Chapter 73 - Tundra, 23,000 Years Ago, Earth Spirit Man part 3

Enraged, desperate with hunger, I watched the boy-man run back to his elders. Even before he rejoined them, he was motioning toward me. The men in his hunting party rose in alarm. I flung my broken white body back and forth, incensed, but I could not rip my flesh from the stones or dislodge the tree that was growing up through the center of me. I saw the boy reach the hunting party, heard the distant babble of his frightened voice. He pointed back to me emphatically, over and over, and the older men leaned down and peered in the direction he was gesturing.

Fear now was warring with my desperate hunger. I realized how foolish I had been. I was helpless, vulnerable, and now those hunters would come and they would hurt me with their spears and knives, stick me, cut me, maybe even try to burn me!

I grew more alarmed as the entire party rose and started my direction. I could see the spears and bows they carried with them. Some of them clutched knives and hatchets. One even hefted a burning branch, taking it up from the fire.

I tried to gnaw my arm, but couldn't reach it with my teeth.

They came cautiously closer, bringing their weapons to bear.

"Ne w'ae?" they called. "Ne weta!"

Closer and closer they edged, until I could make out their features, see the revulsion in their eyes. Fear and violence boiled from their pores. They recoiled in shock as they came near enough to see me clearly-- the terrible, mangled monster I'd become. Some of them fell back a step or two, and a couple of them moaned and called for my destruction in their mysterious, musical tongue.

"Utt! Ne w'ae?"

That, from the largest man in their group, their hunting leader or chieftain. His name was Korg, I would learn later. He was tall, dark-skinned and broad, with sleek black hair that hung down his chest on both sides of his neck, styled in thick plaits.

"Utt! Utt!" he prompted me.

He was dressed in ruddy reindeer fur with an ornately decorated undershirt and heavy leather leggings. Running up the right side of his face was a deep and puckered scar, a mark he'd gotten from the blow of a mammoth's tusk when he was younger and more careless. This, I would learn later, too. The scar disappeared into his hairline, from which a long stroke of gray hair wound down. He was lightly bearded but heavily muscled, with squinty grey eyes and a wide scowl of a mouth. His large hands gripped the shaft of a sturdy stone-tipped spear, which he poked in my direction as he pressed me again to answer him.

But I could not answer. Freshly awakened, I had no memories, little human intelligence. I was an animal, a broken thing with only the most basic emotions and instincts.

Frightened by my vulnerability, I displayed my fangs and snarled. Stay away!

My yowl frightened most of the men in the hunting party, and they fell back, moaning and gabbling. All but Korg, who did not retreat from me as the others did. Korg cocked his head to one side and then lowered his spear. He spoke to me in a softer, less urgent tone of voice, and then approached a bit closer.

I did not hiss or struggle to get free this time. I merely stared at him while he studied me.

He came closer, and then one of the other men in the party caught his shoulder, a shorter, heavy-set fellow with curly black hair and a thick frizzy beard. This one was named Lene'Hab, Korg's second-in-command. Lene'Hab had bulging and suspicious eyes, eyes that rolled my direction nervously before returning to the face of his leader. He said something low and fast, but Korg brushed his hand away and came within five meters, close enough, I noted anxiously, to pierce me with that spear.

I wouldn't know their tongue for many days, but I know now what Korg said to me as he squatted down to bargain with me that afternoon.

"I've heard of your kind before, spirit man. My father told me of the cold white ones who feed on blood," Korg said. "My father said your people have powerful magic."

It all sounded like monkey gabble to me, but later, after the boy taught me their tongue, I recalled his words and knew what he'd said.

"I will make a deal with you, white one. I will make a blood offering in your honor if you bring the mammoths back. We have hunted for nearly a moon this season and have found only their leavings. If you are as powerful a spirit as my father said, perhaps you will show us favor in the days to come."

I tried to pull free once more. I think he mistook my contortion as a nod of agreement, for he stood up then and gave a couple terse orders to the men bunched behind him. Two of the hunters bowed and ran back toward their cooking fire. Korg watched them trot away, then returned his gaze to me.

"We seal our bargain with blood, earth spirit man," he said. "Do not dishonor our agreement. My father also taught me how to send your kind to the ghost world, if the need ever arose."

I bared my fangs at him but did not hiss. I was exhausted, like a fox caught in a snare, weary of struggle.

Korg's men returned, holding two snow hares by the ears. Korg thrust his spear in the ground, took the two hares in one hand. He held his other hand open and his lieutenant put the handle of a stone knife in his palm.

Korg approached carefully. I imagine his father had also warned him how dangerous the "cold white ones" could be, but the Mammoth Hunter was desperate. He had wives and children to provide for, and no mammoths to feed and clothe them with. The great wooly mammoths were nearly extinct by then, and his people's fortunes passing with them.

I eyed the hares hungrily as he approached. I had begun to grasp what he intended to do. The two hares, plump and white, wriggled their noses and kicked, but their feet were tied together with leather thongs and they could not flop free. Their bulging eyes rolled in their sockets as Korg drew near.

Korg set one aside and held the other over my head. He called out an appeal-- to me or to the spirits of his ghost world, I'm not sure which-- and then he slit the hare's throat. The furry beast squealed, its bright pink mouth gaping open, but its cry was silenced when the blade laid open its windpipe. The animal jerked as its terrified heart pumped blood from the wound in bright, pulsating arcs.

I twisted my head back, my jaws open wide. Hot, succulent blood spurted into my maw, spattered upon my dry, cracked lips. I swallowed, gasped, opened my mouth for more. I felt the demon within me leap at the nourishment, greedily encoiling the blood in my belly.

Korg squeezed the rest from the dying creature's body. He passed it back to Lene'Hab when it had finished bleeding and took up the other.

Yes! Yes! More! I swallowed the blood as fast as I could, accepting the man's sacrifice with a grateful smile. I nodded at the foreign words he spoke to me. Yes, anything you want. Just feed me!

When the second hare was drained, he gazed sternly into my eyes. "Remember our bargain, earth spirit man," he warned me, then he turned and shooed his men back toward their camp.

At the rear of the group was a curly-headed boy. He was the smallest of them all, and slight of build, even within his heavy, layered clothing. He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as he followed his elders away. Though I did not know it at the time, his name was Ilio, and he was about to become the last of the Mammoth Hunters… and my first vampire child.