There was a public funeral in the Grand Hall. Storytellers shared the history of Sohjos with the Racroft crowds, talking over one another and emulating the grand cacophony of a life well lived. Finally, they affixed the dried parchment of Sohjos’s flesh to a thin reed box. Those who could manage the journey, marched for two days to the edge of the seas and, with great ceremony, released the flesh of Sohjos into the wind. It was the largest gathering at the sea’s edge Thurl could ever remember.
Sohjos’s body – what remained of it – was caught by the breeze and drawn into the void. The Racroft stood in solemn silence, listening to the roll of the waves and the flutter of Sohjos, finally flying on the wind, until he was so far away they could no longer detect his path.
Finally, Thurl was able to make his journey home.
CHAPTER thirty-two
“Why are we stopping here?” Thurl asked, when his brothers and sisters began filing into a small hut on the outskirts of the village near the mouth of the great cavern.
It was the first time any of them had spoken since Sohjos had died.
“We’re home,” Thurl’s brother, Alfor, said.
“This isn’t our home,” Thurl protested.
Thurl’s mother put her hand on his back and pressed against him.
“This is our home now,” she said, and she pushed back the tattered flap that led her inside.
“We live in the center of the village,” Thurl said. “Father is the Leader of the Hunt! He is the most respected member of--“
“He’s only been dead for four days for you,” his oldest brother, Muxil, growled from behind him. “For us, he’s been gone for weeks. You were both assumed dead, so the village moved on.”
Muxil pushed past Thurl, angrily, and went into the tiny hut. He threw something that crashed loudly.
“I don’t understand,” said Thurl.
Agrof, his sister, explained: “When you and Father didn’t return, everyone assumed the worst. The members of the hunt team all told the same story – Father was killed by a narvai-ub and you had disappeared.”
“Nobody has ever survived a narvai-ub attack,” continued his sister Oadil. “So, we all assumed…”
“The village needed a new Leader of the Hunt,” said his brother, Zam.
“One of us should be the Leader of the Hunt,” Thurl growled. “We are Sohjos’s sons! We should have been considered first!”
Agrof pulled Thurl away from the huts, back outside the mouth of the cave, and spoke in soft tones.
“Father was killed during a hunt,” she said. “Our family line has been disgraced. Nobody would accept us as Leaders. They took our hut and sent us out here to the mouth of the cavern.”
“That’s not true!” Demanded Thurl. “Father survived the narvai-ub attack! He didn’t die until he was home!”
“It’s too late, Thurl,” Zam said. “There is already a new Leader. Meisx has assembled a new hunt team and they’ve been training for weeks.”
“Meisx!” The word stabbed in Thurl’s brain like a spear. “MEISX?!!” He shouted into the cold, bitter wind.
Rage filled him until his neck ached and his fists were drawn into tight, pulsing clubs.
“How did Meisx become Leader of the Hunt?!” Thurl demanded.
“He was chosen,” Oadil said.
“Chosen?!” Thurl laughed. “Who chose him?!”
None of them answered. They didn’t know. When the hunt team returned, Meisx assumed the role of Leader of the Hunt, and nobody had challenged him.
“Nobody challenged him?!” Thurl was incredulous. “We are the sons of Sohjos! None of you challenged him?”
“We’re not on the hunt team,” Tsirc answered. “The Leader of the Hunt has to be a member of the hunt team.”
“Where is Meisx now?” Thurl asked.
“I don’t know,” Zam answered. “Probably in his hut. The training was postponed until after the funeral.”
“Come inside, Thurl,” Agrof urged him. “Eat with us. You need your strength back.”
“I won’t set foot in that hut,” said Thurl. “I’m going home.”
Before Agrof could stop him, Thurl was pounding his way into the village toward the central dais where he had once lived.
CHAPTER thirty-three
Thurl paced in circles around the warming dais centered among the huts of the Elders. He needed to speak to them; to get information about what happened to his family in the absence of Sohjos; to challenge the establishment of Meisx as the new Leader of the Hunt. Also, he needed to see Iassa; to tell her what had happened to his family. He needed someone to listen; to understand; to help him calm himself before he did something to get himself killed and his family banished. He was livid, his fists balled into tight blocks as he waited.
The Elders were refusing to see him; refusing to allow him entry to their huts.
When Iassa finally stepped through the opening, alone and unescorted, Thurl could hardly speak.
Iassa was tightly wrapped in chunacat cloaks, clinging a warming rock to her chest, and still shivering. She trudged across the dais toward him, miserable with cold. When Thurl felt her misery and the air currents vibrating so fervently from her, his anger dissolved.
“What’s wrong?” He asked. “Are you sick? Are the Elders not treating you well? Why are you shaking like that?”
“I’m freezing,” said Iassa. “It’s so cold on the surface. I don’t know how you can live here. It’s so much warmer below.”
Thurl put his arms around her, and walked her to the central dais where the tower of warming rocks radiated warmth.
“We need to get you home,” he whispered into her ear. Then: “I have to speak to the Elders.”
“They won’t speak with you,” Iassa said. “They say that you and your family are disgraced.”
Thurl explained what Meisx had done to his family; the usurpation of power within the village. He told her about Meisx’s lies about the vortex storm to the other hunt team members before the narvai-ub attack; how he must have come home with grandiose lies about his role in saving the hunt team from the narvai-ub, when Sohjos could not.
“Wouldn’t the other hunt team members contradict him?” Iassa asked. “They were witnesses, weren’t they?”
“Four of our team were killed in the attack,” Thurl told her. “The others must have been bribed or threatened or …”
He stopped, unable to speak.
Suddenly, he understood what had been happening while he was away; why so many members of his father’s hunt team hadn’t greeted Sohjos in the Healer’s huts; how Meisx had taken power; and how he was keeping it.
Thurl needed to find Meisx; to confront him; to avenge the death of his father.
He could feel his heart beating with anger. His hands were slowly pulling into fists. But, Iassa was pressing her body into Thurl, warming herself in the aura of his body heat. Thurl stood in the Elder’s central dais, holding Iassa as tightly as he could, until his legs began to ache and tears of anger and fear and helplessness wetted his face.
When she felt them dripping onto her flesh, Iassa turned and wiped the tears away. Then, she pressed her lips to his. At first, Thurl wanted to pull away, but the sensation of her lips was too soft, too tender, and he began to relax. She reached around his waist, and pressed her hands into the fine down of the follicles along his powerful back. He ran his hands under her chunacat cloak, to hold her and feel her warmth. Soon, the rage had been drained from him, and Thurl had a new conquest. He led her through the village to the mating huts along the widest banks of the warming stream. It was not mating season, so the huts were empty and the banks were deserted. Nobody would bother them. Nobody would even know they were there.
CHAPTER thirty-four
The scent of the tide had risen and fallen more times than they had counted before Thurl finally ventured outside. The warming rocks inside the hut had cooled long ago. Iassa used them to make a circle in the center of the hut, then pulled grasses and
roots from the floor and made fire in the circle. It was warm and Thurl got used to the stinging smell, and the sounds of crackling and popping were a welcome noise in the quiet of the hut.
The huts were always well stocked for mating season, when Racroft might stay embraced for days until they were certain the job had been done and a new Racroft was growing between them. Thurl didn’t know how many days he and Iassa had been inside, but the food in their hut was gone.
He stepped outside the hut. He planned to visit the next closest hut and take the food from inside to restock his own.
Oswyn was standing outside when Thurl emerged. There was no indication how long she’d been there. She might have been waiting for days to confront him.
She was standing still, not clicking or grunting, wrapped in thin, sheer trigon feathers that played with the follicles on her flesh and made high-pitched, sensuous sounds in the breeze.
Thurl didn’t know what to say. He could feel the heat from her body; could feel the pressure of the breeze as it shifted around her frame; could smell the perfume of the berries she pressed into her skin. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or sad or disappointed or smug. She simply stood there, silent, waiting for him to explain.
Thurl and Oswyn had been promised to one another when they were still young, but they’d never developed much of a relationship. Thurl had always been meek and immature and feeble. Oswyn had taken great pains to remind him whenever their paths crossed. She made him feel unworthy of her, and she probably felt that he was. Suddenly, however, he’d returned home a hero; a great warrior who had defeated the narvai-ub and tamed the chantimer and rescued the Leader of the Hunt. Suddenly, it was Oswyn who was meek and feeble. Suddenly, it was Thurl rejecting her. Neither of them knew how to handle the change.
Thurl wanted to say something, but nothing came out. He sighed, and his shoulders dropped and he hung his head and he waited.
Finally, Oswyn broke the silence.
“She’s not even Racroft, Thurl,” she said, both accusatory and disappointed.
She waited for Thurl to respond, but he had nothing to say.
“We thought you were dead,” Oswyn told him. “I chose a new mate, but we haven’t—“
She didn’t finish. Thurl took a step toward her, but she stepped back.
“You smell like it,” she said. “Her, I guess … if that thing is even—“
She sighed heavily.
“Anyway,” she said after a pause. “Meisx is looking for you. He’s organized a new hunt team. They’re hunting that creature you have in there, and if you die in the path … well, that’s part of the plan. I thought you should know.”
Thurl wasn’t surprised. He half-expected it. In some ways, he welcomed it.
“How do you know?” Asked Thurl.
“Meisx is my new mate,” she answered. “It was decided when you didn’t return. He was chosen for me. He doesn’t know I’m here. He doesn’t know you’re here. He thinks you and the beast are hiding in the resting cave on the path to the hunting grounds. But, he’ll find you. He’ll find you both. I just thought you should know.”
Thurl stepped toward her again, meaning to speak, or embrace her, or … something. She didn’t give him the chance. Oswyn turned, her trigon feathers cutting through the air and sighing a contented moan. She walked down the path, along the banks of the stream and disappeared behind the rows of mating huts.
Thurl wondered if he should go after her, but there wasn’t time. His immediate thoughts were for Iassa. Oswyn could have been a distraction to allow Meisx time to get inside the hut.
Thurl knew he could beat Meisx. In any battle, any contest, any show of force or test of leadership, Thurl could beat Meisx. But Meisx wouldn’t be alone. Oswyn said he had a hunt team under his command, and if her attitude and comments were any indication, the rest of the village was fearful of Iassa; maybe even hateful; maybe repulsed. By extension, his friends, his neighbors, the Racroft he had known his entire life, would suddenly turn against Thurl. He would be lucky to escape with his life. His family would be treated worse.
Thurl ran back through the opening flap of the hut, half expecting to find Meisx and his hunt team attacking Iassa in her sleep. The hut was as he had left it. Iassa was still sleeping.
Thurl wanted to let her sleep, but didn’t dare. Oswyn had come to warn him, and he needed to take action. Meisx didn’t play by Racroft rules. Whatever plan Meisx had, it wouldn’t wait for Thurl to be ready.
CHAPTER thirty-five
“We could leave,” offered Iassa. “You can live with the Meson in my village. We have members of the other Known Tribes living with us. You would be welcomed.”
“I can’t leave my family behind,” Thurl said, as he paced through the hut.
“Bring them,” said Iassa. “They will all have a home with the Meson.”
Thurl considered the options; thought about leading his family down into the tunnels; living in the uncomfortable, wet warmth of the underground. Then he thought of his mother, his sisters, his brothers, all living with strangers, never feeling the cold breeze on their flesh again. They would be miserable. It would be worse than the exile on the edge of the village.
“No,” Thurl finally said. “I can’t let Meisx chase my family away. I can’t let him dishonor my Father and my family and me.”
From the Grand Hall, drums began to sound throughout the cavern. They were the same drums that played when Sohjos died; the same drums played when any Racroft died.
Thurl ran out of the hut, shouting back for Iassa to stay hidden. He jogged through the maze of Mating Huts on the shore until he could cross the river over a bridge; the same bridge his brothers had used to pull him from the warming river when they’d thrown him in the day of his hunt. He raced to the central dais of the Elder huts and found an Elder making his way toward the Grand Hall.
“A Racroft has died,” Thurl said, stepping in the path of the Elder, trying to stop him. “Who has been ill? Who has died?”
The Elder ignored him, altering his direction to avoid Thurl’s question.
“Why won’t you talk with me?” Thurl asked. Again, the Elder refused to acknowledge Thurl.
Thurl’s eldest brother, Muxil, ran into the central dais of the Elder’s huts.
“Thurl,” he shouted when he detected his brother. “Another one,” He said. “I just got word from Eripme – she picks berries at the cavern mouth. Sreht has been found dead! That’s five members of Father’s hunt team to have mysteriously died since returning from the hunt. Ciashi, Gabal, Yadreet, Darawa and now Sreht! It’s like the whole team has been cursed.”
“Yadreet?” Thurl asked, skeptically. “Yadreet is here in the cavern. He was at our Father’s funeral.”
“He’s missing,” Muxil answered. “He was found speaking with Meisx during the period of silent mourning. He hasn’t been located since. Meisx says the Elders banished him, but his family doesn’t believe him.”
“The others; how did they die?” Thurl asked, suddenly agitated and excited.
“Accidents, all,” Muxil said. “Gabal drowned in the warming river. The Elders think he got drunk on deilla stalk wine and fell over a bridge when nobody was around. Darawa was found with a spear in his throat near the skinning and meat cutting huts. They said he must have tripped and fell on it.”
“And Ciashi?”
“Ciashi never returned from the hunt,” Muxil said. “His body was discovered just outside the cavern, covered with snow and torn to shreds. Meisx said he was attacked by a fegion as they made their way home.”
“The fegion,” Thurl nearly shouted with excitement and anger. “Where is the pelt? Did they kill it?”
“Meisx said it got away,” said Muxil.
Suddenly, Thurl realized why four members of his father’s hunt team had not arrived at Sohjos’s hut before the Leader of the Hunt died. He also realized that only Meisx and his own mother had been in the Healer’s tents when Sohjos died.
The suspicion
s that had begun to creep into his thoughts days ago suddenly returned. Meisx had grown powerful. Clearly, the other warriors were afraid of him. Maybe even the Healers feared him; maybe even the Elders. The hunt team members were being deliberately eliminated. The warriors with the greatest loyalty to Sohjos died first. The rest were quickly being murdered.
Thurl realized Sohjos’s death may not have been a willing suspension of life; may not have been inevitable at all. It was possible, Thurl suddenly fumed, that Sohjos was coaxed into death by Meisx – either by direct assault, or by subversive means.
The rage in Thurl grew until his fists shook and his breath exhaled in short, quick pants. He wanted to challenge Meisx, publicly. He wanted to attack him and beat him in a vengeful rage, and re-establish his family’s honor.
“I have to go,” Thurl whispered. “Muxil, please escort Iassa back inside an Elder’s hut.”
“Where are you going?” Muxil asked.
Thurl didn’t answer. He was already gone.
CHAPTER thirty-six
Meisx was sitting outside Thurl’s ancestral home. He was breathing slowly. His legs were crossed. His palms were pushed forward and open, feeling the warmth from the rocks in the dais.
He was sitting in the exact spot where Sohjos often sat to tell his family stories about their hunts, or to enjoy a few kanateed seeds before bed, or simply to enjoy the sounds of the village and the warmth of the rocks in the central dais.
The giant wall of spent warming rocks was still there, wedged between two huts. The day of the Thurl’s first hunt, Alfor had attacked Thurl from atop that pile of rocks. It seemed like ages ago; another lifetime.
Thurl didn’t offer a greeting or a warning, but Meisx knew he was there. Thurl could tell he’d been discovered by the way Meisx inhaled slowly, deliberately, tasting the scent of Thurl on the breeze.
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