The Deep Land
No one doubted that Maluak would find a way. He wasn’t going
to be left behind. His was an iron will, and had long been known to chafe at
the restrictions placed by his father. While he would invariably obey, and
while he listened as his father explained over and over that the restrictions were
meant as much to teach him patience and obedience as to allow him time to
prepare, one could see the child brooding. They knew that there would be a war
party sent to the west, for the signs were in the air, and had been building
for the past few years, and he would not be left behind, even if he was a
scrawny and undersized eleven year old.
What he lacked in brawn, he more than made up for in wit and
craftiness. For being such a young boy, Maluak had often proven himself to be
resourceful. He was a solitary individual, and had been content to spend much
of his time with his twin brother, but now things were different, and he was
forced to fend for himself. He never
reacted with haste, and always carefully watched and evaluated his
circumstances. One could see him preparing to strike, and like the stormfronts
that lashed the savannah during the late summer, there was a palpable feeling of
impending release, of coiled energy waiting for the precise moment to strike.
And he had been thinking about the war party for quite some time.
Storms were a natural part of the savannah during the wet
season. After the scorching summers that blinded and suffocated them and baked
the landscape, leaving a cracked parchment that crumbled under their feet, it
represented a welcome relief. The storms arrived to find a land that seemed
that was somnolent, a brown land that seemed to cry out for release, having
been grazed during the past few months by gigantic herds of bison and lacking
the water needed to replenish itself. The few rivers that crisscrossed this
vast land were inevitably reduced to patches of damp mud on a river bed that
seemed like one vast scar, and these were watched over with zeal by his people,
who depended on these patches as repositories of what little moisture could be
drawn from the land during this period. They would cover over the best patches
with hides weighed down by stones, and on a daily basis would scoop up the mud
and wait for the water to slowly seep up. They conserved what little they
obtained carefully, using it to supplement what they had saved in jars in the
village. By now the land felt almost abandoned, for the big game had migrated
north, and they were left to themselves, waiting for the rain, calling forth
the clouds during long summer nights and telling sad stories, as if to remind
themselves of deeper troubles than those that affected them with the season.
Maluak was young boy but had an iron will. Although small in
stature, and somewhat scrawny, he was always watchful, able to spend time out
in the searing heat of the day, away from the shade of the sparse trees that
dotted the landscape, able to bury himself if need be in dirt and to scoop out
abandoned termite mounds to find what little sparse nourishment could be
obtained when alone out by himself, out in the deep land. He had the makings of
an excellent tracker, able as he was to live out in the vast savannah and fend
for himself, the way trackers need do, on the lookout constantly for signs,
keeping watch for bears that ranged from time to time out in this land, or a
pack of wolves, or the passage of hunters that were forced to forage. He was
also excellent at concealing himself.
He could start and keep a fire if he needed to defend
himself. He almost never used the fire to cook, for e was used to drying what
little meat he could obtain out in the open, or eating it fresh. He never
carried very much in any case, for it was foolish to think that it would escape
the notice of other animals, especially of the hawks and eagles but also the
carrion fowl that circled overhead, and would give away his position and bring
danger upon himself. He had covered a
considerable range, and was intimate with the topography, and with the location
of termite mounds, and bushes were edible herbs took refuge, and stores of
particular kinds of rocks, and nests found in locations preferred by the many
small rodents that shared the land. He also was familiar with the many snakes
that lived out in this landscape, although he tried never to kill them, for the
snakes spoke to him, and shared much of their history with him. And after the
last struggling bison had crossed the land on their journey north, he would
leave the land and join his family once again, to savor the stories that the
elders told at night, stories that obsessed him during the day.
The boy had learned to look for hidden signs, and others in
the village had remarked that he had the markings of a natural watcher. He was
attentive to what the land told him, and knew enough to trust what it told him
directly, and not to rely on the interpretation of others. The land spoke, and it
had not just one voice, but many voices. He would listen, and he would do his
best to distinguish between the different voices that he heard, and the many
conversations he overheard. Everything had a voice, the snakes had voices, the
mice had voices, the bushes had voices, even the clouds had voices and the sun
spoke with an intensity that would drown out almost everything else, except for
the fact that the sun also took the time to listen, and no one thing or being
or object was ever truly silent.
Everything had significance out in that vast land. Maluak
could read the signs commonly overlooked by others, and could interpret everything
from the passage of a shadow that as it glides over the landscape with an
invitation to follow it, to the sharp glint of reflected light on fractured
rocks, so different from that present on smoother surfaces. He took note of the
persistent creaking underneath, as the land shifted and stretched and rippled in
subtle movements, or the sly voice of the breezes, those that announced the
presence of the invisible ones who were out and about.
It had been remarked by others how uncanny it was that he
had never been taken by surprise by the approach of others, although he knew
that he couldn’t as yet hide himself from experiences watchers such as Eluak-sa-ti,
or Benata-sa-ti. But he knew when others were approaching, and could hide his
trail, and blend in with the landscape, and at times he came to view it as a
form of entertainment, to disappear into the land, but to follow the unwary
adults or children, and to watch them and hear their conversations. He never
thought for a moment whether others might similarly be watching him, but soon
he would learn that he wasn’t as invisible as he thought he might be. He had
the signs of an expert watcher, and this had been noted by his parents, who
took little notice of his prolonged absences from the household, for they knew
that with one who was called to be a watcher, it was futile to try to twist
them into becoming what they were not suited to be. It had been a trait that
had been shared by his twin brother when he had been alive.
A Desperate Escape
The boys had grown up needing little in the way of company
other than that which they offered to each other. Their father was a hunter,
and was often away, out in the deep land, following the herds during the
hunting season, or away practicing ritual combat with the warriors of other
tribes. Most of the boys wanted nothing other than to join their fathers, to
know the thrill of pursuit, and to learn how to handle the spears and the
slings and the small knives that were carried by adult men, even the elders who
no longer participated in the hunts nor in the rituals combat, but who bore
their scars proudly. There would come a time for these boys to join their
fathers, but in the meantime, they battled with each other, and hunted in small
packs, and played with mock seriousness. But not Maluak and his brother, who
had an instinct for isolation, and who had long ventured out on their own,
drawn first to the stories of the elders, and then to the mysterious arrivals
of the watchers, who came unaccompanied and never at set hours, and who invited
a throng of men who would wait and listen to the information that they brought
with them. And they were mesmerized by one tracker in particular, by Waltuak-sa-ti,
a serious men like all trackers, who during two years, when they were six years
old, had returned wounded to the village, limping noticeably, and told the
people of an encounter with a band of desert people who had ventured deep into
the savannah.
Waltuak-sa-ti was an accomplished tracker, and he was
capable of defending himself if attacked, but he also knew that it was his job
to watch for signs, and to convey this information to the bands of hunters who
convened at set times out in the deep land, and to assist them as they
identified prey and hunted. But Waltuak-sa-ti had himself been hunted that
year, and had managed to kill an opponent who had closed in on him after a
desperate week trying to evade the band and trying to divert them away from the
village. The desert people were known to be accomplished warriors in their own
right, and what was more frightening was that they seemed to move with
incredible speed, being used as they were to cover vast distances without
tiring. It was a mark of the skill and knowledge of the savannah, and of the
difficulties presented by this landscape that offered all manner of barriers
not commonly encountered in the desert lands, that he had managed to avoid them
for as long as he had, and if he had only managed to conceal himself better, he
need never have engaged in battle with them.
The boys were entranced with the tales of pursuit, and the
resourcefulness of Waltuak-si-ti, who relayed his experiences with no hint of
boasting. He described how he managed to weave and slip out of the encircling traps
laid by this band of warriors, and how he had ridden on the back of a bison who
had buckled and protested mightily, but had finally consented to being ridden,
and had affected his escape in this manner, for the desert people were swift,
but they were not familiar with the ways of the bison, and had little
experience in the ways of avoiding a charging mass of angry bulls. They had
followed the herd that had been spooked, and the tracker had managed to slip
away and himself narrowly avoid being gored by other bulls in the herd who were
not as amenable as the one he had ridden, and he had run in the direction of
the remaining tall grasses that might provide a measure of concealment, leading
them away from the village. And when he had thought he had escaped, he was set
upon by one lean desert warrior, and he was mightily wounded, having been
pierced on the side by a long and jutted stick which was aimed at his groin but
which instead was lodged in his hip, and somehow, he managed to kill this
warrior after desperate and silent combat, using as he did his own knife, and
his own skill at throwing stones, and sliding this way and that in the manner
of the snakes, who were wise creatures and who were much admired by
Waltuak-sa-ti.
He suffered many blows to the head, and the pointed stick
was not to be pulled out, and it pained him greatly to the point that he felt
he might lose consciousness, but his blood made him slippery, and it made his
attacker less cautious, and maybe it was because of the cry of a hawk overhead
or the rustle of the breeze that whistled through the branches, that he managed
to save himself, and to deal a fatal blow to this opponent. After which he had
stumbled away painfully, after hiding the body as best as he could, for he knew
that to leave a dead body was to invite a throng of circling birds and
predators who would reveal the presence of the body, and might attract other
warriors from the band of desert people. And he dragged the body painfully to a
nearby hallow, while trying at the same time to staunch the flow of blood, and
while he knew the herbs that would staunch this flow, he felt it was imperative
first that he try to bury the body, for each minute meant that predators would
soon arrive, and so he dragged the body to the hallow and dig his best to cover
it up with rocks and clods of dirt, and it was essential that he raid a termite
mound to gather the dirt that he needed, but he worked quickly, and after he did
this he had limped for most of the remaining day before losing consciousness.
And somehow he had arrived at the outskirts of the village,
where he was found by hunters from the tribe more dead than alive, with a
fighting stick still sticking out of his wound, and a dark wound that had
spread up his side, and he talked more than he had ever talked before, and
Maluak and his brother had been there, listening to the tale of pursuit, and
the narrow escape, and the meaning of a band of desert warriors that had
ventured as deeply as they had into the savannah. Waltuak-sa-ti had lapsed into
a fever, and been unable to take any water or nourishment, and had died shortly
thereafter, but his story and the manner of his death had impressed itself
deeply on the two boys, and they admired the bravery and resourcefulness of the
dead tracker.
The hunters were immediately mobilized and notice was sent
to the other nearby tribes, and an organized party was quickly sent out to try
to track down the band of desert people. They had ranged over the land for the
better part of a month, but they never caught sight of them. They managed to
locate the buried desert warrior, and indeed found the site where he had been
hastily buried, but there was no corpse left in the hallow, nor any bones. They
did find the stones, however, that had been scattered disdainfully, and the presence
of dried blood on the earth, and it was apparent to them that the band had
managed to find the body and had carried it away. It was uncanny that so little
evidence was left of their presence, and they swept out in organized parties,
but soon returned without any explanation for the presence of this band. This
episode dated to the first year of the draught, and they were on watch for
several seasons after this, wondering if they would have to go to war with a
peoples who were already half-legend to them, and were considered a fearsome
foe.
The boys were obsessed by this episode, and they took all
the more to tracking out into the surrounding land, eschewing the training in
the ways of war that were shared with the other young boys. They knew that what
had saved the dead tracker was his resourcefulness, and his ability to read the
land, for otherwise, what hope had a lone tracker arrayed against a band of
twenty desert warriors? The land had spoken to him, and the land had helped
him, as Waltuak-sa-ti had proclaimed over and over as he lay dying, and this
affirmed their decision to rely on the land and to learn its language.
And so the two boys had ventured out in earnest to learn
more about the savannah. In particular they loved to watch the patterns of the
soaring birds as they flew overhead in the late afternoon, knowing that the
birds were the natural trackers of trackers such as themselves, and that they
had best learn how to read the signs that they offered. There were of course
birds who stayed closer to the ground, and who seemed to only fly from tree to
tree, and there were other more diminutive birds that accompanied the vast
herds of bison, and who in a natural way accomplished what Waltuak-sa-ti had
been able to accomplish, which was the feat of riding on the back of a bison.
Those birds sampled and fed on the insects that infested the hides of these
majestic animals, and they spoke to the bison, as the bison spoke to the birds,
and perhaps this was the bond that kept them together. But it was the hawks and
the eagles that mesmerized them, for the hawks were at once trackers as well as
hunters, as they moved with a sort of serene intensity, even in moment of
courtship, when their play traced out complex patterns in the air, great
circling movement as the eagles wove and circled and drew their rivals out,
only to circle back and pounce on them. This was a great lesson, they felt,
although at times they admitted that they simply loved the sight of a hawk
floating up in the deep air, just floating, as if resting on the back of an
invisible one, for the invisible ones were like the bison that migrated across
the savannah, and they also bore riders if they could come to an understanding
with them, and what else were the great windstorms but the sign of the
stampeding invisible one who were traversing the sky? Were they being pursued
by hunters as well?
The hallmark of most animals was that they were cautious in
their movements. They moved under the impetus of the landscape and their fellow
creatures, and the herds relied on each other. The sprint of a bull was enough to
send the herd into movement, and the same could be said for great flocks of
birds, and for the long lines of beetles and termites and ants that seemed to
swarmed if their lines were interrupted. Lizards were quick to dart from one
place to another, and even if they didn’t congregate in herds, they seemed to
take their cues from any of a myriad constellation of other animals and insects.
But hawks and eagles were solitary creatures, and they admired that sense of
self-reliance, for they aspired to it as well, although they trusted in each
other.
At some point, they would be driven to the east, to confront
the mystery of the dead tracker, and they felt that this journey was already
beckoning to them, for they had a natural curiosity. But they had first to
become thoroughly accepted by the land, and to learn as much of its ways as
they could.
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