Wayfarer

Providence Arc 4: Conviction

 Elder La'lo was the family's storyteller, and one of his favorites to tell was of a hunter who, nearly dead of hunger, found the bones of a dead gigavix. Seven spears he had broken due to his sheer clumsiness, and seven weeks he had gone without a successful catch. When he came across the bones, he remembered the great Kar'rok and his strange powers. He took the bones and broke them in prayer for their power, stringing the fragments to hang from his chest. When he received its strength, he hunted an animal each day for a week. He grew fat from success. The hunter's brother advised him to return the bones now that he had brought so much food, but the hunter never listened. At night, the brother woke to the hunter's fading screams. Gone were he and the bones, his home surrounded by the footprints of the dead gigavix whose bones had been taken.

Koa's grandfather stressed that forests and their denizens can take as much as they can give. He also told the boy that these animals were vicious and keen and to be revered. To kill one, while not forbidden, was not a task to be done lightly.

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The sun was setting by the time Hota told Koa to stop. They found themselves at the edge of a ravine, and Koa began to gather materials for a fire, waiting for Hota to light it. He was setting up the chunk of meat he had found in a spot open to the wind. Koa's spear was leaning against a nearby tree.

"Remember, the gigavix is territorial," Hota said as he tossed a piece of flint and steel to Koa. Koa began to carefully strike the two together over a pile of tinder made of dead leaves and twigs. "We draw it with a call, let the fire distract it. Use this sling only if necessary, stick to the trees."

"Yes, sir." Koa looked for the smoothest rocks he could, finding seven while Hota climbed up a tree. Koa followed his example on a different tree, an old ashen with a branch turned abruptly relatively high up the trunk. Putting the sling and rocks in a small pouch his mother had given him, he waited, enjoying the view of the ravine and the spear across his lap. Despite the sun still shining over the other side of the ridge, the two moons floated just above, their pale shapes visible. Behind him was the Great Arch, a dull grey A that stood beyond the horizon. Koa stared at the night sky as Hota began mimicking calls. To the boy, it sounded like a man howling in pain cut short. Three short calls followed, and then everything went silent, and the two waited.

It was after a brief pause that a low, sonorous call responded—a challenge from a myth that stalked the forests.

Koa took this time to practice his meditation, straightening his back against the trunk of the tree and planting one foot on a nearby lower branch. As his mind began to center, he relished the sensations around him. The croaking creatures, the cool breeze hitting his clammy skin, the sensation of the bark behind him. He got lost in the sensations as his breathing maintained a constant level. His meditation was interrupted by a noise that pierced his senses—a Tytostrix's hooting. Koa recognized the sign and sat up, quietly pressing one of the rocks into the sling's leather pad as the noise of the animals around him quieted.

Hota had ingrained into him specific calls, signals Hota could call out when hidden. Isa had told him that Hota's parents had passed down their mimicry skill to him, and that when he was old enough, Hota would teach him how to do the same.

Such a call meant that something was near and to be ready. Koa lay still, hearing the faint patter of footfalls. His vision was obscured by everything beneath and around him, save for the view of the hanging meat. Koa listened to the beast before he saw it. A soft snort before another low call. Then he saw the bump of its snout, the crest that ran up the middle of its head to two small horn-like shapes on its long and narrow skull. The thick, coarse feathers that covered it rippled as it moved and sniffed the air.