by CW Tickner
‘There is no good hunting here,’ Damen said. ‘Come, Sonora and Harl of no tribe, you’ll camp with us tonight, eat our trophies and then we go to the Enlightened ones.’
‘Where,’ Harl asked, ‘is tonight?’
Damen looked at him as though he was speaking a different language. ‘It is not a where, it is a when.’
He must have noticed Harl and Sonora’s look of utter confusion.
‘When the darkness comes it is night, and it will soon be tonight. You will stay with us and eat. You may add your meat from the cow you slew. Assuming it was you,’ he said, looking at Harl’s bow with admiration.
‘It was. You may take what you want of the meat,’ Harl said, hoping it was a good gesture.
‘I am not a thief,’ Damen said, ‘but if you were to give your meat to the fire, we’ll share among the group.’
‘Of course,’ Harl said.
‘First, we must return to our camp fire. It is not far,’ Damen said, pointing across the open ground into the dense grass stalks further around the tree. ‘Can the two of you walk or are you injured?’
‘We’re not hurt,’ Harl said, thinking how lucky they’d been. What if the creatures had been venomous and injured them? The thought of lying there as the poison coursed through their veins made him shudder.
Damen led them back into the forest. They skimmed the edge as they worked their way through the grass on the outskirts of the clearing. A few of the hunters laughed and boasted of their exploits during the fight as they walked. It was all good-natured and Harl found himself smiling at the camaraderie. Some of the men carried the remainders of the creatures, either as trophies or food.
‘What were those things?’ Harl asked Damen.
‘Hivers,’ Damen said.
Harl remembered Gorman using the term, but kept the thought to himself. Just how much more had the old man known about the world outside the tanks than he had told them? Had he lived among these people at one time? There was no way to answer any of the questions. He was just glad that Gorman had been a part of his life. He missed the old man, but he was stronger because of knowing him, even for so brief a time.
‘They live among the tallest trees and come down to hunt in certain areas,’ Damen continued. ‘Like the one you tried to cross. They are vicious in a group and hunt for both for meat and trophies. Their armour is useful for cooking pots and the shards on their mandibles make good arrowheads.’ He shrugged. ‘But alone, they are not so formidable.’
Harl recalled the terrifying moment when he was pinned by one and Sonora had saved him. The creature had been almost enough to kill them by itself. These men and women were clearly a tough people.
A harsh cry made them all whirl around. One of the men was clutching his forearm. Blood was seeping through his fingers and dripping to the ground. He was glaring at a metallic tinged shrub next to him.
‘Be more careful when close to ripshrub, Uman,’ Damen scolded the man as he inspected the wound.
‘I was trying,’ Uman said, ‘but I had to check the flower. It is a rare sight this season and the wives pay well for it.’
‘Not if it is covered in your mucky blood,’ Damen said, eyeing the flowerhead on the ground.
Uman was more slender than Damen. His legs looked suited to running and the soles of his sandals were worn thin from extended use. His hair was shaven to the skin, as if someone had run a blade over his skull or burnt it off entirely.
Sonora moved over to have a look at his forearm.
‘Here,’ she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out some of the banewart leaves she had picked by the cave. She took a large leaf and placed it on the man’s arm.
‘Stinkweed?’ Uman said, flinching back from her touch, but she held his arm firmly and, taking a small cloth from her bag she tied it around the wound.
Uman looked around at the others.
‘But it’s just a weed,’ he said, ‘useful only if you’re wanting to dye cloth.’
‘Nonsense,’ Sonora said. ‘Apply it to a wound and you’ll escape any greening sickness. Leave this on for at least half a turn. It will dull the pain and help it to heal.’
Uman looked down.
‘It pains me less already,’ he said, turning the arm to inspect the bandage. ‘But how long is a turn?’
Sonora looked uneasy, as if she was unsure how to explain such simple principles.
Harl spoke up at this. ‘A cycle,’ he said.
‘Cycle?’ Uman asked, still perplexed.
Harl sighed inwards at the difficulty of language. ‘It’s the time for light to come and go before darkness.’
Uman looked up at him.
‘A day?’ he asked, watching as Sonora finished wrapping the wound.
‘It is difficult for us.’ Harl said. ‘The worlds that Sonora and I came from had different terms for these things. For me, Sonora’s turn was a cycle. The light cycle was when the lights came on above our world and then in the dark cycle the rains would come and the light would die. And now your world has different names for things as well. It seems that you call the dark cycle, night.’ He struggled to pronounce the new word, but Uman obviously understood him and nodded.
The group began to murmur to each other. Harl heard the words ‘Enlightened’ and ‘healing skills.’ What had made them so restless? Was it taboo for a woman to do such things in their culture?
‘Quieten down,’ Damen said to the others. ‘We must be moving again, and quietly this time. We don’t want a swarm of hivers on our backs, so go quiet. We’re close to camp.’
‘Not afraid of a hiver,’ one of the women said, toying with her bow string.
She had scruffy blonde hair that was tied in a ponytail and curled down over her broad shoulder. Her armour looked scratched and stained as she took a moment to stretch her legs.
‘Of course not,’ another man said, ‘but we don’t want them hovering over camp tonight. I could do with a good bit of sleep. Been tracking those two for too long. Unless you want to stay behind, Elo, and guard our rear?’
Some of the group chuckled at the joke, but Elo stopped stretching and stared hard at the man. Bunching her hands into fists, she took a quick pace towards him and he stumbled backwards instinctively. She laughed and the rest of the group joined in at the man’s expense before she turned to scan the surroundings again.
‘Enough!’ Damen ordered, although there was a twinkle in his eye. ‘There is still danger around. Elo, scout our path ahead. Uman, cover the rear.’
Harl ran forward a few steps to catch up with Sonora. He had no idea where he was going, but as he looked at Damen marching along ahead, he had a feeling it was going to be interesting.
Chapter 31
While awaiting the duplicate seeds, I have scoured the local hills. I returned with at least fifty small tree types and will begin cultivating them immediately.
Damen led them on a route that skirted around the base of the tree, and only moved out from under the grass canopy when they reached a dense part of the forest, ducking back in as soon as it was possible. It was difficult to judge what he was thinking, but Harl kept pace with the man and found it strange that he had already come to trust that Damen and his group of hunters would keep them safe.
Harl gave the tree branches an uneasy glance, but there was still no sign of the hivers returning, so he looked back down. Damen had vanished through a narrow gap between two stalks. Harl looked at Sonora and shrugged, before following. A short walk brought him to the hunters’ camp.
The camp was completely enclosed by the grasses. They formed a solid wall around it and soared up overhead to where rope had been weaved from grass tip to grass tip to make a crude net. Harl assumed it was because of the chance of hiver attacks during the dark cycle, or night as Damen called it.
A makeshift canvas tent, supported by rough-hewn branches, took up nearly a third of the circle. Just outside it stood a ring of stones in which dry wood had been piled. A cooking spit completed the picture
and two of Damen’s men began work on lighting a fire beneath it. The wood was still damp and the pair struggled to get it to light.
‘Here,’ Harl said, moving to the men and pouring the last drops of the fire-liquid onto the heap. ‘Stand back.’
He showered sparks down and the bundle of wood and twigs burst into flames. The two men stumbled backwards.
‘What was that?’ one asked, waving his hands through the flames as if to check they were real.
‘The last of our fire supplies,’ Harl said.
The two men watched him suspiciously for a while before jamming a few logs on to the roaring fire.
He turned his attention to the small campsite hemmed in by the tight wall of grass stalks. There were a dozen or so beds dotted around it. Each one seemed to be made from large, dried leaves propped up off the floor with sticks or logs. They looked comfy enough, but Harl didn’t like to think about what might be crawling around inside the leaves.
‘Place all gathered food in the store, people,’ Damen said to the group and then watched as those carrying the hiver meat placed their grizzly haul inside the tent.
‘Harl, Sonora,’ he said, gesturing to the tent. ‘Come, place what you can spare inside.’
They went to the covered entrance and Damen held the flap open. A wealth of food and equipment were heaped on opposite sides of the square space inside. Bows and spears with crude metal tips were propped against huge bundles of arrows. Most of the arrows had wooden shafts and flights made from cured plant leaves, but the tips varied from metal to bone, or just plain wooden points.
‘We keep everything we make and find on our gathering in here for when we return to Delta,’ Damen said, noticing their interest.
‘Delta?’ Harl asked.
‘Isn’t that where Grandpa came from?’ Sonora said to Harl, before turning back to Damen.
Damen looked interested at the mention of someone coming from Delta.
‘Have you a cure for a blacking disease?’ Harl asked before the hunter could ask more. ‘We left to find a cure-’
‘There is no true cure,’ Damen said, ‘not for those already infected. We are protected from birth by an injection.’
‘Injection?’ Sonora said. She paled as she glanced at Harl, but then frowned and turned back to Damen. ‘Does it work after the disease has been contracted?’
Damen shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Sonora of no tribe.’
She looked crestfallen and Harl knew there was no way to bring her out of the darkness of her mood. She would find a way out by herself.
‘Tell us about Delta,’ he said.
‘Our home,’ Damen said, a hint of longing in his voice. ‘It is all that is now left of our accomplishments. Too many times have we been driven out, only to return and rebuild with what we can find. Or so the stories tell.’
‘What is it like?’ Harl asked, taking a seat beside Sonora on one of the logs by the fire.
Damen thought about it for a moment. ‘It’s a collection of wood, brick and stone buildings that surround a large cave system where the Enlightened live.’
‘The Enlightened?’ Harl asked wondering if they thought the same about these Enlightened as his own people did about the gods. ‘You’ve mentioned them before. Are they human?’
Damen chuckled and slumped down with his back against a log. ‘Yes, I believe they are, but they have much that the common folk do not.’
‘What do you mean?’ Harl asked. ‘Are they bad?’
‘Like a wet plank of wood,’ Damen said, ‘they support the community, but inside they’re slowly rotting.’
‘How many people are there in Delta?’ Sonora asked.
‘Around a thousand of us,’ Damen said. ‘The Enlightened ones tell us there used to be many more, but over time we have become a fading people.’
With the sun going over and the night coming, the group gathered around the warm fire and basked in the glow it cast within the campsite. Two men fetched food from the storage and began skewering it on sticks that hung out over the freshly lit fire. The smell of cooking filled the air and Harl licked his lips in anticipation.
When it was cooked, Sonora questioned Damen and the group about life in Delta while Harl cleared several skewers of succulent steak cubes. It had come from the cow he had killed and he thanked his luck that they had stumbled across it.
‘The Enlightened are the keepers of technology,’ Damen said, plucking a skewer for himself and stripping it clean in one mouthful. ‘They claim that the weapons and items they are custodians of are beyond us. In return for bringing any technology we find to them, they provide the people with shelter, food and education.’
‘And they live in a cave?’ Harl asked, wondering why people such as Damen would need others to provide them with shelter.
Damen nodded. ‘It is lined with metal panels that were brought into the caves when Delta was founded. The deepest chamber is where the Enlightened live. It’s where they decide the fate of the people living outside. Most people have not seen inside and only those who are willing to train can go there feely.’
‘How many of these Enlightened are there?’ Sonora asked. She began picking at something akin to a potato but seemed to have little appetite.
‘Who knows?’ Damen said, shrugging. ‘Maybe fifty, possibly more. It’s hard to know for certain.’
‘Can you not go inside and find out?’ Sonora asked.
‘No,’ he said, ‘not all the way inside. Most wouldn’t dare. It’s guarded by a select few soldiers who carry the most potent weapons, but I doubt there’s a proper warrior among them. They’re all spineless lackeys who’ll do anything to curry favour with the Enlightened.’
‘What sort of weapons?’ Harl asked, wanting to delve deeper into this strange culture.
‘Much like your sword,’ Damen said, looking at the weapon lying on the ground next to Sonora.
‘One more question?’ Sonora begged, as if the desire to learn burned inside her. ‘How did the first people find Delta?’
Damen rolled his eyes as though reluctant to tell the tale, then leant back and stared up at the stars.
‘The stories tell,’ he said, ‘that seeking shelter from the harsh elements and the wrath of the Aylen, our people stumbled across the Delta rock. What they thought as they approached it, I do not know. The rock juts up from the forest, sheer and defiant, with a vast outcrop reaching out over the land on one side. Its shadow would have engulfed them as they approached the cliff underneath, dark and forbidding. It must have seemed so strange to them, that gigantic cliff hidden beneath the outcrop, like the brim of a hat covering the stony face before them. We call it a rock simply because that is what it must seem like to the Aylen, but to us it’s more mountain than rock. What did those first settlers see it as? A place of sanctuary? A home? I’ve no idea. Perhaps they didn’t even think along those lines? Perhaps they just stumbled into the cave in exhaustion. And yet they found no safety there, only horror.’
‘The hivers?’ Sonora asked.
Damen sat up and stirred the embers of the fire with a stick.
‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘No one really knows. It’d explain their relentless attacks on us. But whatever the creatures were, they infested the place. The battles and bloodshed that our people suffered in those times still plague our nightmares. But in the end those first settlers pushed so deep into the tunnels that the creatures were driven out. They found the queen and destroyed her. There was no mercy, no thought of sparing anything, even if it had been possible. They just slaughtered everything.’
A cold gleam reflected in his eyes as he stared into the flames. ‘Must have been a glorious hunt.’
‘But they’re hivers,’ Harl said. Even the word made his skin crawl. ‘They’re vicious.’
Damen frowned.
‘True. But how much of that is our fault? It’s a stupid thought, I expect, but maybe the hivers remember what we did. What kind of crime must it have seemed to them? Their Queen, the centre of
their existence and community – if you can call it that – was killed by us. Murdered in front of them. If they can feel hate, then I’m sure they’d hate us. In a way, we deserve it, but what were our people to do? The strongest will rule.’
Silence fell and Damen returned to stirring the last glowing embers of the fire with his stick.
‘So they’re intelligent?’ Harl asked.
Damen shrugged.
‘Perhaps. The Enlightened ones don’t think so. But they hunt us over and over. It never ends. Is that intelligence? Is it only instinct or are they out for revenge? To them we’re the prey and they hunt us, simple as that. There are too many questions for me. I don’t have the answers.’
‘We kill them easy,’ the scruffy blonde-haired women in the group said to the nods of the others.
‘They’re a dangerous foe in groups, Elo. Never forget that,’ he warned. ‘Too many have died fighting them for you to say such words.’
Elo nodded, her eyes blazing. ‘Yes, I remember many not now with us. But they fight good. Win much glory. Hivers come so we kill them. It’s no intelligence, just claw and pincer and blood. They come; we kill. You kill more than most.’
Damen sighed and then threw his stick into the fire.
‘It’s not a proper hunt,’ he said and then grimaced. ‘But I’ve spoken too much of our lives already, Harl of no tribe. We’d like to hear your story.’
The men and women around the fire nodded and huddled closer to the flames, some getting up off beds to listen.
‘It’s a long one,’ Harl said, wondering where to start.
‘We’ve the whole night,’ Damen said. He reached for a waterskin and took a long swallow before waving Harl on. ‘And I have a feeling it’s going to be a strange tale, so tell on.’
Harl told them of their previous life inside the cubes. He described the world he grew up in, of the giftings and religious beliefs that the people trapped inside the cubes held for the gods. When Harl first mentioned the gods, Damen’s people started saying the name Aylen aloud and nodded to each other across the shrinking flames of the fire. Harl guessed it was the name they had given to the gods as a collective. But there was little reverence in the way they spoke of them. It intrigued him.