Chapter 5

When I stepped up to Dumi and the group of lookouts, they all turned and looked up at me with quiet expectation. A few eyes flickered back and forth between Bri and I. I understood they had questions. I understood that rumors were flying around the village like wildfire pushed by the wind. But there wasn’t time for that.

I looked at Dumi. “Take one or two, the fastest, maybe Dol or Tsi and find your hunters.” Her eyes were locked on mine and, though I knew she was listening, I could almost feel the weight of questions she had.

Dumi and I had happened at the last sukopuoli. We had both chosen to stay in the longhouse during the feast. Neither of us wanted a mate. Neither of us had any intention of raising a family. We were both young, both strong, and we were both hunters.

But the longhouse, though excused from the sukopuoli ritual, was still a place filled with laughter, food, drink and a fair share of late night exercise. After a few cups of Iti, more than a few hunters found a place to bond with whomever they chose. We were excused the rites of marriage and family, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Dumi had been sitting at the end of a table filled with ten or twelve hunters. A large pig was skewered over the longhouse hearth, the nuns Jennifer and Sarah, unable to attend the sukopuoli brought their instruments and played. There were others in the longhouse besides the hunters and the nuns. Guards that were not on watch, a few farmers daughters who had not decided on a mate.

But Dumi and I had been dancing around each other for a cycle. There was something there we couldn’t touch, something between us that drew us together like magnets. That night we were talking about our early hunts, the first where we were alone. It was a race for the newest additions to the group. Each hunter wanted to prove that she was better than the others in her class.

After seven hours, I had missed a small boar, about six birds, and, at least, two rabbits. But I had downed a small deer, a gentle creature, a year old, with felt still on its antlers. After two hours of building a small skiff and dragging the creature back to the village. I got within an hour and found Dumi with a similar beast only twice the size and hers had already been skinned and was hanging outside the mandri.

She had never been one to let something go, and the night of the sukopuoli, both of us blurred by the iti, she reminded me that she was fast and strong and had beaten me on our first real hunt. Naturally, it went on from there. Within an hour she was sitting on my side of the table, a few minutes later, we were in each other’s arms, kissing, and then we were along the wall on one of the cots, her cock buried deep inside me.

The next day she had given me the anklet, the little string of leather and colorful feathers. She hadn’t said a word when she gave it to me. She simply handed it to me, smiled, and walked away.

Now she had questions about the human settler and why I had brought her to the camp, but everything had changed since the last time we had spoken. Now I was the huntress, there were armed settlers near our village, and there wasn’t time to discuss anything.

“Be sure of their intentions,” I looked into Dumi’s eyes, “if they’re coming to us, get back here as fast as you can, but be sure.”

Dumi shot another glance over my shoulder at Bri and then met my eyes. Her look wasn’t jealousy like I expected, it was more disappointment like she knew that Bri was trouble and that what had just happened was only the beginning. I wasn’t sure I disagreed.

She nodded, threw one last glance at Bri and then dashed off to find Dol and Tsi. I sent the rest of the lookouts into the forest in a ring pattern. If news needed to reach us, I wanted it to get here as fast as it could. I wanted to give Bri the benefit of the doubt, that she was right and they were just a group of hunters, maybe friends who had decided to take a few days to themselves, but I couldn’t land on what I really felt. On one hand, I wanted to trust her. I felt like I kind of knew her, or at least, understood her better than anyone else. But there was also the possibility that I was wrong and, if there were men with guns bent on finding her or us or both, being wrong could spell disaster. Preparation was key.

I thought of the night before, sitting beside her, eating rabbit, and staring at her milky flesh while we talked. Everything since had happened like we were running, like the day was moving faster than it ever had before. Now, she was here and there were men in the woods and I was a huntress and Kuoli was dead and ... the questions wouldn’t stop. It was too much. Worry filled me. My stomach hurt like someone had punched me.

When I finished with the last of the guards, sending them off to different points in the forest around the village, I turned and found Bri standing in the center of a group of younger Juoni - there were four or five sisters and one brother. They were all in their early teens, maybe thirteen or fourteen, and from the look on Bri’s face, both of the children seemed exceptionally fascinated and apparently enamored with her.

Bri’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. She looked at me and then back down at one of the girls and then off into the forest. Her face turned a bright pink and I saw a shadow of a grin, like she was doing her best not to encourage whatever was happening.

Embarrassment flooded my cheeks. I glanced around and there were more than a few people watching and listening. The night would be full of gossip, I knew. I stepped toward the group of children already knowing what I would find. And sure enough, three of the girls were slowly stroking the large cocks that had grown from the top of their pussies. With terrible, taunting smiles, they pointed them at the settler and teased her in Juoni so she wouldn’t understand.