The silence of the forest resonated like an empty echo as if there was nothing within its darkened depths. A shadow was perched high in a fork of a tree, he willed himself to be still, watching the ground pheasants below. The birds had brilliant long turquoise, indigo and red tail feathers while the rest of the plumage was a mockery of brown to meld into the leaf litter of the forest floor where they dwelled. They were far larger than their fowl cousins but were hard to spot if you were not in search of them.
He had tracked them from his high perch since just before dawn, following them from the treetops to their current roosting spot at the foot of a hill by the shallow banks of the stream. Watching them going about their daily lives without any thought to their surroundings, he couldn’t help but feel hypnotized by their movements. But they were not the main reason he had come.
The true reason was hiding in the low dense bushes far below, readying itself to spring a trap that was set. His clan-brother, Red Leaf, wanted to prove that he was as good a hunter as any. So, there he was squatting in the bushes, following a bird since dawn and Little Blackbird could only watch quietly from his perch.
The rustling and squawking below recaptured his attention as he saw Red Leaf has quite literally sprung from his hiding place and jumped onto the bird, trying to grasp it with his hands. As the tumble began between a boy not quite reaching his twelfth summer and a pheasant the size of a dog began. Little Blackbird couldn’t quell his amusement as a giggle bubbled up his throat and escaped as the bird flapped out of his clan-brother’s grasp in a swarm of feathers before taking to the undergrowth, leaving its attacker behind on the floor covered in mud, sticks and empty hands.
“Yes yes laugh all you want,” pouting, Red Leaf tries to gather himself up and pulls the twigs and leaves that had managed to entangle in his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Little Blackbird could not string his words together as his laughter made it almost impossible as he gracefully pushed himself from the tree, landing on the ground squarely. “But it was funny. And look!” he immediately went over to his clan-brother to take a particularly long red feather from his hair, “You got something out of it at least.”
“But it is not the whole bird.”
“Maybe not but…do you need one?”
Red Leaf looked a little disheartened but still took the feather from Little Blackbird’s hands, “…No. But I was chasing it for hours. You would think that I would get a bird in the end. Not a feather.” He inspected it with his hands, gazing at it.
“What will you do with it?”
Red Leaf took a closer look at the feather that was about the same length as his arm, the red was broken up by black stripe patterns and he took an immediate like to it. “I’ll give this to Mother.”
Nodding, Little Blackbird looked around, seeing that the water had collected a mass of logs from upstream somewhere. He felt that the forest’s silence was almost unnatural.
Red Leaf made to speak but Little Blackbird called for silence by raising a hand before climbing his tree again, flitting through the branches to another tree before jumping to another and another, making his way towards the impeccable silence. That was when he heard heavy footsteps coming from a manmade trail. He had come across them from time to time as they stuck out like a grey scar, marring nature and dividing Her. It was human-made and crafted from stone that he had never seen in the area and many of them used it for travelling. Via it being on horse, on foot or using those strange contraptions pulled by horses that his mother once called ‘carriages’ or ‘carts’.
But today there were two rows of a total of twelve soldiers marching down on patrol through the sacred forests, completely unaware of their importance and probably did not care. Their people invaded the lands almost two hundred years ago. Believing it to be uninhabited and claimed it as theirs. But then when they found that there were tribes scattered across the land…they did not reach for peace. Instead they reached for blood and violence. Fire and pain. Shackles and chains.
The tribes were divided and some even driven to extinction. There weren’t many left who survived. And those that did were either shipped over the Great Water to faraway lands as slaves or simply stayed in hiding like his tribe has been for centuries. But even he, a boy of merely eleven years, knew that they couldn’t hide forever.
“Little Blackbird!” Red Leaf’s voice came as a nervous hiss from the ground as he was desperately searching for his nimble clan-brother.
Jumping down smoothly behind him, Little Blackbird came up, pushing a hand over Red Leaf’s mouth who let out a muffled squeal and pulled him down into the thick ferns. “Sshhh!”
Red Leaf went immediately rigid as he saw the Ashen Ones walking passed with their heavy, steel armour, hiding their pale faces, hair and eyes.
There was only one ashen one that he knew and it was Little Blackbird’s mother. She was pale like the clouds, her eyes like the sky and her hair like yellow flax flowers. This made Little Blackbird a half-blood. His completion was far lighter than his fellow tribesmen but was still darker than his mother, reaching a tawny beige compared to Red Leaf’s russet, red-brown hue. He shared their dark hair and distinct purple eyes, rarer still as they were a darker colour that he had inherited from his father.
They both watch the group march pass, realising that the battalion were escorting a carriage. Peering as close as he dared, Little Blackbird could see that it was of polished wood and intricate detailing. Lions and dragons crossed over the sides while the front had a cloth dangling low enough that he could not see the passengers clearly. But coming up behind them were even more soldiers and four bearers hoisting up a litter by four poles and in the centre was a gold ornamented chest that sat on crimson and gold silks.
“What is that?” Red Leaf whispers.
“I don’t know…’treasure’?” Little Black bird responds, using a word of the ashen ones’ tongue as there was no word for it with that exact meaning in theirs.
Red Leaf frowns at the usage of the language. It was harsh to the ears and foreign but Little Blackbird had become fluent enough in it that it almost disturbed him at how his voice changes to something so cold. “Huh?”
“…Something precious? Something that is given physical value…” it was getting hard for him to describe it. “Maybe a gift?” he thought again.
“It’s really shiny, whatever it is.”
“I wonder what’s inside of it then, if it’s container is so over the top and glittery.”
“Maybe it’s an egg of one of those beasts that your mother talks about from over the Great Water. With the big leather wings,” he spreads his hands out to demonstrate.
“What? ‘Dragon’?” Little Blackbird gives the word.
“Yeah.”
Little Blackbird shrugs, “Whatever it is…we should head back before we’ll be in trouble.” He steps away from the road and goes back into the forest’s calm depth. Red Leaf follows his steps exactly. He learnt early on that Little Blackbird had a gift to remain unseen in the forest. Which always worked in his favour if they played a game of hide-and-seek or when they stumbled into any trouble.
They walk along the stream until they come to the mouth of the river that opened up into a large lake with a waterfall. Their tribe was settled near a shallow cave that was made by a huge overhanging rock protruding from the underside of the waterfall. The adults were busy either mending their tents, weaving baskets, fishing or cooking. There were only five other children in the tribe and they were all under the age of six. The others that are older than Red Leaf were at the age where they cast off their First Name and were expected to be warriors. They certainly didn’t have any time for a pair of boys who would rather play around in the forest and were expected to still cling to their First Names for another three winters.
Their tribe wandered in the forest, always on the move every moon-phase. Little Blackbird thought that this constant moving around might be a reason why their tribe hadn’t been found for the last two-hundred years. He nurses his thoughts as he easily scales down the waterfall to the sandy beach in search for his mother. As he wonders through, the small children run passed, almost tripping him as they played around with some puppies that would eventually belong in the dog pack that helped with the hunts.
He steers away from the messy game of tag and gets back to the forest’s edge and sees a large mass with protruding horns walking towards him. It looked as though it was a part of the forest, taking proper shape as it came closer to him. Little Blackbird lets a faint smile come to his face as he walks towards the caribou. The long antlers that shone golden brown in the thin sun gaps of the forest’s canopy were tipped light green as if it were new seedling shoots. The fur was pure smooth brown with soft golden stripes along its sides.
“Good morning to you, Soft-Steps,” Little Blackbird reaches a hand out the giant animal without hesitation to which the reindeer responded by nuzzling his small hand to the top of its lip. As he begins petting the deer’s head, his Mother came stumbling out of the brush, her hands occupied with a shallow basket lined with herbs and flowers. She huffs, balancing the basket on her hip and with a free hand patted the dust and dirt from her clothes.
She walks towards Little Blackbird and without hesitation, pecks him on the forehead, “Morning, my little crow,” her voice was soft and gentle, even in the harsh tongue of the Ashen Ones.
Little Blackbird responded back in the tribe’s tongue, “Morning, Mother.”
She ruffles his hair before switching back to the tribal words, “I found some chamomile and mint growing not far from here. The Clan-Mother has been going through my supply rather quickly lately.”
“She likes your ‘tea’.” There was no such drink before his mother introduced it to them and the Clan-Mother, Calm Waters, and her daughters had taken to them.
“I know…” she kept her bitter thoughts to herself, It’s probably my redeeming ‘woman-like’ quality. She wasn’t brought up with lace and dresses like many of her cousins. Instead, she worked in the fields and played sword-fighting with boys. She knew it irritated her late Mother into her grave and her Father barely acknowledged her existence. She even turned it to ire when she met Little Blackbird’s father and turned her back on that way of life.
She pushed the thoughts away while moving towards the camp with her child and the hart in tow.
Little Blackbird relayed the events with Red Leaf in every detail he could muster, even switching between the tribe’s tongue and the harsh outlandish words of his Mother’s when either side fails to feed the story. When he got to the part about the golden box, his Mother’s face became pale.
“Where did you see them?” She cuts in.
He thought for a moment, “Not very far, only about an Indai…where a new ‘road’ has been made.”
She frowns at the words, “That is too close to this camp, little crow. Go warm the Elders.”
He nods before rushing through the camp.
Soft-Steps kept a step behind him even as he worked his way between tents and tribesmen on the loose stone riverbed. Little Blackbird came to the largest tent with many different ornaments hanging from the stakes holding the woven fabric up. He walks passed a low hanging wolf jaw with eagle feathers and gold stones hanging from it. The wolf jaw was to ward away the evil spirits, stopping them from hearing any of the decisions the Elders had, and reporting it to the malicious Gods that they don’t hold counsel with.
Stepping in always made him feel on edge. He couldn’t give a proper answer to the feeling other than it felt like something else was in there. Was it the Gods? Spirits of the Dead? Who knows. But he couldn’t interact with it and it made his hair stand on end as he walked towards the large fire pit, dug into the earth. Even though it burned, it produced no smoke nor smell.
He saw two of the five Elders talking quietly to each other, staring into the flames.
“Ah Little Blackbird, I hear you and Red Leaf had an interesting hunt this dawn,” The oldest one, Ice Blood looks over in his general direction. The old man was blind but hears everything like a cave bat.
The other Elder watches him silently. The Wise Woman, Summer Song, kept her own council. For now, anyway. Little Blackbird didn’t want to anger her. Something about her being the mouthpiece of the Spirits always made him shiver.
So, he wanted to make this short. “Yes, Elder. Is Clan-Mother around?” Calm Waters was in fact Ice Blood’s eldest daughter.
“…Her hunting party is not expected to return until midday, young one.”
This troubled Little Blackbird but he had to relay the message. “While Red Leaf and I were out, we saw Ashen Ones on their false-trail of stones not far from here. They were carrying a box.” He dared not to utter any of the foreign Ashen Ones’ words in this tent. He was taught early that the words angered the Gods by the Wise Woman. But if he was being honest, he felt she was scarier than the Gods wrath.
“They seem to be spotted more and more these days. They used to never venture this far into the groves but since they’ve built their stone trails with it, they have grown more bold,” Ice Blood mulls more to himself before addressing Little Blackbird again. “I will tell the Council when we meet again at midday. Don’t worry too much about it. Run along, little one, it is not your puzzle to solve.”
Little Blackbird didn’t need to be told twice to get out of the Gods’ Council. But it still didn’t sit right with him how it was being left like that. But he was told not to ponder on it so he didn’t let it eat him up too much inside before he found the hart waiting patiently for him outside. He then decided to locate Red Leaf and see if he has given the feather to his mother yet.
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