Two days later...
After the last blizzard, the weather had been mostly calm, with only cloudy skies and mild snowfall to contend with.
The trio had been making good progress, with no serious hurdles on their journey south, unless you counted Sid's constant whining about his aching feet. Ironically, the sloth was blissfully oblivious that out of the three of them, he had it the easiest. He didn't require much food to keep going, nor was he recovering from near-fatal injuries.
Manny did his best to ignore his ever-growing hunger pains, keeping an iron focus on the journey ahead, always telling himself that the quicker he traveled the sooner he would find some sustenance. Being big had its perks but also its disadvantages. One, you needed a lot of food to fuel your massive body, and two, you were ill-suited for traveling through a mountain range, which was what they were currently doing.
Walking around it would have taken longer and their goal was to catch up with the other migrating animals before the ice age winter caught up with them. In his mind, it had been a calculated risk.
Tapping into his elephantine memory, Manny recalled a route he took while migrating with his parents many years ago, one that would take them to the southern lowlands the quickest. Of course, this route was far harder to cross after he packed on a few extra tons, not that Manny would ever admit it out loud.
"Can I hitch a ride now? Pretty please with a cherry on top?" Sid pleaded with him.
"No." the mammoth said flatly. The last thing he needed was the extra weight.
"Shoot!" Sid snapped his claws, though he had no plans of giving up. He would wear Manny down eventually with his masterful persuasion!
Manny shifted his attention to Diego, who was taking the lead, as he normally did, while they traveled on a snowy ridge leading towards towering rocky peaks, giving them a good view of their surroundings.
He kept his eyes peeled for the route Manny had described to him this morning, being the most keen-eyed of the group. But he got distracted as he heard grunting and looked down, spotting a herd of musk oxen frolicking around in a snowfield just below them, including calves that ran and jumped around frivolously.
The shaggy bovids quickly formed a circle to protect their offspring as they spotted the big cat looming over them, collectively glaring at him. Diego slowed his pace for a few moments as he watched the herd, weighing out his options, before ultimately looking away and moving on.
Even if he had been in tip-top condition, he stood no chance against a whole herd of horned beasts, not even having the element of surprise on his side. It was frustrating but there was nothing he could do about it.
Manny observed the whole thing, knowing exactly what the tiger was thinking. He also knew that starving yourself for days while trying to heal from your injuries was a bad combo. The nonstop walking wasn't helping matters but taking prolonged pit stops wasn't an option either with record-breaking blizzards always on their heels. Manny thought about telling Diego that he and Sid could take a break while the carnivore tried his luck with the musk oxen.
But that would entail encouraging the assassination of another animal, one who could be a parent with children, or a child themselves. A hungry predator was not a picky one. But letting Diego fast for even longer could have dire consequences for his health, and they had no way of knowing when another, for lack of a better term, opportunity would present itself for the tiger. It wasn't a dilemma Manny had mentally prepared himself for, so in the end, he said nothing on the matter and let the tiger be a tiger on his own accord.
The musk oxen watched Diego carefully, but their unease quickly turned to befuddlement as they saw a mammoth and sloth nonchalantly trailing after the predator, the sloth even giving a friendly wave.
"Don't worry! He's with us!" Sid cupped his mouth and shouted.
One musk ox spat out his lunch. "I really need to lay off the lichen?" he said to himself.
Manny felt an odd mixture of amusement and bashfulness from the confusion his small herd caused. To them, this strange entourage made sense, but to everyone locked out of the loop (meaning literally everyone else), they were the equivalent of seeing an animal with two heads.
"Don't tempt me, Sid." Diego shot back dryly, growing irate. "I haven't eaten anything in two days."
He was talking about the musk oxen, but Sid's startled look made him realize the vague wording. "I'm talking about them..." he groaned and looked away "...I'd prefer not to orphan anyone."
"You think you can hold on a bit longer like that?" Manny asked with visible concern.
Ignoring the dull pangs in his chest, Diego snorted. "Sure I can. Any tiger worth a damn can survive two weeks without food. It's only been two days."
"What about an injured and starved tiger?" Manny said seriously. In return, Diego flashed his trademark smirk.
"Going on a long, grueling journey would be suicidal for him, but most don't have an overprotective mammoth to piggyback on when they are pooped."
"Guess they don't." Manny grew a begrudging smile. At least Diego was looking on the bright side of things.
"Yeah...but just so we're clear..." a worried Sid asked as he rushed up to Diego. "Even if you get the munchies real bad, you wouldn't think 'bout..." he made a throat-slicing gesture "...me, right?"
Despite the grim nature of the question, Diego perked up. The best remedy against hunger pains was teasing his companions. He didn't even need to fib to Sid.
"Don't worry, buddy. Even if I was starving, you'd be the last thing I'd consider eating. To be honest, I never cared much for sloth meat." he insisted.
"So you're playing favorites now? I'm hurt." Manny deadpanned in jest.
"Oh, that's a relief..." Sid wiped his forehead but Diego wasn't done with him.
"Can you blame me? Have you ever tried sloth meat?" he said with an exaggerated grimace. "It tastes like rotting steppe bison steak marinated in swamp water."
"Hey! We can't taste THAT bad." an indignant Sid whined before looking at his arm and taking a lick. His eyes bulged and he recoiled in disgust as his taste buds made contact with the fungus in his fur.
Diego smirked and walked on as Sid coughed, gagged, and wiped his tongue. "Ugh...yuck! Sick!"
"Now that's a solid predator deterrent if I ever saw one." Manny said wryly as he passed the sloth.
Frowning, Sid raised a claw, about to retort when he bumped his foot against something buried under the snow. Looking down, he dug his paw into the snow and pulled out a shaft of wood.
It was long and smooth and broken at the tip, like the discarded half of a spear. But Sid didn't think too hard about its origin, as the sight of wood of any kind made him beam.
Manny, meanwhile, was looking up a steep rocky hill along with Diego. Beyond that, they could see the rim of a towering cliff stretching for miles.
"So you reckon we're done with all the altitude sickness?" Diego quipped.
"There should be a gorge behind that hill, a straight path leading down the mountain slope." Manny recollected as he surveyed the familiar surroundings. There was a trail snaking around the hill. "That trail should lead us to it."
"And you're absolutely sure we won't find a dead end instead?" Diego wondered.
"A mammoth never forgets."
"Want me to climb up there to make sure? Shouldn't take me long and I oughta have a good vantage point." Diego offered as he looked up the hill anew.
Manny looked at him with uncertainty. "You sure you can do it?"
"You need to ask?" Diego scoffed semi-indignantly and jumped onto a boulder.
"Watch me!" he said brashly as he scaled up the rocky hill with amazing speed. Manny was impressed but also worried that the prideful feline was stretching himself thin, given his compromised state.
"Hey, Manny! Look what I found!" an excited Sid exclaimed in as he caught up with Manny.
"Wow, a stick." the mammoth deadpanned as he started walking along the trail. "Now my life's complete."
"It's not just a mere stick, Manfred my friend." Sid slyly lectured him while tapping the larger mammal's side with his prized possession. "With this baby, the Lord of the Flames shall make his grand comeback!"
"Pretty sure you need more than one stick to make a fire." Manny pointed out before looking up at the sky and noticing the moving, ever-darkening clouds, which blocked out even the smallest ray of sunshine.
"Then again, we might need one soon."
With his fur billowing from the biting winds, Diego soon reached the top of the hill, and sure enough, he saw a wide gap in the rock wall, maybe half as wide as Glacier Pass.
Smiling, he looked back at the vast mountain range they were about to leave behind and then down, where he spotted Manny and Sid walking along the trail, the latter prattling on about something undoubtedly annoying while carrying a stick.
Diego was about to come down and congratulate Manny on his impeccable memory, when an enticing smell entered his nose; the smell of meat. His friends spotted his form atop the hill, only for him to abruptly vanish from their line of sight.
"Where's he off to?" Sid asked and scratched his head.
Following his nose and searching among the various rock formations leading toward the foothills of the cliff, Diego soon heard snarling and yelping.
He found three white-furred wolves ravenously gnawing at the partially buried remains of a musk ox, probably a victim of the last blizzard. These mutts didn't quite look like the dire wolves he was used to chasing away. Like the reindeer, they must have been visitors from lands further north, driven south by the expanding glaciers.
Diego was normally averse to scavenging but knew that desperate times required swallowing his pride. He needed all the food he could get if he wanted to make a quick recovery while also journeying on his own four feet. He didn't like Manny fussing over him as it was.
Growling and snapping at each other, the wolves failed to notice the larger predator walking down the hill towards them, until he was mere yards away from them. The tiger announced his presence with a fierce roar as he leaped at the canines. Predictably, they squealed and whimpered in fear and scattered as fast as their legs could carry them.
Diego smirked, but his mirth was shortlived as he inspected the carcass and saw that it had been stripped clean, with only strands of meat sticking to the bones. Grunting in annoyance, he swiped at the rib cage and smacked some bones away.
Seems he would go hungry again. No point in sulking about it though, he had to suck it up and keep going. That was the only way of finding prey.
His frustration waned as he realized he was standing right at the mouth of the gorge. Still seeing no sign of his friends, Diego decided to go ahead and see if the pass was safe for crossing. Trudging along the snow-covered slope, he looked up to see ragged ice forming along the rocky walls, with icicles hanging everywhere.
It was darker inside the gorge, but Diego could still see clearly and saw that the path gradually sloped down, meaning it could only lead to lower altitudes and hopefully flat terrain, just as Manny remembered.
But something was amiss, as the tiger picked up a familiar scent. It was old and faint, but it made the hair on his back bristle and he instinctively let out a low growl, all his senses on high alert. It was the smell of his second least favorite creature.
Sniffing the snow-covered ground, he came upon a rocky overhang protruding from the wall, covered in icicles as well, and underneath it, he saw a few isolated footprints, the rest of the trackway having likely been buried during the last snowstorm.
Diego inspected the paw prints, which were similar in size and shape to his own, but the pad was proportionally smaller and there were visible impressions of claws. They weren't wolf tracks though, far too big.
"Hey, Diego! Wait for us, will ya!" he suddenly heard Sid's voice and looked over his shoulder to see the sloth catching up to him along with Manny. The former panted and leaned on his knees while catching his breath.
"Where did you run off to?" Manny inquired.
"Sorry. Thought I smelled something delicious." Diego shrugged his shoulders. "But the scavengers beat me to it."
Manny just nodded, seeing no need for elaboration. Instead, he observed the gorge and grew a smile.
"This is it, guys. This shortcut will lead us straight to the lowlands down south." he explained to his companions.
"That's where everyone else is heading, right?" Sid asked excitedly.
"You go it." Manny nodded.
"That's the best news I heard all day." Diego agreed before realizing that he should give his friends a fair warning, especially Sid. "Though there could be trouble lurking ahead."
"Trouble?" Manny asked. Diego nodded and gestured at the tracks.
Sid scratched his head cluelessly. "Huh? What do you suppose left those?"
"Seems hyenas have been skulking around here." Diego stated with a sneer.
"H-hyenas!" Sid squeked and grabbed onto Manny's collum-like leg. "A-are you s-sure?" he asked while looking left and right.
"I know hyena tracks when I see them." Diego replied. "One of those vile vermin definitely passed through here, and it's likely a scout. They always travel in packs."
Sid went pale, looking like he was ready to faint. He really, really hated the word "pack". It meant lots and lots of sharp-toothed maws looking to tear any unfortunate animal apart.
"Figures the further south we get the more company we're gonna find." Manny sighed. It was both a good and a bad thing, depending on how friendly the beasts they encountered were.
Feeling the sloth's quivering body wrapped around his leg, Manny actually offered him a reassuring smile.
"You've got nothing to worry about, Sid. If they see a mammoth and tiger fighting side by side, even a pack of them will flee with their tails between their legs."
"Yes, relax. These tracks are days old at least. And not to brag..." Diego started smiling in a cocky manner and rubbed his chest. "But I've whooped my fair share of hyenas while I was with Soto, I know how to handle them."
But just as Sid was starting to calm down, Diego added. "And besides, there's plenty of deadlier predators we could encounter. Being a hyena's side dish would be merciful by comparison."
"Will you cut that out." Manny said sternly as a terrified Sid glomped his leg again.
"Hey, I'm just giving him the heads up. Who's the predator expert here?" Diego shrugged in a cheeky manner. "He can't rely on you and me for protection all the time."
"Oh, no, no." Sid insisted adamantly. "I'm totally okay with being helpless and codependent."
Manny rolled his eyes before taking the lead, barking, "Let's go, we're wasting daylight, and another storm could be brewing."
"Could I perhaps hitch a ride now, Manny?" Sid was quick to ask as he and Diego followed.
"Sure you can." Manny answered, but before Sid could celebrate, he added. "Once Diego picks up the scent of predators that aren't miles away from us."
Sid pouted and slung his head in defeat, while Diego snarked, "Tough luck."
Heading downhill for hours, the trio eventually saw the light at the end of the gorge, all while the snowfall gradually increased.
"We might have to look for shelter soon." Manny contemplated as he watched the snowflakes wafting down. At least they were reaching lower altitudes and thus marginally warmer climes.
"Easy there, big guy." Diego said confidently. "The uber-tracker will find a cave in no time. I always do."
"Well, I better keep my tools on standby." Sid stated before sticking his stick to his side, and it stuck there. "It pays to have your fur infested with fungus!"
Manny winced. "Useful, I guess..." he said as they were greeted with a bright if cloudy sky.
"Look!" Diego exclaimed. They couldn't bealive their eyes.
Some ten miles away, nestled just beyond the snow-covered hills and scattered rocky peaks poking out of them, they saw patches of conifer forest, sticking out like a sore thumb against all the white and gray.
For the half-starved Manny and Sid, there was nothing more beautiful than the color of green.
"We did it." Manny grew a genuine smile, happy and relieved. "The worst is behind us."
"We sure did." Diego chuckled, now more confident than ever that herds of prey animals were only a small yonder away.
Sid cheered and pumped his fist. "Take that, Mother Nature!" he mocked the sky. "Is a little snow and ice the best you can throw at us!"
"Ow!" he got smacked against his shoulder by Manny's trunk. "What was that for?"
"Don't taunt her, Sid." the mammoth scolded him. "We can't afford that. The hardest part might be over, but the journey isn't."
"Hey? After everything we've been through, I think we deserve to brag." Sid argued. "Just a little anyway."
Surprisingly, Diego took Sid's side for once.
"Manny, let the poor sap live a little." the tiger joked. "He survived almost getting stomped into a bloody pulp by rhinos, I survived Soto's attack and you survived plunging into a river of lava. I think we've earned some bragging rights."
"Better to be cautious than sorry." Manny countered before growing a begrudging smile. "But...I guess we sorta did show what a little perseverance and teamwork can do."
"Now you're talking, Manny! I always say perseverance pays off!" Sid swung his fist before pointing up ahead. "Now what are you two lazy bums waiting for? The promised land awaits us!"
"You sure you don't want a break?" a somewhat surprised Manny asked, no longer seeing much need for them to make up for lost time. Though both he and Diego didn't have to guess hard why Sid suddenly felt so motivated.
"You joking? I'm famished!" Sid gestured at the distant forest before brashly taking the lead, marching onward with boundless swagger. "We can take a break after exploring the salad bar up ahead!"
"Can't argue with that logic, can ya?" Diego asked Manny rhetorically.
With his stomach growling, Manny was more than happy to follow Sid. He truly earned this meal, as it had been his stellar memory of these lands that allowed them to get here as quickly as they did. But he halted in his tracks as a vague memory flooded back to him.
"Wait a second, Sid." he blurted, making the sloth stop.
"What's wrong?" Diego looked back at him.
"We have to be careful, there's... something we have to look out for on this hill?" If only he could remember what it was, it's been so long ago. Manny looked around, trying to spot it.
Was he misremembering? No, he couldn't. His instincts never failed him.
"Look out for what?" Sid looked around and promptly shrugged. "Looks perfectly safe to me."
"Just let me think for a moment." Manny said sternly while rubbing his temple with his trunk, trying to jog his memory. Diego looked around as well.
"Pfffttt...you're just being a worrywart, Manny!" Sid turned around and beckoned his giant friend. "C'mon! Enough lollygagging, I'm starving over here! Why, I'm so hungry, I'd even eat-"
Manny and Diego widened their eyes as they saw the ground beneath Sid's feet cracking. Sid only had a second to process it before falling through the ice.
With his feline reflexes, Diego leaped forward and grabbed Sid's tail with his jaws but found himself struggling to keep any traction on the ice, even with his claws.
Below him, Sid let out a high-pitched scream as he found himself dangling above a deep pit, with the glacial ice giving way to rock, and some 80 feet down, at the very bottom, he spotted the large skull of a mammoth, together with the bones of other animals like rhinos, starts, giraffes, antelopes, and even the shell of a giant armadillo.
Diego tried to pull him up but the worst came to pass as he saw a crack forming between his front legs and the ice fractured. He felt himself falling but luckily, Manny's trunk grabbed one of his back legs.
But this just put Manny in the same precarious position, a his padded feet were even worse at keeping traction on slippery ice, which was starting to fracture even more under his 5-ton bulk.
Snow and ice had a nasty habit of concealing dangers, such as a huge pit that was plainly visible to anyone with a pair of eyes, unless it froze over and got covered by snow.
Manny tried not to move a single muscle. Pulling his friends up would have been easy, but not when a single wrong move could plunge all three of them to their doom.
Squeaking, Sid looked up and pressed his paws together in a pleading gesture. "I'm so sorry, Mother Nature! Don't take it personally! I have a bad habit of running my mouth!"
"Ngghhh yyyrrr shhhyyin' ith." Diego grumbled when he spotted a ledge to his right. He knew Manny couldn't hold them up for much longer, so acting fast, he swung himself left and right before throwing Sid towards the ledge.
Screaming, Sid tumbled onto the ledge, sliding across it, and slammed his head against the rock wall.
"Manny, just toss me to your right, as hard as you can! Trust me!" Diego shouted at the mammoth.
"Don't have much of a choice, do I?" Manny reluctantly did so before pushing himself back, the ice falling piece by piece under his feet.
Flying through the air, Diego managed to sink his claws into the ledge and ducked as bits of ice fell past him and hit the bottom of the pit, each thump echoing across the pit.
Digging his back feet into the rock, he hauled himself up onto the ledge and hunkered down to catch his breath. He found a dizzy, mumbling Sid lying next to him, nursing his bruised head.
Sighing in relief, an irate Diego said, "Okay, new rule. Never ever talk smack to nature again. You got it?"
"I got it alright." Sid muttered while rubbing his head, feeling a big bump.
"Are you guys okay!" they heard Manny shouting. Looking up, Diego couldn't spot him, his line of sight obscured by a protruding rock but also because the mammoth couldn't risk stepping too close to the newly formed hole in the ice.
"We're alive! But I don't know how to get out!" Diego shouted back, his voice echoing. Knowing Manny could do nothing to aid them, the tiger assessed the situation and scanned his surroundings.
Even if he somehow managed to climb the walls with Sid clinging onto his back, there was no way he could break through or climb over the thicker ice forming along the edges of the wide pit.
Sid shook himself out of his stupor and propped himself up. "Where are we?" he said dizzily as he looked around.
"Right now, we're trapped in a pit." Diego deadpanned before noticing that the ledge they were on extended further along the rock wall, but grew narrower.
"Just stay put." Diego ordered the sloth as he carefully walked along the ledge, kicking small rocks down the hole with each step.
At the end of it, he found a crack in the wall. The inside was dark, so thinking for a second, Diego roared into it and to his delight, heard a long echo. Good sign.
"Diego! What are you doing? Do you see a way out of there!" he heard Manny again.
"Maybe!" the tiger shouted back. "Just give us a moment!"
Looking at Sid, Diego told him. "Sid, just follow me over here, and be very, very, very careful."
Gulping and nibbling on his claws, Sid glanced down the deep, deep pit and the many bones at its bottom. "D-don't have to tell me twice."
Sweating, he pressed himself against the wall and very slowly and arduously, inched his way towards Diego.
By the time he reached him, Diego was lying on the floor and tapping one claw against the ground when Sid collapsed onto his back, breathing heavily.
"I'm never EVER doing that again..." the sloth wheezed.
Diego got up and let Sid roll off him and ploop to the cold floor as the former inspected the crack again. It was pitch-black darkness inside.
Pushing himself up, an unsure Sid pointed at it. "You want us to go in there?"
"We don't have a choice..." Diego retorted and muttered "...if only we had some way of seeing where we're going?"
His comment sparked an idea in Sid's head and he looked around, quickly finding some flintstones.
"Eureka!" he laughed and pried the stick off his body.
"Don't tell me you have an idea?" Diego asked incredulously.
"Fear not, your bestest pal Sid has everything covered!" Sid flicked the stones together. Sparks flew and the stick caught fire.
Diego was at a loss for words. Sid's lack of hygiene proved to be their salvation.
"AHA!" Sid lifted his torch triumphantly. "The Lord of the Flames is gonna save the day!"
Now finally able to see, Diego made out a long cavernous corridor ahead of them. If there was any way out of this pit, that was their best bet.
"Alright then, Lord of the Flames." the tiger gestured with his paw. "You can lead the way."
Sid's bravado faltered as he looked down the spooky cavern filled with flowstones, stalagmites, stalactites, and other rocky formations, all cast in ominous shadows, and it was deathly silent, other than the occasional drop of water.
"Umm..." Sid swallowed, unable to back away now "...sure I will."
Looking back up, Diego shouted to Manny, explaining what he and Sid were planning to do.
"Alright! I'll go around it and trumpet if I spot a way out of the cave! Stay safe!"
That was the last they heard from their mammoth friend. Now alone, Diego and Sid had to hope for the best and see if this cavern would lead them back to the surface, so they entered it.
This took forever to post. I actually wrote the first draft of this chapter and the next one over a month ago, but due to a mixture of creative block and trying to work out some kinks in the narrative, I kept procrastinating. And because the rewrites led me to add more scenes and dialogue to an already lengthy chapter, I had to break it up into two.
On the upside, it means the next one should be up soon and it meant that the main three sub-zero heroes could spend a bit more time together by their lonesome in relatively casual situations until we get to the meat of things. This might have felt a bit filler-y but don't worry, the next chapter will have more action. Not to spoil too much, but let's just say it's a bad idea to venture into a cave during the middle of winter XD