Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

--Six Weeks Later--

Being completely immersed in a new culture and language did wonders for one's ability to learn. I might still be a little slow on understanding the conversation when it got going quickly, but I was able to understand more than I didn’t. I was also able to find out how Roar’kaol’tok and Diesel seemed to understand one another.

Those fox-like ears on the hunter’s head weren’t for decoration. He was able to hear sounds that Diesel made that I couldn’t hear and while they didn’t sound like words to him, he was able to make some kind of rudimentary sense of them. When I asked how he thought Diesel understood him, Roar’kaol’tok thought for a bit before guessing that it was because Diesel knew what I was saying and since he was familiar with language, he was able to translate because I was familiar with how Diesel thought and acted.

The big flaw of not being able to see once it was dark became painfully obvious when the moon shrank into nothing after we left the sun camp. I had to rely heavily on Roar’kaol’tok during that time, because even Diesel couldn’t see that well. It was very embarrassing to have to ride in the sled like a child while the hunter walked, but I had discovered that the male was very stubborn and would use Diesel against me by recruiting my big floof to help him. It just so happened that ‘help’ was being laid on by over a hundred and twenty pounds of mass.

“Why do you wait until the sun doesn’t rise to travel?” I asked Roar’kaol’tok as we broke down our tiny temporary tent that we all barely fit into at night.

“The same reason we don’t fish,” he smirked at me. “We can see well at night, but certain types of light make it harder for us to see. The reflection of the sun on water, for instance. It’s the same with the hard ice once the water freezes.”

“Or the snow,” I nodded.

“Snow isn’t the problem,” he laughed and took the tent to stow it on the sled. “You’ll see soon. The crossing is close. We left later than usual, because the snow wasn’t deep enough for the heavy sleds, but we’re early reaching the crossing. The weather has been mild so far, so we haven’t had to stop to wait for it to clear.”

“How much longer until we reach the snow camp?” I asked.

“The crossing will take two sleeping cycles and then five more after that,” he answered, handing me a small piece of meat and one of the root vegetables he had traded for before we left. “The sun camp was farther away than usual. A risk not many approved of taking, but our doobra, what you call ‘chief’, was wise. We had many tumpra kills this sun cycle.”

“Tumpra...” I narrowed my eyes as I tried to place the word. I knew it, but I wasn’t able to make the connection instantly yet.

“Mammoth,” he helped me, and I knocked on the side of my head, making him laugh. “You are learning well, Fern’rath’fik. It has only been a short time and you sound almost like one of the Mapok.”

“You and I both know I know less than Hal’lak’ra’s newborn,” I rolled my eyes.

Yeah, that was a surprise to see one of their infants. They were small, even for human standards. I thought for sure the baby was sickly or born early, but Roar’kaol’tok said it was actually quite large. That was three weeks ago and the kit, as they called their young, was already three times his original size.

“Roar’kaol’tok. Fern’rath’fik,” the chief said walking over to us then looking at Diesel and nodding. “Diesel’vor’maan.”

“Chief,” Roar’kaol’tok inclined his head.

The chief spoke quickly with the hunter, and I tilted my head, picking up a little bit here and there, but not enough to make a lot of sense. I think garva was mentioned, which was meat, but the rest only confused me.

“It will be done,” Roar’kaol’tok nodded and then slapped paws with the chief. When the older male was gone, he looked at me and then nodded to the low mountains nearby, an almost angry look on his face. “Collect your weapons and head towards the mountain to the right. I need to take the lanka to Hool’gra’nat. He will look after them and our things while we are gone. And bring no meat.”

I slipped the shoes onto Diesel’s feet before connecting him to his sled and loading my pack with only vegetables before placing it on the sled with my weapons and the small tent Roar’kaol’tok had taken out before he led the passive lanka away.

“Well, that’s not foreboding or anything,” I looked after him before gesturing for Diesel to walk ahead of me. “At least the moon is bright enough for me to see.”

We walked for a while before Diesel’s ear twitched and I turned to see Roar’kaol’tok running on four paws to catch up with us at the base of the mountain. When he reached us, he stood and shook snow from his paws, his chest heaving and a troubled look on his face.

“See, when you have that look, it worries me,” I said, taking his spear and putting it on the sled as we kept walking.

“We will not have meat to last until we reach the snow camp,” he said. “We hunted well at the sun camp, but a lot of the meat has gone bad. We had young ones looking after the smoke and they were not very attentive.”

“And we’re going to find fresh meat. Isn’t that kind of... bad?” I asked.

“Very bad,” he nodded. “The journey between the camps is filled with dangers, many of which have big teeth. The scent of fresh meat will make them hunt.”

“Is that why you wanted to hit the chief or is that because you know that he’s aware I won’t be able to see well in a few days?” I asked.

“Both, but one more than the other,” he said, his jaw tense. “You know he has called me to him many times since leaving the sun camp. You are why. Partially.”

“Am I going to want to hit him if you tell me?” I asked and he smirked.

“It would take less, I think, for you to want to hit him,” he answered. “But I must warn you; he has plans for you. One I do not like and one... I’m not sure you will like.”

“Oh, that’s a great way to start this off,” I groaned.

“It will be some time before a choice must be made, so it is of small importance,” he waved his paw to dismiss the topic. Subtle like a brick to the face.

“Alright. What are we hunting?” I asked him.

“Yuulk,” he answered and pointed at the mountain. “Lots of meat but they live up. Between us and them, cazza might hunt us. On our way back, they will hunt us.”

“Wait... Cazza? Isn’t that what-?”

“Yes,” he said, his jaw tense.

There are times when the best thing to say is nothing and this was certainly one of those times. Walking all day long left a lot of freedom to get very, very bored and six weeks of this had led to Roar’kaol’tok and I talking a lot about our pasts. We had a lot in common, it turned out.

When he was very young, before he was of the age to hold a bow, which I guessed was around eight or ten, there was a different chief. A foolish one, according to Roar’kaol’tok. Instead of smoking and preserving the meat from the summer hunting to store for the trip to the snow camp once the snow came and the sun didn’t, he chose to have hunting parties go out during the migration. The smell of so much fresh meat had attracted a pair of cazza. They attacked the Mapok and there were many casualties before the people scattered and the cazza left. Roar’kaol’tok’s parents, older brother and younger sister were all killed in the attack, and he was raised by Hool’gra’nat until he earned his name.

He wasn’t much older than my twenty-four years as far as I could guess. He said that he had been born in the sun camp while the tent was being put up and had seen twenty-five trips from the sun camp to the snow camp. This would make twenty-six.

We stayed quiet as we walked up the mountain and only stopped when I started walking kind of sideways from being tired and numb from cold.

“Stay alert, Diesel,” Roar’kaol’tok told the pooch after the tent was up. He looked around before climbing in on hands and knees and I looked at Diesel and shrugged before getting inside, too.

I turned my fur around, so it was a blanket and Diesel crawled inside and laid on my feet as Roar’kaol’tok closed the flap and pulled me against his much warmer body. It was how we learned to make the most of the body heat and smaller space, since fires were not something we did often while we traveled because the light attracted predators.

“Roar?” I asked after a second. “How are we going to get down the mountain with the cazza hunting us? And how are we going to keep them from hunting the rest of the Mapok?”

“Diesel will pull the yuulk on the sled and you will ride on my back,” he answered. “Do not argue. The cazza are very big and fast. You will not be fast enough to get away from them when they start to hunt us. If we are fast enough, they might not hunt us for long. They don’t like the crossing, so we will head straight there and either catch up to the Mapok there or meet them on the other side.”

“You saying that they’re big worries me,” I muttered.

“It should,” he answered. “Go to sleep, Fern.”

Since we had spent a moon cycle sharing living quarters, Roar’kaol’tok had explained we are now considered familiar with one another and could shorten our names, using the first part when we weren’t in the company of others. We were family, after all, and families used nicknames.

I don’t think Roar slept any before he woke me for us to continue up the mountain. I know we didn’t sleep longer than a few hours, but it was enough to make me feel less exhausted than before, and we started out once again up on our journey.

“How will we know if a cazza is hunting us?” I asked after we’d walked for about an hour.

“You’ll know. It’s not a subtle creature,” he answered, looking around.

“So, what are you looking for, then?”

“Yuulk. They travel in large herds and eat everything,” he answered and pointed to a couple of trees that were missing bark. “The bare tree trunks are not frequent and the bites from the yuulk’s teeth are not fresh. There are no tracks in the snow, either. It’s been some time since they were here, so we keep going up.”

“And how long since the teeth marks were left?” I asked, going to look at a tree and touching the little teeth marks in the wood.

“A week or so,” he answered. “They don’t travel quickly unless hunted. I think we will find them in a few hours' time.”

“And where do we aim when we hunt?” I asked and he pointed to the side of his neck.

“The soft point on all things. Hard to hit on some, but it kills quickly,” he answered. “Not as personal as stabbing in the heart.”

“It had it coming,” I said plainly, making him chuckle.

We hiked up the mountain until my stomach told us it was time for lunch, and we all ate a funny looking vegetable that Roar called pruel, though Diesel was not very enthusiastic about it. Just after we ate, Roar found fresh signs of yuulk and we came across the herd chewing on bark and twigs.

They were in a bowl-shaped area with a cliff at its back and sides. Roar motioned for me and Diesel to go to the left while he went to the right. When I was in place, I would signal to him and then we’d each shoot down on the yuulk. I would try once before going back down the cliff to start gutting.

The cazza would come quickly when the smell of fresh blood reached them, so we’d gut and shave the heavy hair off the sheep-yaks that would stand close to my elbow. Then, we’d stuff the carcasses with snow to keep the meat fresh and smell from reaching the cazza, before putting them on the sled and running for the crossing as fast as possible. Hopefully, any cazza that came to hunt would come here and not even notice that we were here.

It went quickly and I finally got a kill, other than the orou, to count as mine before I headed back into the bowl as the yuulk bounded away, quickly and deftly scaling the sheer cliff face nimbly before disappearing. I was ripping guts out of one yuulk when Roar came and started cutting away the heavy clumps of rough, disgusting hair, his eyes darting around almost frantically.

“We’ll get away,” I told him as I started to stuff the cavity with snow. “They’ll come here for the guts and the snow will keep the smell from being too strong.”

“It won’t matter. We will still be hunted,” he said before moving to another yuulk to gut while I shaved it.

We managed to get four of them and I understood now why Roar had said I would ride his back instead of in the sled. They were big and even with us taking a lot of the weight off of them, it would still be a heavy task for Diesel alone to pull. Thankfully, we would be going downhill, so that would be in our favor once we left.

“Quickly, Fern,” he rushed to arrange and then lash the yuulk on the sled before signaling for Diesel to start running.

The hunter crouched to his four paws, and I felt really awkward, slinging a leg over him and lying flat on his back, but he didn’t give me a chance to overthink before he was bolting off after Diesel in our rush down the mountain.

We didn’t stop for a long time, and I felt Roar’s hard breathing as he ran and noticed Diesel’s tongue flopping and I was about to say something about stopping for a short rest when I heard this... Sound.

It sounded deep and throaty, like a bear, but anyone who has ever watched a movie about dinosaurs knew the sound of a filmmaker’s favorite dinosaur roar. The tyrannosaurus rex.

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is, Roar,” I said as his ear flicked, and I felt all of his muscles flex harder as he ran faster.

“Cazza. It hunts,” he puffed.