by Kevin Ashman
‘Quick,’ said Golau, ‘we can shelter in the forest,’ and they all ran toward the tree line, forcing their way through the dense undergrowth and into the forest proper.
The gloom was immediate and the only light that seeped through the leaves gave the cavernous forest a green tinge. A lower undergrowth of sapling bushes and vines competed for room with the enormous tree trunks supporting the dense canopy high above. On the floor, fungi of all shapes and colours were abundant, sprouting through the carpet of pine needles and filling every available damp nook and cranny that was so perfect for their species.
‘There is life everywhere,’ said Brola and he scraped a trough through the detritus with his foot. Beneath the thick carpet, the ground was alive with myriads of tiny creatures feverishly bustling about their business.
‘Where there is life there are Rheibwr,’ he said covering the creatures back up and looked around carefully, examining his surroundings.
They were all experienced enough to know that although the prey were tiny, their predators would be bigger. This rule was repeated right up through the food chain to mammals and where there were mammals; there were always large carnivores that preyed on them.
‘We must take extra care now,’ said Golau, ‘we must watch for predators as well as the Baal.’
The group moved on once again, following the Baal’s trail deep into the forest through the thick layers of fungi and tangled thickets of thorny bushes. The going was tough and their clothes were soaked in sweat within minutes. As evening approached, Kraiach dropped to his knees, closely followed by his colleagues.
‘There is light ahead,’ he said and indicated forward. In the distance, the green tinged air was distinctly lighter as the late sunlight poured into a clearing in the forest. Carefully, they crawled forward to survey the area carefully and seeing no life, walked slowly out onto the muddy surface. Their feet sank into sludge of rotting leaves, making them catch their breath with its stench, and they quickly returned to the solid ground beneath the trees. The clearing was concave in shape, its sides sloping down toward the centre, where a mysterious hole sent thin wisps of steam slowly toward the sky.
‘What is this place?’ whispered Golau.
‘We have no knowledge of this,’ answered Kraiach, ‘it may be the lair of a beast.’
‘Do we go around?’ asked Gafr.
‘I would rather know what monster sleeps here,’ said Golau, ‘it may attack us from behind.’
Afon sat and removed his boots.
‘I will go forward and see what sleeps in the hole,’ he said.
They watched him walk forward to the centre of the stinking grey bog, spear held shoulder height, and ready for any attack that might come from this puncture in the earth’s surface.
The edge of the hole was lipped with a build-up of yellow mud, the height of a man’s knee, before dropping down into the pit inside in a slanting wall of blue. Slowly, he approached the pit edge, and stopped, listening intently.
‘What do you see?’ hissed Golau from the tree line.
‘Shhh!’ said Afon and tilted his head to one side to try to make out the noise. Gradually, he made out a deep growling from far beneath his feet, growing in strength and volume. He stood up quickly and started to retrace his steps, walking backwards as quickly as the cloying mud would allow.
‘Afon what comes?’ shouted Golau.
Afon turned the fear showing on his face.
‘It wakes,’ he shouted, and he started to run from the unseen terror back to the perceived safety of the forest. Golau and his fellow travellers grabbed their spears, ready to fight whatever abomination spewed out from its underground lair.
Afon panicked as he tried to force his feet through the mud, falling just metres from the forest edge as the very ground shook at the intensity of the beast’s deafening bellow. He was stuck, and turned to his colleagues just out of reach.
‘Run, Golau!’ he screamed over the roar of the monster. ‘Leave me, save yourselves’ and twisted his body around, holding his spear up in defensive terror as the beast ripped forth from its lair.
----
With an almighty explosion of steam, water and noise, the giant geyser erupted from deep inside the caldera, shooting over a hundred feet into the air before falling back onto the mud of the clearing.
A minute later, the pressure eased and the fallen water flowed back into the geyser hole. Afon’s breathing calmed and he struggled slowly to his feet. He stood, covered in filth, his bushy hair and untrimmed beard of many months, hanging limp around his shoulders. He turned around slowly to see the rest of the group staring at him, their stern weatherworn faces struggling to hide the mirth that lay beneath.
‘What?’ he shouted.
‘Did you kill it?’ asked Gafr and they all burst into hysterical laughter, much to the disgust of Afon, who continued to struggle out of the mud and muttering under his breath.
They stopped overnight at the edge of this strange waterspout, fascinated to see the performance repeated approximately every hour, the same rumbling noise indicating the build-up of pressure before the geyser sent its water high between the forest trees.
By dawn, their interest had dwindled and its significance reduced to the fact that it had kept them awake through the night, though during one such eruption, Gafr had forced Afon to wash the stinking filth off his body and clothes in the warm spray until his presence was once again bearable.
‘You smell like Aarnoy’s armpit!’ he had said disgustedly, as he forced Afon to strip at spear point to wait for the next eruption. Afon thought that he might actually stab him if he didn’t comply and despite whining, he silently enjoyed the natural shower and the vigorous feeling of good health that followed. When he finished, Afon retied his hair into a ponytail and took the opportunity to cut his beard with his knife.
‘You act like a woman’ sneered Gafr at his friend contemptuously.
‘You should try it,’ said Afon honestly, ‘it makes you feel good.’
‘I have bathed before,’ said Gafr indignantly, ‘it is nothing special.’
‘Not like this,’ he said. ‘Forget the cold waterfalls at home; this water is hot like a fire. It returns my strength, and besides, you don’t smell too good yourself.’
Golau and Gafr considered Afon’s descriptions, and though they doubted his words, they had to agree that the smell of many weeks travel did neither of them any favours. Within the hour, Afon stood guard, while the glade witnessed the unique sight of two naked humans and three naked Neanderthal waiting for a heated geyser in a semi-dormant volcanic crater to erupt, so they could shower in its mineral loaded waters.
----
The group reached the centre of the crater after two days and the huge pine forest gradually opened up to unveil an enormous rocky lake. Kraiach crouched on one knee and scooped a handful of water to his mouth.
‘Is it okay?’ Asked Gafr
‘It is warm, but it can be drunk’ the reply came and they all took time to refill their water skins.
The tracks had stopped at the water’s edge and there was no indication of which way the Baal had gone. They searched a mile in either direction for sign, but eventually met back again, where the trail met the water’s edge.
‘They must have swam across,’ stated Afon
‘I don’t think so,’ said Golau, ‘they had too many prisoners, and our people do not swim.’
‘What about the boats such as the Water-clan use?’ suggested Gafr, referring to the reed woven coracles they had seen at previous clan gatherings. ‘Perhaps they used something similar?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Golau, ‘but they would have to be very large for so many people.’
Brola still squatted at the water’s edge gently swirling his fingers in the warm water staring across to the other side, deep in thought. The other two Neanderthal stared at him, waiting for him to speak, until finally he stood up, still staring out across the water.
‘They did neither,
’ he said, ‘look at the birds.’
At the centre of the lake, a huge flock of pink birds floated serenely on the warm water’s surface, faintly visible through the hazy mist that covered the lake. They all stared at the giant flock, thousands strong.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Golau, ‘we cannot float as they do.’
‘They do not float,’ said Brola, ‘they stand!’ and, much to their amazement, he strode straight out into the lake making a beeline for the far shore. For a few minutes they watched as he waded through the warm water and when it was obvious that it never reached past his knees, they followed in single file, each concentrating on not turning an ankle on the rock covered bed of the vast, but shallow volcanic lake.
----
Golau wiped the heavy sweat from his brow. They had been walking through this new forest since crossing the lake the previous day with no further sign of the Baal and the moist heat was heavy on their skin. He stopped suddenly behind Kraiach whose outstretched hand, palm outward, had indicated danger. The rest of the group melted behind the nearest natural cover awaiting more instructions, weapons held at the ready.
‘What is it?’ whispered Golau.
‘There is a smell,’ said Kraiach his already wide nostrils flaring even further as they sampled the air, heavy with the familiar scent of village life, yet poisoned with a foul stink of decay.
Golau too could smell something bad, reminding him of the games he would play as a boy, when they pelted each other with rotten eggs from the gull’s nests at the great water’s edge. The pair crouched low and moved forward carefully to peer through the foliage to their front. Immediately, the forest ended and an enormous clearing of black volcanic rock opened out before them, stretching to the far edge of the caldera more than a mile in the distance.
All around the clearing, random ponds of hot mud spurted clouds of yellow sulphurous gas into the air accompanied by geysers of water, similar yet smaller than the one, they had already encountered.
‘Look to the far side,’ said Golau pointing to the base of the far crater edge.
Cut into the very floor of the pumice rock, the area was crisscrossed with deep trenches, forming a human size rat run of interconnecting paths and tunnels. Scattered around the clearing and sunk into the rocky floor lay groups of dwellings, not unlike those that the Fire-Clan used, but these were carved out of the actual rock. The more they looked, the more dwellings they saw, all linked by the maze of interconnecting trenches.
‘Can you hear anything?’ asked Golau.
‘I hear nothing,’ answered Kraiach.
‘Neither can I; no birds, not a growl of a beast, not even the song of a cricket. This village is as big as any I have ever seen, yet it is silent. It is all wrong.’
The whole group listened intently and indeed the silence was profound. Golau looked around, his senses suddenly alerted to danger.
‘Where are Brola and Aarnoy?’
Before anyone could answer, dozens of Baal came crashing through the undergrowth, and surrounded the group at spear point,
‘Keep still,’ said Golau, ‘don’t move.’
The four captives were corralled closer together, surrounded by the Baal. A heavily painted warrior walked out of the forest and the circle opened to allow the obvious leader through.
Like all Baal, he was much shorter than Golau. His legs and body were covered entirely by tattoos and he wore a belt of human skulls around his waist. His feet were unshod and he carried a short stabbing spear in his hand. He walked up to Golau and stood staring deep into the eyes of the taller man before walking slowly around him.
‘You have followed well, Hair-face’ he said poking Golau in the chest with his spear.
Golau was shocked; he had not expected them to speak his language.
‘How do you know our tongue?’ asked Golau.
The Baal leader continued his circling, paying much interest in the expressionless Neanderthal.
‘Where are my people?’ continued Golau.
‘You speak too much, Hair-face’ said the leader, ‘I will enjoy killing you.
‘Then why don’t you?’ snarled Golau. ‘Why wait?’
‘Perhaps I should’ answered the Baal. ‘You have already escaped my axe once’
Golau’s eyes narrowed. There was something familiar about the features in front of him.
‘Ahh, do you know me now, Hair-face?’ asked the leader. ‘I thought you had died beneath the ice.’
Golau’s memories came flooding back. In front of him was the one that he had chased over the frozen river before he fell through the ice at the end of the winter. Though he had not been in the valley when the Baal attacked, he had no doubt that this was the very creature that was responsible for ripping his son from the safe warm bosom of the clan.
‘Where is my son?’ growled Golau not expecting an answer.
‘Your son?’ came the surprised reply. ‘Is that why you follow?’
‘You have my son. Give him back to me or I will kill you.’
The Baal warrior threw back his head and laughed out load.
‘No, Hair-face’ said the Baal, ‘I will be eating the marrow from your bones long before you have a chance to kill Kraynar.’
‘You will wish that I had, Baal’ hissed Golau and sprang forward to grab the leader. A blow to the head from a club dropped Golau mid-flight and Gafr jumped forward to press home the attack.
----
The Baal fell on them in frenzy, and then beat them senseless with clubs and spear hafts. The four remaining captives were driven to the floor, their brief resistance quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Dragged semi-conscious to their feet, they stood before Kraynar and they were bound tightly with their arms around their backs. Kraynar approached Gafr, standing just before him.
‘You have spirit,’ he said to the hunter, ‘I will have great sport with you before you die.’
Gafr spat in the smaller being’s face, but Kraynar didn’t flinch. He barked an order in his own language, and one of the warriors struck Gafr across the back of his knees, dropping him to the forest floor. Two others held him tightly by the shoulders as Kraynar leant forward whispering quietly into Gafr’s ear.
‘You know not who you are dealing with. Let me show you.’ He grabbed the hunter’s head, and twisting it to the side, tore into the base of one ear with his sharpened teeth. Gafr roared in pain as he tried to tear his head away from the mutilation.
The two Baal struggled to hold the bound hunter still as Gafr thrashed in agony, screaming in pain as Kraynar’s teeth ripped through muscle and sinew, tearing Gafr’s ear from the side of his skull.
The Baal leader stood in triumph, turning to his people with arms held aloft, displaying his gruesome prize between his teeth. The gathered Baal roared their approval and Gafr was released to collapse on the floor, blood pouring from the jagged wound as he lay gasping on the floor. Kraynar walked toward Golau spitting out the Gafr’s ear as he came.
Golau’s one eye had already swollen shut and his broken nose poured blood onto his chest. Yet, he still stared unflinchingly at his captor, every sinew straining to cave in the ugly creature’s face.
‘Untie me, Baal, and you will have all the sport you require.’
Kraynar stared for a moment, and drew his knife. He walked behind Golau and the hunter was amazed to feel the binds of his wrists being cut. Kraynar reappeared in front of Golau, but out of reach of his arms.
‘What about my feet?’ he asked. Kraynar shook his head, and nodded toward the moaning Gafr, lying face down on the forest floor.
‘His wound is open, Hair-face’ he said, ‘it needs to be sealed or it will fester in the breath of Bin-naarve.’
Golau was confused. Why was this creature giving him the chance to help his friend? He paused before hobbling toward Gafr, dropping to his knees by his friend’s side, horrified at the state of the mangled wound.
‘I need bandage or medicine,’ he said to the Baal leader.
&n
bsp; Kraynar translated to the watching Baal who laughed out loud at the request, though one stepped forward with a small skin bag, tied at the neck, throwing it down to the floor at Golau’s knees.
‘Here is the medicine,’ said Kraynar coldly, ‘apply it well.’
Golau opened the bag. It was full of ground rock salt. He looked back up at Kraynar, the hate obvious in his eyes.
‘Do it!’ snarled Kraynar.
‘Never!’
Kraynar lifted his spear and placed it at Golau’s throat.
‘Do it!’ he said again.
‘Never!’ repeated Golau again staring into Kraynar’s eyes, fully expecting the death thrust. Kraynar paused and suddenly grinned. He withdrew his spear and placed it on the back of Gafr’s neck.
‘I will not tell you again,’ he said, the grin gone and a deadly serious look appeared in his eye.
Golau returned the stare. Everyone in the glade was deathly silent while watching the battle of wills between the two men. He knew the stakes had changed, certain that Kraynar wouldn’t hesitate to thrust the spear home to sever Gafr’s spinal cord. He could not win; he must either hurt his friend, or be the cause of his death, so he had no choice. Slowly he reached into the bag and grabbed out a fistful of salt. He leaned forward.
‘Forgive me, friend,’ he said quietly and placed the handful of salt directly on the gaping bloody wound where Gafr’s ear used to be.
The forest resounded to the scream that echoed through the ancient trees. Just as shocking was the sudden silence that followed as Gafr’s unbearable agony dragged him into deep welcoming unconsciousness.
‘You will pay for this,’ Golau snarled at Kraynar.
‘I think not,’ came the reply and Kraynar’s club smashed the hunter across the head.
All four captives were hung from spears by their bindings, nothing more than prey from the plains by the sea. The Baal started chanting their songs of superiority and success as they started their trek back to their village at the far edge of the rocky clearing. It took four warriors to carry each trussed prisoner, and due to the short stature of the Baal, the heads of the captives constantly banged on the roots and rocks of the path, much to the amusement of the over excited captors.
