Between The Crystals

Ch 50 Oh Deer

I scratched Rocko behind his ears. I might not appreciate just sitting around in the village, but he was delighted. The woman using the loom hummed contentedly as her shuttle clicked back and forth. She definitely had more patience than I did; she had sat here for hours on end while adding layers of handspun fur string into what would eventually become a skirt.

My eyes trailed over to Grant, who was near his office and talking with yet another person. I'd been watching all morning, but I hadn't seen a single chance to catch him alone. The heat of the day would be a more opportune time, when many retreated into the cool of their caves to nap. The restlessness hadn't made an appearance yet, but I'd also done a lot more porting this morning than I usually did.

Grant turned, scanning the cliffs. His eyes landed on me as he called, "Natalie, you can check on those hunters and come back for lunch."

Abandoning my feline fan, I trotted to the crystal and ported to where I'd left my group. Light shimmered through my veins as the air hazed around me. As it cleared, I squeaked and jumped away from the dead deer by my feet, my hand still on the crystal and a hair away from bouncing.

The only thing that stopped me was the presence of four people nearby. I gawked at the deer; it had been years since any village had managed to catch one. Only then did I notice the braided circle laying on its shoulder. I stared at it, too stunned to form coherent thoughts.

A hunter limped over on his crooked leg. "A Saursune showed up about an hour ago and left it there. Already gutted, but the organs are in the cavity."

"It just left it?"

This was backwards. Saursunes took energy first, then brought food. Unless...

"Just about gave us a heart attack. It was a fighter with armor and weapons, and we didn't even see it until it was dropping the deer by the crystal. It looked at us, held up the braided circle, set it on the deer, and left."

The description was uncanny. But how would the Saursune I visited last night have found my group here? This shrub-filled landscape was very different terrain from the semi-jungle. I hadn't even stayed here—I had immediately returned to the village. And how would he know this was my group?

"We thought we were goners," a woman quietly added. "But we haven't seen it since, not that such a thing means much with so many shrubs around."

"I didn't even know there were deer around here," the hunter said, frowning at the gutted carcass.

The forager added, "The vines in that braid don't grow in this climate. They're much more tropical."

Uncanny just reached a whole new level.

The fighter hadn't seen my group, nor had I given him a braided circle. Had he really tracked down my group just to give me a deer as repayment for the energy? And if so, how had he found or recognized them?

The only thing I could come up with was that a farmer had spotted my group, and their communication system was a whole lot better than we had assumed. It also meant they were learning to identify humans and who belonged to which groups.

~

I ported the last ten-group to the Guard Station, where dozens were ogling at the deer beside the elderly porter, who was watching it in exchange for a palm-sized chunk of the liver. Since the deer was still here, there must not have been any tracking blips on the scanner.

The hunters retold the story again and again of how the Saursune had left the deer. The braided circle was passed between onlookers as they examined the vines, which they all agreed should not have been in a grassy shrubland.