Human (31 page)

“It is still soft underneath,” said Ranu, a young hunter. “We should cut it up and take it home. This is good luck.”

“It would be of use,” Gihn agreed. Meat had been in short supply since the Swift Death. “Let’s carry what we can back home.” The hobbits retrieved stone knives from the folds of their belts. An acrid stench hit the air as they slit the dragon from neck to tail, and began slicing and peeling its thick skin back to clean it. Ivy turned away, covering her nose.

Leaving them to their grisly task, she walked over to the hot spring that was their intended destination. A rush of water tumbled over rocks from higher up the volcanic ridge, pooling into a geothermically-heated spring. Wisps of steam licked the surface where cold water met hot. Ivy sat on a rock to wait.

“Urgh!” she jumped back up, stumbling backward. The rotting carcass of a rat was lying where she’d inadvertently placed her hand. She sidestepped another body in the long grass, this time some sort of plump bird with a slender, curved beak.
What the hell?
Within a minute, Ivy had uncovered another four animals in various states of decay. She broke off a stick and rolled each one with it, holding her breath.

“Gihn!” The old man looked up and she beckoned him over. Ivy held the amulet against his shoulder, avoiding his bloody hands. “There are more.”

Gihn poked at each of the animals in turn as Ivy uncovered them in the grass.

“We cannot take them, Hiranah. These ones are rotten.”

Ivy blanched at his misunderstanding. “No Gihn. I mean you can't eat them, any of them. I think there is something very wrong here.” She crouched over the most recently dead animal, some sort of marsupial with a long, curling tail. “Look closer. Every one of them has white paste around its mouth, just like the shirakan. Whatever killed the dragon must have killed these ones too.”

Gihn looked sceptical. “They eat different foods Hiranah. This animal eats fruit and that bird there eats river fish. The shirakan only eats meat.”

“I know, I know. It doesn't make sense.” Ivy shook her head, staring into the steaming water. “Are there often dead animals here?”

Gihn frowned. “I don't know. I don’t come here often. The hunters haven't mentioned it though. But then again, in these parts they have other things to worry about. The karathah, giant ones, come further into our forest now, so our hunters must take care to avoid them.”

“The hunters come here?”

“Sometimes.”

Ivy stared again at the water. “Gihn, I'm not entirely sure what happened here,” she gestured to the carcasses hidden in the grass, “but I'm asking you to trust me. We need to leave this place, and you can't take the meat of the shirakan home to eat.”

“But it will feed so many -” Gihn protested.

“I'm sorry Gihn. You asked for my help and I'm giving it. This means something. I just don't know what.”

“You are keeping knowledge from me again Hiranah,” he growled.

She looked over to the hobbits, now piling the fresh Komodo meat into separate piles to carry home. “Please trust me.”

Gihn met her eyes with a discriminating look. “I do.” He bent down to wash his bloody arms in the hot spring before leaving. Ivy pulled him back.

“I'm sorry Gihn. You can't do that either.”

“Can I sit with you?” Ivy offered the amulet to Xiou. She smiled hesitantly at him, feeling conspicuous. The news that she had not only prohibited an entire shirakan to be brought home after the butchering had already been done, but also had insisted the hunters did not wash or return to the hot spring until she gave permission had been badly received within the cave. But Xiou returned her smile. His face was deeply scarred, horribly disfiguring his youthful features. From a distance, Ivy saw Shahn nod encouragingly, small hands encircling her distended belly.

“I’m glad you joined us Hiranah
,
” Xiou said. “We’re getting bored of listening to Setian boast of his skill with arrows.” Xiou, who was Shahn’s mate, good naturedly slapped his friend on the back and was rewarded with a shove back. The bearded man called Setian said something and a ripple of laugher broke around the hearth.

Xiou touched the amulet again, inviting Ivy into the conversation. “Setian says I must carry Shahn’s baby in my own belly to run as slow and heavy as I do.” Xiou chuckled at his friend’s taunt. “You’ll be running from me Setian, when I chase the probech in your direction.” The five hunters laughed again and continued chatting as they expertly knapped stone near the centre of the cave. A gentle solace dampened their banter though; another death during the night had left them a skilled hunter and friend short. Any one of them might be next.

“We are preparing for a hunt, Hiranah. Probech have been sighted in the lowland forest. We need new weapons and tools for an animal of that size.”

“
Probech
?”

Xiou nodded, sweeping his finger from his nose to the ground. “The giant forest dweller, with spear teeth and an arm for a nose. It’s a dangerous hunt.” A thrill of excitement coursed through Ivy.
Stegodon.

The prehistoric cousin of the elephant and mammoth had once roamed the Asian continents in many forms. Their massive bodies up to eight meters long were equipped with another three meters of ivory tusk to protect and defend their herds. Some of them had four tusks, as straight and deadly as a row of spears poised to impale any predator with a bloody and agonising death. Their brute strength was formidable and they had thrived so far for the best part of eleven million years.

Although Ivy had no desire to see one slain, the opportunity to be so close to a herd was inspiring. Terrifying,
slightly insane
, but inspiring all the same. She felt a hum of anticipation inside her. The stegodon descendants that had survived on this jungle island had been the most extraordinary of all. If she was correct with her estimate of
when
she was in time, then they could only be talking about
Stegodon florensis insularis
.

Trapped in this bizarre wonderland of isolation, the species had also dwarfed to adapt, reduced to two-thirds of the size of a modern Asian elephant. They became unique, another stroke of nature’s genius in the struggle to survive.

“Brilliant,” Ivy exhaled, grinning.

“You can help us prepare, Hiranah.” Xiou smiled with his lopsided mouth and picked up a fist-sized chunk of volcanic glass. Black stone glinted red as he studied it by firelight. Then, holding it pressed to the dirt floor, Xiou struck it hard with a smooth hammer stone. A thick flake flicked onto the dirt. Ivy retrieved it while Xiou continued to strike the core. Piece by piece uniform shards fell away. With each blow, he skilfully reduced it to the triangular preform of a spear point.

The discarded flake glittered in Ivy’s fingers. A distinctive swollen bulb surrounded the scar where the impact had forced the flake and core apart. The convex surface sat neatly under her thumb as she held it up. The distal edge glinted, cone shaped and at its finest, only molecules thick. Deadly sharp, it threw light as she twisted the tool slowly before her eyes, mesmerised. When the razer edge bit her finger sending a dribble of dark blood across the glossy surface, Ivy threw her head back and laughed.

Oh, the bloody irony
.

For ten years, Ivy had stared down a microscope at stone tools exactly like this one, searching for the tiniest insight into the long-buried lives that created them. Now here she sat, immersed in a culture so elusive it had survived hundreds of thousands of years in isolation and the ancient weapons she knew almost better than her own body were being created, refined and used around her. Crafted by hands
she knew
. Ivy would never see them as mere tools again.

With an exalted grin, Ivy gave her attention again to Xiou. He gathered the pile of thick flakes beside him and handed them to Setian who began delicately shaping the edges into micro blades.

Xiou reached for a small length of bone that had been ground to a fine point on one end. Clasping a crude spear head in his left hand, he pressed the sharp bone tip into its edge breaking off a small linear flake. Many times he repeated the delicate work, occasionally abrading the surface with a coarse-grained stone to prepare better platforms from which to press the flakes. Finally, a scattering of shining chips lay in his lap like fish scales. He passed the finished spear head to Ivy.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s strong,” he replied. “Take it to Kora. She’ll haft it onto a spear that you can use.”

“Me?” Ivy repeated, surprised.

“Of course. We can’t have you eaten by a hungry shirakan, can we? You’re terrible at climbing trees, you know,” Xiou teased.

Across the hearth, the woman Kora patted the ground beside her in invitation. She was the hunter who had offered her hand to Ivy when she slipped while being led to the cave. Ivy sat cross-legged beside Kora, noting the others sat with their own, shorter legs, not quite crossed. Given the length of their feet, Ivy guessed it would feel awkward to do so. Kora continued her work with Ivy’s amulet pressed gently to her thigh to communicate. On her right, Kora’s mate, Guntah, bent low over the arrow heads he flaked upon a large stone mount.

“This makes a good strong shaft,” explained Kora dragging a length of stripped bamboo across her knees. One end of the shaft was soft from soaking in water. She dug a strong fingernail into it to illustrate her point. Her voice was quiet and clear. “We use different types of wood for different seasons, depending on what gifts the earth can provide. It’s the rain season now so plants and animals are thriving in the forest. When the earth is dry, we hunt in the grasslands instead. Water is hidden in roots under the soil and the animals come looking for it. Plants always know how to survive.”

With a sharp blade Kora cut a ridge across the top of the soft end.

“Make it deep to hold the point, see?” Kora took the sharp point Xiou had fashioned and slid its neck into the ridge, pulling it out again briefly to widen her cut. “This will make a good spear when we bind it on.”

Dipping her hand into a bowl of murky water on the hearth coals, Kora pulled a thin strip of hide from the bowl. With slow deliberation, she wound it tightly around the flanges of the tool taking care not to overlap the leather. Tucking and slicing the spare skin off swiftly with her blade, she passed it to Ivy. It was perfect.

“It will pull tight as the leather dries. It’s strong enough to pierce the hide of a probech, I think,” Kora said.

“It’s brilliant,” Ivy whispered. She spun the weapon in her hands by the firelight.

“It’s yours.”

Ivy moved her fingers slowly along the shaft, testing the unfamiliar weight. The deadly point glittered.

Ivy looked up. “Thank you,” she said. Her gratitude was not just for the gift, but for the acceptance it implied.

Kora smiled widely. “Would you like to try?” The woman passed a new length of bamboo to Ivy and took another for herself. They sat in comfortable silence, listening to the others talk as they worked. Ivy found the technique more difficult than she expected, and her hafting, although Kora was diplomatic about it, left a lot to be desired. On numerous occasions the sharp blade preferred her soft fingers to bamboo. Ivy handed the bloodied spear back with an apology.

“It takes a lot of practice,” Kora said. “Here, try another.”

Ivy began again, while Kora corrected the binding on her first attempt with a soft smile.

As the evening wore on, Ivy spent time with each toolmaker, watching them work and occasionally testing her skill with apologies and a shower of shards. When Kyah joined them, and quickly surpassed Ivy’s own skill in producing simple stone flakes, Ivy groaned. Using her own ingenuity, Kyah soon progressed to creating the main types of stone tools used by early humans. Her tools fell far short of the sophisticated weapons of Homo floresiensis, but still, compared to Ivy’s attempts, they were impressive. Ironically, Ivy recalled that crafting tools from stone was once considered a hallmark difference between apes and early humans. By that definition, Ivy was the least evolved ape in the cave.

Eventually Kyah wandered off to find Trahg and Ivy settled back next to Xiou. She found a palm-sized pebble stone, perfectly rounded by timeless rolling in a riverbed. With a discarded flake, she scratched absently on its smooth surface, listening to them talk.

“We should approach from the direction of the sea,” Setian was saying. “The herd has moved toward the rising sun, so we will have more cover from rifts.” A few others gathered around the fire to listen.

“Perhaps we should approach from the setting sun. The rifts are dangerous. They’ll slow us down,” offered Xiou.

Setian scratched his face, considering. “That’s true. But if the probech travel too far from the river while we bypass the rifts, we will lose them. Krue should decide.”

Upon a shout, an old man joined them. It was the one who had spat at Ivy’s feet only days ago, when Terap had been killed by a karathah arrow. Ivy’s face grew red as she recognized him. The old man seemed of similar age to Gihn. Unlike Gihn’s gracile features, Krue was solidly built, muscular and still strong for his age. His skin was a battlefield of scars and on both hands, he had missing fingers. He stepped past Ivy, ignoring her as the others continued talking.