The Turquoise Bones

Chapter One

The setting sun glinted off the old hunter's white-bearded smile and made the red string of quasar teeth decorating his belt appear to glow.

"Look, boys," he said, pointing at the ground. "Treasure." Apjay and Draconis panted as they closed the last few steps toward the old hunter. It was always a struggle to catch up with Sol. Even in his forties, he had more endurance than Apjay and Draconis had at fifteen.

"What's that smell?" Draconis said. An instant later, Apjay gagged on the odor. Sol stepped down a rocky ledge and squatted near a tangle of wet green-brown ropes spanning twenty femurs in length. Quasar dung. The filth seeded the path cut by the creature's belly through the mud.

A tingle of alarm ran along Apjay's arms and the back of his neck as the hairs stood. He'd never seen a creature large enough to make a mess like this.

"The other hunters might find a little bronze or even a soulstone," Sol said. "But what we've found, boys, could be worth our lives."

Apjay glanced toward the ruins where Father and the others searched. "Father will be angry when he finds you were looking for quasar sign."

Father tended to dislike any creative interpretation of his instructions, especially from Sol.

"He meant for us to do this," Sol said. "Your father would want us to think of the tribe's safety first."

Apjay couldn't convince himself Sol was right. "This dung is too thin," Sol said. "The creature is sick." He took a stick and poked at the soft stools, revealing a small fragment of white bone.

"Maneater," Draconis whispered.

Apjay's heart increased its tempo, and he took a step backward. He glanced around again at the bowl of the dried up Wasat River in which the tribe scavenged. Was the creature near? All he saw were the blue, leafless limbs of the trees and the brown, shriveled, remnants of corona flowers over-baked by two months of drought.

While a quasar would eat almost anything, especially once the scent of blood was in the air, they seldom ate humans. Even if they tried, they usually vomited up the remains within hours, but the few creatures that acquired the taste would even approach fire to get their prey.

"And it will be hungry." Sol raised his hand for silence then closed his eyes and held still. The boys did so as well, listening for the distant rumble of scale on tree and rock. Apjay heard his own heartbeat, but nothing else. They opened their eyes.

"All I hear are the footfalls of men seeking treasure." Sol frowned. "We'll need to set traps."

That meant leaving bits of meat tainted with carrion slicer poison, and with food so scarce since the river dried up it would be difficult to part with enough to tempt the monster.

"If it's sick, maybe it will die on its own," Draconis suggested.

"No, I've seen this before," Sol said. "This one burns from the inside. It will keep moving, searching, eating, trying to stave off death. We'll need to set poison traps."

"But we can't afford to give up our food," Apjay objected. His voice sounded whiny in his own ears.

Sol fixed his eyes on Apjay. Old and pale blue, they'd seen more of the serpents die than any man alive. "A quasar isn't like us. It doesn't die because it gets old, or stop growing because it passes a certain age. This one's too dangerous to take chances with."

Apjay nodded and felt his cheeks begin to warm. He knew that. At fifteen, he was no ignorant child.

"Given its size, this creature must be over a hundred years old," Sol said.

One hundred years? Apjay glanced at the ancient structures that stood within the muddy riverbed. Was that long enough to have seen the ruined city when it was still inhabited?

"So it must be big," Draconis said, squinting at the thin trail. It might have been wider when it was first made. The mud was soft here and wouldn't hold a shape for long.

"It is large enough to devour the entire tribe," Sol said in a hushed voice.

Apjay looked again at the path in the mud. There were faint lines of discoloration several paces to each side of what he'd at first taken to be the trail. This serpent was eight femurs across—wider than two men were tall. He drew in a breath.

Sol stuck his hands into the dung and squeezed. Gross. After a few seconds, the old hunter extracted a few more bits of white bone. "Help me, boys. No one's bones should be buried in offal."

Apjay helped him, reluctantly. Draconis found a stick and pretended to search. As they worked, some other hunters noticed what they were doing and joined them. When most of them had soiled their hands and were sure all the dung was sifted, they had half a skeleton. They took the collection of bones to the trickle that remained of the river to wash them as best they could.

"Perhaps we will find more further out," Sol said. Father approached, his feet slapping the mud. His eyes were hard and black as firestone, and his muscled arms glistened like dark bronze. With his ember-colored beard, Father looked fierce enough to scare a quasar.

"What is this I see?" he asked in a low voice. "Have you forgotten, again, Sol, what you were told to do?" Father put his left shoulder forward, showing off the marking that identified him as Hunt Leader—a green circle around four blue triangles that signified sons.

"A treasure hunt," Sol said. "After all, a human soul is a jewel of inestimable price. We owe him a burial, Hunt Leader."

It upset Apjay to hear Sol justify himself. He knew more about hunting and quasars than Father and would have made a better Hunt Leader—except he had no blue triangles or green circles to inscribe on his arm. No one without children was ever given authority.

"Yes, and after wasting our time on him we can bury our wives and children because they starved to death," Father snarled. In truth, though times were lean, the tribe could last for a while. A trickle of the Wasat remained, and there were river cabbages and insects, if little else, for sustenance.

"There's another issue as well," Sol said. "The quasar that did this is ancient and has the burning sickness. It's a bigger threat to the safety of the tribe than the drought."

Father knelt by the strands of dung and studied them. "This creature will be dead soon," Father said. "You needn't worry. But please, wash those bones again before we go back to camp. The smell might draw the beast."

"The rest of this person's skeleton may be off in that direction." Sol pointed.

Father shook his head. "We have enough for the burial ceremony, enough to help the spirit make its journey to the stars. Draconis, would you like to carry the remains?"

Draconis wrinkled his nose and stepped back. "I'd rather give Apjay the honor."

"Please, Father," Apjay said.

Draconis didn't like burial rituals, bones, or anything to do with death. For Apjay, however, all such things held a mysterious attraction—almost as much as the ancient writings, pictures of stars, or the stories of Tarazed themselves.

Father grunted. "Very well. Don't dishonor me by dropping them or tripping over your feet."

Apjay clenched his teeth. "I won't, Father." If Sol had children, then maybe he'd be Hunt Leader instead of Father. Sol wouldn't say things to humiliate Apjay or anyone else, and the tribe would have a better Hunt Leader. Apjay, however, said nothing.

A/N: You can buy the rest of this story at https://amzn.to/4bJqtu7 Thanks for reading!