Chapter 5: An Uninvited Guest

A bonfire was roaring in the village’s clearing, holding back the encroaching darkness of the jungle. Even before Tarek and his family arrived, they could hear the women singing and clapping around the fire as the Catori mingled before the feast. Children squawked and laughed as they ran underfoot, chasing inflated capybara bladders and wooden wheels in games that could interest only them. It was rare to take an evening off from the work of survival, and nobody wanted to miss it. Despite an unseasonal chill and a wild wind whipping the trees, all seventy-two of the Catori were present.

He entered the glade with his family, and someone set up a cheer that doubled and spread as everyone caught sight of them. Tarek raised his hand to wave and flushed with pleasure as the calls and whistles of approval grew even louder. The glowing vision paste his mother had painted on his brow and cheekbones was already making him giddy.

“The new man joins us!” Zuma roared from his chair on the far side of the fire. He had his youngest babe on one knee and his fist around a hollowed zephyr horn full of tuber beer. From the sound of his voice he’d already refilled it a few times. The others around the bonfire cheered his words. Zuma stumbled to his feet and let his wife whisk their child away before he dropped her. He waved his hands at the assembled Catori. “Hey. Hey! Heeey, shut your mouths and listen!”

The hubbub quieted and all eyes settled on the chief. He grinned broadly and gestured for Tarek to join him. “Look at the face on this one, will you? Dream paste, very fierce. You look like a warrior out of a nightmare. Well done.” He clapped his meaty hand on Tarek’s muscled back hard enough to make it sting. “A few of you might have had some doubts about the boy,” he cried, pointing around the fire. His eye lingered on Kanga, who was nursing his own beer at the edge of the clearing and staring fixedly at the flames. “But that boy is gone. D’ya hear me? Gone! In fact, that boy failed his test. Shad said so. But this man came along,” he whispered theatrically, “and turned it all around! He caught a mist-hart and killed it by hand. Have you ever done that, you other men? Maybe you could, but it’d be a hard thing, right? And you tell me – could you do it without the Song?” He cast his stern gaze over the gathered tribe. “You couldn’t, and you know it. But he did! This man did. If you ask him, he might tell you how. But even if he doesn’t, he’s a hunter of the Catori now, and I’ll not hear anyone say otherwise.”

Satisfied with his own speech, Zuma clapped Tarek on the back one more time. “Now let’s eat! Plenty for everybody!”

And there certainly was. Firepits ringed the main bonfire all through the clearing, with sizzling spits of rabbit, capybara, groundfowl, frog, and even a young caiman that Zapaytl had speared on the banks of the Ix River two days before as it tried to snatch one of his children. Roast tubers and yellow podfruits lay on the hot stones, acorn cakes were piled high, and a stew far better than anything Tarek had ever tasted in his own house bubbled in the deep hollow of the great cooking stone only used when everyone came together. Fruit juices and tuber beer filled every gourd the tribe owned.

Tarek went straight for the capybara meat, slicing off a browned and sizzling haunch with an obsidian tool and wrapping it in a piece of acorn flatbread. The juice from the meat dripped down his hands and forearms, but he was careful not to mar the facepainting his mother had done. All of the families of the tribe mingled and ate in a pleasant uproar of talking, laughter, and singing. Men and women who had always been distantly pleasant, as if they feared his Song-deafness might be catching, now embraced him with congratulations and praise. It was intoxicating, and he hadn’t even touched the beer yet.

The night passed in a haze of conviviality. At one point he found himself sitting on one of the big logs that ringed the bonfire with Tavi on one side and Yaretzi on the other as they all shouted and laughed their way through the Frog Song. Faster and faster it went with each verse until the words tumbled over the tops of each other and the melody dissolved into giggles and accusations of who had stopped first. Tavi and some of the others wandered off to find more food and he suddenly realized that the bare side of his leg was pressed against the smoothness of Yaretzi’s hip, and her hand was on the small of his back. A shiver of pleasure wormed its way up his spine as she leaned over and whispered, “I think your paint looks very handsome, but I keep thinking it would look better if it were smeared all over me too.” Her lips brushed against his ear, and he thought he might die of sheer giddy pleasure.

Before he could formulate a response, Yaretzi was on her feet calling for silence. It was the first time Tarek could remember ever hearing her raise her voice, and somehow that was almost as thrilling as her whispering in his ear. This vision paste is really getting to me. He stared at her taking command of the quieting crowd, unable to keep the stupid smile from his face. He couldn’t believe that this woman wanted him.

The wind whipped her hair into a wild mane as finally the throng fell quiet. “Chief, elders, and all those present,” she said formally, “I have demanded that the hunter Tarek be my husband. I will accept his veil tomorrow at midday.”

These cheers rang even louder than the ones before. Kanga poured his drink into the dirt and stalked off with a stiff face. Zuma, on the other hand, perked up, mock outrage plastered on his face. “A marriage? Can’t even wait for the full moon?”

“I intend to be with child by the full moon, chief,” Yaretzi replied calmly.

Zuma laughed so hard he spilled beer on himself, and the young couple were soon inundated both with praise and shouted suggestions for a quick conception. For all that the Catori were strict in their rules for their young betrothed, they weren’t shy about sex. Tarek grinned and took it all in.

“Two feast days in a row!” Zuma said. “I don’t think anyone will complain.”

His wife Arara poked him in the ribs. “You’ll have no head for the ceremony if you don’t stop drinking.”

He frowned at the mug in his fist, then at his wife, and then back at the mug. “I’ll manage,” he decided, pouring the last of it down his throat. Everyone laughed, and even Arara smiled. The chief was supposed to be the best at everything, even being drunk – and Zuma did not disappoint.

“A story!” the big-bellied chief thundered. “You can’t have a feast night without a story. Where’s Ryki?”

It turned out that Ryki, the crabbed, bald loremaster for the tribe, was huddled in a heated conference near the edge of the glade with Locotl the numerator and Tarek’s little brother Tavi. They whispered together, pointing at the tribe’s great nautilus calendar that was etched into a cross-section disk of wood from one of the old great trees and stood on its side. The old men moved with gestures that looked as if they’d rather be yelling than whispering, and young Tavi seemed to be holding his own.

“Ryki!” shouted Zuma. “Which of the legends will we hear tonight? Byue and the beasts? How the green moon Shaka split from her sister Margandu?”

Ryki cut himself off midsentence, looking around like an owl accosted by sunlight. “I… I’m afraid I haven’t given it much thought.”

“All you do is think!” protested Zuma. “Come on, haven’t you got a story for our new hunter? Some tale of bravery and sacrifice?”

The loremaster rubbed a hand over his head, looking back at the great calendar. “Forgive me, chief, everyone, but the numerator and I must resolve an urgent issue. Perhaps someone else can spin a tale this evening.”

Zuma looked as if he’d been struck on the head with a sturdy branch. “Urgent issue? During a feast? You tell stories, old man.”

Ryki did not respond. He’d already turned his back, pulling Locotl and Tavi back into a whispered debate.

The gathered families murmured in consternation. Ryki always had a tale to tell at gatherings, whether about an old hero, some warning against wandering too far from the tribe, or a grim allegory about blood magic. No one ever paid him much attention, but for him to forego the opportunity to harangue everyone felt like the sun failing to rise.

“Well,” said Zuma, throwing up his hands, “there’s a first time for everything. Tarek! Why don’t you give us the story of how you brought down the mist-hart?”

This brought shouts of approval and people slapping their thighs or chests in agreement. Tarek grinned and waved to everyone as he stood. His stomach twisted itself in a knot, but he’d known this was coming sooner or later, and he’d prepared a version of his hunt in his head that would sound exciting without arousing any suspicion.

In truth, he needed to do this. Tarek was at his best when he was speaking, and he had to pound it deep into everyone’s minds once and for all that he belonged, Song-deafness and all. A dramatic pause here, a touch on the shoulder there as he worked his way around the fire, and he’d have the whole tribe eating out of his hand by the time he was done. The fey, whistling wind of an unseasonal storm brewing only added to the feeling of weighty significance.

He raised his hands, calling for quiet. “How does that hart meat taste? Not bad, right? I hate to say it, but you almost went without. I’m still amazed myself I made the kill, but here’s how it happened.”

“Got room for one more at the fire?” a reedy voice interrupted from the darkness. A slight, hooded figure draped in white and carrying a tall, gnarled staff shuffled into the wavering firelight.

The men were on their feet and scrambling for spears in a heartbeat. Unexpected visitors on tribal land were not a common occurrence.

“Hold,” slurred Zuma from his seat. “It’s just old Xochil. ‘s harmless. Siddown.”

You are reading story Wander the Lost at novel35.com

Xochil! It had been nearly a year since Tarek had seen the weird old wandering fellow. His timing might be poor, but Tarek couldn’t help but peer at him with interest. Xochil was a mystery that he’d always puzzled over. When he was a child, he’d thought the old man might have some kind of magic. Xochil had no tribe, or so he said. His hooded robe looked to be some kind of pale leather, and his wild tufts of gray eyebrow jutted forward past the hood, matching the tangle of beard that fanned out over his chest. His staff was of a twisted, spiraling kind of wood Tarek had never seen anywhere else. He came and went with surprising stealth for such an old man, and he’d always had a soft spot for Tarek, making sure to spend at least a moment with him whenever he appeared out of the darkness. Once he’d given Tarek a toy of carved bone that had only one side, and he’d puzzled over it for many moons’ turns before losing the thing.

“You know how to pick a night to visit,” Zuma told Xochil, waving him closer. “We’re feasting our new hunter.”

“Oh, I know,” Xochil said. “My congratulations on an uncommon kill, young Tarek.”

The words had a strange weight, and Tarek found himself tongue-tied. Does he know? The old man’s eyes glinted in the firelight within his hood, and he felt a pang of fear. “Th-thank you, elder,” he stuttered.

Xochil cackled as he pulled back his hood, showing himself to be even more deeply wrinkled than the last time he’d come around. “I’m no elder of yours. I’ll still eat your food, though.”

“Take what you like, you buzzard,” said the drunken chief amiably. “Just be quiet about it. He’s telling the tale of his hunt.”

“I’m reminded of another young hunter who made an impossible kill,” Xochil mused. He wandered to the fire, standing in just the spot Tarek had wanted in order to take advantage of the fire’s light. “It’s an old tale of magic and loss, just the thing for a feast night. It’s so old I’ll bet your loremaster’s never even heard it. Should I tell it?”

Some of the children piped up with excitement, and the adults were left looking back and forth between Tarek and the interloper, puzzled by the awkward intrusion.

Tarek smiled apologetically at Xochil, simultaneously wanting his approval and wishing he’d go away. “I was just about to…”

“Oh, there’ll be time for yours afterward,” the old man broke in cheerily. “Humor a lonely old man, won’t you?”

Nettled, Tarek could do nothing but nod and take his seat again. Yaretzi, sensing his unease, put her hand between his shoulder blades and gave him her secret smile. Tarek winked at her, trying to dispel his annoyance. I’ll have another chance.

“In the days after the year-long flood there lived a young hunter of this very tribe. Yes, he was a Catori boy, and he wished to be a hunter just like our young friend here.”

“What was his name?” asked Baya, one of the little ones.

“What? Name? It was, eh, Kerat. Don’t interrupt, child. I’ll eat your toes.”

Baya’s eyes got very big, and all the children fell still.

“See, this boy never quite fit in the tribe. He was an orphan, his parents killed in a raid, and though he was brave and clever, he was forever worried that his elders might think he was a burden not worth bearing. He worked hard to make friends and be kind, for he knew he was not the best hunter. But his time for manhood came as it must for every Catori, and he could avoid the issue no longer. Either he would become a hunter for his people or be known forever as useless – no man at all.”

Tarek shifted uneasily. Xochil was looking at him far too often as he spoke, and though no one else seemed to notice, he felt as if the fire had gotten four shades hotter since the old man started talking.

“In the days before the year-long flood there were great beasts in the land that stood taller than a man’s head at the shoulder, with great horns that held more spikes than you have fingers. Just one could feed the tribe for a week, but these noble animals had practically disappeared after the catastrophe. The young hunter, this Kerat, he decided to find the last of the breed and bring it down for the Catori. Food was scarce in those days, and only with the greatest of kills could he assure the tribe that he belonged.

“For days he wandered in the jungle, living off of grasses and beetles as he searched. They could not all be gone, he thought. Surely at least one remained. He needed it. He had to have it.

“And then, half-fainting from hunger, he found the cloven footprint of one of the great beasts pressed into the mud in a meadow by the stream. It was hours old already, and though he searched with all his might, the hunter found no other trace of the animal. He was not, after all, a very good hunter, and the horned beasts taller than a man were the most difficult kill of all in those days.

“Instead, the boy Kerat scooped the mud of the footprint into his mouth.”

The children ewwwed, but the adults murmured uncomfortably. Tarek kept his hands very still on his thighs, staring into the fire and biting the inside of his cheek.

“See, the boy had a strange kind of magic, and when he tasted a bit of the beast’s essence he could tell where it had gone. He tracked it to where it rested in the shade during the cool of the day. A bit of its hair had rubbed off on a tree’s bark nearby, and he put the hair in his mouth too. He told the beast to lie still, and it had no choice but to obey while he plunged his knife into its breast. When the blood leapt forth… Kerat drank it.”

Gasps of horror broke from the children, and the sounds from the adults turned to dismay and revulsion. Xochil grinned, the shadows from the firelight turning it into a leer.

“Yes, our Catori boy had the blood magic. He had hidden it all his life, and now he used it to convince his tribe that he was a great hunter that belonged amongst them. Or at least he would have, had not his friend tracked him down for fear that he had starved out in the wilds. The other boy tracked him with the Song and found Kerat lying in the glade with his face and hands covered in gore, drunk on the beast’s blood.”

Little Baya, tucked now between her father’s legs, started to cry. Tarek felt the same way.

“This other boy was a good friend, and he woke Kerat, hoping there was some mistake, some terrible accident that had led to this unspeakable scene. But when Kerat came awake, he panicked, knowing that he’d given himself away. He jumped on his friend and pricked him with his knife, tasting his blood. When the boy tried to run away, Kerat used his magic to command his friend’s body, breaking his back and leaving him dead in the stream.

“He thought of running away then, but he had wished to be a hunter for the Catori for too long to abandon his hopes and dreams. He cleaned himself, presented the kill to the tribe, and said he knew nothing of his friend’s disappearance. But the taste of blood had corrupted him, and he began to feed off his tribesmen in secret, commanding them to secrecy even as his bloodlust grew. In the end, it was the woman he loved who exposed him to the elders, and he was taken in his sleep, bound and gagged to do no harm. They hung him from the trees to keep his essence away from the Ones Beneath, burned his body, and fed his ashes to an old caiman that they slew and threw into the river.”

Xochil paused dramatically. “And that is the tale of Kerat the hunter.”

All of the children were huddled by their parents now, and a horrified pall of silence hung over the gathered Catori, broken only by the sobbing and sniffling of the more sensitive little ones. Tarek had black spots in his vision from staring at the fire too long. He felt as if he were made of charcoal. The slightest move might shatter him.

“Xochil, that is the worst feast story I ever heard,” Zuma said, shaking his head. “Next time let someone else tell it.”

You can find story with these keywords: Wander the Lost, Read Wander the Lost, Wander the Lost novel, Wander the Lost book, Wander the Lost story, Wander the Lost full, Wander the Lost Latest Chapter