untitled

He didn’t trust the new food. It looked no different from what they would gather up, but there was something wrong about growing it in a spot where they had chosen. He didn’t have a word for that slippery, slightly sinister feeling that the planted food gave him, but somehow there was something the others were forgetting. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

No, Brull would eat only what they hunted and found in the old way. He used to argue about it with the others often. Some would agree with him, but most of them refused to admit that it was somehow wrong to make the bread-plants grow where they chose. As Brull saw it, bread was strange enough already, there was no point in tampering with it further. Only evil could come of this.

Meat was different; there would never be a way to control animals the way they could plants. To get meat, one would forever have to hunt. Brull inhaled, reflecting on the security guaranteed by meat. Grow all the bread-plants you want, it could never threaten this moment, the connection to the prey, the speed and the chase.

He rolled his shoulders slightly. He could not move too much for fear of alerting their dinner, but Thaul was in position now and Brull had to be ready. Thaul attacked noisily from behind, and the antelope predictably leapt away. All hunts had a life of their own, and this was a very good hunt. Not an easy hunt, but a good hunt. The antelope sprinted straight towards brull, but then unexpectedly darted to the side. Brull sprang from his hiding place and tried to strike the prey with his axe. He narrowly missed the beast, and he made a wild dive at the animal’s hind legs.

His hands wrapped around the creature’s narrow legs with remarkable force. Muscles that could launch a 200 pound antelope seven feet into the air bucked and kicked, but they could not break that ferocious grip. Brull was not special in this regard; the animals had learned that the humans moved in dangerous ways, and that their hands were unreasonably strong.

Brull was dragged through the dirt and the thorny underbrush. Jagged bits of chipped rock scraped his skin, dust filled his lungs, and the stink of the antelope was strong in his nose. Only the hunt provided sensations like these, and this was a good hunt indeed. He could feel the soul of the antelope in those ankles, marshalling all its will to compel Brull to let go. But Brull’s soul, entirely in his hands now, was not going to be losing to the animal today.

Thaul reached the encumbered antelope and smashed its skull with Brull’s axe. This would be Thaul’s kill, and they would name the feast tonight for Thaul.

At Thaul’s feast Prada made her return.

Brull had been feeding Urd’s two women from his own share of food ever since Urd disappeared. Urd had ventured out in search of his young son, who had disappeared late in the night. No one had seen Urd for six days now, leaving his women with no man to claim a share of meat for them. The body of his son had been found a few days ago, but there was no life in it.

Prada meanwhile sat in a tree for all these last six days, eating nothing and communing with Urd’s spirit. The medicine woman tonight returned, and announced Urd was dead, but that his spirit had successfully passed to the next world.

The news came as a shock, and Urd’s women wept openly. The other women led them away so that the men could consult with the shaman Prada. Prada told them of the shadow that had stolen away Urd’s son and eaten him. It was a creature new to the world, a monster of darkness that fed on the small and the young.

“One of you will kill it,” Prada said, eyeing her motely audience. “And it is only one of you who has the power to do so.”

“Tell us who,” they asked, “and where can we find this creature? How do we hunt it?”

“Who shall kill it even Prada cannot say. But our world is changing. Someday, in the age of our children’s children’s children, this creature will return again. The world is young now, and it will still be young when the creature returns, but the world is a sunset. I say these words so that he among you who is to save us will understand when the time comes.”

Brull puzzled over Prada’s words that night as he lay next to his woman. Most of what Prada said he could not understand. But the notion of a ‘monster of the night’ preying on them frightened him. The world was changing, that much was certainly true. Brull wondered if this new danger was somehow related to the new food.

For the next five days the men journeyed out in hunting parties searching for the monster. They had agreed to only hunt during daylight, hoping to catch the murdering creature sleeping. At night a guard was established, in case the creature tried to invade them. For five days and nights this was done, but no creature was found.

Towards the end of the fifth night, Thaul raised an alarm– his daughter had been taken by a shadow, right out from under Thaul’s own vigilant lookout. Gref reported seeing the shadow carrying Thaul’s daughter in the direction of the cragged hill. Thaul rallied the men, and they began a run to the hill.

The trail on the hill led to a small cave, into which all the men charged. All save Brull. He reasoned that a shadow would not follow a trail made by men, and there would be better hiding places near the top of the hill. he tried to convince the others of this, but they would not listen.

“If I am wrong, and the shadow is in the cave, then they will kill it, ” Brull said. “But if they are wrong, and I enter this cave, then it will escape.” He stood at the entrance to the cave for a moment, pondering this, and he then began a lonely ascent of the hill.

After a time, he could hear screams coming from behind some boulders nearby. Finding his way through a rocky maze, he came upon a thin, pale man who was biting Thaul’s daughter’s neck. With a cry Brull charged the man, swinging his axe over his head. The man dropped Thaul’s daughter, and swatted Brull away with one slap. Brull had never encountered such strength in anything so small. If the man’s grip should also be as strong… Brull threw his axe, which embedded itself in the man’s chest. The man, not seeming to notice the axe, hissed at Brull and ran away.

Thaul’s daughter, Brull could quickly see, was dead. It was impossible to be certain in the pre-dawn light, but all the blood seemed to have been sucked from her body. Brull chased after the man, following him into a small grotto near the top of the hill.

The grotto contained a sleeping mat, some bowls, jugs of water, and bread. There were no sounds, save a distant dripping of cave water, and the air was still and clear. Brull looked around, but he could not see the man. “You won’t find me,” a disembodied voice taunted.

“What are you?” Brull asked.

“I was once like you! But now I am the future! I do not hunt, not as you do. I have surpassed hunting.”

“If you do not hunt, then how do you live?”

Suddenly the man dropped from the ceiling. He had white, sickly skin, his hair was inhumanly colorless, and his squinty red eyes were dull and emotionless. “I live off others. I take your bread, and sometimes I take life from someone small and weak. The village provides me with everything I need. Come, join me, I will remove you from the hunt and show you a better way…”

The man grabbed Brull’s wrist. But Brull, with an ease that surprised him, pulled his arm free. Again the man grabbed Brull’s wrist, and again Brull pulled away. “Your grip is weak!”

“I don’t need grip, I have gone beyond it. But this I will show you– I will show you the future of the world.”

This time Brull grabbed the man, but grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him up. “No. The world is a sunset. Its future is night. But the world is yet young, and now I will show you.” Brull carried the man from the grotto, and into the light of a strong new day.

“No! Not the light!” The man screamed and held his arms in front of his face.

“What? What is the matter with you?” Brull asked.

“No light! No Light! No hunting! It’s too much! The future is bread! Bread! Ahh!” With a loud hiss the shadowy monster of the darkness burst into flames. Brull dropped the burning body to the ground and jumped away.

He stepped back and watched the body burn until only some smoking cinders remained. Whatever the creature had been, it was gone now.

Brull pondered over the morning’s strange events as he made his way down the hill. The rocks of the hill were still cool to the touch in these early hours. A warm wind was blowing from the south, and it had a smell like the sea. Miles in the distance he could see a herd of wildebeest moving like a living carpet across the savannah. No, he didn’t trust the new food…