode maybe twenty yards further before stopping. Looking around, then up, one hand dropped to the rifle at her right, unsnapping the strap holding it in the holster. Dean looked one direction, Sam another. He'd seen the look she wore, he'd seen it a million times, on Sam's face, his father's, others, in the mirror………not exactly hunter mode, not yet, but wary, maybe stalker was the more accurate term.
"I don't hear anything." Dean kept his voice low.
Concha turned to him, her voice soft, rifle easing free, "that's the problem. It's never this quiet in the woods. There's some-"
A growl, not terribly loud, but not right up behind them either, then a roar. The hair on the back of Dean's neck rose.
"Ahhh..." Concha's head dipped back in an obvious flood of relief. Her entire posture changed from tense to what Dean was used to seeing. She smiled back at them, but a little pale. "Just a grizzly."
"JUST---Oh, yeah, cause those are so warm and cuddly!" Dean practically shouted at her. He reached around for his bag.
Concha shrugged, "way better than some of the alternatives, and we can go around a bear."
As if to punctuate her statement, the bear roared again, but this time it was cut rather abruptly short, ending in some sort of strangled, wet gurgle. That sure couldn't be good.
"Crap!" Concha spat out, yanking her rifle from the holster. "Crap, crapcrapcrap!"
Yeah, that was really not good.
"Ya know, once, just once, " Concha reached into a small ammo pouch strapped behind her left knee and replaced the rifle's rounds, "I'd like to spend a week in peace without some slathering, ghoul thing sneaking up behind me wanting to eat my spleen!" She looked up, gaze trained on a break in the thick trees to her right. "I mean, really, is that just too much to ask?"
"Yes!" Dean and Sam answered. Which brought a small smile to Concha's face.
"Ever hear of a tartum?"
"I've seen the name mentioned in some older literature, but don't really know much." Sam offered. "They're mostly mountain spirits?"
"Not spirits, not in the traditional sense, but entities. And yes, I think they only are in mountain regions." Concha stopped, turning to Dean, nodding at his side, "you got consecrated rounds in that gun you have hidden under your jacket?"
"You bet I do."
Concha turned to Sam, looking pointedly at him. He grinned, holding open his hoodie so she could see the knife strapped to his belt, "blessed silver."
She nudged Orion closer to the break in the tree line, till she could get a good view. "Tartums aren't exactly corporal, they're not exactly not, they're something in between. Only thing I know of that can take out an adult grizzly. You can kill them with just about anything, but the consecrated rounds gets through their hide, it's almost like armored scales, a lot better." Her words came out in a rush. She stopped briefly to sight something beyond the trees. She clicked her fingers twice and the other horses moved closer to her position. "Too far." The last was said so softly neither of them would have heard had they not been so close to her. "Take a look." She nodded at the trees.
Dean had to lean over a bit to see, Sam stood in the stirrups, looking over Dean's shoulder. What they could see between the trees was a steep, rocky trail cutting down to a narrow, deep ravine. Close to the bottom was a bear, more exactly half a bear, the other half was at the very bottom. Flickering over the bear, in a way that brought it into vision, then it was vanish briefly, then reappear was something ripping into the bear's flesh, feeding. Small front legs had surprisingly large hand like appendages with clawed 'fingers.' The hind legs were longer, jointed like a dog's leg. The creature sat back on heavy, muscular haunches. It had a snake-like head with small, pointed ears along a center crest, which gave the impression of horns, other than with every tiny sound the ears moved back and forth, constantly twitching. Oddly it had a round, almostly rolly-poly middle, which seemed very out of place.
"It's fat!" Dean snorted, in another type of situation it would have been comical.
"SHE is pregnant."
"Great." Dean pulled free his gun, double checking its load. "It'll take a damn hour to climb down there. Got any rope?"
"No. And it'll only take me ten minutes to get close enough. That's part of a trail," she pointed to the narrow spot between the trees. "There's a race run through there every year. I've been down it so many times I could go blind-folded."
"Going down there alone would be suicide." Sam said quickly.
"I'm not going far, just close enough to get a shot at her. Believe me I have no intention of getting one inch closer than I need to. These things almost always come in pairs, and her mate is around here somewhere. And he's gonna be pissed! He'll probably come through there…" she pointed to a spot farther along the ridge, "I'd really appreciate it if you'd not let him through, and not let him eat me." When Dean opened his mouth she cut him off. "Look, we don't have time to debate, her mate is around here somewhere. The horses can out run them, you're safer on the horse than on foot. Aim for the underside if you can, the armor is thinner there, or go for a decap. They're not poisonous or anything like that, but they can camouflage, that's the flickering, they sort of get invisible, but only for short periods, a minute tops."
Before Dean could argue she wheeled the horse, pressing him to a fast canter in one stride. "God dammit, you can't go down there alone!" Dean growled, wanting to shout, but knowing that would just alert the beast in the ravine.
She patted Orion's shoulder, winking,"I'm not."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"Oh, yeah, and they can fly!" Concha called over her shoulder as Orion sprinted into the ravine. Geez, she'd almost forgotten to tell them the important part.
Clearing the edge of the trail, Orion sat back on his haunches and slid twenty feet to a short outcrop. Another ten or so feet to one side and she guided the horse down the second step of the trail. She'd ridden it enough to know the way without hesitation. Dirt and stones slipped farther down the ravine wall in front of her, dislodged by the 1600 pounds of horse she was riding. She hoped the female tartum was too interested in feeding to notice, or to at least not to care. A short, quick gallop across the only level part of the trail down and another slide to an outcrop covered by trees and she was in position.
The tartum looked up. Looked right at her. Snarled, then a low, loud growl to a hiss.
Breathing in short, raspy gulps Concha shouldered her rifle, centering the creature in her sights. Crazy, crazy, crazy, this was insane, stupid crazy. She tracked. Dante hunted. She went and backed him up, but trackers found, sought, They goddamn tracked, they didn't hunt! This was just the most freaking idiotic, thing she'd ever done! Concha tracked, not hunted! She found them, flushed them, sometimes led them, and when the situation called for it baited them. In the blink of an eye she was fifteen again, and hunting for one of the first times with her brother, Dante. He was screaming, at the top of his lungs in the you're going to die sort of way screaming at her to take the shot! The thing they'd been hunting bore down on her, and Dante was too far away to do it himself. In the end she'd not been harmed, the thing, think it was a werecat, died (because Concha West wasn't defenseless by any means). Years and hunts passed, she and Dante developed their 'system.' It worked. It was a fine system, and it served them well.
Concha supposed the Winchester brothers had a system too. They must, since they were both still alive and well, and in possession of all their limbs. But they had no idea how she and Dante hunted. She'd screwed up royal, not told them. Careless, and stupid was what that was.
The tartum swung her head higher, its swollen belly bouncing a bit. Was it pregnant, or had it just delivered? Crap!
Dante's voice echoed through her again, shoot it, shoot the mother-effing thing!!! Dante swore too much sometimes.
The tartum lumbered over the bear remains, moving closer. Concha's fingers opened and flexed closed against the rifle barrel. Blinking back tears, trying to calm her hammering heart. She could hit the thing from here, she'd practiced shooting until Dante would tell others was that pride in his voice? His little sister could shoot a mosquito off a bush at fifty paces. Not worried she'd miss at all. Christ I sound like Yoda. Stupid, stupid, just dumb. The men on the trail above would never get down here in time if she needed help, And where the HELL was her idiot brother when she needed him? Probably sucking down a beer with Bobby and watching a Cavs game. Bastard! With all the trees and underbrush, they probably couldn't even see her. Well, at least she'd be saved the embarrassment of having them (and later Dante) know she'd just stood there, pointing a rifle at a tartum, watching it waltz over and dig out her spleen and whatever other organs it found tasty. The rifle lowered a bit, then she snapped it back up to re-site.
LIKE HELL!!
If nothing else in her life she could say she was Dante West's kid sister, which had to stand for something, dammit, which when it came down to it, it did. She could do this. Another couple of deep breaths, aim true, tracker, not hunter, tracker, tracker….finger squeezed the trigger and she closed her eyes. Or maybe it was the other way around.
The sound of the rifle shot cracked the mountain air. The tartum screeched, there was a sickening thud.
In the next instant the forest around her erupted in a flurry of violent activity.
Concha wheeled her horse around, grateful the animal could reclimb the distance in bounding strides. Leaves and twigs and dirt flew in all directions when Orion made one final jump and exploded onto the upper trail straight at Sam and Dean.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Sam couldn't tell at first which way the creature came at them from. Stay on the horse, horses are faster than tartums! Yeah, as if he or Dean would actually run away from it, even if she weren't there. The second meaning, probably what she'd really been telling them, the horse could catch up to it! He was totally unprepared for the size of the thing. Judging the size of the other one hadn't been easy, with her distance from them. This thing seemed to take up the entire sky.
The horses skittered one way, then the other, bumping into each other. Sam grabbed the saddle horn.
"You see it?" Dean barked. Sam just mutely shook his head. It would be there one second, then not the next.
Without warning Sam's horse jumped sideways, he felt something brush his leg. The horse's front end went straight in the air. Sam was pretty decent in a fight, and there weren't a lot of weapons he couldn't use, granted some better than others. He knew dozens of rituals and incantations useful for all sorts of bindings and exorcisms by heart. He wasn't a bad computer hacker, and he could pick locks damn well. He could even, on occasion see the future, though that he didn't consider particularly useful. Sam Winchester could do a lot of things. What he couldn't do however was ride a horse. When the horse reared up he didn't stand a chance.
The world flipped over on itself a few times before he landed flat on his back, cracking his head on the ground. It was very disorienting. And it hurt, considering the horse's height, combined with his own, well, his head had gone a ways before hitting ground. Out of reflex more than anything…..and Dean yelling at him to GET his goddamn ass UP! He managed to grab a stirrup as the horse bolted to one side. The movement helped pull him to his feet. Which, he discovered immediately, wasn't really an improvement on his current situation. Things swam around him in sickening waves. He hadn't hit hard enough to have a concussion, he'd had those before and knew what it was like. But he'd hit hard enough to muddy up his brain. Not really the best thing right now. And absolutely NOTHING of him wanted to work properly, his legs were stiff and felt like wood, and his arms didn't fair much better. This wasn't shaping up to be one of his overly spectacular days.
Somewhere off to his right, Dean was yelling at him. He glanced in that direction, pulling his knife free from its sheath. Dean had gotten off the horse, but somehow managed to be in between them. Trying to move the horses wasn't working, Sam could see the utter frustration on Dean's face. He would have just roared with laughter, had they not been under attack by something he'd never heard of before, when Dean finally hauled off and punched one of the horses in the haunches. That made the animal move. Dean took aim and fired, but Sam couldn't tell if it did any good or not.
In the next instant Dean was hollering at him to get down, man, is this church? Make up your mind, up, down, pick! The tone of Dean's voice registered in Sam's slowly functioning brain. It was the deep, guttural tone Dean reserved for use only on possessed beings, intruders, evil in general. The tone that always made Sam wince inwardly, because something was in deep shit, big trouble. The tone Dean had never, ever turned on Sam (for which Sam was always very glad).
Yep, Sam realized, he was gonna die!
All of a sudden the fog in his head evaporated. A thing he'd barely ever heard of with the approximate body mass of an RV was careening out of the sky at him. As if that wasn't enough of a challenge, nearly a ton of horse was aimed at him too. He watched, in utter fascination, as the horse literally launched into the air,
Concha kicked her feet free of the stirrups, dropped her reins, and held her saber in both hands. One more brief second of thinking that a bit odd and it all snapped into place. She wasn't strong enough to drive a saber through the tartum's neck with one hand, probably not with two. Hell, he probably wasn't strong enough either! Sam dropped, rolled to one side, coming up on his knees. The tartum missed taking off his head by a fraction of an inch. The horse, which had apparently grown frikkin' wings sailed through the air, clearing over the tartum's back. He was so close he could feel the movement of air from them against his neck. Concha's saber hit its mark, driving partway into the tartum's neck, just behind its head. She was using the momentum of the horse to try and drive it though.
And Christ! These things did have tough hide! The saber stuck, Concha was whipped back, somersaulted away from the horse with a short yell, and flung a good ten feet when the tartum snapped its head around. Sam saw his chance and took it, springing at the entity with his knife, burying it to the hilt in the tartum's face. Which really just pissed it off. The thing flickered in and out of vision, Sam dodged slashing claws more from feeling them come at him than anything else. When it became visible again it looked almost ridiculous with Sam's knife in its snout and Concha's saber in its neck, flinging itself side to side.
"Down!"
Sam didn't question his brother for an instant, dropping flat to the ground. He looked around for Concha, who probably wouldn't have the same blind faith reaction, but she was still well away, pushing off the ground on one arm, shaking her head a bit.
Dean leveled his pistol, having a good, clean shot at the tartum's belly and fired……eight or ten times. Sam reasoned the thing must have freaked Dean out a bit for him to fire so many times. Each of the bullets hit true, shoving the tartum back, then jerking it to one side, then another forcing Sam to roll clear twice. The second time he rolled at Dean, stopping just short of his brother's feet.
"You ok?" Sam panted as Dean's fingers curled around his arm, hauling him to his feet. Dean just gave him a cocky look and blew at the end of the pistol. He watched as his brother then moved closer to the tartum's head, putting a few more rounds, point blank, into its head, just to be sure. Pulling first Sam's knife, then Concha's saber from the thing he wiped the weapons across the tartum's side, cleaning off some of the blood.
"I'm good, Sammy, thanks."
"We have to get the horses." Concha sounded a little shaky, and looked even shakier. Holding her right arm against her side, she'd pushed herself onto her feet and was leaning against a tree.
Dean skirted around the tartum, Sam right behind him. "Hey," Dean took her left arm, "Sit a few."
"I'm ok." The briefest shake of her head. "We really need the horses."
Sam bit back a smile when Dean suddenly got a whole lot firmer. "I'm thinking you know better, now SIT DOWN."
Concha contritely sat, her gaze shifting to Sam who just shrugged a bit at her. "Welcome to my world." He mumbled, ignoring the look Dean shot him.
"Lemme see." Dean took the collar of her jacket, trying to slide it down.
"Don't even pal!"
"Oh for the love of…..we're not EVEN going to go THERE! Take the damn jacket off so we can see how bad it's hurt."
Concha opened her mouth, then shut it when Sam touched her other shoulder lightly. "Let him see, it's just easier that way, trust me."
Sam thought Dean looked rather smug when Concha took off her jacket. Her shoulder and upper arm were bruised, and would be pretty darn sore in a day, but no bleeding, and nothing broken, though she still trembled. It looked painful.
"My horses." She repeated, this time Sam caught a hitch in her voice.
"I'll go look for them."
"We should stay together, Sam." Dean said.
"He's right. And my mouth is just to dry right now." She pulled a dog whistle from her jeans and held it up. "One of you guys able to give a toot?"
An hour later they'd collected Concha's horses and moved a mile or so from the tartum corpses.
"Look, guys, here's the deal. We won't be able to get to the cabin before dark. But I really don't want to spend another night out here. We should be able to pass the steepest part of the trail before sundown. But riding it at night still isn't the best idea, and I've never done it before." She stopped, looked from one to the other. "But I'd really like to get there."
Sam felt for her, he could tell Dean did too. Glancing at his brother, seeing Dean nod just by the smallest degree, he figured they could give it a shot. However, he seriously wondered if she could ride for long without resting. "Why don't we just go on, and if we need to stop we will, otherwise we won't."
One thing he had to admit, and was sure Dean would too, she was a little more than acquainted with the concept of hunting.