“I…I don’t know,” said Korel.
“Did you see Mother Eve? Did she fall? Is she ill? Speak, son. Tell us everything you know.” The other hunters were beginning to arrive with questions in their eyes, but they had heard this last bit.
“I don’t know much,” said the boy. “I was gathering wood with Tamith and Leiel just on the other side of the hill there when two men came upon us. They told us that Grandmother Eve was hurt and that we needed to run and fetch Grandfather right now.”
“Who were they, Korel? Who told you to tell Father Adam that?”
“I don’t know. I did not know them.”
“How could you not know them, boy? Do you not know your own family?”
“I…I just didn’t recognize them. They surprised us and just said that you were here in the valley and that we needed to go now.”
“Where is Tamith and Leiel, Korel? Why are they not here with you?”
The boy took a step back and looked angry. “I don’t lie,” said the boy.
“No one is accusing you of lying, son. It’s just important that we know what happened. And quickly. Perhaps if they were here they would remember something else of the two men. Perhaps know their names.”
“They didn’t know their names, and they are not here because I am faster than they are. I told them to circle around and to go find Grandmother Eve and see if they could help or find others to help. I told them that I would find you,” he said, looking at Adam, “and bring you back.”
“Angels,” said Adam, his eyes staring at the ground. Everyone stopped and looked at him. “It must be angels, sent from the Lord to fetch me. I must go.”
“Angels? Father, seriously? Don’t you think that might be jumping to conclusions?”
“I knew this day would come,” continued Adam, as if talking to himself. “Your mother and I knew that one day the Lord would appear and exact his judgment upon us for our sins. Now he has sent his messengers to summon us.”
“Father, I’m not sure this is…”
“You children have never seen angels before. You know nothing of their ways except what we have taught you, and even your mother and I know very little about them,” Adam admonished.
“But…why would they not have fetched you themselves?” asked Jorel.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” said Adam, fully recovered and taking charge. He pointed to four of the others, three men and a woman. “Get your things and come with me. The rest of you, divide the work, and bring the animals home. I must go and tend to my wife.”
“But father, we’ll go with you.”
“No, this meat is important. We must clean the beasts and bring them home. It will take the rest of you to do that. Hurry now. Meet us back at the homecamp. Korel, you come with me too.”
With that Adam nodded to those he had selected, and the five of them, with the boy trying hard to keep up, ran off toward the hills, carrying their spears with desperate urgency.
Kole and the rest of the hunters watched them go. Then it seemed they all burst into conversation at once, asking each other questions that no one knew the answers to. What do you think happened? Do you think she’ll be alright? Do you think this is the Lord’s judgment beginning against her? Against all of us? Finally, Jorel put his fingers into his mouth and blew a piercing whistle that got everyone’s attention.
“We need to get these animals cut up and get them home, like Father said. Kole, do you have any desire to take charge here. You are the firstborn, and it is your right.”
“This is my first hunt with all of you,” Kole responded. “It is not so hard to know what needs to be done, but I have seen you all working together, and I think I have much yet to learn before I am as proficient a hunter as the rest of you. I defer to the wisdom of the group.”
“Very well,” said Jorel. “I suggest we each help clean and skin the animals that we participated in bringing down. As we seem to have a head start with ours, we will help the rest of you finish up when we are done, then we will divide the load and carry it all back together. Is that acceptable with everyone?”
Some said fine, but most just nodded in agreement and turned to walk back to their tasks. Jorel and his hunting partner, Lamesh, Kole and Aben with his young son Shad, stayed with the animal they had been cleaning.
Lamesh continued to clean out the body cavity of the animal while Kole and Shad held the animal steady on its back by its rear legs. As Lamesh pulled out the vital organs, Jorel and Aben separated them into various piles and began to clean them out as best they could. When the guts had all been removed, Lamesh began to skin the huge hide off the animal. Jorel and Aben joined the other three to help turn and maneuver the beast.
Lamesh was an artist with his knife. The skin separated easily from the meat and the fat under his blade, and Lamesh made it look so easy. Kole, having skinned innumerable sheep, was impressed. Soon, Lamesh had the hide off and lain on the grass, fur side down. Onto this went the intestines and organs. Lamesh and Aben began to slice the cuts of meat off the animal and lay them on the skin. Rump, backstrap, shoulder haunch, leg, neck roast, ribs. The meat came easily off the bone, and there was very little blood.
Jorel sat on the ground by the skin with his own knife and cut the fat off and piled it while Shad picked off the hair that still stuck to it. Kole saw Jorel pick up a piece of the fat and put it in his mouth. He chewed it for several moments then spit it out on the ground. When Jorel looked up and saw Kole watching him, he picked up a piece of the fat and held it out to Kole.
“Care to chew the fat, Brother? It’s delicious.”
“No thanks,” said Kole. He walked over to pick up the horn that had broken off during the chase. He pulled it out of the ground and was surprised by its weight. It was solid and heavy and must have really hit the rock with considerable force to have snapped off along its base. It was nearly as long as his arm, a dirty tan color with nicks and scratches on its surface. The point was not as sharp as Kole had imagined it would be, but it was plenty tapered enough to gore a man clean through.
“You should keep that, Kole,” said Jorel, not looking up from his work. “Use it to carry hot coals for your fire.”
“Or hollow it out and make an instrument,” added Shad.
“Shad,” said Jorel, “there are much more practical uses for such things, especially these, the horn of horns. Besides, there are too many people around already blowing their own horns. I’m sure Kole will find a much more worthwhile purpose for such a prized possession. However, if you yourself think that horn-blowing is such a worthy occupation, I suggest you claim the other horn quickly.”
Shad looked up with surprise and pleasure. He was seventeen summers old, and this was his first hunting trip. He had never heard of anyone as young as seventeen summers who had been given a hrak’s horn after a hunt. It was a huge honor.
“Really Jorel? May I, Father?”
Aben looked at his son with pride. “I would have to say that I agree with Jorel, Shad. You conducted yourself today as a man, as a true hunter. I believe you have earned the right to the second horn. I am sure Father Adam would agree, but we will ask him when we return.”
Shad’s face glowed with the praise.
The men worked swiftly and soon had the animal cleaned and cut up into portions all carefully laid upon the hide of the animal. Even the head of the animal was placed onto the hide. The tongue was a treat that the hunters would draw lots for, and the brains would be used to tan the hide.
Every animal has enough brains to tan its own hide. Kole was thinking to himself of the lessons he had learned from his father when he was a young man of seventeen or so when suddenly he heard the voices of many men, whooping and hollering. He looked up to see dozens of men swarming out of the surrounding hills and coming down from the trees along the upper ridges. At first he thought that it was
some from his hunting party having a laugh, but there were too many of them. Then he thought it must be others from the homecamp coming to help them finish the task of preparing the animals, so that they could more quickly return home. But these men were all armed with odd spears and knives that reflected the light with an unearthly orange gleam. And they looked completely unfamiliar.
“The sons of Cain,” said Lamesh, standing up and wiping his knife off on the front of his tunic. Kole noticed he did not slide it back into his belt.
The men poured down off the hillsides and divided into three groups, each heading to one of the groups of hunters and slain animals. There must have been forty or more of them, enough to outnumber the hunters. They approached at full speed, and Kole noticed Jorel picked up one of the spears as he stood. Aben did the same. The men surrounded the hunters, stinking of sweat and dirt and evil intentions. They stared at each man in turn with smirks on their mud-streaked faces. One stepped forward and addressed Jorel.
“We must speak to you, Jorel, and to all who are yours. If you would be so kind as to gather your things and meet with the rest of your hunters and ours in the center of the valley, we will discuss things that need discussing.”
“You are mistaken, Irad. None of these are mine,” said Jorel, indicating the hunters. “These are the sons of Adam, and all of us belong to the Lord.”
So this is the son of Kesitah’s son, thought Kole. He looked closely at him and could see the faint resemblance. He had her hair coloring and her eyes. But he had Cain’s ruthless expression and aggressive but honey-coated mannerisms. He was a large, muscular man with unusually thick, black hair on his forearms.
“My apologies, Jorel, brother of my great-father, you must understand that we are all a bit winded from our exertions, and words cling to the roof of our mouths. Perhaps you can spare some of your water for myself and my men?”
“That I can do,” said Jorel, tossing him a water skin. Irad lifted the skin to his lips and drank in great noisy gulps, the water splashing out around his mouth and rolling into his beard and down his clothing. His throat bobbed up and down as he drained the water skin. When it was empty he threw it on the ground at Jorel’s feet.
“Ah, that was refreshing,” he said, “but what’s this? You have no water for my men. That makes you a very poor host, Jorel, very poor indeed.”
“Why, you young pup,” said Jorel angrily, stepping toward Irad. “How dare you share my water and then insult me.”
The men around Irad stepped forward menacingly, their spears held at gut level, pointing at Jorel.
“You threaten me?” asked Jorel in astonishment.
“I believe you have misunderstood,” said Irad, “which is not so surprising, now is it? My men are simply eager to gather together with yours in the valley center and speak with you, until we can come to terms.”
“Come to terms about what?”
Aben stepped forward and put his hand lightly on Jorel’s shoulder. “Let us go, Brother, and meet with them. We are getting nowhere here. What harm can come from hearing what they have to say?”
“Fine,” said Jorel, nodding. “We will speak.”
He turned and walked back over to the hrak hide where Lamesh and Shad were standing in open-mouthed shock. Taking his spear he jabbed it through a front corner of the skin and then did the same to the other side. Lamesh did likewise with the back ends of the hide, and the four men, Jorel, Lamesh, Aben and Shad, each took an end of the spears and lifted the skin, with its full load of meat and bones, up off the ground. Kole gathered up the rest of the spears and the empty water skin and followed as they walked, the heavy burden swinging from side to side between them. They followed the shore of the lake around until they met up with the other hunters near the middle. As Kole walked, he was uncomfortably aware of the men with spears and knives following him, looking at him, wondering about him.
When the two groups reached the middle, Jorel and the others put down the hrak hide. Kole noticed the furthest group of hunters had left their hrak laying and carried no skin with them. They must not have gotten very far along with butchering their beast.
“What’s this all about Irad?” demand Jorel.
“What is this about, Jorel? Well, let’s see. First of all, you’re trespassing. This valley has been one of our main hunting grounds for as long as I can remember. And as far as I know, it still is. It’s a good hunting ground for one group of hunters, but I think the beasts will not return if it is shared by a second group of hunters.” Irad looked around at those assembled then back to stare in to Jorel’s eyes. “You are the second group, Jorel, and we don’t want you here.”
Jorel looked angry enough to curse, but somehow he managed to control his temper. His face was growing redder by the moment and his fist was clenched around his spear so tightly Kole was surprised it didn’t snap in half.
“As if it weren’t enough,” continued Irad, acting oblivious to the growing hostility all around him, “that we have claimed this hunting ground first, we were also here first this morning; lying in wait to hunt, to bring meat home to our families. Then your inept hunters burst out of hiding, yelling at the top of their lungs (did Kole notice Irad glance briefly in his direction when he said this?) and scaring away all the game. We cannot allow you to destroy our family’s hunting grounds with your foolish hunting methods, and we will not allow you to take food out of our children’s mouths.”
Jorel was grinding his teeth he was so angry. He was about to retort when Aben laid a calming hand on his shoulder. Jorel stopped whatever he had been about to say and took a deep breath. Irad waited impatiently in front of him, a look of disdain on his face when he saw Jorel’s restraint. Self-control was nothing more than weakness to the son’s of Cain.
Jorel spoke calmly, “You say that we are destroying your family’s hunting grounds, Irad. But I tell you this, we are all family here. You say that we are hunting lands that only you can hunt, but the Lord has made this land and He has given it to all His children. You say that our hunting methods are primitive compared to your own, but our hunters have brought down three of these animals today while yours sat and watched like young birds learning to fly.”
A low growl escaped from the back of Irad’s throat, and his men bristled like wild dogs.
Jorel, sensing that he was at a branching path in the conversation, tried to choose his words carefully. He held up his hands, palms outward, “I’m not trying to anger you, Irad. Perhaps you would accept our invitation to come back to the home camp, and share a feast with us. Tonight we shall dine on the flesh of the hrak.”
“Ah, I see,” said Irad. “Perhaps I have not made myself clear. We will not be eating hrak with you tonight, camp-dwellers, for you will not be eating hrak tonight, unless you have it in you to wrestle the left-overs from the lions. These are our hunting grounds and these are our beasts. You have spoiled our hunt today, and we will accept these three hrak from you so that you might make amends for your encroachment into our territory. With the understanding that you will never allow it to happen again, or you will forfeit more than your hunting trophies.”
The men from Adam’s camp were incensed. “Irad, how dare you speak to your betters in that manner,” he said through clenched teeth, stepping right up to Irad so that their faces were nearly touching.
Three of the men with Irad pushed their spear tips up against Jorel’s belly. Irad laughed in his face. “My betters? Oh, now I have heard everything, Jorel. You sheep-kissers have thought too highly of yourselves for far too long. It’s time you were taught a lesson. Perhaps you’d like to take another step forward and discover that a spear tip slides into a man just as easily as it does an animal.”
Kole had heard enough. There was only one way to avoid the violence that these men were lusting after. For the last couple of minutes he had been fading in and out of the seedvision and had determ
ined that Irad and his brethren were filled with so much hatred and violence that it was oozing out of their bodies like pitch. Their once bright auras were rotten with it, and the sound of their existence was discordant and acidic, consuming the beauty of the world around them and leaving destruction, much like the stomach devours food and then squeezes out its waste.
Irad’s men had Jorel and the others outnumbered more than two to one. Kole could tell that Irad was not going to relent or find satisfaction until he humiliated someone. If many more words were traded, blood was going to be spilled and Kole could not stand idly by and watch another of his brothers die. He still had his hrak horn in one hand but he set the spears down and the water skin that he had been holding and started walking toward the remaining hrak, lying by itself a hundred paces further along the shore.
“Hey, where is he going,” shouted one of Irad’s men.
The arguing stopped as everyone there turned to watch Kole walking away as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Irad could not believe his audacity.
“Where do you think you’re going?” shouted Irad, but Kole neither stopped, slowed nor turned around.
“Perhaps if you yell louder he’ll hear you better,” said one of the men, standing behind Jorel. Kole thought the voice sounded like Shad.
“You better stop now if you know what’s good for you,” screamed Irad, sensing that he was losing control of the situation. Kole continued to walk toward the third dead hrak.
“Go get him,” said Irad. “Make him stop. Break his legs if you have to.” Five or six of the the spear-toting men turned to chase after Kole. It seemed impossible that they would not catch him and beat him into submission. The men ran as fast as they could and Kole was only a short distance ahead of them, but no matter how fast the men ran it seemed that Kole was always just out of reach.
“Stop him.” Irad’s voice cracked as he bellowed out the words. The men chasing Kole sped up and Kole seemed to slow down yet still added to the distance between them. The earth, the air, the sunlight, all the elements of the world working against Kole’s pursuers while Kole himself seemed to barely touch the ground. It was like watching cold honey chase warm grease.
All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923) Page 16