They didn’t get any more information from the flatheads. Only that they were traveling southward after some great fire. Faydayo and Sarkola spent a good deal of time arguing over who would take the flatheads captive back to their chieftain. By standing rights, the Razor Boars’ claim outranked the Ibexes, since they were of the highest status. However, it had been Yuliko, an Ibex, to make the first sighting, and Kardan was the most capable of communicating with the flatheads.

In the end, Sarkola’s claim won out, since Faydayo didn’t wish to bring any disrespect from the high chieftain upon his clan. And also, the Ibexes needed to properly dispose of the mutilated goat carcass. It wasn’t right for it to lay on Maw’Goro’s yard with its guts hanging out.

“Perhaps these flatheads would make good workers once they are properly fed,” Sarkola had said before departing back to the Razor Boar camp. “Maybe my chieftain father might make them his thralls instead of sacrifices.” Then the Boar mo’huran left with their foreign captives.

The Ibexes built a stretcher to carry back the slaughtered goat. Faydayo forced Yuliko to drag the ibex out of the lava yard as punishment for disobeying his order to wait with Krissa and Minty, and for speaking when he had ordered her silence. The goat was heavy, and attracting flies. They also collected both the horns that had been sawed off the poor beast, ‘Thrall’ and ‘Death.’

Those were poor words to be debased upon the majestic ibex. And poor choices for the Ibex Clan. Yuliko thought of the thralls’ existence in the Ibex possession. They’re lives were mostly menial work that the full clan members did not wish to do; processing the hunted game, grinding grain meal, washing linens, digging waste trenches, and so on. All the thralls in the clan were Chieftain Domylo’s by right, but he assigned them out to different hearths as needed, and as rewards. A thrall had to wish that they’re overseer was benevolent, otherwise their life could be filled with harassment and beatings. It was plain to see that the Razor Boars led by Sarkola would not be benevolent.

They made the long walk back across the lava yard. Yuliko reflected upon the events of the day as she marched with the extra burden. She wondered if any mo’hurans had ever had such an eventful trek fetching their cores for the Pledge Rite. It was an especially poor start for Faydayo, who had not only had his authority threatened by Yuliko and Kardan, but he had ultimately faced great humiliation at the hands of Sarkola. Letting the Boars’ butchery of the goat and their attack on his mo’huran go unretaliated was a bitter root to chew. And letting the flatheads go in the custody of the Boars had been another strike against Faydayo’s pride. There had even been a ground tremor, a bad omen from the spirits themselves.

Yuliko was terribly exhausted by the time they saw the treeline of the rainforest. Her arms ached and her feet were more sore than they had ever been in her life. They passed back over the mound they had stood upon during the nominations, but the area was empty now, all the clan members had returned to the Ibex camp.

So many unexpected events had occurred today, Yuliko was half-afraid she might see the green man strutting out the treeline again. But she was able to carry the stretcher across the threshold of the lava yard to the rainforest uninterrupted.

Now that they had reached ground soil, they halted to bury the goat. He had already been savaged enough by the Boars, they didn’t wish for animals to desecrate the ibex any more. They found a nice spot by a grove of tall tan-white yungit trees.

“Hey Kardan,” Faydayo said as they dug using hard reedcane stalks. “Good fighting out there.”

“You too,” Kardan said with a nod. And they continued to dig without saying any more.

After the hole was finished, the goat was placed inside along with the thrall horn. Krissa told Yuliko to hold onto the death horn while she blessed the goat’s journey to the Other World.

Despite her concussion, Krissa was still performing her shaman duties, though she kept getting the ibex confused with a person. “He wasn’t well known to us. But to others he was a beloved son and brother and friend. And he was a hunter, right? Or, maybe he was a potter. I don’t know. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. May his next journey in the Other World be a joyful one,” Krissa concluded. Then she sprinkled a handful of herbs over the corpse, and then she looked to Yuliko, “Go ahead. Blow the man’s horn.”

Yuliko really wished Krissa had chosen someone else for this task, regardless, she blew the horn. “BWAAAAH!” Its low resonate bellow was far more muffled under the forest canopy. It seemed the right tone for the day that they had had. A wailful sound. As the horn called out, Yuliko felt the ground beneath her feet shaking.

She stopped blowing, and heard the leaves rustling and the land groaning. Another tremor. Yuliko watched the freshly dug mounds of earth shift and scatter. She lowered the horn and held out her hands trying to keep balance.

The others were doing the same. This tremor was stronger than the one they had felt in the yard. And it lasted longer too. Krissa, who had been standing over the grave, lost her footing and tumbled down on top of the dead ibex. A branch snapped off a yungit tree above Pykor and Zana. They dodged artfully, narrowly avoiding being crushed.

Yuliko felt the ground lift up beneath her, then she was toppled over, face in the dirt. Dirt spilled all around her. She could not push herself back up amidst the trembling ground. For an instant she thought she was going to be buried by the dirt.

But after another moment, the quaking slowed until finally ceasing entirely.

Yuliko pushed herself up out of the loose earth. She had fallen on top of the mound from digging out the goat grave. She stood up, shakily, and brushed the soil out of her hair. She frantically scanned all around her, searching for a green man coming out the trees again. But she saw none.

Kardan called out to see if everyone was alright, and one-by-one they weakly replied that they were. She looked behind her to see Faydayo jumping into the grave hole to help Krissa out.

“This is another omen,” Krissa said, as he took her hand.

“There are only so many omens I can take in a day,” Faydayo said, then he lifted her up and out of the hole.

“This may be a good omen, I think,” Krissa said. “I think it means our Great Journey is important. Our Journey will be special.”

Faydayo stared at her skeptically after she said that. “I think you need to rest back at camp.”

“No, Faydayo, I feel it. This has all meant something. You are to be our leader on a very special Journey,” Krissa said. The welt on her forehead had evolved into a nut sized bump, the gray healing clay cracked and peeling over it, like an outer layer of dead skin.

Faydayo shook his head, like he didn’t dare believe what she said to be true. Then he ordered everyone to quickly finish burying the ibex. They were long past due to be back at camp.

Even though Krissa’s words couldn’t necessarily be believed in her current state, she was a shaman-to-be, she knew magic. Yuliko found herself wishing her claim about this Journey being special were true. Maybe there would be a chance for her to redeem herself and restore the clan’s status. But also, though she didn’t want to admit it, she was jealous she would not be the leader of the important mo’huran.

In any case, it was better to believe they were receiving positive signs from the spirits, as opposed to the alternative. She had thought a lot about what the tremor had meant the day of her incident, and she had never considered that it could be good.

Kardan joined Yuliko’s side as they shoveled the dirt. “Hey, are you good?” he said. “I can’t believe we got another one of those.”

“Yeah . . . Do you think the tremors could be omens?” Yuliko said. Then she asked what she was really wondering. “Do you think Maw’Goro might be angry?”

Kardan frowned. “I don’t know about omens,” he said. “But Lion says Maw’Goro is always willing to let great things be made from his black glass. And the Journey is like the knapping of glass, so why would Maw’Goro be angry?”

Yuliko looked down at her antler wound scar, painted over by Eshika’s red hand. “Perhaps he is angry at me. For losing the clan totem. Perhaps Maw’Goro considers me unworthy.”

“Stop that,” Kardan said flatly.

“What?” Yulika said.

“Stop with that nonsense. Get it out of your head,” Kardan said. “You were nominated like each of us. By Lion and Eshika. Who’s better to say if one is worthy, huh?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I guess so,” Yuliko said.

“It is so. And besides, didn’t you here, those were good omens,” Kardan said, smiling wryly. “We’re on a special Journey.”

Yuliko smiled back, though she could not dismiss the tremors as easily as Kardan. Her fears of the green man emerging out of the trees haunted her again. Yuliko could half-remember her fever dreams in the days just after the incident. She remembered being in the girls’ hut, alone, and looking out the windows to see all the trees had bark of a marble white, even the dark brown pappo trees had gone pale. But then she’d realized she’s not alone, the antlered green man was watching from the corner. Then the hut would quake and Yuliko would try to escape, but suddenly the ground outside would be flowing hot lava, and she was trapped in the hut. Similar dreams had returned to her occasionally since waking from her fever and she couldn’t believe they meant nothing.

As they refilled the ibex grave, they unearthed the ibex horn Yuliko had blown. The ‘Death’ etching poking out the soil. The tremor had somehow buried the thing under the dirt, just like Yuliko had been afraid would happen to her.

She added the horn to the grave and they shoveled it closed.

#

It had rained on them as they walked from the gravesite. Though the rain didn’t bother them. They were used to frequent rains, and it was cooling after all events of the lava yard. Black Glass people didn’t wear much clothing. What they did wear was made of thin cloth and animal skins wraps. So after the rainclouds passed, they were dry as they came into the camping grounds, though it was nearly dark.

They were all exhausted and dirty. Many had bruises and scrapes from the fighting. And Krissa was in desperate need of rest to recover from her concussion. Yuliko wondered if the others’ feet hurt half as much as her own.

First they passed the cattle and goat herds kept on the outer perimeter, and people were coming out to greet the journeyers, as was tradition after their first trek as a mo’huran. As they got closer to the central array of huts more and more people were coming out to wave them on.

The huts were made of wood and straw. Most of them were big enough to accommodate multiple families under a single roof. They were built from pre-made wall and roof planks that could be set up and taken apart quickly. The Black Glass People migrated at least twice a year, at the end of each dry and wet season, sometimes more frequently if the area was over-burdened. Torches lined the walkway through the camp, bathing the tribespeople in orange light.

Scores of clanspeople, many bedecked in obsidian jewelry, cheered on the returning youths as they walked through the camp, as was the custom after a groups first venture as a mo’huran. Though, they also received many uncustomary odd looks, for it was not usual to return looking so battered. Still, Yuliko, welcomed the positivity emanating from her tribe, for it had been a hard day and it was nice to be back home. She waved back to them happily.

It was tradition for the mo’huran to present their chosen cores to the obsidian master, where he would assess them and enrich the glass with vibrational magic. But it was also urgent that they meet with Chieftain Domylo and inform him about the encounters with the Razor Boars and the flatheads.

Krissa was taken by Makala once she saw the welt on her head and glazed look in her eyes. Faydayo took her obsidian core so they could complete the enrichment ritual for her.

“Minty! Yuliko!” a familiar voice shouted out from the crowd. They spotted one of the younger girls with her hair in pigtails, Tati, jumping up and waving with both hands. “Did you feel the earthquake?” she asked.

Tati was Makala’s daughter. She and Minty had become very close during her apprenticeship, and since Yuliko had spent months healing after the incident she had grown close to Tati too. The three girls were practically sisters by this point.

“Oh yeah, we felt it,” Yuliko said. “It was just a tremor though.” She purposefully downplayed how scary the experience had been for her.

“Well, it was a big tremor. It knocked down Piquio and Roma’s hut,” Tati said, walking alongside Yuliko and Minty.

“Oh no, was anyone hurt?” Minty asked.

“No, everyone’s fine,” Tati said. “But you all look like you were wrestling hobs,”

“Nothing that exciting,” Yuliko told her. “But we did see flatheads.”

“Now way!” Tati exclaimed.

“It’s true,” Minty said. “Though, they did not look well.”

“What do you—”

“Hi, Kardan!” an overly sweet voice rang from the crowd. It was another one of the younger girls, Gidiya. She had long straight hair that she twirled as she budged herself into the walk.

“Uh, hi, Gidiya,” Kardan said.

“Was everything alright on your trip? Eshika was getting strange signals from Maw’Goro’s plume. Plus there was the tremor. And I think I saw Krissa was hurt. How’d that happen?” Gidiya said, almost in one breath. She was the shaman’s other apprentice, only taken on the last season, when it had been determined Krissa would be ascending to adulthood.

“Everything’s good. We’ll tell you about it later,” Kardan said with finality.

“Oh, alright, sure,” Gidiya said disappointed, then she reached into her satchel. “Hey, I made you something.” Then she held out a bracelet made of intricately woven cord interlaced with red jasper beads. “I was gonna hold off until the feast, but I couldn’t wait.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Kardan said.

“Let me put it on you,” Gidiya said.

“Right now?” Kardan asked, but she had already grabbed his wrist and she was tightening the slipknot.

“Awesome. Thank you,” Kardan told her, chagrined. “Okay, I gotta finish my trek.”

“Yeah, alright,” Gidiya said, and she turned around to rejoin the crowd, but then she saw Tati walking with Yuliko. She stepped next to Tati and whispered to her, “You shouldn’t be so close to her. The Totem-Loser is cursed.”

“She’s not cursed. She’s my friend,” Tati said staunchly, stopping to face Gidiya.

Gidiya looked Yuliko over from head to toe. “She looks kinda cursed. I’m glad she’s not in our mo’huran.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Yuliko said to Tati, tugging on her arm to move along. Tati stuck her tongue out at Gidiya as they continued walking.

“She’s stupid. I don’t know why you like her, Kardan,” Tati said.

“Yeah, Kardan, why do you like her?” Minty teased.

“I was just being nice,” Kardan said defensively.

The girls laughed at Kardan’s expense. Yuliko outwardly laughed along with her friends, but she was perfectly aware that Gidiya might actually be a desirable mate for Kardan. She was a shaman’s apprentice with status, and she was pretty too. Inwardly Yuliko chanted to the spirits for Kardan not to care about her own lowly status as a mate.

“It’s not fair the two of you get to go together and I’ll be stuck with Gidiya and her friends,” Tati said.

“That is a long while from now,” Minty said. “You could be all their friends by then.”

“I doubt that,” Tati said dryly.

They were falling behind the others. They were already getting close to the chieftain’s hut. “We must finish our trek now,” Yuliko said. “We’ll see you again before the Pledge Rite.”

“You promise?” Tati said.

“We promise,” Yuliko and Minty said together, then Tati stepped back into the crowd and waved them on.

Faydayo led the party to the largest hut in the center of the camp. The doorway was framed by two large pappo tree trunks, carved with images of Maw’Goro, embodied as a triangle figure, and his great fire spreading over the lands, consuming plants and animals and other beasts, burning people, warriors and shaman and chieftains alike.

The journeyers stood lined up like they had at the mound with Yuliko in last rank. Soon, the beaded curtain door was pulled apart for Chieftain Domylo’s entrance. He emerged wearing his snakeskin vest, flanked on his sides by Lion and Eshika. The esteemed clanspeople marched between the pappo trunk pillars. Yuliko noticed her father glance her way, and look at her red handprint, before turning stoically forward.

“We return with powerful cores from the hot heart of Maw’Goro,” Faydayo declared.

“Let us see Maw’Goro’s power,” Domylo said.

The journeyers each knelt and placed their obsidian core in front of them. Domylo nodded to Lion, who stepped forward and walked in front of the line of kneeling young people, waving his hand over each core they had selected. He came to Yuliko’s last, he smiled at her through his bushy beard, and after he had assessed her core he clapped his hands twice to signify all the cores were of the appropriate magical power.

Next, Lion moved to the center of the lineup, and he began to hum and wave his arms around in contradicting circles. As he did so his hands twitched between various mystical gestures, only known to the most skilled obsidian masters,

Yuliko could swear she felt a shift in the atmosphere. It seemed like the nearby torches burned brighter and hotter as Lion harnessed Maw’Goro’s strength. Yuliko felt a static-like tingle buzz across her body. It was as if the obsidian cores were absorbing the light from the brightening torches. The journeyers could feel heat coming from the cores. Then, Lion swept his hands forward, as if releasing the energy he had built up.

During Lion’s casting, Yuliko noticed that Eshika’s attention was turned in the direction of Maw’Goro’s plume drifting upward into the sky.

The brightness of the torches peaked and the tingling sensation reached a crescendo, before suddenly dwindling off and the torchlight faded back down to normal. Then the obsidian master bowed, and stepped back with Domylo and Eshika.

“Go now, and prepare for your Pledge Rite,” Domylo said. “For soon you shall embark on your Great Journey.”

The journeyers picked up their obsidian cores. To Yuliko it seemed that her core had increased in weight. It almost felt to her like the power of a rushing water current lay within the glass.

With the formalities over, Yuliko stepped forward to inform her father of the ominous encounter with the flatheads. “Father, I must speak with—”

“Chieftain Domylo,” Faydayo said more loudly, budging himself between his mentor and Yuliko. “I must speak with you on important matters.”

Domylo looked at his daughter briefly, still stoic, then he flicked his attention on his apprentice. “Yes, Faydayo, tell me inside.”

Yuliko watched her father walk with Faydayo into the large hut, leaving her in the flickering orange torchlight.

Then she turned to speak with the shaman. She needed an explanation for the red handprint, and her nomination. But Eshika had already disappeared too.