Chapter 231 - The Birth of Death part 6

Ona was gone for a day and a night. She returned to the cave weak and confused the following evening. She had fallen into the icy river while squatting down to drink and had been swept away downstream. She had injured her left arm and both of her legs on the jagged rocks, and was limping when she tottered out of the woods. Rena saw her come stumbling out of the forest and cried for Khronos, who rushed out of the cave to carry his mother in.

"I'm sorry, Khronos," she said, leaning her brow against her son's broad chest. "I've been a foolish woman. I shouldn't have run away. I've shamed you."

"Be quiet, Mother," Khronos said, sweeping his fur cape around her. "Come, sit by the fire and warm yourself. You're trembling."

He carried her across the cave to his hearth, ignoring the curious stares of the other clan members. He ignored the disapproval in their eyes, and their whispered condemnations, too. Let them tut and shake their heads. They could go to the underworld!

Ona cried out softly as he laid her down on his bedding, and then he motioned to a female named Trava, a young woman he had been mating with regularly the past few months. Trava scurried over from her father's hearth, eager to serve Khronos, and he directed her to bring his mother food and drink. It was not seemly for a man to tend to a female, but he lingered near his hearth to make sure that Trava did as he asked.

"No," Ona said, pressing her lips together, as Trava tried to feed her Minos's cooked flesh.

"You must eat, Ona," Trava insisted. "If you don't eat, you will die, and then who will help me look after Khronos."

Ona glanced shamefully at her son, who was watching surreptitiously from his cousin's nearby hearth.

"All right," she murmured, and she let Trava push the meat into her mouth. She gagged, and feared for a moment that she would vomit, but she did not. Somehow she managed to chew the meat and swallow.

When Wali, the ancient medicine woman, came at last to tend to Ona's injuries, smearing a stinging salve on the cuts and scrapes that covered Ona's shins, Khronos rose. He glanced at his mother once, failing to keep his concern for the woman entirely from his countenance, then strode purposefully from the cave. Tulpac and some of the other hunters followed, including Khronos's two younger brothers, Ipac and Nash.

They left to hunt shortly after. A skilled tracker, Minos had fed the clan well, but his flesh was nearly gone already, and they would be hungry again on the morrow.