Chapter 2

2

- Anter’az -

I slide open the secret panel in the wall and usher little Tren’ax into the village. Then I duck my head and follow.

We haven’t spoken a word since my fight with the four rekh, although I know the boy must be brimming with questions. But we don’t make noise in the jungle, and young tribesmembers must be taught that talking in the woods is simply something we don’t do.

Now, he’s looking at me with big eyes, as if he’s about to burst. It makes me proud that he has the sense to wait until he’s safely inside the walls before he speaks. And still he waits for my permission.

I let the panel down, closing the wall that surrounds our Krast village, making it nearly impossible to spot from the outside. Then I give Tren’ax a little smile. “We’re home.”

“Was that a woman?” comes the eager question before I’ve even finished.

“I think so,” I reply, stretching tired limbs. “She looked and sounded like one.”

“I think it was,” the boy says, his eyes wide, cheeks red with excitement. “She had a spear!”

“She did,” I agree. “But she didn’t know how to use it. How do you feel?”

He touches his side where the voron bit him. “It hurts.”

“But you can move your legs? Your fingers? Any stiffness?”

He shows me, flexing his fingers. “Feels fine. Sorry I screamed. But…”

“The voron’s bite is strange,” I cut him off. “It takes all power from you and makes you do the wrong things. Any man would have, Tren’ax. I’ve seen it before.”

I spot two tribesmen coming towards us, not looking too cheerful. The crowd of boys following them at a respectful distance tells me they all know Tren’ax is not in good standing with the tribe right now.

I kneel down to look into his eyes. “Look up. Good. Look down. To the side. Fine. You should be all right again. What did you learn from this?”

He thinks about it, wanting to get it right. “I should not leave the village without permission. When I see a voron, I should stop and back off, not try to kill it.”

“Anything else?” I prompt.

“Umm… I don’t know…”

I get to my feet. “Women bring trouble. But hopefully that’s a lesson you will never have to learn again. Greetings, Cren’iz and Pury’an.” I turn to face the two tribesmen.

“Greetings, Anter’az,” Cren’iz says. “I see you found him.”

“I found him bitten by a voron,” I tell them. “Perhaps that was punishment enough for his crime.”

They both frown.

“A voron?” Pury’an asks, incredulous. “But here he stands!”

I put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The bite of a voron need not be deadly. A nearby tribesman may bite around the wound and suck the venom out. Some blood will follow along, but that’s worth the life gained.”

Cren’iz nods. “Again you astonish the tribe with your knowledge, Anter’az. The nearby tribesman in this case was doubtless yourself. Anter’az has saved your life twice today, Tren’ax! Once when finding you in the jungle, and then again when rendering the voron’s bite harmless.”

“Three times,” the boy corrects. “He also fought off four rekh that came because?—”

I give him a friendly cuff on the shoulder to get him to shut up. “Yes, yes. There were some rekh. The less we talk about this, the better, tribesmen. Let’s not wallow in this unfortunate event. Again I maintain that Tren’ax’s crime also contained ample punishment.”

“The tribe cannot agree,” Cren’iz says. “Any boy going out of the village on his own risks his life, and the lives of those who come to find him. This time it almost ended in tragedy. Tren’ax, for ten days you will help prepare and serve all the meals for the tribe. You will get up at dawn and go to sleep well after sunset. There will be no play and no practice with the sword.”

The boy takes a deep breath, probably still half in shock from his ordeal. “Yes, Chief.”

“A mild penalty for what you did,” I tell him firmly. “I had to break off my studies to come after you. And my sword is now more worn than before. Go and clean up, then get some sleep. You are not to talk about what happened. Any talking to be done about that will be done by me. You were not yourself after the voron bite and may have thought you saw things that didn’t actually happen. Understood?”

“Yes, tribesman!” Tren’ax says and hurries over to the group of boys, eager to show the marks of the voron’s fangs. The punishment is quite harsh for a boy of his age, but it will do him no harm.

“Well, then. Let’s put this behind us.” Cren’iz nods and returns to his cave.

In our chief-less tribe, he has taken on half of the chief’s ordinary duties while Pury’an handles the other half. It can’t continue like this, with two co-chiefs, but soon the tribe will have a real chief.

“Four rekh,” Pury’an says as we walk towards the main square of the village. “An impressive feat.”

“It was an open clearing,” I tell him. “I took out one from a distance, and another stopped to eat him. So I really only had close combat with two of them.”

“Only two rekh,” Pury’an chuckles. “You only slew two rekh in close combat. At the same time. Whereas most of us have never downed a single one in a whole lifetime.”

“And wisely so. It’s much safer to not get close to them,” I state. “I always try to avoid those things. But they surprised me while I was dealing with Tren’ax.”

“Ah. I have never heard of anyone surviving a voron’s bite. Much less a boy. Surely sucking out the venom must be dangerous for you, too?”

“I feel no effects at all,” I tell him as we approach his cave. “Which is a disappointment, in its way.”

“Yes, you like those terrible things, don’t you?” the old man says. “Filling your whole cave so the men dread coming to see you there. Oh, it’s only fourteen days until full moon.”

“When the Elders select a new chief? It’s about time we get one.”

Pury’an looks up at me with clear eyes. “There has been some talk about the candidates. And your name has come up.”

I stop, surprised. “My name?”

“As chief of the Krast tribe,” Pury’an clarifies when he sees my confusion. “There are many names being mentioned, of course. Mostly mine, I'm almost embarrassed to say. Although I do look forward to shouldering the heavy responsibility. I just thought you should know.” He unnecessarily ducks his wrinkled old head as he enters his cave.

I stand there alone for a moment, then snort and move on. The last thing I want to be is the chief of my tribe. And I will let everyone know.

My cave is dark, as usual. It’s one of the larger caves, and because nobody wants to be my neighbor I have been able to knock openings into the nearby ones, too.

Lighting a torch with embers from the fireplace, I hear the rustling and movements from the many cages I keep here.

“Anter'az?” comes a call from the door.

I sigh to myself and turn around. “I’m here.”

Two tribesmen stand in the opening, one of them supported on a stick. “I had an accident while cutting wood.”

“Come in, then, Brar’az. I will take a look. You too, Tarat'ex.”

Tarat'ex supports Brar'ax as he hobbles into my cave. “It’s still bleeding, and we think it’s deep. He was cutting firewood and the blade slipped.”

“Sit down there,” I tell Brar'az and point to a chair I’ve placed right inside the door so I can get some use of the daylight. “Were you using your sword?”

Supported by Tarat'ex he gingerly sits down and puts the stick on the floor. “The blade hit the log, but slid off and caught me right here.”

I kneel on the floor and examine the cut on the side of his shin. “That’s deep. All the way to the bone.”

“Will it be all right?”

“You may have cut a sinew,” I tell him bluntly. “If so, you will never walk right again. But I can’t tell if that’s what happened. You will have to wait and see. In the meantime, you shouldn’t walk at all. Did nobody tell you the importance of sharpening the blade before cutting wood?”

“Of course I know that,” Brar’az snaps. “I was just going to cut a handful of pieces.”

“You might as well have put your leg on the block and cut it deliberately. One wonders why you’d carry a blunt sword in the first place.”

Tarat'ex grunts in agreement. “Dangerous habit, Brar’az.”

“It wasn’t blunt!” Brar'az insists. “Perhaps it wasn’t newly sharpened, but accidents can happen with sharp blades, too.”

I get up, select a pot from my wide selection, and sit back down. “Not wood-chopping accidents. A sharp blade bites the lumber, not the lumberjack.” Wiping blood off his cut, I apply a good amount of a fluid I’ve come up with and wish to test.

Brar’az hisses between his teeth. “That stings! I now regret coming here, if all you can do is insult my woodcutting skills with the phrases we tell the small boys. Keep in mind that I was cutting wood for the tribe when you were still in your Lifegiver!”

“So the tribe would expect you to do it right,” I tell the older man mercilessly. “And you are of course free to leave my cave at any time.”

As expected, he doesn’t move. “I just mean that the cut hurts enough if I’m not also going to be told I’m unskilled with my own blade.”

“Someone has to tell you.” I replace the first pot and open the second. “So that you will do better next time. The tribe needs all its men at their best.”

“Very true,” Tarat'ex mumbles.

Grabbing a clean stick, I dip it into the pot. “Brar’az, you were at the battle with the Borok tribe, right?”

“Perhaps,” he says suspiciously. “What does that have to do with anything? I certainly didn’t cut myself then .”

I apply the sticky substance to both the edges of the cut, ignoring the smell of it. “When you were there, next to their village… did you happen to see any of those women they have?”

“The women? They didn’t fight.”

I press the edges of the wound together and hold them shut. “But you did see one? Or two, maybe?”

“I think I saw one of them.”

I look up at him. “And?”

“She was small and round. I saw no stripes. Still she was clearly an adult, not a child. Her voice was bright, but also not boy-like. There was a warmth to her, Anter’az! A sweetness that could be felt from a distance. I thought I could smell her, despite the battle, and I wanted to run there, to take her away from the useless Borok tribe and to keep her in my cave and enjoy her softness and her roundness, to smell her and to stroke her hair… oh, she was a wonder.”

His words and the memory of the one I met today makes the cave spin slowly around me. Even sitting down I have to support myself on the ground to stay upright. “Do you… do you still think about her?”

“Every day, Anter’az. Every moment. I long for her. Or for any other woman. I’m sure they’re all like that.”

“Perhaps,” I suggest softly, “you were thinking of her when you were chopping wood?”

“Oh yes, whatever I do she’s always there… But of course I’m still mindful of my task.”

“Of course,” Tarat'ex chuckles mockingly.

“So mindful that you cut your leg almost in half,” I growl.

“Women!” Tarat'ex scoffs, arms crossed on his chest. “Already they weaken the tribe! Yes, they’re alluring. Yes, they’re soft and it's said that they smell heavenly. But do you not see? Do we not see that they are the purest Darkness?! Why else would they be here, if not to weaken us? They are the most insidious poison! So sweet to taste, and yet so deadly! See how the desire for them brought us into war with the Borok! Note how we lost many men for nothing in those battles! Remember how we made fools of ourselves for those women! Think about it! The Darkness could hope for nothing better than to have us kill ourselves and each other over a handful of alien females. And now they have perhaps made you lame without even being here!”

I hear the words Tarat'ex is saying, but every sentence sounds hollow. How could that female I met be an agent of Darkness?

Brar’az just stares, his friend's outburst taking him aback. “Of course, tribesman. That is why the chiefs have decided that women are not to be allowed in our village. The Tretter tribe has a woman, they say. And now they have to share their chief with the Borok tribe. The Borok tribe now has an alien woman as a shaman! That is weakness!”

I recognize the arguments from the discussions after the ill-fated war with the Borok tribe. And back then, I agreed with most of it. But now that I've met a woman myself, doubt is creeping in.

“Weakness,” I repeat his words. “Perhaps it depends on how we deal with them. How can we be forced to be weak? By beautiful creatures only as tall as our swords are long?”

Tarat'ex straightens and juts his chin out. “We must stand firm! We must resist the temptation, impossible though it seems. But we of the Krast tribe must not be tempted. We must not allow women into our village! We must ignore them, pretend they don’t exist! When we meet one, we must draw our sword and run it through her! Evil spirits! That’s what they are! Thank the Ancestors we have been blessed with leaders who understand it.” His voice echoes from the walls of my cave.

“I wonder,” I mutter. “If we are suddenly weak, perhaps it is we who do it to ourselves by thinking too much about those women. By not being mindful of our tasks. By imagining and fantasizing about what might be, not what is .”

A change in the light makes me aware we’re not alone. Right outside the cave, many tribesmen are listening. I recognize both Cren’iz and Pury’an, the two co-chiefs of our tribe.

“Am I not right?” Tarat'ex asks them. “Our own Chief Frant’az is dead because of them! Already, the alien females have nearly brought us to ruin! We must shun and forbid them!”

“True enough,” the men outside agree.

I quickly wrap strips of leather around Brar’az’s treated wound. “Come back in three days. If it gets red and swollen, I will have to saw it off.”

Brak’az sends a nervous glance to the shelf where I keep the more brutal tools of healing. “I hope it won’t come to that.”

I get up and help the wounded man to his feet. “Forget the nonsense about women. We’re happier on our own, just the tribe with no aliens to interfere. Focus on your work, not on useless fantasies!”

“You say much that’s true, Anter'az,” Cren’iz declares in his loud way. “You are right! And we have banished women from our village forever, be they ever so soft and small. That is the decision of the tribe and the chiefs. Let us also remember that any man who kills a woman is to be rewarded.”

A murmur of agreement goes through the crowd, mostly the older men. The younger ones exchange glances and look less sure.

“And when the men from the Borok tribe come here in a few days,” Pury’an adds, “we will tell them about our decision. So that they don't bring any of their women here. And we shall counsel them to do the same, to rid themselves of the women that they have! To put them to the sword!”

“Precisely!” Tarat'ex says as he helps Brar'az stay upright.

I frown. “What Borok men?”

“The Borok are sending some men to help us rebuild the part of our village that was destroyed when the skarp monster came through,” Cren’iz says. “They will stay until we have a new chief. I thought everyone knew about that.”

“Ah yes,” I grunt. “I forgot. What if they bring their females?”

Pury’an chuckles. “Of course they won’t. They keep those women as locked up as your cages, Anter’az. They never let them out of the village.”

“Then let them stay there,” I state and put my hands on my hips. “Anyone else been fantasizing about alien females and need to be patched up?”

They all look away, back off, and go their separate ways.

Brar’az hobbles out with his stick, supported by Tarat'ex. “Will you really have to cut it off if it swells?”

“Perhaps not,” I tell him, feeling more charitable. “There may be another way. But I must see it to decide.”

I lean on the cave opening and look out at the sunset.

That female. She did bring four rekh with her, nearly killing us all. But was it on purpose? She came at me with a spear, but didn’t use it. She may well have thought I was hurting little Tren’ax and ran to stop me. If so, it speaks of bravery. She barely reached me to the chest! She certainly didn’t look like an evil spirit. Would an evil spirit have a voice that trembled with fear?

“She brought rekh with her,” I remind myself. “And she broke off my treatment of Tren’ax. That might have killed him. Perhaps the Darkness is behind her.”

But I don't believe it. Her hair looked so smooth and shiny, her eyes so dark and yet fiery. Those small, white fangs, her voice with just a bit of a rasp to it, the strange way she spoke… She was real , in a way that certainly no Darkness could ever be. If she makes me feel weak, that's all my own fault.

Holy Ancestors, her smell! So sweet and alluring. As if she was daring me to rip off her thick garment and plunge my rod into her…

“No!” I slap the rock. “Now I’m fantasizing, too.” That’s the power they have. Even over me, who never cared much about the Darkness or the rumors about females in the jungle. I thought the war was ill-advised, and I said so at the time. But the tribesmen were feverish with desire for Mating.

I notice that I'm toying with the strange, yellow object I found on the ground. 'That's mine,' she said. And I think it must be. It's most certainly of alien origin.

Why did I take it? Just so she would try to take it back? And then what?

“We must know them for what they truly are , not what we believe they are,” I mutter to myself. “Anything else leads to misery. Sweet Ancestors, I hope she didn't tell the Borok men what I said about them.”

Turning around, I stand for a moment and look at my cave. It used to belong to old Fabur’iz, the healer who taught me everything he knew. Including the secret remedy he feared so much. Now he lives in a smaller cave, having had to give up healing because he slowly went blind. I once suggested it was because he had tried one venom too many, and not diluted it enough. But he says it would have happened anyway, and he told me to not try to find a remedy to cure his blindness. Still I’ve secretly tried, without success.

Maybe one day I’ll succeed. Maybe even tonight. The evening is young, and I think I will spend it in my cave, with my herbs and jars and iron tools.

But first, I get the various pots with feed for my small friends. Already I hear them clicking and hissing and snapping in their cages.

“Yes, yes. Food is on the way,” I tell them softly as I open the first one.