All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923)

by Humphrey, Michael C.

  The herd was impressive; several hundred animals all jostling for the best positions near and in the water. I must have been deep in thought not to have heard them long before now, Kole thought to himself as he spied on them from his hiding place. They moved with surety, performing a morning ritual that was instinctive and habitual, the need for water strong in such creatures, in all creatures. Their confidence was not misplaced.

  Kole could see predators slinking along behind the herd, biding their time, hoping to find a weak, ill, or injured animal to cull out from the group. A pack of wolves skulked about in the scrub that grew on the side of a nearby hill, whining and waiting. Two or three large cats crouched on rocky shelves, eyes wary and tails twitching. Kole realized that he and the men with him were also watchful predators, seeking out the weak spots in the herd’s defenses, waiting for the right moment to descend with swift surprise and deadly intent.

  But the herd had strong bulls and protective cows along its outside edges. The calves were all sheltered toward the center of the herd where they rolled around in the muddy marshes, thoroughly enjoying themselves and oblivious to the dangers that were so evident to the adult animals.

  The morning air was still cool, and the steam from the collective snorting of the vast herd turned the air blue and smoky above them. Kole watched with absolute stillness. Not only were the creatures captivating to behold, but Kole actually had no idea what he was to do next. Had he been hunting these animals alone, Kole figured he would try to creep in closer and wait for an opportunity to present itself. But his father and the other men from camp had hunted these beasts before and had definite strategies that they had painstakingly developed over the last hundred years. The last thing that Kole wanted to do was make a wrong move and stampede the herd in an undesirable direction.

  Kole’s eyes darted up as he caught sight of a bird, but it was only a vulture sensing that a free meal was imminent. The blue sky had lightened considerably and the heavens were clear and cloudless. The air was cool and crisp but calm. The morning breeze had yet to stir from its slumber.

  A disturbance down by the waterline drew Kole’s attention. A cow and her calf had been bathing in the seeming safety of the water, drinking and splashing and confident that any threat to the herd that meant to impose itself waited on the other side of the massive wall of bodies.

  They had swum out to where the shallows dropped off and the water turned a darker blue above the depths when a black, scaly form that had been submerged suddenly surfaced near the middle of the lake. Two quick flicks of its tail brought it to within gliding distance of the young calf. The mother bellowed a warning, and the calf panicked, losing its footing on the sandy bottom and going under.

  Suddenly the water was roiling as the hideous reptilian form of the crocodile surged forward and snapped its jaws around the back half of the adolescent hrak. The mother cow seemed torn between her instinct to flee in panic and her instinct to protect her young. The rest of the herd either saw or sensed the danger in the water and began to back away from the shoreline, bumping into each other in their scared confusion.

  A large male hrak roared a warning as if trying to maintain control over the herd’s survival instinct. But it was already too late. Cows and calves started to run, but with no room to move they overran each other. Some slipped and fell to the ground and were nearly trampled before struggling back up on their feet. The crocodile squeezed its powerful jaws shut, and teeth sank into flesh and bone. A brilliant crimson spray exploded from the young calf, soaking those hrak that were closest and turning the water near the shore a ruddy mud color. The smell of blood drove the animals to madness. In a frenzy, the herd bolted and began to run in all directions. That was when Kole saw the first pair of hunters.

  The two burst out of concealment and began to run down the hill toward the herd, yelling and screaming crazy gibberish to confuse the animals that were heading in their direction. Two more pairs of hunters leaped from their hiding places and joined the chase, as if seeing the first pair had been a signal that the time was right. The animals fled from this new threat with equal fervor, turning in midstride and crashing in to each other. Kole stared for a moment longer before he realized that his father, Adam, had just bounded past him and was plunging down the hill in long-legged strides, spears thrust out before him.

  Kole fumbled to get a grip on his two spears, then sprang from his prone position and raced to catch up. The valley was a nightmare. The animals were screaming, eyes wide and white with terror, spittle flying from their mouths and snot flying from their nostrils. Bits of broken turf and gravel spraying everywhere, the pounding of their hooves was thunderous as they charged in a panic anything that appeared to be an obstacle to their flight from danger.

  Kole noticed two of the lionesses in the distance bringing down a large cow, the gashes from their claws on her hind quarters proving to be fatal. Kole also heard the wolves howling and yipping, taunting the terrified animals with their hunger.

  Kole caught up to his father, and they sprinted to join the rest of the hunters. As Kole passed Adam, running down the hill in exhilaration, he turned and Adam gave him a broad smile. Kole smiled back and laughed, picking up his pace and leaping ahead. He did not see Adam’s smile slip off his face and turn into a look of pure fear. Kole, intent on catching up to the other hunters, seemed to forget the fact that these beasts were enraged by the loss of their young, were maddened by the instincts of panic surging through them and could quickly turn from prey to predator.

  One of them it seemed already had and this is what Adam had seen that Kole had not. A large male bull had come barreling out of the pack of frenzied animals and, lowering his head, rushed to gore Kole in his blindside. But Kole’s speed and momentum carried him past the animal’s horns by a hair’s breadth and down the hill into the midst of the panicked animals. It was then that Kole realized he had overextended himself. The bull that had just missed ending Kole’s life dug his hooves into the soft earth and brought himself to a grinding halt. He swung his massive head around, bloodshot eyes seeking and finding Kole, then with an enraged bellow of frustration and hatred, he charged again.

  Other animals, already frightened by the crocodile in the water and the smell of blood, by the lions and the wolves and the hunters, now had a new object of fear. The cows and calves scattered like wind-tossed leaves in the face of this new threat. An enraged bull would gore anything in its madness, even its own kind.

  Kole turned at the sound of the bull’s challenge, and his eyes widened. He had just time enough to see the bull charging before he too was off and running, no longer the hunter but the hunted. The bull was right behind him, so close that Kole occasionally caught a scent of its breath and felt the warm moisture of it on his neck. He ran with renewed energy, pushing his legs to run faster, leap farther, stay stronger. His muscles screamed at the abuse he was putting them through, but Kole kept demanding more out of his body.

  He zigged and zagged, but the bull stayed with him. Kole jumped a narrow ditch, hollowed out by a small rivulet of water, draining in to the lake. The bull, his desire so intensely focused on killing Kole, did not even register the small stream but sailed from one edge of it to the other without losing stride. The rest of the herd had begun to form into groups again and were all trotting away from the chase that Kole and the bull were involved in.

  Kole spotted a group of boulders ahead to his right and veered toward them, the bull following madly in pursuit. Kole leaped up onto one of them and then sprang up onto another, just out of the bulls reach. The bull skidded to a halt but not in time. He head-butted the nearest rock and knocked himself momentarily senseless. One of his huge horns broke off and landed buried point-deep in the soft soil. The uneven weight of his lone horn caused the bull to hesitate and then to renew his attack. He reared back and struck the rock with his head again, then let out an earsplitting challenge to Kole. This gave the o
ther hunters, including Adam, time to catch up. They surrounded the confused animal as he ran first in one direction and then the other.

  Kole didn’t remember when he had started yelling, but he felt the pure rush of words raging out of his ragged throat and wondered what he was screaming. The emotion of the moment ripped them out from somewhere deep inside him. His seedvision flashed, and he saw for a moment the red heat and green fear of the animals all around him. He also saw the blue blood-lust of the men around him and wondered what his aura would look like if he could see himself.

  The men had formed a semi-circle around the animal as it came to a stop, tossing its head and stamping its hooves. The other hunters were careful not to get too close to the hrak. Its remaining horn was deadly sharp, it’s kicking feet brutally deadly, and its sheer bulk potentially fatal. The men fanned out around it and feinted with their spears, thrusting the air with them in the animal’s general direction.

  Kole was subconsciously aware of the rest of the hunting party some distance away separating their own hraks from the stampeding herd. By this time the majority of the animals were scattered about the valley, forming small groups to defend their young. Kole watched the animal in front of him, waiting for an opportune moment to thrust his spear into it, delivering a killing wound. When the sound of the head bull bellowed out to the herd across the valley, calling all the other hrak back to him, the wild-eyed animal in front of Kole turned it’s head toward the direction of the sound. That left half of the hunters in Kole’s circle in the animal’s blind spot.

  The men did not waste the opportunity. Three rushed in and as one drove their spears into the meaty flanks of the young male. He bellowed in rage and pain and turned to meet the onslaught, to inflict his own form of goring upon his enemy. This exposed his right side to Adam and another young man whose name Kole was ashamed to admit to himself he’d forgotten. They stepped in with their own spears and injured the animal. Wounded in five places, the hrak tossed his head from side to side, slicing the air with his horn, trying to drive the men away from him. Kole dropped one of his own spears then, gripped his other spear tightly with both hands and leaped from his rock, driving the spear deep into the animal’s neck.

  The animal jerked its head and the spear broke. Kole fell but rolled back onto his feet. The animal seemed ready to charge again but his wounds were too great, and after taking two stumbling steps he fell over onto his side, legs kicking. Two of the men on the side opposite Kole rushed in and delivered killing blows, ramming their second spears into the animal’s neck as well. With a final snort, he shivered, and then went still.

  Kole was stunned and in shock. He had never participated in killing an animal this large, this savagely. But the other men cheered, including Adam, and looked around for the rest of the hunters. Ten of them stood around another fallen beast, their spears dripping blood and ready to defend their kill from any predators or scavengers that might be in the area lurking about for a free meal.

  Five other men and three women some distance away were finishing off another cow, darting in and out of its defenses with their spears. One of them had a bow, and Kole could clearly see several arrows protruding from the beast’s hide. With the exception of these three animals, the one taken down by the lionesses, the one eaten by the crocodile and an old, injured bull that the wolves had managed to bring down, the rest of the herd had reformed and were disappearing around a bend at the far end of the valley.

  It came as a shock to Kole to realize how quiet the day could become. The noise from the hunt, from the frightened animals, had been so overwhelming, so all-consuming, that Kole felt surprised to hear his chest beating so loudly and the harsh breathing of the others, the laughter, and the faint cheer from the third group as their cow fell to the ground. Kole felt the cool breeze on his neck and realized that his clothing was soaked with sweat and smelled musky.

  “Good work, everyone,” Adam panted.

  “Good work yourself, Father,” said Jorel. “This monster sure put up a good fight.” He turned to Kole. “That was a fancy piece of footwork there, Brother.”

  “Just trying to stay ahead of the game,” said Kole between breaths. The others nodded at this bit of simply-put wisdom.

  Adam waved the rest of the hunters in. Their kills should be safe from the other predatory animals in the valley field if left undefended for a few minutes so that Adam could offer the customary family prayer of thanks to the Creator for a successful hunt.

  As everyone gathered around, Kole felt something was amiss. He looked around at the bowed heads of his family while his father gave thanks for the meat that would help to feed them, for the prosperity of the hunt and for the abundance of the animals. Kole could not place why he felt suddenly ill-at-ease.

  The sun was shining normally, the wind was blowing from its usual direction, the lions and the wolves were all a good distance away and seemed content to stay with their own kills. Kole took a deep breath as Adam finished the prayer and allowed what he had come to think of as his seedvision to take over. The men and women gathered around him all seemed to have their normal appearances, the world draped and layered with its own harmonies of color and sound.

  “…home to get the meat hung up soon,” said Adam. “So if everyone is ready…”

  Kole had missed the ending of the prayer and then had not heard his father’s instructions about getting the meat back to camp. He pulled his vision back to normal and looked around the group. The hunters were all going back to their own kills to clean and skin them. Two of the hunters in Kole’s group, Jorel and Aben, were pulling the spears out of the bull and stacking them to the side. The hunter whose name Kole could not remember pulled out a large flint knife and began to cut the hide and hair on the belly of the bull from between the hind legs up to the chest bone. Kole and Adam each held one of the rear legs to steady the animal and keep it from rolling onto its side again.

  “Lamesh here is one of our best field-dressers,” said Adam to Kole. “He can gut and skin an animal faster than just about anyone. What we’ll do is set the intestines and organs aside while he skins it. Then two of us can start cutting the meat while someone cleans off the heart and liver. One of you can empty the stomach and squeeze out the intestines and prepare them for washing. The blood we let soak into the ground, but we use just about every other part.

  “Jorel, you can break apart the bones and stack them on the hide to take back with us. We’ll make soup from some of them and tools from others. Everything needs to be laid on the hide for carrying back with us. Kole, would you like to help me with that?”

  When Kole didn’t answer him, Adam turned around and looked at him.

  “Kole, is something wrong?”

  “Huh? Uh, no, well, something…I don’t know. I’m not sure. It just felt like, like I was missing something, like something wasn’t right.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure. Like a storm’s coming or something.”

  Everyone looked up into the sky.

  “Sky’s clear,” said Aben.

  “Yeah, it’s not a storm, I don’t think. I just felt as if I suddenly had a weight on my chest; a pushing sensation, like the grip of fear trying to squeeze my heart until it popped.”

  “Maybe you have gas,” said Aben’s son.

  “Shad, that’s inappropriate,” said Aben, hiding a smile.

  “I’m just saying, I had gas one time, and I thought it felt like fear was trying to pull my stomach out through my…”

  “Shad! That’s enough.”

  “Sorry, Father.”

  “Still, I think we should make short work of this beast and head home,” said Jorel. “The fun part is the hunt. Now it’s just all work.”

  Everyone laughed, including Kole.

  The men went about their jobs in silence for a while, which probably made it easier to h
ear the boy when he screamed.

  “Aaaa-dam!”

  Everyone’s head jerked up and turned to face the same direction, back toward the homecamp. A young boy had emerged from the trees and was running down the steepest part of the slope, just as Kole and Adam had run down it such a short time ago.

  “Who is that?” asked Adam.

  “That’s Korel, Kish’s son,” replied Lamesh, holding on to his bloody knife.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Nothing good, I imagine,” said Jorel.

  The men waited for the young boy to get to the bottom of the hill and race across the valley meadow. The rest of the hunters were just now reaching the second animal, and the third hrak was still untended a short distance beyond that. Kole noticed them all stopping to watch the boy approach, and several started back toward them, curious to know what the arrival of this youth portended.

  “Grandfather Adam,” the boy heaved out the words with difficulty between heavy breaths when he finally reached them.

  “Korel,” questioned Adam. “What’s the trouble, son? What urgent errand has brought you here with so much haste?”

  “It’s Grandmother Eve,” said the boy. “She’s hurt.”

  “Hurt? Eve? How?” Adam yelled, almost too loudly. The boy blanched and shrank back away from Adam’s shocked words. Kole turned to look at Adam and watched as all the color drained from his face. His breathing was suddenly coming in short gasps, and he clutched at his chest, looking as if he might fall over. Kole reached out and took his arm. His father had always been a strong man, but the news that Eve was injured seemed to turn his blood to water.

  Jorel took up the questioning while Kole guided his father over to the hrak and made him lean against its still warm body. “Korel, what do you mean hurt? Father Adam needs to know what you know. Now!”