The band of young Ibex men and women reached the base of Maw’Goro. If they were to travel any closer they would be scaling the volcano. The sulfur smell was thicker here, the temperature hotter, and in the distance they could spot a slow moving trail of Maw’Goro’s burning blood. Krissa declared that the magical energy here was more than adequate for their ritual blades, and Faydayo ordered everyone to stay close as they searched for their obsidian cores.

Selecting the right obsidian core for one’s ritual blade was an important process. It must be a glass rock the journeyer connects with. The black glass knives they are to make will be their touchstone to Maw’Goro, for out in the far lands they will lack his protection and influence. In the far lands other great spirits reign supreme. As long as a journeyer carries their ritual blade though, they can not be mastered by another spirit.

Faydayo and Krissa walked off to search together. Yuliko saw Faydayo shaking his head, muttering something in frustration as they turned around a bend. Krissa put her hand on his backside as he spoke. Yuliko figured Faydayo was venting to her. Their first venture as a Mo’Huran was supposed to be easy, for they were still at the very center of Black Glass territory, but Faydayo’s leadership was already off to a volatile start; the tremor from earlier was certainly no good sign, and just before that he had nearly gotten into a fight with Kardan, and then there was the ambiguous red handprint Eshika had given Yuliko. And if Faydayo’s behavior from the resting site was an indicator, he would not handle further grievances any more gracefully.

Yuliko hoped Kardan might wish to join her in the search for their cores, but he was already off examining a pile of potential rocks. He had been the obsidian master’s apprentice for over two years now, and not just any obsidian master, but he had learned from Lion, the most talented knapper across all the clans. Kardan was probably better equipped than Krissa to tell how powerful the obsidian around here was, for the obsidian masters don’t merely shape the rocks by knapping and flaking, but they harnessessed Mow’Goro’s power to craft the obsidian. They worked the material with their minds before the chipping had even begun.

Yuliko watched Kardan as he knelt next to an obsidian block with his head cocked, then he picked up the stone and held it up to his ear, as if he could listen inside like a conch shell. Yuliko had also trained with Lion, but she did not have the insight into the black glass that Kardan had developed. Her few months of instruction from the great obsidian master had been focused on knapping with tools, but Kardan was nearly advanced enough to be practicing vibrational knapping, where the knapper channels the magic of Maw’Goro to shatter the obsidian into the desired shape. Kardan set down the stone he had been listening to, then picked up another one and sniffed it.

Yuliko instead went searching for her core with Minty. The healer’s apprentice was probably the shyest person in the whole clan. She was a small wispy girl who never went anywhere without her toadskin medicine bag.

“I’m happy Eshika nominated you,” Minty told Yuliko as they strolled over to a little pit filled with potential cores. “I’m already scared enough. I’d be terrified if you weren’t coming on the Great Journey.”

“You would do just fine either way,” Yuliko said, squeezing Minty’s hand briefly. “But I am happy too, even if Faydayo is the mo’huran leader.”

And she meant that. She could tolerate being the lowest status in the mo’huran and all of Faydayo’s bullying if it meant she could bestow Maw’Goro their tribute and not be cast as a thrall. She would talk to Kardan soon to make it clear she wanted no more trouble with Faydayo on her behalf.

They hopped down into the pit and picked through a couple cores, to reveal a patch of pale blue grass.

“Goro’s ghostgrass! How lucky!” Minty said excitedly, moving aside the nearby rocks to expose the whole patch, which turned out to be rather large, a rare find. Ghostgrass had potent medicinal properties, particularly for easing cramps and pains. She quickly pulled out a digging stick and began to unearth the plants, trying to keep the roots intact as much as possible.

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While Minty dug, Yuliko picked up two of the obsidian cores that had covered the hidden bounty. She held them up to her eye level, weighing them, feeling the comfort of their shapes in her palms.

“These glass cores gave us a gift, they must have much magic,” Yuliko said. “I think they shall make good ritual blades, don’t you?”

“Yes, they must have much magic,” Minty agreed, only glancing at the cores. She wasn’t really a knapper. Her interests lay mostly with herbs and their various uses. Minty shook off the loose soil and wrapped the ghostgrass in a cloth before storing it in her medicine bag.

Yuliko, however, was a knapper. She kept looking at the cores, thinking over the things Lion had taught her about choosing one's starting block. The tool already exists in the glass. When you hold the glass, the tool should already be forming in your mind. Each flake gets closer to the shape that was already there. Yuliko rolled the two cores around in her hands, feeling all their edges. After a few minutes she handed Minty the egg-shaped core, and kept the heart-shaped core for herself.

“You can make a good short straight blade with that one. But strike it from the top of the curves, not the sides, or else it will be too brittle,” Yuliko told her friend. But with her heart-shaped core Yuliko planned on a more complicated blade, with a longer shaft with a slight curve, and she would add fluting to the shaft so it would fit in a handle better.

The girls packed away their chosen obsidian cores. But before they were to rejoin the rest of the Mo’Huran, Yuliko wanted to pick an extra piece of glass. Having an additional core to make replacement tools on the Great Journey would be helpful. The extra weight will be burdensome, Yuliko knew, but it could save them from a tight situation. For this piece she wanted something rectangular that could be a general purpose block.

While she searched through the rocks, Minty fiddled with the strap of her toadskin bag a bit nervously, then said, “Yuliko, I wish it was you that were leading our Mo’Huran. I fear Faydayo may overreach and attempt to acquire a tribute that is too dangerous for us.”

Yuliko frowned. She was not the leader. She lost her chance at that. “You shouldn’t say such things,” she told Minty. “We must trust in Faydayo to lead us to success.”

Her friend hadn’t guessed that Yuliko was probably more desperate for a great tribute than even Faydayo.

“He is a brute, especially to you,” Minty said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Yuliko replied, grabbing an appropriate hunk of glass as her extra piece. “He is our leader. Maybe he will be better if we give him a chance.”

“He’s given you the hardest time of all since your incident. Why are you speaking up for him?” Minty asked.

“I don’t know,” Yuliko said, truthfully. Then she touched her scar and the shaman’s mark over it. “Maybe Eshika seconded my nomination because I’m supposed to help Faydayo.”

“Ha! You’re the last person he wants help from,” Minty said.

Yuliko crossed her arms. “Well, he’s going to get it whether he likes it or not.”

A high pitched honking caw, like that of a bird-of-paradise, sounded out from a few mounds over the lava yard. A signal that there was danger and to regroup. The two girls climbed out of the rock pit and rushed over the boulder steps to meet the others. They found them at the top of an outcropping gathered together at the edge. They were all huddled around something and they all looked upset.

“What is it?” Yuliko asked Kardan as she and Minty approached.

He simply stepped aside and pointed at the object displayed on the ledge. A dead ibex lay spread out on a jutting elevated portion of the outcropping. Its white fur stained red. It lay on its backside with its belly cut in a vertical slash, gored, from rib cage to groin. Bloody intestines spilled out onto the rock. The poor goat's horns had been severed as well, and brutally too, the scalp was scraped and bloodied. It may have been done while it was alive.

Their clan, of course, would harvest what they required from the revered ibex, but always with respect. This here was butchery. A mockery. This was an insult.

Faydayo’s face had turned red. His fists clenched tight.

Krissa knelt beside the slaughtered ibex and waved her hands over the beast as she chanted a prayer for the animal’s journey into the Other World. She whipped her head around frenetically, rattling the beads in her hair.

Yuliko gripped her spear tight. Her hands were not sweaty. She was ready to hunt.