He felt swollen like a tick, head and gut.
Ori had helped with the strokes. 2 years of work hewing the tree, hollowing it with the silent thuds of stone adzes and Ori’s soundless prayers. Ori had looked at him when he didn’t offer.
Maalo had lied about the best bluff he’d found to drive the hunt. The best was for the wood to cure in the lees. Moving the trunk to the bluff had taken months and nearly killed them both.
Eked out an hour at a time, 17 flint cores it had taken. Waiting 3 months for it to not crack had nearly cracked Maalo. The tension was like a clenched jaw striving to pop his teeth out. Amazingly, it went off without a hitch. Even thinking about how hurt his head.
The tribe would have seen the fire to hollow it out. So Maalo arranged to hunt with Ori and then set fire to the brush. What was one more fire to that?
Ori never asked him what he was doing, which was just as well because he didn’t know. All he knew was he could not stand it anymore. A true friend, far better than he’d earned or was likely to discover. One who’d never stopped looking at him even in his complaisance. Discover where?, he sighed.
Is it worth it?
This isn’t.
The campfires, where Tlaka bragged of the elk he’d tracked and speared. The gazelle run off the bluff. The mushroom brew rite, where the shaman Menzi looked so solemn at him about things the man could not know while he whorishly proffered the brew. The nausea at thinking of how to even explain. Nausea at all them. That he didn’t hate them but couldn’t stand them. Not against them, but beyond.
Maalo’s ears crushed hot and he shuffled to sleep. Neyri just looked.
The cold and the crash of the waves. Lashings of salt and thirst. The comfort of warm fish blood.
Neyri could forgive him, hopefully even forget. Mother could not.
“You will hunt with Tlaka tomorrow”
“Yes chief”
“We go left”
Tlaka was always bold in his choices. No doubts, only motion. There were no elk on the right side path. He gave a winning grin. Maalo sighed and pointed at the rabbit warren.
It’s time.
Losala impressed the axe on Maalo.
If you are going and will leave me all alone, then kill me first!
She had been waiting at the shore, gods knew how.
Seizing the axe by the neck, he drew it across his breast. Blood spilling, he turned and staggered out.
The thought was overwhelming, squirming and spilling out of Maalo into neurotic twitching. He sighed and kept walking. Her love was stickier than tar, and maybe more dangerous. But the thought of hearing the same words at Fire. At least the water wouldn’t talk to him.
A shuffle. He snaps to the side. It’s Neyri. She saw him and left.
I’m sorry, Ori.
The tide lapped. Show myself to me.
So he could still pray. Good, he would need their help and more. If only the gods could grant fish blood.
Let there be a new sky.