by M L Bellante
CHAPTER
CHAPTER 5
THE OUTSIDER
In a hamlet a world apart from the Batru’s wilderness, the hustle and bustle of daily life went on as usual. The settlement’s residents plied their wares and services in the town’s market. A boy made his way through the tables and barrows, his head turning from side to side and his eyes glancing in all directions. Without warning, a merchant holding a long, stiff switch swatted the boy on the shoulder.
“Begone Creeper! Every time you come around, I end up missing things. Begone and don’t come back!”
The boy angrily turned over the merchant’s table, snatched something shiny, and dashed away. The entire market was in an uproar as the boy zigzagged through the other displays as merchants either tried to snag him or hit him with whatever was at hand. But, the agile boy soon escaped, leaving behind a ruckus, and many furious men and women.
He dashed out of the hamlet and into the forest. He examined the shiny hairpin he had snatched and stuffed it into his tattered shirt while on the move. He eventually slowed to a walk, preparing to cross a stream. He had to be careful as he hopped from boulder to boulder, for he knew if he slipped and fell into the water, the creatures hiding under the surface would attack and they had sharp teeth. Two-thirds of the way across, he stopped and gazed into the stream. Sure enough, there was a big underwater creature as long as his arm staring back at him, just waiting for him to make a mistake. The boy took a deep breath and deftly hopped to the next boulder and then the next, quickly reaching the other side of the stream.
After he had reached it, he charged up the bank. “Ah, there you are,” he said aloud to a wild berry bush. A few of the round berries had turned red, so he plucked them off the bush and gobbled them down. After he had picked and eaten all the ripe berries he could find, he moved deeper into the forest. Checking the ground, he began following a faint trail cut through the fallen leaves by small animals. He quickened his pace and came upon a small, furry, four-legged creature caught in a snare he had laid the day before. He extracted it, gutted and skinned it with his small knife, and started a fire in a cleared area. “I’ll reset the trap after I eat,” he said to himself as he roasted his catch on a spit.
He patiently waited as his meal turned a golden brown. As his meat cooked, he napped. He awoke with a start when he heard something crashing through the brush. A man-like creature stumbled into the clearing and dropped to its knees less than a stone’s throw in front of the boy staring back at him. The creature’s dark-brown eyes filled with desperation. The beast was wearing odd-looking orange clothes with patches and strange symbols sewn onto its tatters. The man-thing wasn’t wearing sandals. Instead, its feet were entirely covered in black leather coverings that went halfway up his shins. The most terrifying thing about this man-beast was the hair covering its face.
The beast dropped its stare from the boy to the roasting spit above the fire. It then charged toward the cooking meat, causing the child to panic and dash away. It grabbed the boy’s meal and began devouring it as if it were famished. The boy stopped his flight only long enough to witness what the beast was doing. Then he continued to flee toward the village.
The boy rushed into the town shouting at the top of his lungs. When he reached the village center, he stopped as several stern-looking adults surrounded him. The boy pointed in the direction he had come from, shouting, “Monster! Beast! There’s something out there I’ve never seen before!”
“Creeper, I’m going to give you the beating of your life for what you did this morning,” an angry merchant threatened as he grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him over to his barrow. The dealer picked up a stout wooden rod and was about to lay into the boy when a woman’s scream was heard coming from the edge of the hamlet near where the boy had entered. Men grabbed clubs, quarterstaffs, wooden pitchforks, and anything else that might serve as a makeshift weapon, and rushed to the screams. The merchant dragged the boy along with him. When they arrived, they saw the same man-beast the boy had seen; the hairy face, the odd coverings, the strange footwear. The creature stood staring back at the people. It raised both hands, showing everyone it had no weapon.
“It doesn’t have claws,” someone noted.
“Be careful, it might have sharp teeth,” another warned.
The man-beast made no threatening moves and began making sounds as if it were trying to communicate in some strange fashion. The leader of the hamlet, armed with a short sword, approached the creature and began speaking to it.
“Do you understand me?” he asked. The man-beast cocked its head to the side as if it were trying to comprehend. “What are you, beast or god?” the leader asked. The creature replied with a string of odd sounds that made no sense to anyone, some sounding threatening.
Everyone stood dumbfounded by the creature’s appearance and strange noises. The boy being held by the merchant managed to shake free from his grip, and he dashed to the other side of the crowd. The leader attempted again to speak with the brute. “Have you been sent by the gods?” he asked.
The creature didn’t answer and looked confused. By this time, it was surrounded and one of the other hamlet men holding a quarterstaff crept behind it. The leader nodded his head and the man standing behind the creature swung his staff, hitting it in the head, knocking it unconscious.
The boy sat on the ground near the cage where the hamlet men had stuffed the thing that had come out of the woods. The man-beast’s outer garments had been stripped away. The cage was sturdy, made of stout wooden poles lashed together with strong leather cords. The last time the pen had been used was to capture a marauding wild beast that was raiding village flocks. That creature had sharp teeth, claws on all four paws, and its roar was terrifying.
This creature was nothing like that. This beast is like a man with a hairy face and body, the boy thought. Could it be a lesser god? After examining the unconscious creature for a while, the boy surmised it would look just like any other grown man if it didn’t have hair on its face.
The beast began to stir, causing the boy to jump in fright, but his curiosity kept him in place. He was sure the well-built cage would securely hold the creature. The man-beast groaned and rubbed the back of its head. It then looked at its hand and saw blood. It looked around, examining its situation. It slowly stood but had to hunch over because it was taller than the cage was high. The creature’s focus changed. It noticed the boy sitting on the ground, looking up into the cage. After a few moments, the beast started making sounds. The boy thought it was trying to talk to him, but the noises made no sense. Suddenly, the creature’s focus changed again, causing the boy to look over his shoulder quickly, but too late. The merchant whose table he’d overturned earlier, was upon him, grabbing him by the upper arm with his left hand and jerking the boy to his feet.
“Now I have you, Creeper!” the merchant exploded.
“Let me go!” the boy shouted as he struggled to escape the merchant’s clutches.
“I’m going to give you a beating you’ll never forget!” the merchant growled. He raised the wooden rod he was holding in his right hand, preparing to swing it down hard on the boy’s back. The lad dug his bare feet into the soft ground and pushed with all his might, crashing his tormentor into the cage’s poles. The man-beast within grabbed the merchant, pulling him tightly against the cage and holding him there. The monster growled and grunted, the sounds terrifying the merchant, and he began screaming in panic. Several village men dashed to the merchant’s aid. Two grabbed him by the arms and attempted to pull him free of the creature’s grasp. Several other townsmen began jabbing the beast with the blunt ends of their staffs. The monster roared in pain and released his captive. It grabbed one of the staffs and jerked it from its abuser’s grasp. The other men’s attacks became more desperate and more vicious, pounding the beast until it was lying on the floor of the cage, nearly unconscious, bleeding from its nose and mouth.
The hamlet leader arrived and surveyed the situation.
“Enough of this,” he declared. “Secure the beast with ropes. I’m convinced it is a violent and dangerous monster. It will be driven into the mist. Let the gods deal with it.”
The boy watched as the leather straps securing the cage’s gate were cut. Two burly men grabbed the injured beast by its hairy legs and dragged it out of the cage. Its arms and hands were secured by ropes and a rope was placed around its neck. The creature was then pulled and shoved out of the village as women and children pelted it with stones.
Every man in the hamlet followed the nearly naked beast as it was pushed, stumbling along on its uncovered feet. The trail wound westward through the trees and bushes. Woodland creatures scattered as the raucous horde approached. The boy followed, not wanting to get too close for he feared the men’s wrath. Yet, there was something else he feared even more—the gods of the mist. If anyone got too close, the gods might seize them, and they would never be seen again. The boy hung back waiting to see what would happen.
By midafternoon, the mob drew near the mist-plains. All life seemed to have fled from this colorless place. No tree, no bush, nor flower grew here. No creature sounds could be heard. It was a desolate realm of gray that froze one’s soul.
The men stopped a safe distance away from the dead place, removed the rope from around the creature’s neck, and shoved the beast in the direction of the mist, its wrists still bound. Several men threatened the creature with sharpened poles and the hamlet leader waved his short sword, the only one in the village, in a threatening manner. The beast slowly and reluctantly trudged forward and disappeared into the fog.
The men waited until dusk and then began their trek back to the hamlet. The boy hid in the bushes as the village men marched past. He waited until their sounds were no longer heard; then he waited a little more. When he finally thought it was safe, he cleared an area of leaves and tinder and started a small campfire. Hunger gnawed at him. He knew he’d be cold by morning, but it wasn’t the first time he’d been cold and hungry. He felt it his duty to remain and help the beast if he could because the beast had helped him, saving him from a sound beating. However, he doubted the creature would survive because no one ever returned once they went into the mist. He’d wait until midmorning; he owed the creature that much, at least.
He moved into the bushes, searching for small animal trails. Although it was difficult in the diminishing daylight, he found a path and set up a snare. He would return to it in the morning and hope for the best. He went back to his fire, leaned over it, and warmed himself. He placed a sturdy dry branch in the fire to use as a torch to fend off night predators, something he had learned was sometimes necessary. From time-to-time, he turned around, warming his opposite side. He did this throughout the night, catching naps in between. He looked above him and watched the three moons as they moved across the sky. Munnoga, the silvery moon, moved west to east. Munnari, the blue moon, and Munnevo, the red moon, moved east to west as they slowly revolved around each other.
The boy closed his eyes and managed to sleep a bit before his cold back woke him again. He turned around and fell asleep once more. When the eastern sky began to glow with the coming of day, he arose and went to his snare. When he arrived, a broad smile filled his face; first-meal was snared. He gutted and cleaned it; then he began roasting it over the fire.
As the glow of day increased, it chased away night’s shadows. The boy noticed something laying on the ground near the border of the mist. He decided to risk getting a little closer to the dangerous fog and, as he did, he could see it was the body of the man-beast the others had forced into the mist the day before. The boy cautiously approached. When he was close enough, he pushed the creature’s bare shoulder with a stick. It stirred. The boy recoiled but did not run away. The creature groaned and rolled onto its back. The boy waited, preparing to dart for safety. It sat up and looked around. When it saw the boy, a smile could be detected on its hairy face. The boy smiled back and motioned for the creature to follow; it did.
The monster was led back to the boy’s fire and the meal roasting there. The boy pointed to it and then pantomimed eating. The creature grabbed the roasting animal and was about to begin devouring it; however, it stopped, tore the critter apart, and handed the boy a piece.
For the next several moments, the two ate and only the sounds of tearing meat and chewing could be heard. At last the boy asked, “What are you? You look and act like a man, but you’ve got hair in the wrong places.”
The creature looked at him and began making odd sounds. The boy could tell it was trying to communicate, but the sounds it was making made no sense.
“Stop,” the boy said. “I don’t understand. What’s your name?” The creature just stared at him. The boy touched the beast’s shoulder and repeated loudly, “What . . . is . . . your . . . name?” At first, the creature looked at him with a confused expression, then its face lit up and it uttered an odd sound that the boy assumed was the beast’s name. “I can’t say that, but you understand. I’ll call you outsider in old-speak; Tangundo. Your name is Tangundo.”
The creature smiled and nodded. “Tan-gun-do,” it repeated with a terrible accent. The boy nodded and smiled. The creature placed its hand on the boy’s shoulder and made some odd sounds.
“Oh, you want to know what my name is. My name is Nevesant. Nev-e-sant,” the boy repeated. “Nev-e-sant,” the creature said with a smile. It was then that the boy first noticed Tangundo’s eyes were now the color of the red moon, Munnevo.
CHAPTER 6
HUNTER AND HUNTED
Early the next morning, Coleman, having learned the night before he wasn’t on Earth after all, arose quietly and gingerly walked to the latrine with Tzeechoe close behind. As the men returned to the lodge, Tzeechoe told Coleman they would make a club for him to use on the hunt the next day.
“I hope I not todo on hunt. We hunt bataro?”
“We always search for bataro. It is a sacred beast. Its meat brings great strength and blessings to the villagers. We will always search for one, but we must bring food back to the village. We cannot waste our time. The longer we hunt, the more likely it is to draw the gorga’s attention. That would be very bad,” Tzeechoe explained as he pulled aside the door covering and entered the dwelling.
The men saw that the bedding had been collected and stowed away. Coleman found an obsidian blade, wet his face with water, and began scraping the sharp obsidian down his cheek.
“Ouch! This isn’t going to be easy.”
Coleman didn’t have a heavy beard, but it still took him about twenty minutes to finish the task. The obsidian was razor sharp but jagged and he suffered many small cuts during the ordeal; however, a clean shave made him feel a lot better when he had finished.
“I not like hair on face,” he told Tzeechoe, who had been watching him the entire time. Tzeechoe examined Coleman’s face, used a finger to wipe some blood from one of the cuts and examined it.
“Does this always happen when you cut the hair on your face?” he asked.
“Only with this,” Coleman said as he held up the jagged obsidian tool.
“Now, we will make a hunting club. We need a strong branch and a round rock,” Tzeechoe instructed as he grabbed his new spear and left the lodge with Coleman right behind.
The two men left the safety of the village and entered the trees nearby. Tzeechoe found a straight and sturdy branch and hacked at it with his waist knife. He then stripped the bark off it and handed it to Coleman.
“Okay,” Coleman said reluctantly, “now what I do?”
Tzeechoe smiled, “That’s mine. Go find your own.”
Coleman looked around, found a similar branch, and using Tzeechoe’s obsidian knife, hacked it loose and stripped it clean. Tzeechoe then walked deeper into the forest with Coleman in tow. They soon approached a small brook with many round rocks. Tzeechoe selected one and showed it to Coleman. Following Tzeechoe’s lead, Coleman found another and the two headed back to the village. When they got back to the
lodge, they found several long strips of rawhide soaking in a gourd filled with water near the hut’s doorway.
“Tzeecha and Atura made some bindings for us,” Tzeechoe said.
Tzeechoe began cutting grooves around the pole at two-inch intervals. He then used his obsidian knife to shape one end of the pole so the rock would fit snugly against it. When he was satisfied with the pole’s shape, he placed the rock in its perch and began laying wet leather strips over it. He then wrapped the entire handle with more strips as tightly as he could. Tzeechoe added a loop of rawhide at the heel end of the club, allowing the holder to slip his wrist through it to secure the club if he wanted to. He then laid the finished product in the sun and let the leather dry and shrink. But it really isn’t the sun, Coleman thought sadly. The villagers call it p´atezas, the mother-of-life.
When Tzeechoe finished, the two men began working on Coleman’s club. Tzeechoe corrected him many times during the process but after a couple of hours, Coleman had finished his club, as well. He wasn’t confident it would hold up under extreme use, but Tzeechoe seemed to think it was done well enough, so Coleman accepted his praise cordially.
Tzeechoe then lifted a large obsidian stone that had been stowed near the hut’s doorway and said, “You will now make a knife from this.”
“Uh, okay,” Coleman uttered sheepishly in English.
Tzeechoe collected a few stone tools and a leather lap skin. He began teaching Coleman how to make an obsidian knife. With Tzeechoe’s gentle promptings, Coleman chiseled out a rough knife. Then Tzeechoe took over and showed him the finer points as he finished the job. It was late in the afternoon when the knife was fully formed and the handle wrapped in wet rawhide. Coleman examined his new knife and club, feeling proud of his accomplishments.
Just a short time ago, he was on the cutting edge of technology and today he was making stone tools. Yet, he looked at the tools with satisfaction. What he’d done today had a direct purpose to his life. In the morning, he would join a group of men and assist them in finding food for the village. If they failed, the village would suffer. If they succeeded, they would be cheered by the villagers. There would be risk and adventure, things which Coleman relished.
