Chapter 4
The hunting and foraging parties returned soon after we’d cleaned up following our ordeal with the Raptor, as the cool morning breeze gave way to a stifling midday heat. Nobody said a thing. No high-fives. Not a word from anyone. Not even a greeting. An alarmingly atypical homecoming.
I wasn’t expecting a formal report back or looking for any attention, but I assumed Ruzzell had again told them to leave me alone. Everyone kept to themselves, silent and serious. I wanted to ask Gellica how she was, but it seemed clear she didn’t want to speak to anybody.
I can understand that.
Everyone else called her Gels, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Not sure why. I was all fingers and thumbs around her. Perhaps I was waiting for her to give me permission or something.
Gellica lost both her mother and father on our third anniversary on Eden. Her clan had decided to find an alternate route to the Gathering of the Clans. Rather than travelling through the dense jungle, they set out to find an easier course across the open, verdant plains. The domain of Eden’s Wolf. Until then, we didn’t know.
Similar in behaviour to an Earth-wolf, only bigger, Eden’s Wolf was an odd-looking beast. Moving on strapping hind legs that looked very kangaroo-like, with smaller but sturdy front legs, its head was distinctly canid and its mouth packed razor-sharp, ten-centimetre-long canines. At first sight, the creature looked awkward, almost comical. A hybrid. Half wolf, half kangaroo. And despite the peculiar noises they made when feasting on a kill, which sounded like a strangulated chuckle, there was never time to laugh. Their bark was a haunting cackle; their bite, brutal. A Wolf’s powerful jaw could shatter a human thighbone like a matchstick. And hunting in packs, they were unstoppable killing machines.
Gellica was the only survivor. Her father shoved her up a solitary tree on the plains in the nick of time. Showing unbelievable courage, caked in her father’s blood, she found her own way to the Gathering of the Clans once the Wolf-pack had moved on. Just ten years old at the time, she was assimilated into our clan that very day. Having lost my Dad a few months before, we shared a common bond even though we spoke little at the time. Words weren’t necessary. Needless to say, the anniversary celebration was not Gellica’s favourite time of the year. The three centimetre scar under her chin was a permanent and grim reminder of that day.
I looked at her now through one good eye, my vision limited on my right side. She looked tense and kept her head down, allowing her long brown hair to cover her face. She never did that, it was always tucked behind her ears. Shoulders hunched, cheek bruised; she didn’t look up for a second.
Are you okay?
At least once a day, our eyes would touch in what felt like a divinely orchestrated way. Sounds silly. But when her hazel-brown eyes locked on to mine, and that coy, heart-melting smile illumined her face, an awkward, wonderful … otherworldly moment would fill my otherwise dull and dreadful life with a kaleidoscope of colour. Now, I could not get her to lift her head, let alone look in my direction.
She had returned from the hunt carrying Ruzzell’s bow and arrows having served as his watcher. He lugged in a big Hog; a smug grin slapped on his bewhiskered mug, mercilessly ragging Dixan for failing to bag one.
The Hog would be cooked on a spit over an open fire immediately, and its entrails and off-cuts added to our pile on the other side of the river. We cooked the food at midday because once dark fell there was scant time, and we lost our appetites anyway. A nighttime meal would attract other creatures we preferred not to entice.
While I skinned the Hog with sixteen-year-old Dixan, Gellica and Nadalie prepared the nuts and berries collected during the morning forage. We were one Hog short, the one I usually caught, but Ruzzell said one would do for now since “two of us” weren’t going to get our share today. While there were no prizes for guessing that he referred to me; I wasn’t sure who else—between Jordin, Judd or Dixan—was also persona non grata.
Or maybe Ruzzell can’t count.
I decided not to make a fuss. Anyway, we had plenty of nuts and berries, and we were leaving camp first thing tomorrow. The excitement of the anniversary celebration, and the challenge of the journey there, would hopefully get us over this bump in clan relations.
To be honest, I nearly changed my mind about kicking up that ruckus when the sound of spurting, blistering fat shooting into the crackling fire caught my ears and the mouth-watering smell of sizzling Hog wafted through the camp. Serious will power was required to corral my restless tastebuds into submission.
After lunch (vegetarian for me and my miserable tastebuds), which we did not eat together around Base Stump—an increasingly unsettling trend since Ruzzell’s ‘reign of turmoil’ began—he called for us to assemble. We usually had a discussion time after our midday meal, our only cooked meal, but on this occasion we felt summoned. He was becoming increasingly dictatorial with every passing minute, and the way he had dealt with me earlier seemed to bolster him.
As we took up our places around the Stump, on seats crafted from river-reeds, the bow and quiver of arrows strapped over Ruzzell’s shoulder made another statement. While we all kept a knife on our person, the bow and arrows were usually returned to the safe place, a shaft carved into the Stump. We did this for two reasons. Firstly, to protect them from damage. Making a reliable bow was a work of art, and with Victor’s passing, none of us could do it yet. Secondly, to make the four bows accessible to everyone if necessary. We could all shoot—okay, some not so well. I’m looking at you, Jordi. Victor had trained us to defend ourselves. However, not even Victor had kept a bow on his person.
Strapped around his shoulder, the bow spoke volumes. Yelled, actually. Ruzzell could do whatever he wanted. And he was.
Jordin was still sulking for being the other person shunned from feasting on roast Hog—none of us were sure what he’d done to warrant the ban. Then again, logic was never one of Ruzzell’s strong points.
Slumping on his seat now, Jordi’s slouched shoulders and brooding tone were the only acts of defiance he was capable of. In snubbed frustration though, he kicked at the ground like a petulant child. But rather than merely release his pent-up angst, he dislodged a loose stone from the ground; it shot out from the force of his punt. The pebble pellet zipped through the air and slapped Shawz on the thigh sitting across from him.
Shawz went ruddy with rage in a heartbeat. “Hey, dickhead!”
Short and stocky, and the same age as Jordin, Shawz Grimm was a Ruzzell-wannabe. The kid followed him everywhere. A nice boy, until the day Ruzzell assumed charge of the clan.
Shawz lost his father to The Plague on Earth when he was two. Then his mother, a computer whizz, shortly after his sixth birthday. On Eden. Hazardberries, Day One. The first three minutes. Just like that, another orphan. I still heard Shawz’s muffled shrieks at night; his tree was near mine. Guess he just needed a sense of belonging. And somehow Ruzzell gave it to him.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” squealed Jordin, jumping to his feet, hopping from one foot to the next as if he was standing on hot coals. “I didn’t mean to—”
Having flung his seat backwards in an exaggerated act of offence, chest puffed out, Shawz strode towards Jordin, his fists clenched and blue murder pressed into his oddly round face.
Both Dixan and I stood up instinctively to intercept Shawz and defend Jordin who, with eyes as wide as Raptor eggs, had now dropped to his haunches, covering his head with his arms.
“He didn’t mean it, Shawz.” I folded my arms and filled my lungs with air, cocking my head at him. “Just sit down already.”
“Freak dude!” Shawz blurted out in the recently broken resonance of a fifteen-year-old as he pulled up short. Then he dropped his voice a little lower. “Yeah, well, it like kinda hurt.”
“Shawzie,” growled Ruzzell. “Not now. Sort it out later. Take a seat, pal.”
Shawz hesitated for an awkward moment before scratching at the tufts of downy hair on his chin, snarling at Jordin.
“Now!” barked Ruzzell, his face twisted in a scowl.
Shawz slumped down in his seat like a scolded dog with his tail between his legs.
“Right, listen up!” said Ruzzell sternly once Dixan and I had taken our seats. “We leave first light as usual tomorrow. We’ve got our trip to manage, hopefully incident free. Shawz, you take Ristan’s bow…”
While accessible to all, Ruzzell, Judd, Dixan and I manned the bow and arrows as a matter of course. Since Victor’s passing, Dixan was the next-best archer and had taken his place. That Shawz was now getting my bow was not just a slight on me, but it weakened the clan. Now even Judd could not hold his tongue.
“Ruzzell, you mean Rist’s not carrying?”
“Quick on the uptake, are we?” said Ruzzell, his eyebrows narrowing. “Yeah, it’s Shawz’s bow now.”
“Is-is that wise?” asked Judd warily, his face looked tight, trying admirably to curb Ruzzell’s downward trajectory into insanity.
“You challenging me, Pretty Boy?” Ruzzell said with a sneer, his threats becoming more frequent and fiery. He seemed to taunt Judd, dare him even.
Don’t take the bait!