Ani

Do not think for a moment I had forgotten the carnage. The deaths of my friend's family. But I was still intent on finding Ani. I prayed to the Sky she was still alive. Lar Torvis could be a killer out here even if she was not injured.
As I worked my way out I found the bodies of two men. They were as the three that rushed my hollow. Men ... though not scarred. They appeared perhaps from the Tahari or even Turia. I could not tell and I did not waste my time long over their bodies.
It was good that Juu did not die alone.

I began to call her name. Ani ... Ani ... over and over though I kept my tone low and soft. Perhaps it was more of a prayer for I did not expect her to answer me. My chest ached with concern. I felt like my breath was captured in a web and there was dread every time I looked over a clump of grass or a small rise in the sod. Would the men have taken her with them? Such a small child? I did not think so... that left death and I refused to think such. She had to be here .. she had to be here.
My heart jumped into my throat then .... I saw the marks ... I saw where she had crawled through the grass ... I stayed low and made my way as quickly as I could along the indistinct trail. More insistent I called .... Ani ... Ani .... Ani
I almost ran over her in my haste. She just sat there .. as usual only she didn't have her doll. I swept her up into my arms and I held her to my bloody sweaty chest and I wept. I knelt and I wept there upon the plains like I was no more than an unscarred unnamed boy. I whispered her name over and over again into her wispy hair with its scant little yellow beads. I must have crushed her small little body but she never made a sound ... though I felt her tiny fingers curl into the muscle of my chest and I just held her and dampened her hair with my tears.

Ani ... my Ani. How possessive of her I had become in such a short time. When my emotion was exhausted I wiped my tears from her forehead and I held her from me so that I could inspect her. Had she been hurt? She scrambled up my arms against my chest clawing my flesh with her tiny nails. It was the most I had ever seen out of her. But I did not refuse her. She did not appear to be hurt. I swung the bota around and I loosed the cork and I set it to her lips and she snuggled back against my chest and placed both chubby little palms on that bota and drank. I simply pressed my lips to her head and thanked the Sky she was alive.

I felt such a relief. But it was not over. I took her in my arm and keeping low to the ground I returned to the half burnt wagon. I set her down and though she protested I insisted. I did not go far from her sight though ... but this I had to do. I used the remains of the wagon, carefully positioning the heated coals and pieces of wood until I had a make shift pyre. I then gathered Juu and his family and I relit that wagon and I made sure they were sent to the next life as they should be. It was a risk ... I had no idea if the rest of the men were still in the area but I had no choice in my mind. I would expect him to do the same for me ... and mine.

I took Ani up then and I made my way back to Kree. He was a good kaiila. I stripped my gear from him and I set my saddle on one shoulder and I set Ani on the other and I set out for that stream. I could not stay here longer for I had lit a beacon to the plains that someone here was still alive. It was going to be a long walk. But oddly enough I did not feel the weight of my saddle, I did not feel the heat through my boots as I strode, I no longer felt the suffocating of Lar Torvis.

You see .... I had an angel on my shoulder.

Death

Lar Torvis was high in the Sky when I crested the ridge and my gaze took in the scene below me.

It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Like nothing I had seen before outside my Father's wagon.

The stripped white body of Oni lay on the ground in Lar Torvis. Juu was no where to be seen yet. But two of the boys were tied to a couple of the wagon wheels. The wagon had been tipped over and was now burnt to a crisp. The boys' charred bodies still upon the wheels. How did I know it was the boys? I knew no one would do such to girls. It just wasn't done. I began working my way low around the area. Someone had made a fire break around the wagon. Now as far as I knew only a Tuchuk would do that. Only a Tuchuk would value the grass even in such a situation. It was something to store away in my thoughts for later. I found where the others had left their kaiila. There had been eight kaiila here at one point. Now there were none. Had the three kaiila run? I did not have time to think about it now as I continued to scout around the wagon. It was then I found Juu. He had put up quite a fight. His body showed the ahns of fighting. Wounds tied off with scraps of cloth. The end had been harsh and swift. I bent to lift his lids to open them to the Sky before I moved passed him. In the grass I found another boy. An arrow deep through the back of his neck. Further on I found Juu's first son. Here I paused for the boy was staked out and ants covered his small body. A deep hole was opened in his belly, someone had run him through. I came closer and then I felt the bile rise in my throat for his eyes opened and he looked at me.

His lips were cracked and bleeding. He couldn't talk. I slid closer and placed my knee beneath his head as I cut through his bindings and the bota I had slung over my shoulder was opened and cool water trickled over his lips into his mouth. The look he gave me I will carry to my dying day. I don't know if you have ever seen someone with their guts torn open. You live sometimes a long time. A long agonizing time. There was no help for him here. He was almost gone as it was. He knew it ... I knew it. I spoke then and I prayed to the Sky he heard me. "I name you Juu,after your Father." I cradled him in my arm and he seemed so much smaller than the hunter's first son that had set out on this trek to earn his name ... I would not break a bone, I would not damage his heart or his brain ... he would need these things in the afterlife ... instead I cupped my hand over his mouth and nose and he opened his eyes wide to the Sky. He barely jerked at all in my arms as he passed. Another ahn in the Lar Torvis, with the ants and the loss of blood and he would have been gone. I have never had a look of gratitude for killing someone. It will haunt me.

I worked my way in towards the still smoldering wagon now. Oni. She had put up quite a fight herself. It was obvious she had refused to submit, choosing death over slavery. Her baby son was clutched in her arms and he did not breathe. I found the girls' clothes. the beads taken from their hair. They would be on their way to be sold as slaves. Naked and chained. It was the way of the land in which I lived. But what of Ani? I steeled myself to look at the wagon, breaking pieces apart with my boot so that I could attempt to see within. I saw nothing that appeared to be her body though it was hard to tell with all the ash.

I took several more drinks of water. Resting for a moment and listening. There was only the wind in the grass and a bird here or there. It would not be long though before the smell of death began to attract scavengers. I started then at the wagon, and I worked my way outward in slow spiraling circles. Intent now on finding Ani.

She had to be here, dead or alive.

Three for Kree

I am not sure when I realized they were coming. They knew just as well as I did that soon the light would be in their eyes and they were not willing to wait. They did not know how old I was, or how experienced but they were right for rushing me now. I half expected it. It is what I would have done in their place.

I expected five. There were only three and I lifted up under the first one over the crest of my hollow and I shoved my lance deep through his body. Perhaps they judged my experience by the kaiila I rode. I broke the second one's quiva thrust with an uplifted arm as the third jumped my back and wrapped an arm around my neck. I grabbed him and threw him onto the ground breaking his hold. I may not be big but everything I have is rock hard muscle. I work with the bosk all day. I spend long hours roping, branding, and wrestling young stock. That man got a taste of it when I threw him over my shoulder. My quiva caught the light as I swung wide at the second man and I felt it rake across his chest and biceps. I took a left fist to my jaw and felt my teeth rattle in my head and my eyes went funny but I never stopped. They fought like larls and it was life and death there for a few ehn but when it was all said and done and I crouched taking ragged gasps of breath into my starved lungs the first was laying there with my lance still through him, the second was staring at me from the ground with a broken spine and the third had my quiva through his throat spilling blood onto the baked ground and the scent rose acid in my nostrils. My arm stung and I realized one of them had gotten in a blade cut. It was messy but not enough to cut through the muscle and I tore off part of my shirt and tied it around the cut.

I wiped my hand over my face and let my dazed mind catch up. Points for reflex. Everything was foggy right now. Too much movement and not enough hydration.
Water .... I needed water. I stumbled over to Kree and grabbed a full bota and I drank, small sips. I knew better than to dump water on my system at this point. I was torture, but I kept to small gulps as I wiped my brow and began to look around. I stayed low ... I did not know where the others were and I was not willing to risk myself again so easily. Slinging the bota over my shoulder I slid back into the hollow. I retrieved my quiva and my lance and I wiped them off on the chest of the man that was still alive. He never said a word and I didn't ask him any questions. It was just settled between us. I left him to die in the heat as I began to work my way to the ridge, the smoke was almost gone now. I dreaded what I would find but it was there for me to do and I would do it.

My Enemy

Sweat had left tracks down my face in the dust. My shirt was dark with the stains of it.

I didn't hate those men out there. The men intent on killing me. Men intent on killing me with no reason I could see. No one knew I would be here. No one knew I would follow Juu's wagon. I just happened to show up at the wrong time. And I had come barreling across the plain like an unnamed youngster. I just panicked when I saw that fire. All I was thinking about were those kids. I was being a lot more careful now.

No I didn't hate those men. But I intended to kill every singe one of them. They had set themselves up against me. They were strangers... they were my enemy. And they killed my kaiila.

I carefully reached beside me and found a small pebble. I shoved it into my mouth and attempted to inspire some saliva ... Anything to moisten the dry cracked interior of my mouth. I kept my mind busy. I mapped out in my thoughts where I was and how far it was to water. I was now afoot on the plains and that can be risky business. If my calculations were right I was about twenty pasangs from a stream. That was a long ... long way in this kind of heat. Though I did have my botas. Even as I thought that the song of an arrow went strait over my head and I wondered for it was too high. What were they up to? I rolled, my clothes scratching in the dust. They were shooting at Kree. What in the name of the Sky for? And then ... again ... with a sickening thump an arrow sank deep into one of my bota and the dark stain as it bled out spread over Kree's shoulder and into the thirsty ground.

Bloody bastards!

Kree

You might look at me and think I was insane for thinking over things while men waited for a chance to finish me off. But aside from watching and squinting against the light there wasn't much for me to do at the moment and my mind just never stopped. I had a few hours to wait until Lar Torvis was in their eyes. If they didn't rush me before that ... and I wasn't moving until then.

I suppose a more experienced warrior would not have rushed headlong into something he didn't understand fully. I suppose I wasn't thinking of ... well I just wasn't thinking.

I had been riding all morning. Pushing Kree but not too much for I did not intend to run him to death. It was easy now to follow the wagon tracks through the grass and over the gentle rolling hills. I was jumpy ... but jumpy about things I didn't have set in stone yet. Jumpy about dreams, visions and words of the Spex but they weren't real. They were like mists and they caused me to worry but I didn't know exactly what to expect ... if anything.

It wasn't long after dawn that I saw the smoke. Fire is a thing most feared by Tuchuk. Not only can it over take and kill people and animals but it destroys the grass. Where there is grass ... there is life. Now perhaps it was that I was keyed up anyway or that I just lost the brains the Sky blessed me with but I kicked Kree into a run and we made strait for that smoke. Somewhere in the back of my mind there was the realization that there was dark black smoke in there ... the kind of smoke you get when you torch a wagon ... with grease. All I know is that my stomach was up in my throat and we were at a full run when up out of the grass there rose at least five men and they were shooting arrows as fast as they could draw and aim. I felt Kree stumble, lose the rhythm of his stride and I knew he was hit but I didn't know how bad. I grabbed weapons and I kicked free of the saddle and hit the ground running and I dove into this hollow I was trapped in.

Now... if it had been Kai or Rocca they would have dropped like a rock. But Kree wasn't trained fully yet and he just stood there. I closed my eyes and groaned and he went down kicking and screaming looking like a pin cushion. There was just no need for that. Killing a kaiila. Except for one. They were set on making sure I never left this hollow.

Damn

There have been times in my life when I relished the fact that I was right. That I had been correct in an assumption or prediction.

This wasn't one of those times.

I would have liked nothing more than to ride into camp and see those kids playing and share a cup of paga with Juu and laugh about dreams and specters that live in the night.

Instead I was laying here in a hollow keeping my head down and baking nicely in the heat of Lar Torvis. I figure this was a dusting spot for bosk at some point. Rolling in the dust to relieve themselves of parasites and such. Right now I was just thankful it was deep enough to hide the outline of my body.

It was hot though. My mouth was dry and my tongue was nothing more than a stick in my mouth. My stomach felt like a rock ... a dried out old empty rock. It felt like a million grains of sand scraped across my eyes every time I tried to blink. Dust coated the insides of my nose and all I could smell was dirt, grass and blood. My botas and almost everything else was still with my saddle. And my saddle was still with Kree, and Kree was laying dead as a bent wagon axle some twenty feet from me. But it might as well have been twenty pasangs for all the good it was doing.

I did have my bow and quiver and my lance. My bola had been hooked to my belt and I had one quiva as well. These things I fell with .... ran with. It wasn't much to have in the position I was in, but right now they were my best friends and no man ever felt stronger about his weapons than I did about mine right then. They were all that stood between me and those intent on making sure I never saw tomorrow's dawn. Right now though it was hotter than I ever thought it could be and dawn was a long .... long way off.

Tracking

I think that was one of the longest rides I have ever taken. It was going to take me hands to find everyone I needed to apologize to after nearly running them down with Kai. The lanes between the wagons stretched out before me like fiendish ribbons of uncountable time.

I hit our wagon group at a dead run and jumped from Kai even as he dug his claws in to a sliding stop.

But they were gone.

I spun on a heel and began to strip Kai of my gear. I could not take him he was worn out from a day of riding. I switched everything to Kree. He was young, untried but he was fresh and I needed speed now more than anything. I would regret that choice in the hours to come, but at the time I thought it was best.

I took time to roll my bed and tie it onto the saddle. I took time to grab my weapons. I was in a hurry but I did not have a death wish.

Kree was fresh and eager to go. I swept a gaze over my wagon ... the kaiila and Yaz. And then I swung into the saddle, closing my eyes as the sickness rose. Only a moment I allowed it to slow me and then I was digging heels into Kree and he spooked and took off like a shot from a cross bow.

The only problem was I didn't know where I was going.

I hit the edge of the herd and began tracking Juu's wagon by outriders and those in the nearest wagons. It was daunting to hear they had left so early in the day, but I was one man on a kaiila. I could travel much faster if I could just get their direction. But tracking at night meant finding people and asking questions and that takes time. My nerves were shot full of holes by the time I got to the end of the wagons and ahead of me was the trail we had moved over in the last hand or so and here is where I lost them.

I swore for hundreds of bosk had walked over where their wagon tracks cut into the sod. I threw a leg over the pommel, chewing on the jerky pariah had brought me in the little pouch tied to my saddle ... and I waited for the moons to rise enough that I could see a little. And then began the pain staking process of tracking them through the hoof marks.

It was now that I began to realize bits and pieces of the Spex's words that I had forgotten. So much of it was like a dream. She had spoken Ani's name. How could I have forgotten that? There was more. I tried to go over it in my mind as I searched for the indentations of the wagon wheels.

Omen

The first wagons. It is a phrase I use more than I care to when I am there. So many things remind me that it is a different world than mine. It is not that the people there are not polite. They are so much so that I find myself reminding THEM, not vice versa. But I am not ashamed of who I am. My pride is woven through me like the Sky and the grass and the bosk are all woven together.

Pariah remained at my thigh, my fingers in her teasing short hair as I called the Spex to me. She is called pile now, I try to remember it but I do not always.
I gave her a piece of cloth. It was gray with tiny pink dinas embroidered into it. It was just a small piece, a couple of horts in length and breadth. I asked her to tell me the omen for the hunt the next day. If I was embarrassed to produce such an item for a hunt I did not show it, though the concern in my gaze was much more intense than any hunt should cause.

She went to one of the wagons and brought out a small black pouch. She threw a few herbs and things into the fire and called forth the spirits.

Without realizing it I had begun to lean forward in the saddle. Energy charged through me and Kai began to shift his weight, his fur jumping as his skin twitched.
I was no stranger to the oddly colored fire, nor the voices or specters that danced in the flames. But this time there was more riding on this reading than I cared to admit. I believe I cared more about this reading than I cared for much else in my whole life. The questions this raised in my mind were set aside, they would be pondered later. For now there was only this ... here.

She asked for the gift, for the knowledge for the warrior with no clan yet. It was not what she said but how she said it, and my gaze began to narrow on her. She threw up her arm to ward off what she saw and I felt my stomach tighten. The muscles across my chest began to tense. A silver blue flame shot up out of the center of the fire then and knew it was more than tricks now ... I knew that flame. She began to speak then.

"They will not stop you know. Nothing will make them go away, you cannot push away the dream walkers. We are stronger then you She wore a white cloak, your dreams are haunted by her. Almost so real yet you cant touch her.
Perhaps you desire that taste of stains left with on you....You remember a touch, a smell... Your hunt.... much of this hunt is shadowed...darkness lingers to try to reach out and snap you in half from the reality... The hunt... yet you seek more to know then the hunt alone... Why only ask of it? Ah perhaps memories seem to bring forth ... No.... It is not time yet.... The hunt... You would do well not to ride in the valley. You will be the hunted if you do. So much wonderfully smelling blood.... Its not a larl that hunts you but you know this. Do you not? Such a sweet smell wishes to touch you in the dreams."

There was a growl deep in my chest. My fingers tightened on the reins which caused Kai to jerk his head against the touch. Anger snapped through my veins and every muscle stood out in sharp relief under my skin. My beast began to claw at the grass arching his thick neck and it was all I could do to keep him from bolting.

"I know who you are. I recognize you... I see you ...I hear you breathe when you cannot hear your self in the night. Umm tell me how it feels to drain life with your own hands? Do you remember? Yes... yes the hunt.. The omen is countered. Do not ride to the valley."

There was pure rage in my features, twisted in the fire light as I gazed at the Spex as if I would kill her for her words but restraint lay in a heavy shroud to be fought but not overcome.

As the Spex went down on her knees I was hit by so many thoughts in quick succession. I spoke Pariah's name ... to care for mahalah even as Kai took three half jumps backwards almost upending himself before I jerked the reins and spun him on a tarsk bit and kicked him into a run down the lane between the wagons and I prayed to the Sky I was in time.

To Get the Omen

And so the evening found me riding towards the first wagons. Not something I had done for a long time. Life had just seemed to converge around me. It was an odd jumpy feeling it gave me, to return to this place. How much it was mine and how at the same time it was like stepping into another world.

The Spex ... the woman Mahalah now the slave of Trajen had mentioned before she knew who I was. I didn't believe her completely ... but she was a Spex and so there was enough doubt there that it was dangerous for me to even be around the first wagons. And yet as much as I was drawn there for myself at times, this time I was drawn there for another reason.

Night had brought coolness. Shadows that eased my aching head. There was no one around the fires when I first got there but the slave Pariah and a free woman I had never met before. The woman was jumpy and nervous. Her fingers trembled around the cup of blackwine she drank. I found that curious, almost curious enough to distract me from why I was there. Was she afraid of me? There was no reason for fear, she was within the first wagons. So then there must be another reason and before I could ponder it further pariah was sent over to me and she brought a plump cool bota, and I can say it was Sky sent for it tasted very good as it washed the dust from my mouth and throat.

I remained in the saddle. Mostly out of the lack of desire to move, I still ached from top to bottom and then there was the fact that every time I moved the horizon did an unbroken kaiila dance on me.

People began to arrive, some I knew some I did not. They gathered around the fires and spoke among themselves. Lone arrived. I heard that he and Laquetta were mated. The first woman at the fire must be the woman Laquetta. I also met a woman called Tacita. She was beautiful. But I do not look much at the women here. They are not for me. They are of the first wagons.

Raven and isis came in and isis brought Kai a bucket of water for him to play with. She then approached my stirrup and lifted her crossed wrists to me. I was puzzled for a moment andI paused in the hydration of my body. She begged me to buy her. That shocked me. I asked her why. Why she would ask me to buy her, she did not know me.
What I wanted to say was...

how would I buy you? I am only an outrider and you belong to the Ubar of my people. You are a valued kajira kept at the first wagons. How could I ever buy such a slave? All my property together might not even be enough.

But that is not what I said. I am a proud man.

The Best Intentions

Today an odd thing happened while I was riding drag. How it happened was not so odd. I can only say I was not paying attention. It was hot and dusty. I adjusted my wind scarf attempting to ward off breathing so much dust. But it still got into my eyes and my hair, in my ears and covered every bit of my skin. Kai had his head ducked and I can say he was paying better attention than I was for he tried to dodge the incoming blow but I was too out of it to even notice until the bosk hit us broadside. Knocked me clear out of the saddle. I don't know how long I was out.

When I came to I was staring at the sky and the hot ground was against my back and my head hurt. I just laid there for a while and the trickle of memory began to return to me. Not just the few minutes before the bosk hit me but the vision or dream or whatever you wish to call it that I experienced while I was unconscious.
There was a woman. And she was covered in blood and she danced. There was white everywhere. She sang a song, though I can't really remember the words. She knelt and then threw her arms open wide and arched her back until she broke and split open and from her crawled Ani, covered in blood.

It was just at that point that the first stabbing of light registered through my brain as I began to realize I was staring at Lar Torvis. I thought for sure my brains were leaking all over the plain for how much it hurt. I attempted to move, rolled to my knees and I wretched as the horizon upended and spun on me.
I touched my head and found a gash on the back of my skull. A bloody rock is obviously the culprit. Like most scalp wounds it bled like a stuck tarsk. I was going to be a grumpy bastard for a while.

When the world stopped spinning for me I got to my feet stiffly. Kai was standing a few paces away with the reins trailing. The bosk and other outriders were no where in sight. The herd having moved on. I stepped to him and grasped the pommel shoving a boot into the stirrup and pulling myself up ... though as I did my stomach caught up with me and just kept rising so I paused half in the saddle until it settled back to where it belonged.

It was only then that I began to feel the first tightened strings of concern for Ani. What meaning was held in the things I had seen? Was it only due to getting hit on the head and laying in the hot Lar Torvis?

The Hunt

Dreams. That is all they are. Ghosts and specters of the darkness. They vanish come the morning light. It is then that despite the angst of the night you must pick up your saddle. You must ride. The bosk are always there.

This morning I rode the last of my fresh meat over to my Aunt. She is not actually my aunt, she is the sister of Dubois. She is very old and blind. I don't think I have ever heard her name spoken. She has always been Aunt to me. She hates me. I think she hates everyone so I don't take it too personally. But I don't tell her who the meat is from either. I just leave it for her. I am not the only one that looks in on her, or leaves her food. Many of the woman around these wagons do as well, though I know how hard it must be to provide for an entire family and there is only me so I share. I can provide some of the meat and they can fix it for her. I have to chuckle thinking of the fit she would throw if she even knew I was within ten yards of her brightly painted wagon.

I am done curing the meat from the last hunt. Juu is planning on taking his eldest son out on his first hunt. Perhaps even to earn his name. I think they are going to take a wagon and bring everyone. I would go but I believe it is a family kind of thing. And though I am sure they will invite me I do not feel it would be right to intrude. I will hunt, but I will go myself. A couple more tabuk would be a big step towards filling up the stores for this winter. Not to mention the extra meet for my Aunt and Juu's family. Though soon his sons will be old enough to hunt and they will be well off.

I am going to leave Yaz with my wagon. Unless he is the one hunting he is less than desirable on a hunt. I will take my brown kaiila, Kree. I will leave my two best ... Kai and the big black Rocca here with my mares. They can use the rest. I have been riding them hard in the heat. Kree is young but needs the time beneath the saddle. It will be a good chance to train as well as hunt.

Perhaps if my luck holds I will come across a larl. I could use the fur as well as a larl is one of the best meats there is. At least in my opinion.
I will ride drag today. I will work so hard that I will be too tired to dream tonight.

Hush

Wasted effort
from your fingertip
you can not remedy
a silence brought by coal to lip
the crusted scab
a dark cocoon
you can not pierce the numbness
of this self inflicted tomb
do not ply me with your song
do not tempt me with your story
do not disturb the pins
I have waited for so long
do not stimulate my senses
I am passed
your feeble cure
I am anchored to the darkness
by a silence strong and pure
let my senses drown
in the blackened waves of ink
let them die somewhere below
let them rot there till they stink
they will rise again
bleached white
in sharpened contrast
perhaps then
I'll tolerate
their innervating light.

©2005

Silence

Tonight I believe the silence will kill me. It waits for me to move with a million tiny needles capturing me in a steel web sarcophagus.

I stare at the covering of my wagon above me.

I dreamt last night that I fell off a cliff but I did not rush towards the ground below me. I was left suspended. Hanging between the sky and the grass, weightless. If I could I would capture that feeling over and over again.

But tonight I am heavy. And if I move I know the pins will sink deep into my flesh and so I lay here anchored to the floor of my wagon, my mind empty and numb, only a vestige of the desire to be inspired left behind on the edges of my subconscious.
Is it because I am alone? Is it because there is no sound of breathing next to me to ease the emptiness? If there were only a sound to break the spell.

A whispered sound. Something quiet and wraith like that eased through the pins without disturbing them. A mist of something to drift over my fevered skin like a cool rain upon the dry heated plains.

Instead ... there is only left to me the treason of the darkness.

The Flute

The hunt went well. We took three tabuk, a larl, and I brought down a tumit with my bola. The meat is being jerked and salted. I saved the feathers in a cloth sack and one of the bones spoke to me and I have cleaned it and I have begun to carve a flute from it. The bone is light and it is taking the carving well. It would not be the first flute I have made. I used to do it often as a boy. This one though I am taking my time with. I want it to sound perfect. I want it to speak, as the bone spoke to me. I do not play often, perhaps this will inspire me to do so more.

I have caught Ani watching me. She is always alone. She is always quiet. I have never heard her make a sound, I have never seen her smile. There is only the big dark eyes. I think she likes the sounds I have been making with this flute. The boys like it as well. I have been teaching them as I go how to do it. I seem to be better at teaching some things than doing them myself. They are quick to pick it up. Juu is honored by his sons. I have thought on asking him about Ani. Why she is so different. But I do not wish to insult him somehow. Oni, she is a good mother, but she does not seem to care for Ani. It is not that anyone of the family seems to dislike her. It is more like they do not even realize she is there. Perhaps it is because she is so quiet. I find her eyes beautiful. I think I would be a proud father. I think I would hunt and hunt and work until my daughter had everything she ever wanted. I believe I would spoil her, protect her, and kill anyone that looked sideways at her.

Ani scares me, she is so different, and yet I feel a strange kinship with her for I too feel different from everyone else. Yaz seems to notice it also. For he allows Ani to sit with him sometimes near my wagon, or even the step. At first I was caught up in the fear of the big sleen and the tiny girl, but now, after catching her there with him so many times I have relaxed. I see it in Kai too. Sometimes when you watch a mother kaiila with her young you notice she is careful where she steps. Movement of paws almost exaggerated with extra care. He does just that when Ani is near. I am amazed. Whatever happened to Ani, whatever makes her the way she is ... Yaz and Kai seem to know. How is it that a small bit of female could wrap a warrior and a sleen and a daemon kaiila so easily around her little finger?

Time .. Time ... and Half a Time

It has been some time since I have returned to the first wagons. My days have been filled with work and all the preparations for winter. I have much meat preserved now. But still not enough. It is a lot of work for one man to do, and yet I only need enough for one. I have plans to lay extra stores away though.

In one way it has made the nights easier. The work. The sounds of people around my wagon. I am not so alone. And in another it has made me realize just how alone I really am. The size of Juu's family is a bit overwhelming. And yet it is a close example of all I have dreamed of creating and building.

The drive to reclaim all that was mine is a little less loud. The urge to ride to the first wagons. Perhaps it is only that I am working so hard and tired. Sometimes I just sit and watch the children play. Oni doing her work. Juu teasing his sons about their names. I can almost imagine I am a part of their family. In a way I suppose I am. Juu has turned out to be a good friend.

But late at night I still feel the itch. The need to build and claim. to lift my mark high into the plain's sky. To climb up the mountain and to yell, this is mine. I have made this. I have built this with my own sweat and my own blood.

New Residence

Today my time with the herd seemed to go by like a dream. It was uneventful, quiet. I am not tired. The bosk were content to graze and appeared half asleep themselves.
I decided to move my wagon. With Yaz there I have noticed no more intrusions into my wagon. And yet still I feel unnerved. I rearranged the two chests within. I moved my sleeping blankets to the other side of the fire.

I became acquainted with another outrider. His name is Juu. He said he was named for a Tuchuk Warrior who lived many years ago and was lost upon the plains. He is a Hunter. We have made plans to go hunting tomorrow. He invited me to pull my wagon over with his. He has a small family of his own, two wagons. The rest are friends of his father. He doesn't remember his father though. And I don't care to remember mine, we have something in common.

There are many children here at this group of wagons. It was odd at first but now I do not mind their noise. They stay away from my wagon, Yaz is nothing to argue with. I do not fear for them, Tuchuk children are not stupid, at least the ones that live are not.

Juu has four sons, two daughters, a little girl and a baby boy. He had not wasted his time with his mate, Oni. Oni is a good Tuchuk woman. She works hard for her children. But I noticed the little girl, Ani, is left much alone. She is so tiny and so brave.

My stomach nearly fell through my boots when I came back to my wagon and found her sitting next to Yaz. No one had even noticed she was not at her own wagons. At first I did not know what to do. Should I kill Yaz? I was reaching for my lance even as my brain continued to catch up with my eyes. But she was fine. Yaz was half asleep, though I had seen him leap to his feet and attack from just that position. Instead of using my weapon I approached slowly and spoke quietly to Yaz. Even I do not approach my own wagon without alerting him. I picked her up and hauled her back to the cooking fire before I realized I was holding my breath. I set her down near the other children and then I just crouched as the muscles of my legs turned to jelly and I broke out in a cold sweat. Ani simply looked at me with those big serious eyes of hers and continued to play with her doll.

I have never seen Ani smile.

Overcast

Today the sky was overcast with clouds. The plains blanketed in a shroud.. a blanket that appears to have tucked everything in. The bosk are quiet. Dawn was mellow. No shooting shards of gold across the sky. It eased over the hills and ravines. It is still. It feels damp but there is no rain.

I left Yaz, the big black sleen guarding my wagon. Someone went in it when I was not there. That does not please me. Is it not enough that they attempt to waylay me for a purpose I do not even know yet? It is not that there is much in there. I own very little. But when a man owns less he values what he owns even more. I finally own a space that is mine. It is not the biggest or the newest wagon but it is mine. It was perhaps only a slave meaning no harm, however ... I own no slaves. No slave has permission to enter my wagon and touch my things. No slave has begged me to be allowed to offer me food, or water, or bring anything else that does not belong to me to my wagon. In any case, whomever or whatever it was about I have left the sleen there. It will not happen again. No one will get within fifteen feet of my wagon. I am not sure who is crazy enough to believe I will eat food that is not mine, that I did not request. There is someone within my people that wishes me harm, I will not be such an easy mark.

Either my space will be respected or Yaz will eat well.