The Hunt

The fire crackled as it burned low into a pile of glowing embers upon dry logs. For the warm season had come again and the bonfire was only kept lit so that trial of starting another would not have to be undertaken again. Children chased each other in play around fur lined tents as dugout canoes were pushed onto the rocky shore. The fishermen only lightly clad in furs burned hotter than the fire with the frustration of having caught nothing of worth to feed their tribe. There Flake sat under the shade of a broadleaf, two stones in hand as he set about using the harder round stone to knap large flakes off the trail black stone in his other hand.

Three years have passed since Flake first joined the tribe of the giants, and in that time he's experienced a great many new things. The most prevalent of which being winter and snowfall, both of which were alien concepts to Flake and his species as a whole. Flake nor the rest of his species with the tropical equatorial evolution had such a concept of temperatures ever getting this cold. So cold that water turned into a sort of glassy clear rock, where even the rain itself freezes into soft soft flakes before drifting to the ground and coating it deeply. In truth had Flake not joined with this experienced tribe of Homo Sapiens once the first winter came he simply would have frozen to death. For his tiny body and long limbs made him especially susceptible to the biting cold, and it was only the advanced sewn together fur clothing they made for him that kept him able to leave the fire side at all during the cold seasons.

An elder of the tribe, an old man with a great gray beard whom Flake would know as Sun Hunter would put his fingers to his mouth and let out a deafening whistle as he has so many times before to signal the tribe to gather. The fishermen came up from the beach, the women came out from the bushes, and the children came out from behind the tents to gather around the bright crimson embers of the bonfire. Flake in no hurry himself set his stones down and sauntered over as well. Yet in spite of being a grown man nearly reaching into his elder years himself, fit with a few scant gray hairs and all Flake as always found himself subtly herded in with the children as always. It was no forceful hand that pushed Flake away from participation in the gathering, it was the subtle shifting of posture, knowing looks, and uncompromising positioning that held Flake at the outer periphery of the forming circle.

In spite of all these years spent within the tribe Flake was still seen as nothing but a child, and a strange one at that. For in that time he had learned to understand the verbal communications of these giants around him, yet his archaic anatomy physically kept him from being able to speak it himself. Only a scant few within the tribe were willing to even entertain his gestures as anything other than the stubborn machinations of a dark horse child. Loving Water, the long haired woman who first discovered him and adopted him into the tribe, with Flake being seen as her responsibility. Another was Sun Hunter who was old enough to remember the alien races of man the old tribe encountered back in their original homeland to the South West, and thus always thought of Flake as a species of human his tribe just never encountered before. And finally were the children Flake was so often associated with, who had no pre-assumptions about how communication should be initiated, and like Flake's own children back home they learned through play and observation. Flake being excluded from the inner circle of this meeting was just one of the many regular debasements he had to suffer on a regular basis.

“As you can see, it's been days since we've been able to hunt a good haul from the sea. I and many others say the fish have left these seas and that it's time for us to migrate again as well. I say with the warm season upon us we follow a river inland and we live off the meat of the land until the fish return.” Sun Hunter proclaimed in his usual sagely tone as most the tribe nodded in agreement. “Why not just move North along the coast again?” Asked Sitting Deer, one of the fishermen from the day's failed fishing trip. “Is that where you think the fish have migrated too?” Asked Sun Hunter in return. “Well maybe… I think it's a better idea than moving inland for the warm season.” Answered Sitting Deer unsure in his answer that he spoke lacking in confidence. “What if the fish didn't move North? What if they swam East into the endless ocean? We've already seen and hunted plenty of deer and boar in these lands, it's a far safer assumption to say there's more inland than to pretend we know where the fish went.” Sun Hunter responded in an understanding tone, not chiding or lecturing the younger Sitting Deer, just using his lived wisdom to disagree.

Agreements and approval burst forth from the other tribe members in endorsement of Sun Hunter’s wisdom and planning. Sitting Deer respectfully backed down and the tribe scattered to pack up camp. As always when the tribe, Flake set about moving smaller objects such as knapping rocks and tools, into the canoes while the others worked on taking down tents or moving the canoes into position. The tribe was organized and well practiced in this task, everyone knew their part and did it to the best of their ability without the barking of orders or threats of punishment, just the mutual drive for survival. The last of their communal possessions to be loaded was their food stores, mostly made up of smoked fish, nuts, fresh wild greens, and mushrooms all gathered locally. The process took hours of work with the tribe only breaking to sleep for the night.

By the early hours of the next morning the camp was packed in full, which meant it was Flake's most primally hated aspect of moving camp, paddling the canoes. Loving Water nearly had to force Flake into the canoe like in every migration they took. For Flake had a deep set terror of boating, both primordial and learned from his near fatal ordeal at sea. For while the scars on his now healthy body have long healed, the scars of small mind have not. Flake pushed back against Loving Water’s hand across his back, his body reacting more than his mind. Eventually Flake's human mind and will managed to overpower his animal mind and its primal fear, with Flake hesitantly getting into the canoe behind Sun Hunter before Loving Water got in behind him.

The wood canoe with its blackened interior was then pushed off from the rocky shore with a series of scrapes and splashes. There Flake sat desperately gripping the upper edges of the canoe until his knuckles ran pale. The motion, the splashing, every detail burned into Flake's memory and melded with his memories of being marooned at sea. Loving Water did her best to place a reassuring hand upon Flake's back, yet it did nothing to pull Flake from the torture of his memories. Soon Flake found himself not in the intricately carved and burned away canoe but back on that palm tree as it whipped through the island flood waters. Before he was back to nearly drowning just out of reach of his island coast until he was suddenly starving in the open ocean again; with tendrils of nauseous burning pain shooting up from his stomach and into his heart. His body burned into a pile of white hot ashes until it coalesced back into his old skeletal shape as he desperately evaded the popping jaws of that reptilian monster with the last of his strength.

The fear, the hunger, the pain, the loneliness, the utter powerlessness, and every other overwhelming bestial emotion that invaded his mind like a deadly venom during that time consumed his conscious and unconscious mind entirely as Flake panted desperately in fear, as if he couldn't breath at all. And at the forefront of it all, the very manifestation of his deep seated trauma was the unknowable and inexplicable horror that birthed the storm that ripped him away from his true family. That monstrous fish with the wings and beak of a bird, so monstrously massive it could almost dwarf the very island Flake's species evolved and existed almost solely upon. The horror beat its white wings with malice as its silver scales reflected blinding beams of light which burned away at Flake's mind while the nightmarish winds of agony and torment blew away the ashes and overwhelmed his senses.

Until lax and leathery old knuckles collided with Flake's forehead and whipped the unspeakable horrors from Flake's mind, dragging him back into the reality of the steady and easy canoe ride he was partaking in. Sun Hunter then withdrew his hand and took the wooden oar with it again before he began to row again. He did not raise a hand against Flake out of anger, frustration, nor even panic, Sun Hunter simply saw Flake being overtaken by the evil spirits of his mind, and knew he needed a firm hand to rescue and return him to reality. Flake blinked slowly, realizing now that Loving Water had both arms wrapped around him in a hug. Being as she was the one who understood his gestures the most, she was the one who knew the most of Flake's unwilling journey. For he never wanted to tell the children the nightmares of his story. Flake respected her caring nature and attempts to help with whatever unknown malady seems to plague him while on the water, yet he respected Sun Hunter's pragmatic wisdom more. These two, a father and daughter, were the ones Flake respected the most out of the tribe, and the closest thing he had to a new family.

The canoe trip beyond then was a long yet easy one as the tribe rowed their dugouts up the river and against the mild current. The mossy coastal forests of mixed evergreen and broadleaf trees gave way to a cooler and dryer forest of pure evergreens before the tribe banked their canoes and slept in the open air, under furs and the canopy cover of trees. There was no fire that night, and they ate off their stock of smoked fish and nuts for sustenance. The night was but a song of crickets and frogs as everyone exhausted quickly drifted to sleep. Setting out again the next morning the trip itself would take five days in total, Flake would be plagued by his mental malady in a handful more of significantly more minor episodes, yet the lack of the endless sea in sight seemed to calm his mind significantly. In that time the land would slowly shift from cool over green forests to an inland grassland only spotted with trees. Flake wasn't concerned at this change of scenery, for even in his homeland the trees always thinned considerably when they migrated to the uplands for the rainy season.

As they entered these new uplands the new abundance of game became evident, the usual fair of deer, boar, antelope, and water buffalo abound in far greater numbers than the tribe had ever seen on the coast. Yet what caught Flake's eyes the most were many astoundingly colossal beasts of this land he had never laid eyes upon before. There were animals that resembled the Long Tooths of his island home, only they could range in size of being nearly ten to over twenty times the size depending on the species, some had long thick brown hair covering their entire bodies, while the most massive of them only had sparse long hair going down the back and chest while leaving their flanks bald. The next most massive behemoth were strange animals the likes of which were alien to Flake. For they shared the stocky and muscular builds of boars they had the broad feet of a Long Tooth and their spears, instead of protruding from their mouths like a boar’s they grew upwards directly out of the tops of their heads. Behind them were beasts that resembled the water buffalo only they were easily twice the size greater and were defined in Flake's mind by both what seemed like a mountain of meat above their shoulders, and their much greater horns whose length were longer than Flake himself was tall. Last of the great new beasts were a type of truly colossal deer, nearly twice the size of a native Long Tooth of Flake's homeland and standing over twice as tall as Flake their bodies were slender and gracile like all deer. Their bulls had giant antlers upon their heads, appearing like four sections in total each nearly two thirds the length of Flake and each resembled the warped memory of a human arm and hand, as if it were drawn by a child.

The quest for a new land to dwell in while the fish repopulate the coastal seas took over eight days in total before the tribe settled down in the valley between two hills and on the bank of the river they arrived upon, as to keep the howling highland winds away from their tents and fires. Holes were dug and poles were buried before the hides were wrapped around them to make their tents. Fires were lit ablaze when long burning coals were blown into dry grass and the new camp was finally set as the moon just began to crest the sky and the stars awoke from their daytime slumber. Another meal of the last of their smoked fish along with some greens they foraged along the way.

As the sun arose from the hill and the tribe awoke, Sun Hunter once again gathered the tribe around the smoldering coals of the campfire. “As you all know our food stocks have dwindled to scraps, the last of smoked fish went with the falling of the moon last night. It's time we hunt and we hunt something big, something that could feed us for a whole moon.” Sun Hunter proclaimed with the boom of gumption and ambition in his voice. Tribesmen called out in excitement for bison, rhino, and loudest of all; mammoth. “I hear your demands for mammoth flesh, and they will not be rejected!” Sun Hunter shouted with an explosion of passion over the cheering crowd. The tribe had no formal leaders or hierarchies, but they all listened to Sun Hunter for a reason. No one else was as respected as he, nor could anyone else rally the tribe with such overwhelming passion and spiritual fire as he could. “Then come my fellow hunters, come and help me slay the greatest of beasts; so that we may feast for an entire moon straight!” Sun Hunter dictated to the tribe before the men scattered to gather their atlatls and spears, while the women gathered stone knives and cobbles to knap sharp flakes from as to butcher their quarry.

Flake, as he always did, would attempt to forcefully insert himself among the huntsmen as opposed to his usual assigned position with the rest of the young boys alongside the women as butchers. Flake took a spear in both hands and stood as tall as he could as the man he actually was. Locking eyes with Sun Hunter he silently made his demand, to be able to prove himself as a man. Sun Hunter hesitated for a moment with a roll of his shoulders in thought, before in a moment of great surprise to Flake; Sun Hunter relented and nodded to Flake in approval. Sun Hunter would then point to the adolescent young men of the men, those still in-between boyhood and manhood who wouldn't participate as primary hunters but would join them in support of the hunt. All of them were once the older children who always demanded Flake play with them when he first joined the tribe of giants. Flake would prefer the role of a true hunter but he wouldn't reject the advancement, for even his species back on their home island slowly weaned their young boys into their hunter roles like any predatory species would.

Sun Hunter would guide Flake, seeing him as something of an adopted grandchild, handing him the long thing spears shot by an atlatl and guided him to help load the canoes once again. The canoes were loaded with excited haste and everyone took their places in them. Only the elders, young children, and mothers expecting a child or with infants stayed behind at the camp. Flake sat in the canoe with the adolescent hunters and while the evil thoughts of seafaring torture slaked the periphery of his mind he would occupy his mind against his beastial panic with thoughts of his family back home. How Long Hair must have grown into a man by now, maybe even having children himself by this point. Flake wondered the fate of his unarmed daughter, and if she survived infancy to reach childhood, though Flake's thoughts would ultimately focus on Three Fingers and how much he missed her embrace. How much he missed being a man, laying with her and Loud Call. Soon Flake determined, soon he would take all power back for himself; he will prove himself the man he is on this hunt and he will take back all the status he lost, even if he could never take his original family back again.

That night Flake and the adolescents shared a fish Flake had managed to spear as the boys rowed the canoe. Flake was no use in rowing the vessel himself but it was against his nature not to provide for his people in some way, and for this hunt Flake saw these young men as his people. Falling Rain, who as a boy was the one who most often demanded Flake play with him, set a small fire on the rocky bank of the river. There were only a couple small bites of fish for each of them, with Flake rejecting the meat entirely and only eating the tiny handful of eggs cut from the creature's white underbelly so as the boys could have more of the meat. Falling Rain wrestled with Dancing Shadow by light of their tiny campfire before everyone drifted off to sleep for the night. Everyone sharing a slightly closer bond than they did before.

Late in the morning of the next day, a few miles further down the river is when the scouts shouted that they finally found mammoth tracks. The canoes were brought ashore by the tracks and the huntsmen set about stalking the long grass steppes in search of their colossal quarry. The Hunters as well as the adolescent vanguard set out stalking along the long grasses, following the mammoth footfalls and decimated grass to their quarry. The beasts hadn't wandered far from their watering hole, only an hour's walk at best.

When the six truly colossal beasts came into eyesight Sun Hunter stuck out his hand for the hunting party to stop before he dropped low, his head just barely over the feathery tips of the long grass. Flake didn't need to crouch much by comparison, as he held a piece of slow burning fungus in one hand, and a spear in the other. “Alright boys I want you to sneak ahead and circle the herd, use your tinder fungus to light the grass on fire around them. Your goal is to isolate that old elderly mammoth with the gray hair from the rest of the herd. Meanwhile us hunters will sneak in close before we come out in the usual manner and spear it through the sides. Is that understood?” Sun Hunter whispered as everyone got low. Everyone nodded in agreement and so the plan was set out.

Flake was by far the fastest of the adolescent vanguard members and took the lead automatically. His short legs strode silently through the long grass with the grace of a stalking panther. There were six mammoths in total and now Flake could see the elder matriarch clearly, the long shaggy hair around her face was gray in color and her body was riddled in small bald spots from past scars. She kept a lone vigil over her family, yet she was not vigilant enough to perceive the tiny Hominid stalking her periphery. Flake took the most dangerous position as he often did in hunts back in his homeland, between the elderly matriarch and the rest of the herd. Gathering what dry grass he could along the way Flake piled it in a suitably dry patch before setting his mushroom of burning coals in the center and quietly blowing it into a flame. The fire spread slowly through the green grass and only Flake was sure it had gotten to a point where it could sustain itself did he finally sneak away from the dangerous position between the matriarch and her herd.

Flake practically slithered like a snake through the long grass up to a single lone pine tree that dotted the grassland. There he sat and waited as soon more and more puffs of smoke surrounded the old mammoth. By the time the old matriarch began to stir, Flake's fire between her and her herd had grown into a small wall of flames, enough to scare her backwards. As she turned and took a few steps backwards Sun Hunter would be the first to pop his head out of the grass with atlatl in hand and send an eight foot long spearing dart into her flank. The stone tip pierced between her massive ribs and sank into her heart. Yet the small stone point wasn't enough to put the now very mad beast down in one shot.

The old matriarch whipped her massive tusks around as she bellowed a trumpeting roar of wrath that echoed across the steppes. The rest of her herd ran away in a tight circle around their children, prioritizing their safety first. The matriarch kicked up clouds of dust and grass as she charged at Sun Hunter only to be met with another long spearing dart to her other flank. This one penetrating between ribs to pierce her left lung. Confused and enraged she turned again to find where the new attack came from while Sun Hunter slipped away to a safe distance. As she charged at a new hunter Sun Hunter would make loud calls and screams to catch her attention before another spearing dart was sent into her side, yet this one hit a rib directly and went shallow; not piercing any vital organ. With more confused charges and more shallow striking spear strikes to her side the hunters changed tactics. They took their longer and sturdier thrusting spears and presented the tips forward, acting as a wall of stone tipped death to defend the remaining atlatl shooters.

The hunter's confidence remained sturdy as stone as the mammoth charged them, her own trumpets of pain and hatred were met with the masculine roars of bravery and determination. For these hunters like many others across the globe knew that even an angry mammoth wasn't brave enough to charge through a wall of spears. The mammoth charged only for her confidence to shatter at the unmoving wall of wailing death. The matriarch turned at the last moment only for Sun Hunter to send another spearing atlatl dart into her heart. Internally she was bleeding and badly at that, yet she was still far from dead.

In a desperate attempt to escape the mammoth noticed one hole in their defenses, one of the fires; the one lit by Falling Rain had been started in too green of grass and burned itself out. Flake had been too caught up in watching the hunt to notice it first going out even though it was only real defense between him and a rampaging mammoth. Flake instinctively took his spear into his mouth and climbed up the palm tree, for he had no idea the true strength of a full grown mammoth compared to one of the diminutive Long Tooths of his homeland. As Flake ascended the sticky and scratchy limbs he noticed that Falling Rain was directly in the path of the stampeding mammoth and like a deer was too scared to move. Flake screamed and hooted his people's usual warning calls yet they did nothing to shake the young man from his fear induced stupor.

Like Flake had done some hundred times back with his original tribe, he rose to the challenge to save and provide for his people. As the bleeding matriarch charged close Flake took his spear and lunged from the tree, and in the manner his species hunted the Long Tooths of their island home sank a spear into their chosen target as they fell. Flake aimed for the mammoth’s eyes and sent his spear tip well through it and into her skull. The old matriarch cried out in pain and range, a primordial scream so loud it shook Flake’s bones as he hung desperately from the spear. As the mammoth spun and reached for the spear with her wrinkled old trunk Flake swung from it's haft and latched onto her long fur. The matriarch thrashed about wildly as it ripped the spear from her now bleeding ruptured eye, her massive tusks collided with the tree Flake climbed up and snapped it half like so much a twig.

Falling Rain now that the mammoth wasn't directly charging him returned to his senses and ran off away from the life or death battle. All Flake could do was crawl about the maddened mammoth’s massive body in an attempt to avoid her powerful trunk or massive curled tusks. The angry trumpets began to gurgle wetly now as blood began to fill her lungs. Meanwhile Sun Hunter and the rest of the hunting party screamed as they rushed in to save Flake from the insanely dangerous situation he was in. Volleys of spearing atlatl darts were sent into the mammoth’s face and legs to avoid accidentally hitting Flake. Before the hunters with sturdy and strong thrusting spears rushed and lunged at the dying matriarch’s legs and near the base of her tail. Sending deep stabbing wounds past her long fur and tough hide, all the while keeping to the side of the mammoth which she was now blind in.

A cacophony of shouting, screaming, and booming trumpet calls filled the air of the chaotic scene as Flake clung to the massive humped shoulders of the mammoth, away from the flailing trunk and the flying arrows. The matriarch soon found her stiff legs falling out from underneath as her balance gave way and she crashed to the ground below with an earth shattering thud. Flake jumped from the creature as it fell and rolled away from the crash as he landed. When the dust settled there the old matriarch lay, weakly calling out to her herd through bloodied and shredding lungs, to her daughters, granddaughter, and great granddaughters she guided for decades. They did not hear the cries of their elder as they ran, for they did not possess the human quality of vengeance. All they could do now is mourn the loss of their matriarch and raise their family in her stead.

Even though they secured great amounts of food for their tribe, none were killed or wounded during this dangerous hunt, and the meat would be easy to transport back to their camp the mood of the moment was in sadness as opposed to hoots and triumph. For while they needed the meat for food, the hide for clothes, and the bones for tools it was still a tragedy to kill a creature whose eyes showed such a great depth of maternal wisdom, and a fear of death. Flake stood to his feet as the matriarch finally kicked and whimpered the last of her life force away. The hunt had been completed but the ordeal was far from over yet.