Chapter 1
With the growing hunger in his belly getting ever more insistent, a realization came unbidden to Joen's mind that he was going to have to find a different way. He'd been searching for something to eat for days and had come up empty-handed. The bushes were picked clean of berries, and any likely roots had already been dug up. The last of the game was long since gone.
Much as he yearned to stay close to the camp that had been his home until the ceremony, Joen's hunger made it increasingly difficult to deny that being close to the camp was now the major part of his difficulties. An unwanted thought kept creeping ever more boldly into his mind telling him that he needed to get away from the tribe's camp, away from all the others who were searching for food just as urgently as he.
"What would a warrior do?", Joen asked himself over and over. "If I'm to be a warrior at the end of my manhood trial, I need to start thinking like a warrior now. A warrior takes bold action!"
Wanting to believe that he was demonstrating a warrior's courage and resolve, and not simply yielding to the gnawing emptiness in his stomach, Joen decided he would follow the path of the sun until he'd passed beyond any sign of human presence. He would walk so far that he would be alone in the forest and meadow, where only he and the bears competed for the berries, and only he and the wolves feasted on the rabbits and pheasants that crowded the underbrush.
The farther away from the tribe's camp Joen traveled, the easier he found scrounging a meal from what was left. His decision seemingly confirmed by experience, and his physical strength restored by increasingly frequent meals, he pushed on with increasing confidence. The hardest part had been abandoning the false comfort of staying in visual range of the tribe's camp. Once he was a couple of days' walk from the camp, each day farther seemed less significant.
A suitable goal appeared in the distance after a few more days' journey. Rising above the forest-dotted rolling plains was an ancient cone-shaped mountain, its tip long ago lost to the eruption that carved a caldera deep into the mountain's heart, its once sharp profile rounded and worn down by wind and rain over the centuries. He recalled momentarily the tales the Elders told of dangerous gods that inhabited active volcanoes. But surely any gods that lived in such a tired old mountain had been asleep far too long to bother with anyone as insignificant as me, he told himself. Best of all, the ancient volcano was so far beyond the range of the tribe's hunting parties that he was sure he would find his perfect personal hunting grounds there.
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Joen sat back full and satisfied. The coals of what remained of his fire still glowed enough to keep the chill of evening at bay. The rabbit he'd snared this morning, and the roots and berries he'd foraged during the day, had been a feast. He'd seldom enjoyed such fullness in his belly before. Life had rarely been so pleasant.
Joen surveyed the extent of his worldly goods. The knife, bow, blanket, and small cooking pot that were both his treasures and the keys to life itself had served him well today. Pulling out his record stick, he carved another notch to mark another setting of the sun, another day survived in his year-long test of manhood. He wondered how the other boys were doing - how many of his childhood friends would return to the tribe as warriors, and how many would never return.
While Joen knew well the tribe's traditions, having listened with rapt attention while the legends and lessons were recited around the campfire by the tribe elders, he still wondered. What would it be like when he returned to the tribe a warrior?
According to the elders, it had always been the custom to never again speak the names of those who didn't return from their test of manhood. Many of the names that filled his boyhood would be among those stricken from the tribe's collective memory. And yet he could still see their faces in his mind, hear their names in his memories. It was going to be as if many of the faces that populated the memories of his childhood had never existed. The thought came unbidden to his mind that his name could well be one of those never spoken again.
Joen had been very careful the first couple of days on the side of the volcano - watching for signs of old hunting camps, and not leaving any traces of his own activities. His caution began to slip as the weeks wore on without any sign of other hunters. He started making fires to cook his food. Having a fire was a tremendous improvement in his lifestyle. At first he only built tiny fires just large enough for cooking. After a while he began "accidentally" putting on too much wood, and the fire would still be burning while he ate his meal.
Two cycles of the moon had passed since he first set foot on the side of the volcano, and Joen had become accustomed to having the entire area to himself. As he felt more and more secure, he'd let his guard slip to the point where he walked boldly upright and out in the open when he wasn't actively hunting. He'd also grown lax about the smoke from his campfires. Over half of his boyhood friends would not return from their test of manhood, but he was having life easy. At least until the volcano erupted.
Relaxing after his meal and enjoying the dying embers of his fire, Joen was startled to full awareness by a loud roar. Grabbing his bow, he sprang to his feet. Coiled in a low crouch, he notched an arrow and scanned the gathering dusk for an attacker. Finding the immediate vicinity free of any obvious threat, his tension eased enough to realize that the sound was coming from the volcano itself.
Tall trees blocked the view of the top of the volcano from the safety of the cozy hidden hollow where he'd settled, and Joen felt a need to see what was going on. He hurriedly grabbed up his kit and headed for an area that had been burned by a lightning strike the year before. The clearing wasn't very far from his camp. He knew the way because there was a stream of sweet water that ran along the edge of the clearing where he often filled his water skins, but the rocks and branches kept tripping him up in the rapidly falling darkness. The roar continued and he could feel the ground trembling under his feet as he struggled through the gloom.
Joen stumbled into the burn and turned toward the top of the volcano. A blue-white, pear-shaped flame pointed straight up, and above the flame was a towering column of white smoke illuminated from the inside against the darkening sky by the brilliance of the flame. Joen had heard the tribal elders tell of volcanoes erupting. He remembered their vivid descriptions of rivers of melted rock and clouds of choking ash, but this volcano didn't seem to have either. There was just the constant roar and vibration, and the flame with its column of smoke. Joen was trying to decide whether to run away, or climb farther up the slope to get a better look, when an invisible fist struck him full in the chest, knocking him down.
As the ringing in his ears died away, Joen became aware of a deathly silence. Not only had the roar in his ears and the trembling in the ground ended, but the explosion had frightened even the birds and insects into silence. Joen huddled on the ground where he'd fallen and wondered what would happen next. He remembered the stories of the elders about fire demons who lived in volcanoes and came out to eat the souls of those who were trapped in an eruption. Joen clung to the ground, afraid to stay where he was, and yet afraid to run away for fear the fire demons would see him.
Joen stayed in that position for a long time, paralyzed by terror. He noticed the normal forest sounds slowly returning. The insects were first with their buzzing and chittering, followed by the birds - only a few brave individuals at first, but soon the entire forest orchestra had joined in.
As the wildlife around him returned to normal, Joen's terror eased its grip and he cautiously rose to his feet. Gathering up his spilled bow and arrows, he fled the burn, and was deep in the dense forest before he stopped to rest. Bruised and battered by his headlong rush through the darkened underbrush, Joen reluctantly realized he couldn't go any farther without light. He unrolled his blanket and curled up in the shelter of a large tree.
Joen heard the baying of a pack of hounds off in the distance with the dawning of first morning light. The chorus of canine voices told him that the hounds had not yet found the trail of their quarry. They were also headed his way. Not wanting any trouble, especially from a group of hunters with dogs, he set off at right angles to the path of the hounds.
Joen kept up as fast a pace as he could manage, not worrying about stealth, concerned only with putting as much distance between himself and the hounds as possible. He finally stopped for a rest when he couldn't go any farther. Breathing hard, he slumped to the ground with his back against a tree and listened to the sounds of the hunting pack. He guessed they'd reached the spot where he'd been when he first heard them in the distance. From the tone of the baying, the hounds were still looking for the trail of whatever they were hunting. Joen guessed they were after stag.
Suddenly the tone of the hounds changed from disjointed random barking to a frenzied continuous din - the hounds had found the scent of whatever they were hunting. As Joen listened, the pack seemed to have turned towards him. Just my luck, thought Joen, they've jumped a stag and it decided to run right for me.
Not wanting to be run down by either the stag or the hounds, Joen set off again at right angles to the path of the pack. Crashing through the underbrush, he hardly felt the thorns that tore at his flesh, or the branches that whipped his face. The small animals that bolted terrified out of his way hardly registered against his growing concern about the hounds. Soon his only thought was to get away from the hounds. But he couldn't seem to shake them. No matter how many turns he made, the hounds still seemed to be following.
Joen felt the icy chill of fear run up his spine. It wasn't possible that the pack was chasing game that had accidentally followed all the twists and turns his path had taken. The hounds were following a trail all right, and the trail was his.
A clear running mountain stream beckoned and Joen stepped into its cold wet embrace. He felt the water quickly soak through his rough sewn moccasins, the cold wetness biting into his toes almost hard enough to make him jump back out again. The baying of the hounds in his ears quickly reminded him of the pressing urgency of his situation, and he blanked the discomfort from his mind, willing his feet to move. As he ran he slipped on the rocks just visible beneath the rippled clarity of the surface, the splashes of his passing momentarily disturbing the determined flow of the stream.
Joen splashed along in the water until he spotted an overhanging branch that looked strong enough to support his weight. The branch creaked and sagged as he pulled himself up out of the water and crawled through the masses of twigs and leaves toward the trunk of the tree, his cold-numbed feet barely feeling their tenuous purchase on the rough bark.
Reaching the trunk, Joen was relieved to find another limb that had grown close to the outstretched branches of another tree several yards further away from the stream. The twigs and small branches scraped at his arms and legs as he crawled from tree to tree, trying to put as much distance as he could between the water and the first point where he'd have to set foot on the ground again. When he ran out of aerial alternatives, he shinnied down to the ground and started running again.
Joen tried every trick he could think of, but only managed to temporarily delay the pack. All too quickly the baying of the hounds would signal that they'd found his scent again. His fatigue was beginning to show - he fell more often, and it took longer to climb over obstacles. He was slowing down and the pack was catching up. Finally, when he just couldn't push himself any further, he climbed a large tree and waited for the arrival of the hounds.
Joen didn't have long to wait. The dogs, mostly brown with white patches, milled around the bottom of the tree he'd chosen for refuge, making a frightful racket as they jumped and snapped at him. Being half way up the tree, Joen was safe from the dogs for a moment, but he wondered fearfully what was going to happen when the hunters caught up with the pack.
Joen was now convinced that the dogs had been hunting him from the start. He'd heard tales of tribes who hunted humans for meat. When he'd first heard the tales, he'd thought they were made-up stories to scare the children. But he couldn't think of any other reason for someone to train a pack of hounds to follow a human scent.
Struggling to calm his quivering nerves, Joen decided that if these man-hunters wanted him for dinner, he'd make them pay as high a price for their meal as he could. Taking his bow off his shoulder, he notched an arrow and waited.
It wasn't long before Joen heard the sounds of the man-hunters making their way toward him through the heavy underbrush. He guessed from the amount of noise that there were at least seven or eight of them. He was surprised to see men garbed in ceremonial robes step into view through the brush. In addition to the robes, each man wore an elaborate headpiece, and had an intricate design painted on his face. Each man carried a heavy wooden shield, a bow over his shoulder, and a short sword around his waist.
Fear was the predominate emotion coursing through Joen's veins, but he still held out a glimmer of hope. Unsure of what to do himself, he decided to wait and let his pursuers make the next move. After all, he told himself, they may have been following me by accident. When they see me up in this tree, they'll call off their dogs and go away. He didn't really believe it, but he would have liked to.
Much to Joen's dismay, the men didn't call off the dogs after spotting him up in the tree. After much shouting, pointing, and arguing among themselves in a language he didn't understand, one of the men put down his shield and bow, drew his sword, and started climbing the tree. The expression on the man's face, and the tone of the encouragement being shouted from below, convinced Joen of the intentions of his pursuers. He drew back his bow and let fly at the man climbing the tree.
Joen's arrow caught the man square in the face. The man fell heavily to the ground, dead before he hit. The men on the ground seemed to be genuinely surprised by Joen's action, and withdrew to the cover of the surrounding brush. They didn't go far, as he could still hear their heated arguing.
Joen wondered what was going on. Had they really expected him to allow himself to be taken without a fight? Maybe there had been magic spells that were supposed to paralyze him in what the men were chanting, but the spells hadn't worked because he couldn't understand their language. Whatever happened, the men were obviously discussing a new plan of attack.
Joen expected a volley of arrows and a quick end when the men returned, but they renewed their attack without their bows. The men carried their shields over their heads, and began chopping away at the trunk of the tree with their swords. Joen could feel each blow, the trembling of the tree adding to the trembling in his hands. He let fly with his remaining arrows in desperation.
A few well-placed arrows slipped through momentary gaps, causing nonlethal wounds, but most of his arrows lodged harmlessly in the shield barrier. Their shields protecting them from Joen's arrows raining down from above, the men continued to chop down the tree with relative impunity. With his quiver empty, Joen drew his knife and waited for the tree to fall. What bothered him most was that the men seemed intent on taking him alive.
It wasn't long before Joen felt the tree creak ominously and start leaning to one side. He knew the inevitable was rapidly approaching. He climbed around the tree so that he wouldn't be crushed by the trunk when it fell - thinking as he did so that maybe being crushed to death would be preferable to whatever the men had in mind for him. He tried to jump clear as the tree fell, but the tangle of branches caught at his limbs. The men were on him as he struggled to free himself. Lashing out with his knife, he felt his blade bite deeply into soft flesh at least once before he was overcome.
Joen struggled ferociously, but was eventually subdued in spite of his best efforts. The men bound his wrists and ankles, and suspended him from a sapling carried on the shoulders of two of the uninjured men. He noted with some pride that he had managed to inflict some form of injury on almost every one of the men - and some of those injuries might yet prove to be fatal.
The rough straps cut into Joen's wrists and ankles as he swung from side to side in rhythm with the pace of his two bearers. As he swung, he caught glimpses of the priest who seemed to be in charge at the head of the procession. The lead priest was chanting some kind of liturgy that the other priests answered on the chorus. The rest of the priests followed behind as the procession headed straight up the mountain.
Glimmerings of understanding started to coalesce in Joen's mind. He was now part of a religious procession. The head priest was droning entreaties to the god of the volcano, and they were intending to use him as a sacrificial offering. This would also explain why he hadn't found any sign of other hunters - the priests must consider the volcano sacred ground. They'd probably seen the smoke from his campfires just before the eruption, and decided he was the cause. The priests now intended to sacrifice him to appease the volcano god. That must be why it was so important to take him alive. He renewed his struggles to free himself, but the bonds were too tight.
The going was rough, since there weren't any established trails up the mountain. Joen's most insistent pain shifted from his wrists to his back each time he was dragged on the ground, and he had to hold his head up to avoid getting bashed by rocks and logs. The priests were obviously accustomed to an easier existence, since even the uninjured ones had to stop and rest often. The knife wound one of the priests had suffered kept opening from the aggravation of the trail, and Joen wondered if the priest would bleed to death before they reached the top. Watching the wounded priest's struggle to continue on in spite of his increasing weakness, convinced Joen that the priests considered their undertaking to be more important than the lives - or deaths - of those involved.
As the procession climbed higher, the slope became steeper, the rest periods grew longer, and the priest's bleeding increased. It was late afternoon before they reached the rim of the caldera.
The head priest began chanting in earnest when they arrived at the rim. Joen watched with morbid interest as the head priest produced a leather pouch from under his robe. The priest removed pinches of powder from the pouch and cast them into the volcano to punctuate his chanting. As the head priest was performing his part in the ceremony, the other priests responded on the choruses of the chants, and prepared Joen for sacrifice.
Joen tried to lash out when the priests lifted him up onto his feet, but the straps had cut off the blood to his hands, and they refused to respond to his command. He teetered unsteadily on the tingling numbness below his legs, his attention suddenly more focused on the drop-off inches in front of him than on the hands holding him in place. The priest with the knife wound had become deathly pale even before the procession reached the rim, and had to be carried the last stretch. From the corner of his eye Joen could see the wounded priest laid out on the rim alongside him, and the other priests performing a ritual over the dying man's body.
The head priest approached the two on the rim and sprinkled them with his powder as he recited his liturgy. After the dusting, the priests chanted some more, and then Joen felt the hands push him irresistibly over the edge.
The section of rim where the ceremony had taken place had a short straight drop followed by a long steep slope. Joen hit the beginnings of the slope on his feet, and then world went crazy as he tumbled head over heels the rest of the way down. He caught a flash of the priest's body tumbling past him before he blacked out.