Ember of a New World (11 page)

As the morning broke, Ember walked down the pebbly river bank and set about washing in the River. The cool water was always welcome as the river, and the very lands were generally too cold for such indulgences. This season had been particularly warm, so much more than others, which allowed for some such special indulgences. Ember's people were generally always clothed outside, and the chance to trot about without modesty or worry was relaxing.

After cleaning her hair and skin, Ember caked her skin in the soft clay which could be found in patches near the bank. She sang as she worked with the clay, remembering songs her mother had taught her. Ember's hands sank deep through the silt and pebbles and into cool thick pockets of mud and clay. The clay was nearly as thick as the clay used to make pottery and readily stuck to her skin. Within a few
moments
, she was totally co
vered in a thin layer of the clay,
giving her a gray appearance. The clay would keep the insects at bay, keep the sun off of her, and leave her with incredibly smooth skin when it flaked into powder later in the day. With cleaning taken care of, Ember set to work making breakfast. With the quick grind of her fire bow, she soon had a small fire in the same place which had burned the previous night. A fire often started more quickly where one had be
fore burned.

Using a straight twig, Ember heated a strip of dried deer meat and a large tuber. She longed for some roasted deer liver and heart. The meat was filling, but a diet of meat could only sustain a person for so long. After the simple meal, Ember cleaned her hands in the river and made the boat ready for travel. She pulled the mat off
of
the top
of
the boat and slowly pushed it half way into the water. The clay on her skin had dried, mostly, and much of it had flaked off. Quickly
,
Ember donned her skirt and shirt, tossed her belt and items in the boat, and gave one final stretch. The iron rations were loaded along with some twigs to fiddle with, and pebbles to toss during the long tedious trip. After a quick “natural” moment leaning against
a tree in a squatting fashion
, she was ready for her trip.

Ember pushed the little boat the rest of the way into the water and hopped on board. The majority of the day was uneventful with not much more than a soaring bird or a jumping fish to interest Ember. The valley walls she moved through were decently high in some places, but this did nothing to block the sunlight. Ember sat back and nibbled on her lunch while lazily keeping the boat moving straight. On the nearby shore, a brown colored bear was having a cool sip of water. Ember and the bear regarded each other for a short moment. She had already seen plenty of birds and animals.

I really should be able to hunt something. The men do it so often, besides, fish are starting to get boring
, she thought
,
tossing some semi-boil
ed turnip pieces in her mouth.

During the period of high-sun, where the sun was at the highest point it would go during the day, Ember passed a place where people had recently been. There were large wooden poles protruding from the water in series around an overused bank, a sort of river inlet. As she passed the inlet, the tops of longhouses and village structures
could be seen from the river.

“A village!” she said excitedly. Ember was struck by the sound of her own voice. It had been nearly a day since she had
uttered
a single word. The thought of a quick stop at a village sounded like a good
idea to Ember.

She carefully used her steering pole to move the boat closer to the shore to have a look. As the boat approached the shore, Ember began to notice that something seemed amiss. Along the shore, discarded pots and baskets were left here and there. A pile
of
fish had been left to rot and were now nothing more than strewn bones. Discarded wooden poles and other debris were scattered in the sand.
Someth
ing was wrong about this scene.

Ember steered the boat towards the edge of the bank where she might come ashore and see what had befallen these people. The tough little
boat
steered an angle with the force of the river behind it and slammed into the shore with speed. Ember jumped out into knee deep water and hauled the boat onto the land. Was it her imagination or did the Great River seem to have picked up its current a little? Ember pulled the boat ashore fully and straightened her doe skin shirt and flax skirt. It wouldn't do to be unpr
esentable if she found people.

Often
,
a village would be abandoned if the resources in the local area needed time to recover. The tribe would simply leave and move to a different place. Some villages had started purposefully growing crops to reduce the need to do this. Ember's village was one such village, but there were plenty of strictly hunter gathering villages to be found, or so Ember had heard. Ember had heard of tribes which made this journey every few seasons between two or more places, moving to one site for the warm season and returning to another place every cold season. This problem of having to move was more common with tribes who hunted and gathered much more than they grew. Many of the tribes near Ember's people hunted for their meat but either fish
ed or grew crops to make up
for the rest.

Maybe they had eaten bad meat the night before, and everyone's finding a quiet bush
, she mused.

A look around the village would determine the truth of the matter. As Ember approached the village, she took a closer examination of the bank, which revealed the pots and baskets of decent quality strewn about. They were left where they fell in a haphazard manner. This made no sense to Ember. She could understand broken pots being left, but the quality hand-woven basket with intricate decoration, which she now stood over, simply wouldn't be left sitting on the ground. The basket had rotted tubers in it as though it had been placed on the ground to dr
y after washing and just left.

Ember walked up the path from the shore towards the village. This village had a high bank of dirt separating it from the water. This had a wind breaking effect as well as granting a measure of safety if the river flooded. Ember's village used the same wind breaking wall as well as wind breaking trees.

As Ember crested the hill, she realized that something was wrong, very wrong... The village stood before her with perhaps
twenty
longhouses and a central fire. All throughout the village were possessions, left unattended. One of the houses had fully burned to the ground! As Ember looked around she began seeing what looked like arrow shafts, buried into many places. She froze in place, instantly realizing what had befallen these people. Before she could even consider what this realization
meant, she saw the first body.

Beside one of the longhouses, was a half decayed skeleton with what looked like a broken spear
stuck
partially inside of its rib cage. The body lay face down and in a pose as though it had just come out of the longhouse before being impaled
from behind
. Ember held her hand to her mouth, eyes wide open. This village had been attacked!

Ember sank to her knees and then to the ground, overcome by the horror. As she sat on the ground, she sang a short and mournful song for the dead, a custom of her people. The words were pure and her voice held steady, but she felt tears
form in her eyes. She was letting
her emotions take hold and the song was amplifying this. The sight of the carnage had overcome Ember before she had realized it. After she finished the prayer song, Ember stood and took a few deep br
eaths to regain her composure.

Raids were a common enough occurrence. Generally only a few warriors would rush into a village, quickly stealing some food or animals, and perhaps even a few women and children. Rarely did anyone die. The point of a raid was
to
obtain food and resources, but typically not to kill. Worse, given the size and location of this tribe, Ember had probably met some of its inhabitants before; traders from local villag
es were common enough.

Ember carefully walked around the tribe with her obsidian dagger in her hand, more for
self-assurance
than for any foe. By the look of things, this raid..., this massacre, had happened not long after the end of the last cold season. Ember checked each of the bodies she found around the village. The decayed bodies, mostly skeletons by now, still wore their clothing. Those who had been disrobed and looted had their clothing
lying
nearby
. Ember could tell the sex and often the age of the people, in terms of young, adult, or elderly by their size and style of clothing.

Ember carefully entered each of the houses finding the same basic scene in each. They had been looted entirely, and anything of value had been taken. Though she found some females amongst the fallen, Ember found nearly all of the dead to be males. This made some sense given the value of a woman to a tribe. These women, and many of the children
,
may have been taken by the raiders as slaves. Ember shuttered to think of the kind of men who would
take women and kill their men.

A stolen woman was often a prize for a young and budding warrior from one of the more aggressive peoples. She could expect decent treatment as the mate of the warrior. As terrifying as that was, it was still nothing like the wholesale bondage of a full tribe! Ember kept reminding herself that she had no proof that the tribe had all been taken captive. She had to consider the possibility that the tribe had merely fled.

After a while, Ember came across the body of what was presumably a raider. The body laid face down, much like most of the dead. He had a leather tunic, where most of the men in this tribe had woven reed tunics. He wore a leather breechcloth and cord belt with leather leggings and tied leather boots. At his waist were several loosely fastened thongs with knots tied at each of their ends. Ember realized, with a shudder that these were for binding hands! She stood away from the body in disgust and kicked the dec
ayed skull, which rolled away.

“You worthless beast! Now you'l
l have no head in the afterlife!
” Unfortunately, she knew that the head needed to be removed just after death for it
to
miss the journey to the other-side with the body. She hoped he would at least feel it, wherever the dead went. Ember wondered why the enemy had been left on the ground with the dead of the village. Was he the only enemy to die? If not, where were the bodies of the other dead raiders? Ember walked around to the main side of the village.

This village is a tomb and no place for the living
, she thought. Ember needed to decide what to do next, and her options seemed more limited by the moment. The sky was becoming darker, and the wind was growing. Ember was starting to worry about a coming storm. Normally she would not have dared to go farther down the river, but how could she sleep all night in this destroyed village with the dead all around!? The thought nearly sent her into a panic. It was said by some Elders that the dead could rise, especially at night, and wonder the forests. Ember gulped at the thought. It was decided then: she would try and put as much space between her and this village as she could before th
e storm came.

As she made her way towards
the path to the river, Ember noticed a mound in the dirt near the edge of the village. The dirt was moved not more than a few seasons ago, and grass had only barely stared to grow again. Ember couldn't help her curiosity. She grabbed a discarded
stone hand hoe and started
digging at the dirt pile. Could this have been buried by the raiders? What could have been left behind? If it was a grave for a raider, she
would surely have to defile it!

After a short while Embers arms hurt from digging frantically, the storm still on her mind, but she had unearthed several clay pots. Each had been sealed with clay
or bees wax
and contained dried nuts, tub
ers, and grains. Could this be
a stockpile left behind by the Raiders? As she dug, Ember found caches of arrows and spears which looked like those of the raiders. An arrow and spear take lots of time to create, due to the stone heads. Flint arrow heads required a flint nodule, a large piece of flint, which could be broken into heads in a process known as flint knapping. Ember had been known for her ability to find such flint nodules. This was a val
uable thing to be left behind.

First, Ember thought of destroying the food. Then she remembered that, though most of the slaves would be traded to other tribes before these butchers returned if they were returning, some might be kept. A warrior who would kill and take slaves wouldn't feed his slave before himself. Additionally, for this many houses there were nowhere near enough bodies. Perhaps half of the tribe had fled and might return at some point.

No, she would leave the food, but she must hurt these evil people. The destruction of the arrows and spears would cost enough in time or trade to render their raid less than profitable. With a satisfied grin Ember broke all of the spears and arrows removing the flint heads, and a few bone heads too. She carried the heads to the river in a pot and placed them into her boat. Ember considered keeping a few of the nice heads, but she couldn't keep such evil items. The bag of flint attached to her waist was clean and pu
re, not crafted by vile hands.