THE STONE KING -- book two of The Chronicles of the First Age

Chapter Thirty One

For a year and a half, Theris and the men of the Hunt lived with Toeksa's tribe of faeyn. They learned their ways and the use of the bow, which they also called a toeksa, and they learned enough of the language that, with patience, they could communicate. As autumn gave way to fall and fall was staring hard at a winter following close behind, the faeyn tribe began to return to their ancestral lands in the deep woods for the an'ori.

"But what is the an'ori?" Theris asked as they walked across the grassy plains between the two rivers.

Toeksa laughed. "I'm beginning to regret teaching you our speech. You are too full of questions. Have you always been like that?"

"No, I suppose not, but then I guess I've never found someone so interesting before."

Toeksa's head jerked around. "And you are bold."

Theris smiled. "The an'ori?"

Toeksa shrugged. "It is different things to different people. To the old, it is a chance to see family they may not have seen in hundreds of years. To the young it is a chance to find a mate from another tribe. For the hunter it is a chance to show off trophies, tell stories of hunts and compete in contests of skill and strength."

"Sounds like fun," Theris said.

"Before we enter the sacred land, though, we must go through a cleansing ritual. This is especially true for you and your men. We may not bring in any unclean thought, word or action into the sacred land."

Theris grew nervous at the thought of the ritual. In the time he had lived with the faeyn, he had felt as if he had awakened from a dark dream. The deaths of his family and the other deaths that followed still lurked in the dark corners of his memories. He looked down at the sword he wore on his hip. "What does that entail?"

"Mostly a bath. You could use one. You humans have a distinctive smell. It's a wonder you can hunt anything."

Their pace across the grasslands was unhurried and they would often pause as one or more of their number spotted some game animal and set out to stalk it. To spoil someone's hunt was a great taboo. As the sun began to set in the west and the shadows grew long, the scouts in the lead halted. Everyone froze, but when nothing was seen or heard they crept up to the scouts to find out why they had stopped.

"What is it?" Toeksa asked.

"Surrel, here, says he heard something," one of the scouts replied.

"What did you hear?" Toeksa asked.

"A strange gobbling sound, like a turkey." His arm shot up and he pointed to the east. "There."

Scores of small objects were racing towards them through the tall grass.

"Spears front!" Toeksa shouted. "Toeksa behind."

Theris drew his sword and stood between the spears and the bows, biting his lip so he wouldn't utter the jest about Toeksa's behind that had come to mind. His men rushed up to stand with the faeyn spearmen who had formed a wedge with its point facing east. The bows settled in behind and everyone fell silent as something whooshed towards them through the grass.

Gob-bocari appeared by the hundreds, throwing themselves on the faeyn spears or leaping over them. Bows twanged catching gobos in mid-leap and Theris had to bat falling corpses away as often as live ones. The gob-bocari gibbered mindlessly as they thundered past all around them, teeth and claws snagging on Theris' armor and cutting into his arms and legs. Theris threshed his sword back and forth not caring if he landed a killing blow. He only sought to keep them away.