The Tattooed Tribes (15 page)

Lucien sat
rapidly. “Did you see?” he breathed. “Did you see her?”

Vlic nodded,
his eyes wide with wonder.

“
Let’s follow her,” Lucien said, leaping to
his feet.

“
No!” Vlic replied, dragging him back
down.

“
For god’s sake! Why not!” Lucien
demanded.

Vlic looked
pained.

“
You’re not Forest Cat,” he growled. “You
mustn’t. Besides … we’ve no nets or ropes. We’d never hold her even
if we could find her.”

Lucien could
have danced with frustration. “Don’t you want to hunt her?”

Vlic looked
longingly at his right hand, bare of the totem of his people and at
his age likely to remain so for many years to come.

“
Of course I do!” he snapped back, his eyes
blazing with desire and excitement.

“
Then let’s go!”

“
We can’t!” Vlic stated. “We can’t do her
harm and the only way we could get anywhere near without the right
equipment would be to shoot her and I’m not doing that! And I’m
definitely not going to let you.”

Lucien swore
at him.

The words ‘
ignorant savage’
rose to his lips and he only bit them back just in
time, but something in his eyes must have altered Vlic, because he
drew away.

“
This is nothing to do with you, Lucien,”
he said. “You’re an outsider and you don’t understand the ways of
The People.”

Shaking with
frustration Lucien turned from his companion. He did not fully
understand why he felt this need to hunt the cat and to overcome
her, but deep inside he knew it had a lot to do with envy. She had
the freedom of the wild he had always longed for and she had it
with no imposed morality. To take her, alive or dead, would be to
take some of that freedom to himself.

To own her
fur, perhaps to hang one of those magnificent canine teeth around
his neck, all this would show he was as wild and untamed and as
powerful as she was, maybe more so, because he had taken these
things from her.

Her very
existence was a challenge and Lucien could never resist a
challenge.

Despite all
this, despite the terrible burning desire, some of the things Jon
had begun to teach him had taken root and deep inside he was
ashamed. A small voice whispered he was no better than those who
wanted to strip this paradise of its riches. No better than the
wolf hunter.

Protecting her
should have been his first instinct, but he wanted to prove to
himself he had the skill and the courage to subdue her more than he
wanted to obey the nagging irritation of his conscience.

The discussion
went on long into the night and got very acrimonious at times;
things were said which would have been far better unsaid on both
sides.

For Vlic, the
hunting of the forest cat was tied up in custom and ritual and was
not for sharing with outsiders.

His
understanding of all this was patchy at best, being drawn from
unconsidered asides when the older men thought he was not listening
and blatant eavesdropping when he could get away with it. He would
never have admitted it to Lucien, but he knew he was too young and
inexperienced to be allowed to participate in dangerous adult
rituals.

This lack of
real knowledge made his arguments against tracking the cat weak,
based on no more than a deep certainty it would be viewed by his
elders with disapproval at best, fury at worst.

The
disapproval of his elders was something Lucien considered normal
and of little consequence, so they finally went to sleep annoyed
with each other.

Things were
not much better the next morning. Dreams of savage beauty had kept
Lucien restless most of the night and Vlic had obviously done a
great deal of thinking as well. He was inclined to be
conciliatory.

“
Harabin
dheillwer
will explain why you must not go after her,” he
said. “He knows all the traditions.”

Lucien just
grunted.

Vlic tried a
new tack.

“
And if you learn as much as he has, you
could become a member of our tribe and we could make our totem hunt
together.”

“
Totem hunt?” Lucien asked, his interest
roused.

“
I shouldn’t have said so much,” Vlic said
ruefully. “But you get the idea.”

Lucien did get
the idea and it seemed the answer to his problem.

“
How soon could we do it?” he
asked.

“
Hey!” Vlic protested. “You’d have to
become a tribal member first. And we’d need a lot more hunter’s
marks before the olds would allow us on a totem hunt!”

Lucien’s brow
furrowed and he glared at Vlic. All he was being offered was
delayed satisfaction. Not even promises, only possibilities, and
delay was not something Lucien had patience with.

“
Anyway, we need to get back today or Ma’s
berries will spoil,” Vlic concluded.

But Lucien had
made a decision. “I’m not coming back with you.”

“
What!”

“
You heard.”

“
But you must!” Vlic protested. “You can’t
stay out here alone.”

“
Why not?” Lucien demanded.

“
Cos you can’t!”

“
Give me a good reason why not?” Lucien
demanded, his chin thrust out belligerently.

“
Firstly because you’ll either starve to
death or get killed by something,” scoffed Vlic. “And secondly, cos
Harabin said two days and so did my father!”

Lucien
shrugged. “I don’t have to do what your father says.”

Vlic laughed scornfully. “No, but I do!
And
you
have to do
as Harabin says.”

Again Lucien
shrugged. “Jon isn’t here. I’m staying.”

“
Listen to me, Lucien,” Vlic pleaded. “You
don’t know enough to stay here alone …”

“
Are you saying I’m stupid?”

“
No!” Vlic replied, almost desperate. “But
there’s so much you don’t know.”

“
Such as?”

“
Too many things to remember them all.
You
must
come back
with me.”

“
I don’t have to do anything you say,”
Lucien snapped back. “And if I want to stay, I will!”

His tone made
Vlic’s eyebrows draw together.

“
Why?” he demanded. “Because you want to go
after the cat?”

“
Any reason why I shouldn’t?”

“
Dozens!” Vlic replied.

“
Well, unless you can tell me all of them,
I suggest you mind your own business and run back to your
mother.”

Vlic curled
his lip in disdain. “You’re a fool. I’ll be damned if I’m going to
argue with you anymore!”

He threw his
gear into the canoe, carefully placed his mother’s fruit in the bow
and pushed off without another word.

It seemed to
Lucien he went very slowly, as if waiting and expecting to be
called back, but the call never came.

Once Vlic was
finally out of sight, Lucien packed his gear and moved back into
the forest to the edge of the clearing. He carefully set up a new
camp, mentally ticking things off Jon’s list as he went. Building
the fire went really well, practise had made him skilful, but
rigging some sort of shelter was not so successful, the result was
a bit ramshackle. It had looked a whole lot easier when Jon and
Vlic had shown him how to do it.

After some
careful thought he decided his next priority was food, but once he
had satisfied the inner man, he planned to work on ways to build a
trap for the forest cat.

He told
himself he had no intention of killing her, he just wanted to be
able to see her really close, but he checked all his arrows and
made sure they were in good order.

At one point
he caught sight of himself in a piece of still water. It had been a
while since he had seen his own reflection and he was surprised how
lean his face had become.

He also found
he had difficulty looking himself in the eye.

Giving an
annoyed snort, he threw a rock into the water so he would no longer
be bothered by the thoughts engendered.

Food was not
hard; he fished and dug up some tubers; then he filled a quickly
made basket with berries and was moderately pleased with
himself.

Over the next
few hours he worked out an elaborate spring loaded net trap. It was
a little complex in design, but he thought it would not be
difficult to produce and was guaranteed to work. All he needed was
a large supply of cordage and thanks to Vlic he knew how to make
it.

The afternoon
was spent slowly relearning how to twist and plait the reeds into
string. It took a long time to produce a decent length and when he
had done it Lucien realised it was not going to be strong enough to
hold a struggling animal. He plaited what he had made again and
this time it was strong enough, but there was even less of it.

Finding
something to make longer, stronger rope would be tomorrow’s main
task.

To his dismay
he found his preoccupation with rope making meant he had not
collected enough wood to keep his fire going for much longer, and
the shadows were already too deep to gather more safely. Less than
a day in and he had made one of the most basic errors of woodcraft;
he had allowed his fire to go out.

He knew
exactly what Jon would have said and for a second or two he did not
need a fire as the blush roared up his face and neck and heated up
his whole body.

His fish
supper was barely cooked and his tubers were half raw and gave him
belly ache.

The next
morning the dew had penetrated his inadequate shelter and he awoke
numb with cold and damp. The underdone tubers and the berries made
their presence felt immediately and he realised he had not dug a
hole.

He was left
feeling sore and with the happy prospect of a lot of flies if he
did not get the results covered over quickly. And in short order he
realised he had made a mistake with his hygiene leaf of choice as
well. He had to sit with his backside in the cold lake water for
thirty minutes until the hot itching went down.

It was hard
work gathering enough dry wood to start the fire again and his
teeth were chattering as he finally got it going. The cold water
bidet had chilled his inner core. His throbbing head told him he
was a little dehydrated and he needed to get some liquid inside him
quickly. He knew he should have boiled the water it first, but it
would take a long time and he was very thirsty, so he decided to
chance it.

Feeling a lot
better for the liquid, he threw the rest of yesterday’s tubers in
the embers and set about improving his roof. He could not face
another night like the previous one.

Breakfast was
not half raw this time, but it was a bit burnt and he had to
discard most of it, but an unwary hare fell victim to one of his
arrows and he wrapped it in leaves and stored it under some cool
stones for dinner.

His bowels
were still giving him trouble, but he put it down to the berries
and decided to avoid them until his stomach settled.

With supper
taken care of, he was free to look for cordage material. Keeping a
careful watch to make sure he did not misplace his camp, he
investigated the surrounding area and just after noon he thought he
found what he was looking for.

Cutting
through the thick vines was not easy. They resisted all attempts to
snap them and even twisting them to break the fibres did not
separate them from the main stem. He congratulated himself on
finding exactly the right stuff for rope and blunted his knife
gathering up enough.

He was back in
camp when he noticed his hands felt stiff and he thought it must
have been from the effort of hacking and twisting the vines, but it
soon became obvious he had touched something toxic.

The left one
swelled up like a balloon, hot and tingling, and where he had
scratched it, deep ugly red wheals had erupted. In a short time one
of them opened and began to weep a thin yellowish liquid. He tried
to suck and spit it away, but it kept coming in a sluggish
trickle.

The right hand
was a little better, but he had trouble gripping his knife.

It was
virtually impossible for him to hold it against the whet stone to
sharpen and as a result it was too blunt to deal properly with the
hare.

He did his
best with his swollen hands, but it was a poor job, more mangled
than skinned.

Gathering fuel
was hard as well, as he could not hold more than a couple of sticks
at a time. Eventually he had enough to char the meat into a near
edible form and he was so hungry near edible was fine.

His hands got
worse during a long cold and uncomfortable night and his bowels
were not better either. By morning it dawned on Lucien he was in a
bit of trouble and fear began to add its churning presence to the
upheavals already going on in his guts.

He felt sick
and feverish and he had a raging thirst; desperate to quench it, he
chanced another drink of untreated water. By now his stomach was
cramping and his swollen burning hands had become very painful. The
left one was so big his fingers looked like pink sausages and he
could not bend them at all and the yellow liquid oozed from another
weal. His right hand was not quite as bad as the left, but it hurt
and he could not hold his knife.

Slowly he
managed to gather some wood and kick the ashes of his fire back
into life. There was comfort in the warmth and in the dancing
flames, but not much.