Chapter 30 - The Cave of the Gray Stone People part 10

We buried Bukhult in a shallow grave, positioning his body like a child in the womb, knees folded up, chin tucked to his chest. The next morning, when the sky was bright enough to see the path, we rose, put out our fire and continued on our way. No one paused by the little mound of earth that marked his grave. None but I, and that only in passing.

As we crossed into the territory of the Gray Stone people, the mood of our war party turned deadly serious. With Bukhult removed from the equation, we were all, to a man, skilled hunters and warriors... and we meant to stalk and kill any interloper who dared trespass our valley. We put aside our careless camaraderie, the joking and horseplay from the previous day, and began to move silent and swift through the hunting grounds of our Neanderthal neighbors, searching the forest floor for any sign of our quarry.

As we moved stealthily eastward, we did our best to avoid detection by any sentries who might have been posted to guard the approach to Gray Stone. We moved singly, spread out through the woodland in a widely spaced line, keeping only our nearest cohorts in eyesight. Even with the ten of us moving steadily through the glen, not a sound betrayed our passage. No branch snapped underfoot. No leaf rustled but what the wind disturbed. We glided like spirits through the dense forest of the Fat Hand's westernmost hunting grounds, slipping from tree to tree and communicating with sign language.

Tetch was the second fatality of our expedition.

We were still a few miles from Gray Stone when I heard the swish of running feet. I had Tavet to the southeast of me and Brulde to the northwest. We were moving southeast, the sun at our backs. The runner was approaching from Brulde's direction, sweeping his feet carelessly through the leaves that carpeted the forest floor.

I frowned in consternation at the noise the man was making. Brulde heard it, too. He gaped at me in disbelief, then turned and dropped to one knee. He nocked an arrow, his back to me, and waited for the runner to come into sight. If he were one of ours, my father would put a lump on his head for such a gross lapse of judgment. If he wasn't one of ours, Brulde was about to put an arrow through his heart.

Brulde waited, the muscles in his arms trembling as the crunching grew louder. I crouched down, spear in hand, and started duck walking in Brulde's direction. Whoever it was, whatever it was, it was just on the other side of the hill.

Friend or foe? I wondered, as I made my way toward Brulde.

The wound in my hip was burning but I pushed the pain from my awareness.

To my surprise, Tetch's brother Halde came sprinting over the hill.

The moment we saw his face, we knew that there was trouble.

"Brulde!" he gasped. "Gon! Hurry! It's Tetch!" He came to a stop a few feet away and stood hunched over, hands on his knees. He was too out of breath to get a full sentence out. He whooped a lungful of air and then said in a rush, "Tetch is dead!"

"Did you see who killed him?" I asked, coming alongside the man.

He shook his head. His curly red hair was pasted to his face with sweat. His eyes bulged from their sockets, wild, like a cornered animal. "I didn't see anything! I didn't hear anything either! I lost sight of him for a moment and when I doubled back to find him, he was dead!" He waved for us to follow and ran back the way he had come. I tried to restrain him but he jerked his arm from my hand and went loping down the hill, kicking through the leaves.

Brulde and I exchanged an anxious glance. I motioned for him to follow Halde... but cautiously. Halde was understandably distraught, but if enemies were afoot, it was suicide to go running carelessly through the woods. Halde would be lucky if they didn't kill him next.

True enough, Tetch had been killed.

He was sitting on the ground, back propped against the trunk of a hoary oak tree. His arms hung limply at his sides. His cheek lay against his shoulder.

Someone had ripped out his throat.

There was blood all down the front of his body, blood pooled between his thighs. Blood had sprayed eight feet up the trunk of the tree he leaned against. His eyes stared through us, glazed and lifeless, as we drew close. His tongue protruded from his slack jaw.

"I didn't see anyone," Halde panted, standing over his dead brother. "He didn't make a sound!" He scanned the forest with reddened eyes.

"We should not linger," Brulde whispered in my ear. "Our enemy may be close."

I nodded. I had squatted down to examine the corpse. The wound to Tetch's throat was exactly the same as Fodar's injury, a single ragged flap, as if something sharp had struck him violently. Unlike Fodar, however, Tetch's blood was quite evident. There were spatters of blood on the leaves as far as ten feet away. I tried to imagine what sort of weapon might make a wound like that. I'd never seen its like.

I rose. "Halde," I said, and then more urgently, "Halde!"

His eyes twitched in my direction.

"We'll come back for your brother, give him a proper burial, but right now we need to move. There's nothing we can do for him now. We need to remove ourselves, hide and watch the body."

"But my brother--!"

"Swallow your anger, Halde. Who will avenge your brother if they kill us, too?"

It took a moment for my admonition to penetrate his pain, but then I saw him put aside his grief and pull his thoughts together. Halde wiped his eyes with the back of his arm, spared his brother's body one last mournful glance and then he crouched down and followed us away.

We moved to a short distance, sheltering behind a fallen tree. We took up position. Brulde guarded our backs while Halde and I peered through the intertwined branches of our cover.

"Now we watch," I whispered to Halde. "Perhaps our enemies will return to the scene."

The muscles of Halde's face tightened. "If they do, I will kill them."

But aside from Tetch's corpse, there were no other signs of our enemy's presence. The wilderness was dense but not so dense that we could not take in the full of our surroundings, and we saw no one. Birds chattered. Squirrels scampered in the treetops, leaping from branch to branch. For all I could tell, we were the only humans in the forest. Even so, my heart raced as I stood watch over Tetch's body. I expected our adversaries to burst forth from their hiding places at any moment. The forest had a feeling of ambush, even though I could hear nothing but the usual animal sounds of the woodland.

I was very aware that we had become separated from the rest of our party. Perhaps that was part of our enemy's strategy. Divide and conquer. Finally, I looked to Halde.

"We need to find the others," I said. I nudged Brulde and he leaned in to listen. "We need to rejoin the group. Apart, we are vulnerable. Easy prey."

Halde met my eyes and nodded. The shock of his brother's death was wearing off. His eyes had lost the gleam of hysteria, had become cold and vengeful instead.

"One at a time," I said. "Keeping each other in sight."

Halde rose and crouch-jogged away. Brulde followed, then I a moment later. We passed through the sun-dappled shadows for several minutes, moving to rejoin our party.

Father would be furious with me for breaking away from the group, I thought. We had chased after Halde without thought of the consequences. "You foolish boy!" Gan would yell, probably as he clomped me on the head. Foolish, impulsive, reckless… I could hear him already. And he would be right. I should have known better.

I lost sight of Halde as he passed over the hilltop. Brulde stumbled in the crumbly soil and went to his knees. He rose and glanced back at me, dusting his knees with chagrin. I grinned at him, shaking my head.

We heard a sharp cry.

Halde had met his fate.