by M. Garnet
Rolling over she woke up to stare at a very old woman who was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to her flat bed.
"Hello." Margo greeted without hesitation, giving the woman a smile.
"ello." The woman repeated.
"Hey, do you speak English?"
"ello, speak." The woman waved a withered hand.
Margo looked around as she moved to sit opposite her visitor. "I didn't think anyone here could understand me. I need to learn your language, but all I can speak is the word yo."
The woman nodded. "Speak, I need learn yer lang age."
Hesitating, Margo looked at the woman and thought for a moment. "Wait, are you learning my language as I talk? Do you need me to talk some more so that you can understand me? What do you want me to say?"
The woman's head went up and down. "Talk some more. Speak lang age. I sunder stand."
"Okay. My name is Margo Sanderson, and I come from a little town on the west coast of Florida, and I really want to go home. I don't understand how I got here, but in just a couple of days, I saw your people fighting the ugliest battle. Both the enemy and some of your people died. No one was buried, and I don't understand not helping anyone that might have been hurt.
I was kidnapped and transported by a really strange man to his dark house on the side of a mountain, and a couple of really nice cooks that work for him have sort of been helping me. I mean they can't help me get out of the valley, and I think it might be a dream or hypnosis. I ran away from him here in your land." Stopping to catch her breath, Margo looked at the woman to see if she had said enough.
The woman spoke slowly. "We are Noova. We battle to have home." With this, she waved her hand in a big encompassing swipe.
"So, you are a person who speaks to others?" Margo raised her eyebrows as she asked the question.
"I hear people and speak from them. I learn. I am speak for Noova."
"Okay, I think I need to keep speaking in some small words. I am Margo. Who are you?" Margo pointed at her chest with the right words and then at the woman.
"I Bada."
"Okay, Bada. I guess you pick up more of my words as I talk. I think it is time to eat and I am really hungry. I didn't eat much after the battle. Can you take me out to the food tables?" Margo rubbed her tummy, hoping to indicate her hunger.
"Food and eat. I unner stand. Tables here." The old woman stood up, so Margo pulled her boots on and joined the speaker as they went out of the hut.
It was a short walk to one of the covered areas with tables and food. There were some people leaving and others just sitting down. Margo let Bada lead her to a spot, and they sat down between some people who looked as tired as Margo felt. They probably had been on the walk with her.
"Speak." Bada gave her an order.
Margo decided she still needed words, perhaps words that she would repeat. "I was out with the troupe that had to fight last night. I have never been in a situation where people fought each other and killed each other. For me, it was the brutality of the deaths of those people. Every strike was meant to disable and if possible to kill."
There was a break in her words when a large plate of hot flat bread was set in front of her. There was also a shallow cup of honey in front of each person, and Margo soon learned that you were to roll the flatbread and dip it into the honey. The coarse sour bread had a nice contrast with the honey, so Margo took advantage of one whole piece.
She did tear it into small strips and was about to dip again when a hand reached over her shoulder, took the bread from her hand and dipped it, bringing the sweet treat to her mouth. She turned her face away from the dripping bread to look up at the dark eyes of the leader, wondering what this was all about.
"You eat. You man." Bada spoke softly.
"Bada, I don't understand your traditions and what your different customs might mean. If by saying You Man you mean that I am with this man or belong to him, then there is a problem here. I am not with any man. Yo. Can you explain that I find him a great man but I don't want to get involved in any relationship?"
"You eat. Yo fight. You eat."
Looking around Margo saw that there were a lot of eyes on them. She put her hand on the bread and let him put it in her mouth. She bit off a large chunk and looked down as he withdrew. Was this like a damn dog marking his spot by peeing on a bush? She had a feeling this was another man she needed to escape from and that she needed to head in a different direction.
She had met people who had not threatened her and fed and took her into their group. But they were a violent people at war with someone else. She also didn't understand their customs or what they might expect from her in return for them accepting her into their midst. Perhaps the price was higher than she wanted to pay. Due to their violent attitudes, would they kill her if she didn't agree to their price to be part of their tribe?
There was fruit of some type and meat on the table, but Margo's mind was keeping her too busy to eat anything more.
"Bada, who is he? Is he a hunter or a killer or the leader?"
"Everything. He is all."
Margo nodded. "Okay, I get it. It is an honor to have him feed you honey and bread. What would happen to me if I refused his offer?"
Bada looked around at all the people. "There be a challenge."
Margo looked around and shivered. "You mean I would be challenged by someone?"
Bada shook her head. "No, he be challenged. He fight for you."
"Yo." She didn't want men fighting over her and maybe even dying as a result.
"It is what it is. You unner stand soon." Bada dipped bread and ate meat.
"I need to find a bush, so I really hope you unner er understand what I mean." Margo got up and started walking towards the nearest forest.
Bada's answer was a simple word. "Okay." Margo smiled as she thought the old woman was picking up her language pretty fast. Now if she could just get the leader/killer/hunter to understand that she wanted to remain a single woman.
Perhaps she should try to leave this group. Sure there was the enemy of this group in the dark clothing. But maybe if she left her hood off and let her long brown hair show, they might be as interested as this leader showed in her color. It might be enough to keep her from being killed.
Wandering to the forest, she found she had two women to assist her into the bushes. Great, she wasn't stupid she now had guards. Margo wasn't sure if she was being guarded or protected, but she hated the idea of having an audience for her personal needs.
One of the female warriors supplied her with some leaves. When she stood up, they motioned her to follow, and they led her through the clean tree trunks to what looked like a small pool that ran off and overflowed into a stream. There was a small drift of steam above the pool and a lot of people in the water, some just sitting not even washing or playing.
Margo decided she could use another cleaning and she didn't need to stare at all the naked people. She stripped down to her underwear again and dug out her bar of soap. She put one foot into the water expecting cold and was pleasantly surprised to find the pool must be fed by a hot spring somewhere. The water was pleasurably warm.
This pool must be one of the reasons the tribe or group of people had settled in this area. She was in the water, washing the soap out of her hair when she spotted him sitting on one heel at the side of the pool.
She was amazed as she had the same question about him as she did about her female escorts. Was he protecting her or guarding her?
Chapter Eighteen
Margo again woke to find the old woman Bada sitting beside her flat bed. "Hey Bada, don't you have a bed of your own? Where do you sleep?"
"I sleep here." Bada waved her hand behind her at the leaf curtains that separated the rooms.
What Margo was finding surprising was that although not all of Bada's sentences made any sense, she said words without any accent. She was a good mimic.
As Margo was getting dressed she tried to explain her problems to Bada.
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"Bada, I am here because I needed to escape from a strange man who was holding me as sort of a prisoner. I am trying to get back to my own home. I have someone important I need to get back to and rescue him. He is in trouble also. Do you understand what I am trying to explain?"
"Okay." Bada nodded her head.
Sighing Margo continued. "What I am trying to say is that I need to leave the Noova and find my way home."
Bada nodded. "Yo. Go eat." The woman stood up and waved to lead the way out of the hut.
Thinking that she hadn't explained herself correctly, Margo hurried after the older woman as Bada headed out to the tables for breakfast. She had learned early from Bada that they didn't name their meals. There wasn't a breakfast or lunch or dinner. They didn't even call the meals first or last. A meal was just a meal, served at a time when everyone would expect to eat.
Actually, when Margo asked, they didn't have a lot of proper nouns in their language, so Bada couldn't give her names for some things. Each river was just a river, and each settlement was just that, a location where a lot of people were staying for a while. Smaller ones were temporary and larger ones seemed to be permanent. No one named them after the local trees or hills or the person who first found them. Their language was simple and not cluttered.
But it was confusing, and she couldn't speak it, so she had to rely on Bada who seemed a bit independent on what she chose to tell others or interpreted to Margo. Add to that was the fact that she felt the hunter's eyes on her whenever she went out of her hut.
Margo took to carrying or wearing her backpack all the time. Her thought was that they would get used to seeing her with it and they wouldn't get suspicious. She had to wander around and go out into the forest at different times just to see how people would react. It only took two days for her escorts to give up and quit following her every move.
As she walked under the old high trees with almost no cover underneath, she always just looked up or looked down, she would pick some wildflowers. If she passed anyone, she smiled and even sometimes looked at what they might be doing in the forest themselves. They often were gathering roots or fungal growths; some even looked like regular mushrooms.
Her hopes were that eventually, she would find the right time and a good reason to just walk away. It would take something that would occupy the attention of most of the people in this settlement.
It happened during the last meal of one day, as she was sitting next to Bada. Her dark-eyed nemesis was not in the area, so she could relax and eat, using her fingers to wrap in flatbread some meat and green fruit that was tangy.
Suddenly there was yelling and running, and people were leaving the tables. Margo could see people adding to their tight green outfits and many weapons, as within the chaos there was movement in one direction towards the forest. It seemed that the fighters and warriors were heading all in one direction and everyone else was helping them.
Bada was also starting to move away, but Margo caught her arm. "What does that word they are yelling mean?"
Bada pulled loose and yelled over her shoulder as she ran with others, perhaps to help. "Vra Ra means enemy. Means invaders. Go hide."
She now had her chance, and she wasn't going to sit there debating with herself. She nodded to everyone as they passed and she headed in the opposite direction. She ran until she reached the edge of the settlement.
Here people were piling supplies, and without hesitation, she grabbed one of the sling nets. No one objected, and as she ran into the forest, she rolled the light-weight netting up into a small ball that she could stuff into a low pocket in her pants.
Heading for the pool, she followed the overflow stream until it reached a wider river. She got into it and waded up against the flow for about fifteen minutes, then she got out the other side and walked further up the other bank on the edge for another fifteen or twenty minutes, feeling the push of the sun sinking. Her boots were finally dry, and she made an effort not to leave tracks.
At last, she came to a stony track and used it to get back into the water and cross over to the other side. She walked until she found a couple of big stones that she hoped would dry as she stepped out on them and walked away from the river, now heading in a new direction at an angle.
She had eaten a good meal and had a full night’s sleep the night before, so she intended to walk straight through for a couple of days. Her next thought was to hide her trail in the forest from a hunter. She began to drop pieces of bread and meat every so often in any of her footprints. Her hope was that wild animals would come and sit to eat and cover up her trail and smell with their trail and spoor.
Although she didn't need to stop yet, she made up her mind she would only relieve herself in streams and rivers, hoping the moving water would erase her tracks. She wasn't an outdoor person, but she had to use her own instincts and what she remembered from all the books she had read both in hard bound and on the Internet.
It was after dawn that she found a larger pile of animal dung and she carefully stepped both boots into the pile then slowly pulled the grass up to carry the load with her for a while. The odor was strong, but she wanted to wait for the right place to drop her load of offal.
At last, she tossed it into some bushes and traveled on, fighting the exhaustion moving through her long legs. She tried to be careful and not get close to bushes or anything low. She remembered watching the TV shows where trackers had followed the broken tiny limbs and the bits of hair or cloth caught on branches.
She hated to cover her hair but felt it might be better to keep her hair under the hood pulled tight to keep stray hairs from falling out on the trail. Margo decided that if she were caught by the darker-dressed warriors, she would try to pull off her hood. She felt that she needed to take a lot of effort to keep the hunter off her trail. She was in his forest, and she was the intruder.
There was another problem that Margo was thinking about as she moved steadily forward. She needed to keep going in one direction. She thought she wanted to travel west and she would keep the sun as her guide. During the night she had no guide, not having studied enough to know about the North Star.
Perhaps if she got into a clearing, she could hunt for the Big Dipper. She had found those figures a time or two in her walks with her little dog. She had to admit she didn't know if she was looking at the small one or the big one and she never could see both.
At last her energy was running down. She had used up all the original adrenaline that started her out through the first night and now headed into her next night she knew she would have to sleep. Her next problem was finding a tree she could climb.
The sun was sinking, and none of the trees had any lower limbs. It took her only a day or two at the first settlement to learn that the people harvested the lower limbs for their use and over the years there weren't any lower limbs left.
With it getting dark she had to get creative. She pulled out the netting for the sleeping sling and tossed it over a limb. When she pulled, she felt it give, and she had it all back down on the ground.
Taking a deep breath and moving a couple of feet away from the trunk, she threw it up again, and this time it hooked on something. She began to climb the net, putting her feet into the knotted squares.
She got up on a limb and wobbled as she hung onto the center and unhooked the sling to pull it up. She looked around and decided there was one more limb that she could scramble up onto and then she would decide how to tie up the sling to sleep.
Ending up to just tying the sling around herself and looping it around the center as she sat and hugged the tree. Twisting the ends together she was held tight and within a short time was asleep. A couple of times she woke up as she tried to move, but she soon understood her predicament and went back to sleep.
There was just a glint of light off in the distance when a squawking bird sitting on the end of her limb brought her awake. It took her awhile to untangle the netting and slowly slide down the trunk. Even with her jacket on,
she left some skin and felt some bruising. There would be some marks on this tree for the hunter if he got this far.
While she was trying to hide details under the tree, she heard thunder in the distance. Great, she would be wet and uncomfortable as she walked west. On the other hand, the rain should hide her tracks.
Chapter Nineteen
To say that Margo was surprised when the hunter caught her was an understatement. There was no noise, no warning, and no signal. She was walking between the trees, watching her shadow moving ahead of her and suddenly he hit her from the side.
If she had time to think about it, he had come from the side so he would not let his shadow give her any warning. She went up in the air and then landed on her back, losing her breath as she landed. She felt the painful pull, as he jerked her backpack away when he had tossed her.
He whispered many words in his language as he tossed her pack to one side, but the only word she understood was Yo. He moved over her as he began to tear her clothes away. She fought him in a useless way, as his strength was many times hers and he just slapped her and returned to pushing her clothes off her body.
Behind him, the sky had darkened with the clouds and the first rain hit them as she decided it was right that she should get raped in a medieval forest while it rained.
Her escape attempt had been useless and had only served to wear her own system out and make him very angry. She tried to fight, but he had her hands trapped in one of his strong, calloused fists that he now held above her head. He was down on his knees, one on each side of her body and as she tried to kick and twist he sat down on her lower hips and continued to tear away, seeking what he wanted.
Thunder and lightning flashed around them, but it didn't seem to distract the hunter from his intentions with Margo. His grip on her wrists was tight, and his ass on her frame was keeping her from moving. She was really going to get hurt during this, and there wasn't much she could do, but she intended to fight as long as she breathed.
