The Hunter

by Rose Estes

  Keri was standing beside the ancient tree where she had slept, putting the finishing touches on her outfit. She had disposed of her long, clinging underskirts and ripped the remaining overskirt halfway up the middle both in front and back, then tied the ends around her calves. The result of her efforts was a pair of roomy pants that gave her freedom of movement. The underskirts had been reduced to a narrow bundle that she had tied with strips of leather. She turned to face Braldt, her chin set at a stubborn angle that he knew all too well.

  “Everything’s been tended to. I watched until dusk and then Carn took over. There’ve been more karks, lots of them, all armed and heading west.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “What could you have done, Braldt? Caltan said that reinforcements were coming. They know that the karks are becoming more warlike and have killed the herdsmen. What could we tell them that they don’t already know?”

  Her reasoning was solid, Braldt mused. And the karks were moving swiftly. There was no way that they could overtake them and bring a warning in time. They had their own mission that was equally, if not more, important.

  Carn slithered down the trunk of the tree, landed with a soft grunt, and limped over to where they stood. He drank deeply from the gourd and then passed it to Braldt who found that it contained a thick broth of some sort that flowed into his empty belly and filled it with warmth.

  The tiny fire cast more shadow than light upon their features as they crouched beside it to tell Braldt all that had transpired during the long day. It appeared that the karks were on the move, more karks than any of them had known existed, and all of them armed and all of them pointed west. Once again they came to the same conclusion, it was pointless to try to warn the Duroni. The first of the karks had probably reached the border of the Duroni lands by now, and if the guard had not been aware of their presence yet, they soon would be. There was nothing they could do to help the Duroni and they would do well to help themselves. For with so many armed karks roaming the hills, it would be difficult to avoid discovery.

  “What do you think they’re trying to do?” asked Keri.

  “It’s a raid,” replied Carn. “Stealing pankows as usual.”

  “But why so many,” mused Braldt. “1 have never heard of karks traveling in such numbers before. It must be more than just food they are after. And why are they armed? Carn, have you ever heard of them using spears or clubs?”

  “Well, once. A herder from the north brought in a broken spear that he said he took from a kark. It was crudely done, like one we might have made as children. The point was stone and poorly chipped and badly balanced as well, but it killed a fully grown ram pankow before the herder killed the kark. Or so he said, though no one believed him at the time.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” said Braldt, still deeply troubled by the problem. “How could the karks arm themselves and why are they heading for the Duroni?”

  “They are not stupid, you know. You talk of them like they were animals.”

  Both Carn and Braldt stared at Keri as though she had gone totally stupid. “What do you mean, of course they are animals, what do you think they are, Duroni in animal suits?”

  “Animals don’t make spears or clubs,” Keri answered her brother patiently. “No, they’re not Duroni, but neither do I think that they are animals, either.”

  Carn groaned. “C’mon, Keri, don’t tell me you’re one of those fools who blather on about how animals have spirits too and deserve to live in peace. Invite a pankow to break bread and all that nonsense!”

  “I don’t know about pankows or other animals,” Keri said evenly, refusing to be riled by her brother’s sarcasm. “But somehow karks are different. They walk on two legs more often than on four and anyone can see that they’re intelligent, even you.”

  “Keri, they’re covered with hair, long hair all over their bodies. They’re animals pure and simple. Maybe smart animals, animals who can make spears, but animals just the same. Lupebeasts walk on two legs. Does that make them people? C’mon, Keri, don’t be dumb. Tell her she’s wrong, Braldt.”

  “They talked,” Braldt said slowly. “We heard them talk.”

  “By the name of the Mother!” Carn exclaimed in disbelief. “Are you saying that you think they’re people too?”

  “I don’t know what they are,” Braldt replied. “But it’s a matter for the priests to decide. What they are does not concern us except that we must avoid them. Animal or human, they can kill us, whatever they are, and we must not let that happen.”

  Carn was not willing to let the argument go so easily but Braldt brought the conversation back to their mission. Scraping the ground clear before the tiny flame, he drew in the outlines of the mountains that rose behind them, tracing the route that he had spied out that morning.

  “The land seems to rise in a series of steps, I’m sure you saw that yourselves. It appears to be wild and heavily wooded, thinning out in the higher elevations. There are numerous waterfalls and I propose that we follow one of them to its source.”

  “That’s all well and good, but how are we to find the mountain we saw in the vision,” Carn asked.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps we will be able to see it once we reach the mountains.”

  “The priest did not tell us much, or give us much direction.”

  “No, he didn’t. Perhaps he did not know more than he told us.”

  “But the priests know everything!” Keri cried.

  “How, Keri? How would they know?” Braldt looked at her quizzically. “No priest has ever journeyed to these lands, few of them even venture beyond the confines of the city. How would they know?”

  “The gods would tell them. Mother Moon would show them the way in their own visions. The priests speak to the gods. They would know!”

  “Then why didn’t they tell us?” Carn seemed troubled. “Why wouldn’t they tell us if they want us to do this thing for them?”

  “And why can the gods not do it for themselves?” Braldt murmured more to himself than the others. “If the gods can do anything, why do they need us at all?”

  There were no answers to any of their questions and each of them struggled with their own thoughts. To doubt the priests was to doubt the very gods themselves, and to question the gods was to question the very existence of the world they lived in.

  10

  The land rose steeply before them, the peaks of the distant mountains looming above, higher than anything they had ever seen or imagined. Even though they saw them, it was hard to believe that they really existed and harder still to believe that they were now climbing them.

  Beast trotted ahead of them and through his keen senses and warning barks they were able to avoid being seen by additional bands of traveling karks. There were many such bands, composed of equal numbers of males and females and all of them armed.

  The sight began to lose its novelty and after a time they were able to detect things that had gone unnoticed earlier. Many of the female karks carried young, nursing at their breasts even as they traveled, spear or club in hand. Many of the creatures wore items of adornment fixed around wrist or ankle or neck. Several of the larger males wore headbands of a sort, twisted bands of leather from which dangled tiny bones, feathers, and bits of ornamental stone. These males, by the very fact of their size alone, they took to be the leaders of the individual bands.

  Although they were but animals, albeit smart animals, it was a mistake to take a kark lightly. If they stood upright, which seemed to cause them pain or discomfort, they were taller than the average Duroni although shorter than Braldt. They were covered from head to toe with fur, greenish brown in color and composed of a soft dense undercoat that protected them from the cold and a layer of longer, coarse hair that was impervious to water. Their pelts were much in demand by the Duroni who fashioned them into cloaks and boots and garments to protect them from rain and cold.

  But karks did not part with their pelts willingly and were not at all relu
ctant to use their great strength to protect themselves. In the past, they had been trapped or poisoned, killed from afar, for to venture within reach of their long, powerful limbs was to invite death. It had even been rumored that karks ate the flesh of their enemies, although Braldt had doubts that it was true. So far as he knew, karks ate only plants and insects and the bark of trees. But he did not want to learn the truth firsthand and so they hid whenever Beast warned of their presence.

  Mother Moon cast her dim light on them as they traveled and as dawn drew near, she revealed the mouth of a cave where they took shelter for the second day. The mouth of the cave opened to reveal a huge chamber that resonated to their voices.

  The light was dim in the outer chamber, and although it showed signs of having been inhabited in the past, there was no trace of recent animal use. The floor was smooth and hard-packed beneath their feet and the roof rose to a high natural arch above their heads. It appeared that a fire had been built in the center of the cave at one time for there was a deep pit that bore the blackened remains of many fires.

  They passed through this chamber quickly, entering a wide corridor of sorts that wound through the smooth rock like the vast coils of a stone serpent. The light here was but a shade above total darkness. They sensed other openings and numerous irregular shapes along the walls, but were too exhausted to stop and examine them. There was a peculiar smell in the air, much like rotted leather or old musty clothes, strange, but not unpleasant. Beast growled from time to time, but did not seem overly alarmed.

  At last they came to the end of the tunnel and slumped in weariness against the cool walls. The hard-packed earth had given way to soft sand that tugged at their footsteps and now made a soft cushion to lull them into sleep. Being hidden in the heart of the mountain made them feel safe, for it seemed unlikely that they would be found by anyone or anything. Too tired for even the briefest of meals, the three of them wrapped themselves in their cloaks and were soon locked in a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Low, rumbling, guttural growls, felt more than heard, brought Braldt back to consciousness. He surfaced slowly, still wrapped in foggy bands of sleep. He closed his hand around Beast’s muzzle, feeling the raised lips tremble beneath his palm and the deep rumble continue to vibrate in Beast’s throat.

  Braldt strained to see, but the corridor was without the merest hint of light and he could see nothing. He felt the ground vibrate beneath him, almost as though it were pulsing with a measured beat, and then he heard it, a long, low, deep, solemn chanting, much like a hymn or a funeral dirge sung on the highest of holy days by the chorus of men at the Temple of the Moon.

  Beast began to growl again and Braldt closed his hand more firmly around his muzzle, squeezing tightly and then releasing him, placing his palm on Beast’s nose, a sign that he was to stay and remain silent. He wakened Keri and Carn, touching them gently with one hand and placing his palm over their mouths to keep them silent as well. The three of them huddled together, listening to the low chanting that had swelled in volume until it filled the small chamber in which they hid.

  The hairs rose up on the back of Braldt’s neck as he strained to listen, trying to make out the words, wondering who or what was chanting. He could stand it no longer, placing his hands on Keri’s and Carn’s shoulders, he pressed them down and told them in whispers what he intended to do. Keri gripped his hand tightly and tried to argue with him, but he slipped loose and crept down the tunnel before she could stop him.

  The chanting grew louder still as he worked his way toward the mouth of the corridor and the darkness grew slightly less complete, a dimness that was not light so much as it was the absence of darkness filtered in to light his way. In this twilight he was able to see what his trailing fingers had merely guessed at as they entered the cave; the walls on either side were hollowed out at regular intervals. The holes were four deep, running from the height of the ceiling to a point just above the level of the floor and were large enough and deep enough to have held Braldt easily. They lined the walls on either side in both directions and so far as he could see, they were all empty. A deep sense of unease came over him and he crept forward with great caution, almost certain now of what he would find.

  He came to the final bend in the corridor and using the holes like the steps of a ladder climbed up into the uppermost opening and slid his body in so that all that remained exposed was his head. He had thought that he would be able to peer around the final corner, showing nothing but the top of his head, but the angle was too severe and the rock too smooth to grip. He was about to climb down when the light grew much brighter and the sound of the chanting grew louder still. There was no time to climb down from his hiding place and so he did the only thing he could, inching his way to the foot of the hole and curling himself into as small a space as possible. Desperately he hoped that the others had heeded his warning and would stay where he had left them. He also prayed to the gods that Beast would hold his silence.

  His prayers were answered for there were no cries of discovery and the chanting and sound of shuffled footsteps ended somewhere close by. He could hear the soft exhalations of breathing and now a cough and what sounded like softly muffled sobs. What had they done? What had they stumbled into and who or what would he see if he dared to look? Braldt ached with desire to raise his head, to peer out of his hiding place, but the light was so very bright, he feared that he would be seen and that was a risk he could not take.

  Vision might be denied to him but he was close enough to hear what was being said; he calmed his breathing and strove to understand what he was hearing. The sounds made no sense at first, a constant murmur of meaningless gibberish repeated over and over in a repetitious litany until it droned inside his head like a hive of bees. Only after the sounds had echoed over and over again did they begin to make sense, only then could he begin to assign a meaning to the sounds, decipher the words.

  “Oh, Great Master, Giver of Life, Protector of the Weak, accept this body and take its spirit home.” There was more, but Braldt could only understand bits and pieces of it for the words were strangely said and ran all together with little or no breaks, and to make it all the more difficult, each speaker seemed to utter the words at their own pace so that no two of them spoke at the same time, their voices all running together, weaving in and out in a most confusing manner. Then, the chanting came to a halt, suddenly and without warning, and in the abrupt silence that followed the soft sobs could be heard clearly.

  “Father, we bring you the body of our faithful brother Arba Mintch, killed before his time by the hard ones. We beg you to take his spirit home and give it the peace in death that it fought for so long and bravely in life. Arba Mintch was the bravest of the brave; he fought for the tribe always, defying the hard ones, bringing risk upon himself to spare the others. His mate, Sytha Trubal, is left alone now, to spend her life in sorrow. Please send her comfort and ease her suffering. We beg you to hear our words and come to our aid, or all of our bones shall litter the earth and our spirits will join those of Arba Mintch. Do not desert us in our time of need, Father, but come to us now, we beg of you.”

  These amazing words, spoken in the same odd, but understandable, inflections, were followed by a loud outcry of sobs as well as individual pleas to the one known as Master or Father. The pain was so intense, the suffering so real, that it was all that Braldt could do to keep himself hidden. No one who spoke so eloquently could be an animal, surely they could speak together. Possibly they were Duroni, although such a thing did not seem possible. And who or what were the “hard ones”?

  More words followed as the body was placed inside one of the cubicles on a lower level and somewhere to the side of Braldt’s hiding place. There seemed to be a specific form that was followed, one that all were familiar with for the leader, the one with the deep voice, spoke his words that were then echoed by his companions or answered with set responses, all of which seemed to follow a familiar pattern.

  The sounds of grief were
given open vent now as the ceremony came to an apparent conclusion. That there were women present, there was no doubt, and, from the sound of it, more than a few children. Oldsters, their voices reedy and thin with age, wailed and cried aloud, offering themselves in return for the spirit of the dead Arba Mintch. Braldt felt himself swept up in the depth of their desolation and wished that he could show himself and offer them some solace, but to do so was folly, he could do nothing but hide and listen to their grief.

  Then, the sounds that he had most dreaded came to his ears, the sound of Beast barking loudly and in full cry, filling the small corridor with the sound of his alarm. There were sounds of shock and dismay from the mourners and then cries of anger and rage. Torn between the need to remain hidden and the urge to leap from his cubby hole, Braldt listened in horror as Keri and Carn were dragged forth and brought before the gathering.

  There were heated demands for their death and cries of hatred broke out on all sides that Carn answered in turn, shouting defiant insults. Keri, except for a single choked cry, said nothing. Beast continued his shrill barking until it too ceased, suddenly and with an ominous finality.

  Braldt clenched and unclenched his hands, wondering what to do, knowing now that these were no Duroni, no allies, knowing that he was badly outnumbered and that their only hope was for his presence to go undetected. He could only hope that Keri and Carn would not be killed outright, that somehow he would be given the chance to rescue them.

  There were voices, then the speaker, he who had led the prayers and chanting, conferred with his people one at a time, polling them as to their thoughts.

  “Crotius,” he intoned.

  “Death to them as they would deal death to us!” came the reply.

  “Ambest.”

  “Kill the sneaking two-foots!”