Chapter 3

The inept tribesman that they left to guard my tent, managed to make enough noise to wake me up from my light sleep several times during the night. Nevertheless, when I got up, it was to a well-rested body. There was very little light coming in under the tent flaps, which meant that dawn had yet to break. It took little attention to methodically gear myself up, making sure that I was fully ready for anything that happened today. Even after all of that, the inattentive guard nearly shit himself when I suddenly came out of the tent. I took one look at him and knew that he wouldn't be able to stay awake, much less keep up with me. There was no point in hiding what I was doing, except to irritate my hosts. I figured I had done that well enough by running Roud into the ground yesterday. My temper was in much better shape at the moment, fortunately.

"Go get someone better rested, to guard me," I said, giving him a chill look. Just because my temper had cooled a bit didn't mean I wouldn't enjoy this. The guard took one look into my eyes and left towards the other side of the camp without a word.

While I was waiting for company, I went to the campfire in the center of the camp to warm up. Even this early in the morning, several women were up and tending to their chores. Enyi wasn't among them, so I paid them little mind. I had a craving that I was determined to satisfy this morning, and whoever it was that came with me was going to have an entertaining time.

While I was waiting, I accessed my PAD and started doing a little research. Before I came here, I had put together a huge database, on which I had stored all of the information that I could imagine needing. I filed it in my PAD for easy access. It included a lot of handy things to know, such as animal anatomy. It was up to me to use the information, since reading did nothing to increase my skills at anything, but it was handy for finding the easy and painless way to approach something.

It only took about five minutes before I saw Roud stumbling into the center of the camp. The nicest thing I could say was that he looked much better now, than the last time I had seen him. Still, he didn't look that thrilled to see me ready to go, this early. Apparently, the guard had been smart enough not to stick me with anyone less than the senior hunter. Maybe he was less inept than I had thought.

As soon as Roud came into view, I pulled the stave and a bow string from my quiver. I strung the bow with a practiced move. With the bow in hand, I immediately went to Roud.

"Come on," I told him, ignoring his look of disbelief. "I want something fresh for breakfast."

I walked past him without waiting for any type of acknowledgement. I knew he wouldn't let me out of his sight, so I didn't bother to look back. Taking pity on the poor man, I set a much slower pace than I would have, had I been alone. I wasn't nearly ready to push my luck with my nanos, anyway. I was still recovering from my injury.

When I had previously scouted the area, I had come across a small marshy area a couple of kilometers away from the camp. Pork sounded good to me, and boars traditionally enjoy marshy areas. We made it there just before dawn. The walking had just started to warm me up, so the morning dew felt great as it came down.

When we had gotten within the marsh, I put my tracking skills to good use. Roud was probably better at this sort of thing than I was, but I took the lead and didn't give him the chance to weigh in. Fortunately, it was a good area, with good weather for tracking. It only took a little bit of hunting to find some relatively fresh tracks that I guessed were boar. Even so, I didn't have a particularly good idea of how fresh they were, so I mentally crossed my fingers.

When we came across the boar quickly, I was glad. As it happened, we were even downwind of it. It also appeared that my hunch was correct: in an environment where humans couldn't effectively hunt them and their only major predators were bears, they weren't very attentive to their surroundings. After all, they could kill, or at least fight to a standstill, virtually anything they came across.

That was the real danger, because the boar was heavily armored from the front with all its vulnerabilities protected. People at this level of technology had, in the past, used a specially designed spear to hunt boars. In effect it was a spear with a crossbar on it, so that the boar couldn't literally push itself mortally down the spear and kill its attacker before it perished. As crazy as that sounded, that was a tactic that the boar was perfectly willing to use. As such, a regular spear was not appropriate for hunting them, unless you had suicidal tendencies.

I made sure that Roud was with me when I pulled an arrow from my quiver and put it to the bowstring. I had spent significant time practicing hunting with the bow over the past few weeks to make sure I could demonstrate it reasonably well. That was good, since even with the boar completely oblivious to us, it was a good bit harder than shooting in practice.

The area I was aiming for was very small, and missing would do little more than piss off the creature. I sighted the target carefully. I wanted to make sure the arrow would kill it quickly. A several-hour chase through the woods before the animal got around to bleeding out wasn't my idea of a fun time. It would also be less than impressive to my friend. The other option was being chased by the slightly (or even critically) wounded boar. This was likely, if it wasn't impeded by the wound.

Fortunately, my aim was true, and the first indication of us that the boar had was when the arrow penetrated its side. I had aimed for the small area where the heart cavity was vulnerable. It was mortally wounded, and was only able to take a few steps before it collapsed and died.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I heard the gasp of disbelief from Roud. I was glad that the shot had been lethal. My backup option had been my defense gun, which I didn't particularly want to have to explain to my partner.

Sparing him no more attention, I went over to the dead pig. It took me mere moments to pull the arrow out and check it for damage. I had made the arrows, so they were very prone to damage, particularly the shaft. This one was still in fairly good condition, though. I cleaned it and put it back into my quiver, along with my unstrung bow.

At this point, I methodically used my utility knife to gut my prize. Despite my lack of practice, I had researched the process and put it into effect several times, so I was able to finish it quickly. Roud, whatever doubts or issues he had with me, was good enough to help me. Neither of us spoke as we methodically did the gory work. Leather straps were used to bind its forefeet and hind feet together, and I threw the pig up over my shoulder.

We continued back to camp at this point, as silently as we had come. I did notice that Roud was taking frequent glances at my quiver, which amused me. He was also looking a lot less hostile at this point. In fact, if anything, he looked slightly fearful of me. He would have spoken if I had given him any hint that it would be welcome. I was feeling a lot better, but I decided to let him simmer a little longer.

The looks of disbelief when we got back into camp were amusing to me. The effort I had taken was easily repaid by the effect on the women and hunters in the campfire area as I dropped the boar onto the ground. They probably hadn't had pork much. Without the innovation of boar spears, hunting boars was a far more dangerous enterprise than most hunters would be willing to attempt.

"I brought something fresh for breakfast," I announced.

I had to suppress laughter as I saw all of the eyeballs in the camp cycle between looking at me and looking at Roud. Without a doubt, the look of pride that I saw on Enyi's face made the effort more than worthwhile. I saw in that look, that I had erased all the doubts that she had been holding. Even though I had done this for a bit of come-uppance for the flack I had gotten the afternoon before, her look of pride filled me with happiness.

Deciding that my anger had served its purpose, I let it go at that point. I felt that I had proven my point.

Enyi made sure I had the first serving of the boar meat from the boar, when it was done. As she rushed over, I gave her a warm smile. In truth, at that moment, I was the happiest I had felt in the last couple of months. It took only that, to make me realize that despite our cultural differences and the lack of time we had spent together, that the woman had already managed to find a place in my heart.

It was shocking, but true. It also made me realize that her doubts were where a major portion of my anger had originated.

Looking at my feelings, I knew that there were a lot of psychological reasons for them that may or may not last over the long term. There certainly wasn't a strong foundation to base those feelings on. I was isolated from my people and my culture. That likely wouldn't change before I died. That created a certain amount of desperation in my thoughts.

Enyi, on the other hand, fit the physical profile of the kind of woman that attracted me. Even if she was comparatively uneducated, she had very high intelligence and potential. Though her personality was masked somewhat by culturally ingrained submissiveness, what I had seen was amicable.

Whatever happens will happen, I decided. Knowing that my infatuations were based on the wrong reasons didn't mean that they were wrong, or could be ignored. There wasn't anything about her that put me off, at least not that I had seen so far. If issues arose, I would deal with them. My intuition told me, however, that things would work out.

"Thank you," I told her as she handed me the plate.

That look of confusion that I had come to expect only managed to flash across her face momentarily before it was absorbed into her wonderful smile.

"Please be careful, today," she said.

There wasn't any doubt on her face, just concern.

"For you, I will do anything," I said glibly.

All the horribly clichéd lines were new to her culture, so I figured I couldn't go wrong. The smile that she gave me before she went back to work confirmed that.

As I watched, Enyi went back to the campfire where she worked side-by-side with the same young woman I had seen her with the day before. I chuckled as I saw that she was chattering away happily at the woman. My observations were interrupted when a couple of shadows drifted into my line of sight. Hegen and Roud had come up from behind, and were sitting down on a log near me.

"I hear we have you to thank for our breakfast," Hegen said cheerfully. "I have to admit, I haven't decided whether to try and keep you angry until you fill our larder for the winter, or apologize for offending you so you will take pity on Roud. Considering the trouble he usually gives me, I am leaning towards stocking up for the winter."

Roud shot him a dirty look as we both chuckled.

"I think I've made my point," I said graciously.

"If you ever intend to make a point directly with me, please warn me so that I can apologize for whatever I did," Hegen mockingly pleaded.

"A lesson learned without pain is a lesson soon forgotten," I said, smiling to show that I was kidding.

"Would you be willing to show us the secret of the small spears?" Roud said, changing the subject rather abruptly. "I've never seen their like, and if I hadn't seen the result, I would never have believed it."

I mulled over my response for a moment, as I continued to eat.

"It would take a lot of trust for me to show a secret like that to someone," I said carefully. "I don't think it unfair to say that that level of trust has not been gained, between us. This... problem... is behind us. I will consider you friends. As friends, maybe we can begin to trust each other more."

Both of them nodded, apparently satisfied with my answer. We continued to eat quietly, having said what we needed to. I waited until the others were finished, before I stood.

"I'm ready to go," I told them.

They exchanged looks, before Hegen shrugged.

"I will gather those that are coming with us," Roud said. "I am mostly bringing women. Remember, we cannot help you to kill the bear."

He was very careful with how he said that last part, so I nodded to acknowledge that I understood him.

"Good luck to you, friend," Hegen said, slapping me on the shoulder before he walked off.

No one followed me as I went to the edge of the camp. I finally found an area that was wide enough for my purposes, and started working through a series of stretching exercises. I didn't intend to let the bear get close to me, but there was no such thing as too much preparation. As big as the bear likely was, it would be a lethal threat if it managed to get close enough to me, and my armor wouldn't provide much protection.

When the others arrived, they didn't disturb me. Since they seemed in no rush, I quickly finished the series of stretches that I was working through before I turned towards them.

"Are we ready to go?" I asked Roud.

He nodded. "Follow us. We will show you the way," he said, to which I nodded.

The corner of my eye caught one of the male hunters. He was giving me an evil look. Something about him disturbed me, so I carefully noted him. I didn't know if he was going to be trouble or not, but I was determined that he wouldn't catch me by surprise.

Keeping an eye on the suspect one, I followed the crowd as we walked out of the camp. They maintained a slow pace, but kept it steady. I kept careful watch on the surroundings as we walked, noting a couple of threats that came near us but backed away once our numbers were apparent. I was also careful to note the route we took to get to the cave, in case I had to travel this area alone in the future.

I also saw that I wasn't the only one wary of the hunter I was watching, since everyone kept a bit of distance from him. He was obviously not exactly the most popular guy around camp.

When we got to the cave, I immediately saw why this cave was chosen to protect the idols. It was a nearly perfect defensive position, at the top of a twisting ramp. If there were defenders manning the entrance of the cave, they would be able to throw spears down on top of the invaders heads. Any invaders that got to the entrance of the cave would have to approach two or three at a time to a wide open entrance where many defenders could attack them. If the cave had been properly defended, I would bet that not even a huge bear would have been able to take it.

"Wait here," I told them in a whisper.

Without even looking in their direction, I heard them stop obediently. I started climbing the ramp. Stealthily crouching and creeping to the entrance of the cave, I looked around. Dark shadows covered most of the cave, despite the light shining in from the entrance.