Orphan Tribe, Orphan Planet

by Jonathan Vick

  By the time he was unburdened and unbound, he was far from the sounds of the crowds. Some of them had followed his progress down the river, but when they got to the warming rock station, where thousands of rocks were warmed in the river for distribution throughout the village, they stopped and went back to their morning routines.

  Thurl was still navigating down the river. He knew he had passed the warming rocks, and the horvill sow ranches, where the sows drank from the river. He knew he was coming up to the mating huts along the banks. Before he reached them, there would be another bridge he would pass beneath. If he could detect the bridge, he might be able to maneuver to a place where he was able to grasp it and pull himself out of the water.

  He grunted, trying to listen for echoes over the din of the rushing water around him. Finally, he found the spread of the bridge ahead, but it was too late. His brothers were already there, laughing and pointing and cheering.

  He attempted to kick his was toward one side, hoping to grab the bridge, but the current was strong and the water was fast. He hadn’t made much progress when the bridge was overhead. Before he came out the other side, however, there were strong hands on his arms, lifting him out of the water and sitting him on the dry tranik bark of the bridge.

  His brothers stood around him, laughing and patting him on the back. Wohsel handed him a dry cloak to wipe the water from himself.

  “You’re soaking wet, Runt” Alfor laughed. “How are you going to hunt if your follicles are wet?”

  “I wasn’t hunting yet!” Thurl shouted at them, trying to sound angry. “I was just waking up.”

  “You should always be ready for a hunt,” Muxil said as he helped Thurl to his feet.

  “I’ll tell Dad you’re awake,” Tsirc laughed. “Good luck today, Runt. I hope you don’t get eaten by a hungry narvai-ub.”

  “We’re not hunting narvai-ub, Tsirc,” Thurl shot back as he wrapped the pelt around himself and scrubbed the warm water off his whiskers.

  “No,” said Alfor. “But that doesn’t mean a narvai-ub won’t be hunting you.”

  The brothers laughed.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Hartenir said. “You’re too tiny a meal for narvai-ub.”

  Laughter, again.

  “And if you taste like you smell,” added Zam, “It’ll spit you out before it closes its mouth!”

  One by one, his brothers clapped him on the back or shoulder and wished him good luck, as they walked off the bridge and returned to their morning routines to keep the village running.

  Thurl was angry and wet and exhausted from fighting the current and keeping his head above the water. But he was also a little flattered. He was entering adulthood with the hunt. His brothers were simply welcoming him into it.

  He clicked and grunted to figure out exactly where he was. Then, he walked off the bridge in the opposite direction of the empty mating huts, and back to his hut. If he wasn’t there when his father left for the Hunt, he would be left behind.

  CHAPTER three

  Sohjos pushed back the straps of the hut and walked into the central dais. He extended his phallus through the folds of thick skin and urinated onto the communal pile of warming rocks. The rocks hissed with steam and Thurl could feel the warmth changing the air, pushing upward toward the cavern ceiling, hundreds of feet above their heads.

  Thurl sat on the bench that surrounded the warming dais. He was still wrapped tightly in the chunacat cloak, trying to dry his follicles. He could feel his stomach churning with excitement and fear.

  “I smell you,” his father said. “You reek of sweat and musk and the silt of the warming river. Any prey that can smell you can get away, or can attack. Your follicles won’t help you if you have a narvai-ub tunneling under the crust. It will break through the snow and swallow you whole before your feet have sensed the rise in the frost.”

  “I would know he was coming by the heat of his breath and the rumble of the ground,” Thurl countered.

  “You might,” Sohjos said, impressed with the boy’s confidence. “But that doesn’t mean you could move fast enough to escape its jaws.”

  Thurl swallowed hard and clicked his tongue softly. The narvai-ub were the most feared predator in the wilderness, but they were the most uncommonly encountered. Luckily, they tended to stay away from pack animals. Narvai-ub liked to pick off solitary creatures. As long as the Racroft hunted in groups, they were relatively safe from narvai-ub attacks.

  “Maybe you’re not ready for the hunt,” Sohjos said. “Over confidence leads to dangerous mistakes.”

  “No, I’m ready!” Pleaded Thurl. “I promise! I’m not over confident! I’m terrified!”

  “I can smell that for myself,” Sohjos laughed.

  The tide had fully risen and the morning smell of brine was thick and warm. Sohjos led his son out of the inner circle of huts and toward one of the outer circles. The hut reserved for the hunt team was in the outermost circle, closest to the opening of the immense cavern.

  Outside the cavern, the weather could be extreme and unpredictable, but food rarely wandered into the valley, so the Racroft had to brave the extremes.

  A hunt team was already sitting around the warming rocks when Sohjos and Thurl entered the dais.

  “Warriors!!” Sohjos shouted. His booming voice echoed in the circle. “Today, my son participates in his first hunt! For two years he has trained for this day! He is the youngest of my sons and has seen each of his brothers come home from their hunts with trophies on their backs and meat to feed the Racroft! As we welcome my last son into today’s hunt, help me instruct him on his failures and mistakes, allow him his glories when they come, but do not follow him or walk in his path; for you may be treading in urine soaked snow!”

  The warriors erupted into laughter. Thurl shook his head, and released a click and grunt to locate those who were laughing hardest. His brothers had warned him that their Dad would try to humiliate him. At least it was over.

  A drumbeat began from somewhere inside one of the huts and the warriors stood up and passed around their weapons. They held spears tipped with chipped sharp rock. They all held shields made from tranik bark, covered in leathern hide. Each shield was as tall as the warrior who carried it. It was curved to provide shelter from the wind, but light enough to carry into battle.

  The chanting began – clicks and grunts that illuminated the dais with sounds, each Racroft warrior joining in the nonsensical noise-making until Thurl could hear the location of every hut and rock and weapon and pebble. They stripped themselves of their cloaks, so every inch of their thick, bare flesh could be used to sense the movement of the air. The dais was vibrant with sound and excitement.

  When Sohjos shook the ground with the pounding of his enormous feet, the warriors evacuated their lungs of every sac of air and, holding their breath, ran out of the cavern and into the harsh, cold world beyond.

  Thurl had done this many times with the hunt crew, but never as a warrior. Every time before he had been left behind, and simply drew in his breath in the sphere of the warming rocks. This time, he followed the warriors beyond the cavern wall.

  The wind bit into him with unparalleled fierceness. Despite the ice and freezing air in the village, Thurl’s thick skin had always been enough to keep him relatively comfortable; and on the coldest nights, he draped himself with hides and hung his hammock near the rocks.

  At once, every follicle on his flesh stood straight. He could feel air currents with such intensity that the information was nearly overwhelming. It was as if the entire world were laid out in his mind, and every movement and sound and scent were his to command.

  He drew the biting wind into his lungs to slow his heart and calm his mind. It didn’t take long before his flesh adjusted to the temperatures, and he fell in line behind the marching warriors blazing a trail across the blustering tundra.

  The scent of the sea was more pungent outside the cavern. Thurl could smell animals in every direction. He could smell scant vege
tation all around, tempered only by the permafrost. The follicles on his skin quivered with sensation as he could feel the warriors moving ahead of him, and the wind blowing across the land. Some type of bird was flying overhead; a trigon or signie roosk. Thurl could feel the air current shifting above; could feel every beat of the wings as the bird circled around.

  The warriors ran across the tundra, crouched in a low stance, their thick legs bent, their torsos leaning into the wind, their shields held over their heads to cut the air, their weapons held by their sides. Thurl has been taught to run this way since he was a child. Now, he understood the reason. Beneath their large, wide feet, the snow crackled and crunched. Each warrior left a line of footprints, reinforced by the warrior behind until the footprints were trampled into a long, low trench.

  They ran for so long, Thurl wondered if they were going to get all the way to the ocean. He had never been to the ocean before; had only smelled the tides to mark the days. Every half dozen steps one of the warriors would grunt a low, guttural thrum, and the others would navigate off the echoes.

  There were high cliffs trailing behind them. Their village was in a cliff cavern. The ocean sounded toward the East. Thurl didn’t know how far away. He was accustomed to hearing echoes off the cavern walls. Outside, with nothing but the void above, he was having difficulty judging distance. To the West were foothills that stretched into mountains. The tundra laid out before them between the mountains and the ocean; like a vast frozen beach. Thick trees blanketed the foothills. From his Elder lessons, Thurl knew each tree was three or four times its size beneath the ground, where it stretched toward the planet core for warmth. The trees smelled like strong bonroot sap. The echoes they produced were tonal and hollow. Thurl was fascinated when they ran past them how different they seemed from the deilla stalks and kanateed trees that grew inside the cavern.

  There was other vegetation that survived in the cold: hard, sharp plaka with long deep roots wrapped around warming rocks in the crust; fields of wild bristlewind that fed off animal feces and, in turn, fed the animals; enormous tranik vines the thickness of a dozen Racroft twisting over and through the snow. Thurl’s oldest sister, Agrof, told him that it took foresters nearly a week to cut through a tranik vine. Inside, there was sweet root the Racroft ground to make their bread, as well as taps of fresh water and huge bean pods that were used to make all the all sorts of food. The bean seeds were even used to flavor their spiced drinks.

  Thurl was amazed at the world around him. He wanted to click and grunt and feel every breeze that passed him, but it wasn’t safe to make unnecessary sounds. He learned what he could, forgetting he was on a hunt, and lagged behind the slowest warrior.

  They ran until the tide smelled of deep brine and silt; until the high tide was at its highest and mid-day was marked. Thurl could tell they had already passed several of the hunting grounds, fertile with packs of animals grazing and waiting to be hunted; waiting to be killed.

  “The closest hunting grounds we leave for the worst weather,” Sohjos had told him when he was still in training. “We leave them alone for as long as we can. We let the prey feel safety and comfort in those places closest to our village, so when the weather turns – when the winter vortex comes – our warriors don’t have to venture far to find meat for the village.”

  The hunt party was headed for the Valley of Corpses. It was their main hunting ground, where they gathered the most meat. Without the Valley of Corpses, there wouldn’t be enough prey to support the Racroft. It was a journey Thurl’s father had taken often, for as long a Thurl could remember.

  Sohjos led the party past a well-worn trail that led to a small cave, used for emergencies and to hold supplies, then across a vast tundra, past immense bristlewind fields. Thurl felt the wind pressing him from the East. He could smell creatures he couldn’t identify; all sorts of fish and sea-beasts that surfaced through the icy ocean slush. Most of the afternoon was spent racing over the bristlewind fields. Finally, the hunt team was sheltered alongside a thick tranik vine. Thurl’s legs ached. His mouth was dry and felt like the silt from the riverside.

  Sohjos led them into the crook of a tranik vine where they were shielded from the wind. The warriors circled around and crouched low to the ground. A survival officer named Djinzon took a warming rock from his pack and set it in the middle of the circle. They would rest and eat before continuing into the valley.

  Thurl pressed his back against the tranik vine; felt the bark press against his flesh and his follicles reach into the crevices. There were insects in the crevices: a vast culture of derwigs and polysods and grull beetles going about their business on the insulated trunk, out of reach of the winds and the ice. Thurl was amazed at the variety of life outside the cavern. There were insects inside the cavern, and small animals, of course. In Elder lessons, he had been introduced to many different species, but this was the first time he had encountered the vast variety in the wild.

  The warriors sat in a circle around the warming rock, whispering and laughing and passing around a fresh cut uanna reed to suck the intoxicating sap. Thurl preferred sitting alone, soaking up all the sounds, smells and currents he could encounter.

  Gabal and Ciashi sat on either side of Thurl. They passed the uanna reed to him, but he didn’t want it. He’d sucked on uanna reed sap before and it made him feel strange; like he was falling, but controlling the fall; like everyone was talking in slow motion; like the sounds were far away. It was fun to play with at home, when he and his friends were skipping Elder lessons and hiding behind the mating huts. But on the hunt, his first hunt, he wanted his senses to be sharp.

  From above, he thought he heard a mewl, like a sleeping baby just before it realizes it’s hungry and wakes up screaming.

  “What was that?” Thurl asked. The warrior’s laughed.

  “The little runt doesn’t even know the sound of a chantimer hatching!” Meisx said.

  Meisx was one of the youngest warriors on the hunt team, but also the strongest. He loved to come home from hunts and visit the Elder lessons. He told stories about the dangerous creatures they encountered; his battle with a fierce fegion on his very first hunt, and how he’d brought it down with nothing but a spear and his own courage. Everyone in the village knew Meisx. Everyone considered him a great warrior.

  Everyone except Sohjos, who didn’t seem to like him.

  “Meisx!” Sohjos boomed. “This is Thurl’s first hunt. He has no experience with chantimer to know their call. I remember your first hunt. Do you want me to tell the tales?”

  Meisx sat down. Suddenly, the bravado seemed to been taken out of him.

  Sohjos cracked open a supak reed and drank the thick liquid that drained from inside. Then, he began a tale of hunting glory to inspire the warriors.

  “Don’t worry about Meisx,” Ciashi said, as he toked from the uanna root. “He’s a better storyteller than hunter. One day you’ll be a better warrior than him, and then he won’t call you runt.”

  The mewl came from above again. Thurl bristled with the sound of it.

  “Never been near a chantimer before?” Asked Yadreet.

  “No,” Thurl answered.

  “Well, it sounds like a young one up there,” Yadreet told him. “Climb on up and grunt around. Come back fast if it’s mother shows up, though. You don’t want to be around a mama chantimer when her chicks are hatching.”

  “Really?” Thurl asked, excited. “Could I?”

  “Sure. Go,” agreed Lavis. “We’ll be here a while before heading to the Valley of Corpses. You may as well explore the world.”

  Sohjos hadn’t heard them. He was busy talking with Hedule and Xatencio and Romd about the hunt; reminiscing with Aivira and Sreht.

  Thurl turned to the tranik vine and ran his hands over it. It was thick and solid, like a giant wall with veins of strong woody branches running along its surface. He began climbing toward the mewling sound. He had always been good at climbing, and had once reached the plateau in the cavern wh
ere the water fell, before his mother discovered him and made him come down.

  Now, he grabbed the bark of the tranik vine and lifted himself up the side. The vine was huge, more than three times the height of the tallest Racroft, but it only took him a few moments to reach the top.

  The wind was bitter and strong atop the vine. It was moving so quickly Thurl couldn’t catch solid scents or sounds. He clicked and grunted to get his bearings, but the wind stole the noises before any echoes returned. He was about to climb back down when he felt the prickle against his follicles. He wasn’t alone on the top of the vine.

  Thurl clicked rapidly, trying to survey his company. Behind him there was nest of bonroot twigs and broken bones. Inside the nest Thurl recognized seven or eight large eggs, each the size of his fists clasped together. He couldn’t hear the mewling anymore, and wondered if it was coming from inside one of the eggs, ready to hatch a chantimer chick.

  Thurl thrummed in a circle around him, sensing for the mother. The echoes that came back were shredded by the wind, but he seemed to be alone with the eggs.

  He heard the mewl again. The eggs were large; not quite as tall as Thurl but as big around. He pressed his hand against the closest egg and felt for warmth or movement inside. The shell was hard and cold, like stone. The mewl came again and this time he was able to track the sound. He pressed on across the nest until he’d found the vibrating egg. There was definitely something inside, trying to get out.

  Thurl smoothed his hands over the egg, searching for some sort of hatch or cover the let the creature out. The shell vibrated and shook as the baby chantimer inside responded to the warmth of Thurl’s hands.