“It only shows us what we’re up against. They must’ve sent a group ahead to prepare a frontal attack. That’s something we wouldn’t be expecting at all. No, they’re clever. But they don’t realize we’re smarter than them.”
Once again, Ecco’s fear spreads to Skye and she finds it hard to stay calm.
“I don’t understand why they’re after us, Ecco? What do we have that they want? There’s plenty of space and food for us all. Can’t we try to meet them face to face and hear why they’re following us? Maybe we’ve misunderstood what they want from us.”
Ecco stops abruptly and looks at her with his eyes wide open.
“Stop being so naive, Skye. I haven’t misunderstood anything. Of course they don’t want to be our new friends. They either want to kill us or do what’s worse. You do remember how we used to treat The Slaveborns or the working animals back in the village, don’t you? Is that how you want to end your life? Like a growling dog, or a slave working until you drop dead of exhaustion?”
Ecco becomes more and more agitated the longer he speaks, and suddenly his voice cracks and he starts coughing. Instinctively Skye freezes as she tries to control her fear of his outburst. The cough is probably caused by him speaking too much and drinking too little. She has to learn how to let go of the panicking fear she feels every time she hears Ecco cough or clear his throat, which he’s been doing quite a lot lately. It probably doesn’t mean anything. It just reminds her so much of back then when the world started changing.
Skye quickly gets up and hurries to find some water. All of a sudden she’s calm and composed.
“Here, drink some water, Ecco. We’ll work something out together. Everything will be fine as long as we stick together.”
Greedily, Ecco drinks from the water skin. He drinks so quickly that he spills water down his chin and neck. Skye carefully places her hand on his cheek and strokes it quietly. He stops drinking. Skye can tell that the color of his eyes have almost changed due to his agitation. Some of the small veins in his eyes have burst and made the whites of his eyes bloody. She thinks he resembles a wounded animal who knows it’s about to die.
“Hush. Quiet, brother, everything will work out. We have each other, remember.”
For the first time since they started wandering, the roles between them seem to be swapped. The small insecure girl who always sought shelter under her brother’s protecting wings is now comforting her strong, invincible protector. All of a sudden Skye’s not scared anymore and finds it natural to comfort Ecco, as if she’s been doing it her whole life and not just in this moment. She looks at Ecco, who’s shut his eyes and is resting his face on her hand. Without opening his eyes, Ecco puts his arms around Skye and pulls her close to him.
He buries his face in her long, thick hair. She smells of summer and happy childhood memories. How he misses that time, that now seems so long ago. Sometimes it even seems as if it never existed at all other than in his mind. Oh, how he’s felt like letting go sometimes. Letting go of his fears, his desires, his memories of something that can never be again. Wouldn’t life be so much easier? But if he lets go now he’s afraid he’ll never get up again, never stop crying. He has to, and mustn’t let go. He knows that very well. He promised this to their mother on her deathbed, back then when she left them in that cold room, long ago. He’ll never break that promise, but right now he’ll just stand here and smell happiness and hope in the hair of his sister. Feel her heart close to his so they can find the strength and happiness together. It’s them against the rest of the world.
“You’re hugging me too hard, Ecco. It hurts.”
Skye’s voice wakes Ecco from his thoughts and he quickly lets go of her. He pushes Skye away and hurries to the other side of the fire.
“I’ve thought of a plan for how we can protect ourselves from our chasers. It’s important you listen and help me with the things we need.”
Ecco’s voice and mood have suddenly changed, and the roles between them are once again like they used to be. Skye sits down next to him and prepares herself to listen.
CHAPTER 9
Puk has almost finished the enclosure for Twice. It’s not very robust or well carried out, but it’ll do for now as long Twice is this small. He’s put the enclosure a little way from the large hut so that it won’t cause any complaints from the others. Dagwood walks over to Puk, who’s on his knees in the enclosure, digging with a large flat stone.
“I’ve almost finished digging, and I only need to fetch some wet dirt from the riverbank. They like playing in the mud. I’ve seen it myself when I’ve observed them in the forest.”
Puk looks smilingly at Dagwood as he digs on.
“And I’ve made a small roof he can hide under if it starts to rain.”
Dagwood kneels next to Puk.
“It looks great, Puk. But you better get on with your chores and finish digging later. Some of the others are watching what you do, and they think that you’re getting special treatment. Let’s not give them any reason to make a fuss about it.”
Puk is about to object. Not against him finding food and fetching wood, but against the others giving Dagwood ideas. Maybe he is getting special treatment from him, but the others have each other to be with. Puk doesn’t really have anyone other than Dagwood. He looks down at Twice, lying in the shadow under a little tree that is also in the enclosure.
“See you later, my little friend. I’ll be back with some milk and food.”
Puk jumps the low fence and follows Dagwood toward the campfire.
Dagwood puts everyone to work. He’s the one telling the others which chores they each have to do that day. They take turns doing the boring tasks, and normally all the clan members are good at doing their job without moaning. If they’re unhappy with the dividing up of chores they can bring it up at the evening meeting by the fire, but it’s rarely necessary. Often they’ll swap between them before it turns into a problem.
Dagwood looks at Salomon and signals that they should go. Their task is mainly to shoot game and it’s been a few days since they last went hunting. Salomon walks towards him and together they head for the forest. They walk for a long time without talking. Over time Dagwood has learned that Salomon isn’t the talkative type. When he first showed up at their camp he didn’t even say much about who he was and where he came from. Suddenly one day he stood there, all alone with his few belongings, asking them if he could stay.
Dagwood looks at Salomon as they walk further and wonders what goes on in the head of the silent boy with the big scar across his face. The scar runs from his left eyebrow down to the middle of his cheek and makes him look tough and grown-up. It’s not red anymore and it’s almost healed, so he must have gotten it long ago. The size of the scar indicates that it must’ve been a large and serious cut. He’s never told how he got it, and the few times it’s come up he’s become uneasy and stared down at the ground.
Once the ever-talking and always teasing Fella brought it up at the evening meeting, which resulted in Salomon walking away in silence and leaving the camp for several days. Since then no one’s asked about it. Dagwood feels tempted to ask him now that they’re alone. He feels they’ve grown close over time and it would be natural to speak about it. But he doesn’t want to pressure Salomon or overstep his boundaries. One day he may confide in him and tell the story on his own initiative.
Salomon senses that Dagwood looks at him longer than necessary, so Dagwood quickly breaks the silence.
“I hope that we can shoot a couple of birds today. It’s been a while since we’ve had meat. Flo and Knox haven’t had much luck catching swimmers the last few days, and all the traps that Fella and Hackett have set have been empty.”
He looks at his companion, who nods in agreement. Salomon takes a leather string with two rocks at each end from his small linen bag that he always has at his side.
“I’ve made a new
sling and I’ll test it today. The stones are a bit bigger than the ones I normally use, so maybe I won’t have to throw it so high. I think that it may be more accurate when I get used to throwing it.”
He tosses it over to Dagwood, who turns it in his hands.
“It looks effective, Sal. And with your hunting skills you’re sure to shoot a couple of birds today.”
They quietly walk on until they reach a small clearing. Automatically they both stop and kneel. They quickly exchange a few glances before they move forward crawling and reach some low bushes that just cover their crouching bodies. Salomon points to one of his eyes after which he moves his finger in the direction of a small elevation with dense grass. Dagwood looks in the direction of Salomon’s finger and soon sees three large birds hiding in the grass.
Salomon quietly finds a couple of loose stones from his linen bag that he picked out earlier that day. He gets up carefully and throws one of the stones towards the birds. He hits one on the wing and all three react with loud cackles while preparing to take off. Salomon waits for a moment until the birds are a bit off the ground before he throws the rock sling in one smooth movement towards the flying birds. The cackle of one of the birds goes quiet suddenly and the bird falls heavily to the ground with a broken neck.
Dagwood gets up and stands next to Salomon. He has his slingshot ready and quickly shoots two or three stones after the other birds, but he doesn’t hit them. They squat without talking and look across the clearing to see if any other animals appear, frightened by the commotion and the noise of the birds.
The clearing normally attracts many different animals besides the birds, and if they’re lucky they can see both small and large animals grazing or resting in the sun. Since the world changed, more and more animals appeared, both in the forest, on the plains, in the valleys – yes, actually all around them. It seems as if the animals had been hiding before and hadn’t dared to appear before now.
They’d never tried to hunt or kill anything other than birds and long-eared rodents, but they’re both fascinated and a little intimidated by some of the larger animals they’ve seen rummaging like shadows in the hidden parts of the forest. A couple of times they’d found a roundsnout or a horned animal that had been killed by a large and unknown predator, and if the animal was free from larva they’d taken it with them back to the camp and eaten it. They knew they were stealing the prey of another and much more dangerous animal, but their empty stomachs and ceaseless hunt for food made them careless and thieving.
They can’t see any other animals appearing in the clearing, and Salomon crawls out of their hiding. The less noise he makes, the larger the chance of him not scaring other potential prey away. And if they’re lucky, they can shoot a couple more birds before darkness arrives.
Salomon silently creeps towards the dead bird. He carefully takes one step at the time while he tries to steer clear of roots and holes in the ground. Once he almost loses his balance as he tries to avoid some low bushes with sticking thorns. He’s almost reached the bird before he suddenly hears a sound from the tall grass where the birds had hidden. He stops abruptly and slowly starts to kneel. His hair falls down, getting in his eyes, and he tries to push it behind his ear not to lose his view. But his hair isn’t quite long enough and drops back in front of his eyes.
At that moment, from the corner of his eyes, he sees a large shadow appearing from the tall grass. Desperately he tries to remove his hair with his hand while his eyes cling to the black figure that’s becoming larger and larger.
Dagwood sees that Salomon has stopped, and he stands up tall to see what’s made Salomon pause. At first he can’t see anything unusual, but then he sees what’s been hiding in the grass and his body freezes. Salomon is kneeling low and holds his hands on both sides of his face as if he’s trying to shut the world out. He’s staring at the ground and clenching his teeth hard.
Dagwood can feel desperation in his body. A mixture of fear and an urge to react grows inside him, and he feels like running towards Salomon, who’s crouching defenseless on the ground. He doesn’t have time to react before the large shadow materializes into a physical animal. Appearing from the grass is a fur-clad giant with dark eyes and white teeth. Dagwood has never seen anything like it, and fear flows through his entire body. He’s afraid to shout something at Salomon out of fear that it might turn the animal’s attention to him, or make it react aggressively. He looks around to find large branches or rocks he can use as weapons, but nothing seems useful.
Salomon still sits petrified in front of the giant. He doesn’t move, doesn’t look, he just sits there waiting. The fur-clad giant moves toward the bird which is lying between it and Salomon. The animal looks cautiously at Salomon’s crouching body and lifts it massive head while sniffing the smell of fear and death. Slowly it gets closer and reaches the warm, lifeless bird. Its big snout investigates the bird as it loudly takes in the smell of blood through its enormous nostrils. It occasionally raises its head and looks curiously yet watchfully at Salomon.
Dagwood stands paralyzed behind the bushes watching the situation. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, as if it wasn’t really happening. Instinctively, he grabs his slingshot and loads it with a big, round stone. He slowly pulls the interweaved tendons back, closes his one eye and aims at the animal. The sweat on his forehead runs into his eye and he finds it hard to focus. Without knowing exactly where to hit the enormous body, he aims, closes his eyes, and releases. The stone flies through the air at high speed hitting the animal right between the eyes with great force, and he can see that it reacts by pulling its head back, making a deep roaring sound. It shakes its head a couple of times and then rises on its hind legs while baring its teeth and releasing a deafening roar. It’s enormous and seems as tall as two people standing on top of each other. Suddenly the situation has turned into a nightmare that Dagwood had no way of predicting.
“Oh no, what’s happening. Look up, Sal, look up!”
Dagwood is on the verge of crying and fears the situation has taken a catastrophic turn. Why is Salomon not reacting? Why does he just sit there, waiting to die? Dagwood feels absorbed with fear. He collects a few large branches with leaves on and steps out of the bushes while shouting loudly and waiving the branches back and forth. Desperately, he walks towards Salomon and the beast.
The fur-clad giant spots Dagwood and throws it upper body towards the ground again, landing on its front legs with a loud thud. It’s stopped roaring and is looking away from Dagwood and towards Salomon again. Slowly Salomon lifts his gaze from the ground and their eyes meet. For a moment time stands still. No one moves. No one makes a sound. Salomon lowers his gaze again and the animal grabs the dead bird with its mouth. It looks towards Salomon one last time,, turns around, and takes off with its stolen prey.
Dagwood flings the branches to the ground and runs as fast as he can to Salomon. He throws himself down on his knees as he reaches him, and grabs Salomon’s shoulders while shaking him hard.
“Are you okay? I thought you were going to die. Right here. Today. I’ve never seen such a large animal before! I didn’t know that they existed anywhere else than in my nightmares …”
Dagwood stops talking and looks at Salomon. He still sits, paralyzed, crouching, without a word. All the color has left Salomon’s face and his hands are shaking uncontrollably. Suddenly he bends over and starts throwing up. Dagwood lets go of Salomon’s shoulders to avoid being hit by vomit. Salomon’s body is cramping violently in big spasms. Finally, nothing but a bit of fluid comes out of his mouth. Dagwood carefully places a hand on Salomon’s neck and pulls him close.
“It’s gone now, Sal. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
Salomon grips Dagwood’s arms and lets his face fall to Dagwood’s shoulders. He gasps for air, and then starts crying.
For a long time, they sit and hold each other. Finally Salomon’s tears dry, and he lifts h
is head from Dagwood’s shoulder. His eyes are red and swollen, and his eyelashes are sticky and wet.
“You won’t tell the others, will you?”
Salomon’s voice is filled with desperation. He looks at Dagwood as he dries the last tears away with the end of his sleeve. What was unstoppable crying a moment ago is now only wet stains on his shirt.
“I mean of course we can tell them our bird got stolen by a large animal, but please don’t tell them that I … I …”
Salomon can’t find the words and Dagwood tries to help him. He’s never seen Salomon like this before.
“No, of course not, Sal. That’s between you and me.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. It’ll be our secret.”
Salomon breathes a sigh of relief, and gets up as he hugs Dagwood’s shoulder hard with his hand. He turns around and starts heading for the bushes where they were hiding before. Dagwood gets up too and follows him.
“But Sal … what happened? I mean, I’ve never seen you scared of anything before. The animal was large and aggressive, I know, but why didn’t you run away? It seemed as if you just sat there waiting to die. As if you’d given up.”
Salomon doesn’t stop or look back and continues to walk. He doesn’t answer, and picks up the pace so that Dagwood has to hurry to keep up. He’s just about to repeat his question but chooses not to. He knows he won’t be getting any answers from Salomon today.
Like all the other boys and girls in the camp, Salomon too carries deep secrets that haven’t been told. Still, Dagwood thinks that Salomon’s secret is larger than most, and he suddenly fears that he won’t like hearing it. Maybe his secret is so grim or so sad that it can’t be told.
Dagwood feels a small knot growing in his belly, and he suddenly feels that the trees of the forest have grown bigger and that the clouds in the sky have become darker and he longs to get back to the others.
The Dawn of Skye (The Someday Children Book 1) Page 6