Chapter 2

Father had a fight with the village head Shaman, the Shaman had insisted the spirits wanted the village to go to war with the strange tribe across the river. Father had said it would be a waste of life to fight a battle we did not need to fight. He had said that we should approach the tribe with the hopes of trade with them, that perhaps we could both help each other.

The Shaman had said it would be a waste as the strange tribe spoke a demon language we could not understand, he had forbade my father from seeking the matter any further. Father had decided that he would go on his own to seek out the tribe, to try and prove we could be friendly with them.

When Mother found out what my Father had done she went to the Shaman to seek help in retrieving my father. The Shaman only laughed and told her that she could join my Father in his fate, he banished her and I from the village and gave orders should we return we would be made a sacrifice to the spirits. All while he prepared the village for war.

Being nine winters old I had been taught tracking skills by my father, I led my mother on his trail for three days, we where tiring when we came upon his camp, I recognized his things and told my mother such. She nodded and we decided he must be hunting for food, we would wait at his camp until his return.

I unrolled my sleeping furs next to my father's as Mother prepared some of the herbs she had brought with her. She had started a small fire when we both heard a sound that we had never heard before. It sounded like an animal stampede only it came from the sky. Next we saw a flash that lit the sky from the north. From the flash came a fireball flying through the air. Mother grabbed me and held me tight, saying a prayer to the Spirits, she said they must be angry with father for leaving the village.

I watched the fireball in the distance, it was strange and unlike anything I had seen in all my nine winters, Mother was incoherent in prayer. I separated myself from her to watch as the fireball seemed to hit the earth far away from us, when it hit I felt a small tremor in the earth, which caused my mother to cry out more. I went over to comfort her, telling her that perhaps it was a good omen.

As I sat there trying to calm my mother night fell. I made sure to supply enough wood for the fire to keep the animals away, then I went to lay next to Mother. We would wait for my father's return. I drifted to sleep thinking about the fire in the sky.

Sometime during the night my father returned; I heard him and Mother arguing, My father was not like the other men in his village, he allowed Mother to speak her mind and, often, I had heard comments from others that my father was weak for letting his women talk to him as such. Father had always told me though that it was foolish to ignore anyone's opinion, even a woman's. He had said women observe when men act, and that they often see what men miss. This must be why they were arguing. My father never considered what his actions would do to us. This was the gist of what Mother was telling him. They were trying to figure out what to do, now that we were banished from the village. Father said we should still go to the strange tribe and try to gain admittance to them. At the least we had a duty to warn them of the coming unprovoked attack. Mother reluctantly agreed. Father called me to him to tell me his plan.