---Qrez’s perspective---

“Sir, is this a good idea?” snivels Ezwer from his place beside me in the long grass “Aren’t the hairy she-elephants like… gods to the paleskins? They won’t be happy if-”

“The savages may think these things are gods but we don’t! We can see them for what they are! Just another part of the Cycle!… Our oh-so-perfect leader has decreed that we trade them meat for veg, they don’t get to be picky about the meat we trade them!” I assert.

I look at the animals, five great giants of meat (and their two babies, themselves each several times the weight of a person) as they lazily graze the grass, edging closer and closer to where I need them to be, between my men and the top of the bluff.

The fall should kill them but any that survive will certainly be too injured to escape, we can come down and finish them at our leisure.

There’s enough meat here for us to match all the forest veg the brutes come to bring us and eat our own fill for months before we need to make another hunt!

My heart jumps as the beasts get so very almost to where we can cut off their escape… then stop.

If I give the signal now, they might turn and flee back the way they came and, if they do that, they will escape!

Just… a little… further…!

“NOW!” I cry as I jump to my feet.

Arrows fly over my head and lodge themselves into the hides of three of the creatures.

All around me, my hunters close in.

The dumb beasts wail and roar in pain and confusion.

They start to run… right where I need them to go!

The matriarch sees the cliff and tries to stop but she’s no match for the force of the ones behind her!

The whole herd disappears and, three heartbeats later, there is a rapid series of earthshaking *boom*s…

I jog up to the top of the cliff and stop, looking out and down over the edge.

What I see is very satisfying.

I am going to be a Cycle. damned. HERO for this!

---Raala’s perspective---

“Look at this!” cries the boy I recognise as a Boarman “Does this look right to you?!”

“Qele an ksil se’euts nun?” answers the perplexed looking outlander, clearly not understanding.

“I don’t care what the stick says! This…” he cups a large bag hung from a notch cut into one side of a balanced stick “…is obviously more than this!” he indicates the much smaller bag hanging the same distance on the other side.

“Kre te’entze!?” answers the man, looking annoyed now.

I decide to step in.

“What’s in there?” I ask, pointing to the big bag.

“Mushrooms. Why?” answers the Boar, turning to me.

“Because mushrooms are going to be lighter than meat, aren’t they… That’s why it looks like so much less. It’s weight for weight, not size for size. He’s not shorting you. Take them both off the balance stick and see how they feel in your hands if you don’t believe it.” I explain, exasperatedly.

The boy frowns and reaches out, unhitching both bags.

The dark eyes of the outlander are fixed on the Boarman, clearly braced for the possibility that he runs away with both bags, but he makes no move to stop him.

Impressive restraint when you consider that he can’t actually know what’s just been explained.

The stick wobbles before returning to perfect balance.

The boy holds the bags in his hands and jostles them up and down a few times, feeling their heft.

“Your right…” he says, bemused “…I guess they are about the same!”

“Glad the issue’s resolved… but you probably want to give this guy the mushrooms before he loses his patience with you…” I answer, gesturing up at the annoyed looking flatface.

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“Oh, yeah… Right.” he says, extending the arm with the mushrooms in it to the dark skinned lanklet who takes it.

I sigh and walk on through the busy exchange.

Not even a Moon since these outlanders arrived and this new normal has already firmly established itself.

My clan hasn’t had to gather any firewood recently because so many have been coming through our lands, gathering our firewood to smoke their meat before they take it home and, due to the Due, bringing a third of what they collect to us!

Of course, a couple of wise arses have recognised that, even with the Due, it makes more sense to gather up our veg than to carry their own from home and have had to be firmly told that that’s not what the Due is for!

Our lands will get over depleted if everyone’s coming here to gather their trade veg.

We’d be drowning in food in the interim but, eventually, we’d reach a point where we couldn’t stay here!

Come Spring, they say they’ll move further North, nearer Moufflon’s border. Hopefully, that takes the strain off us a bit.

It’s absurd to think just how much and how quickly life has changed since the outlanders arrived… and without any warning either!

How much they’ve disrupted just by being here!

It’s-

“Excuse me… Ma’am?” murmurs a child’s voice from my left shoulder, accompanied by a little tug on the back of my clothes.

I turn and look down into a green eyed, light brown skinned face that does uncomfortable things to my insides.

Trying not to let the hybrid boy see how uneasy he makes me, I answer “Yes… uhm… Eshker?”

He bobs his head to let me know I’ve remembered his name right and says “I… uhm… I need to show you something…” looking and sounding much more uncomfortable than I am.

“Oh…?” I frown “…what’s that?”

Waggling his face in a ‘no’, the boy says “You need to see it…” his eyes pleading.

“Aaaaal…right, kid… Lead the way then?”

The boy looks mildly relieved at my agreement but still very unhappy.

He turns and marches off in a gait that’s uncannily in between my people’s stride and the outlanders’ rolling one.

I follow behind him until he reaches a large tent.

Turning back around to me, his hand poised between himself and the door curtain, he says “This is a butcher tent… They’re where we keep the meat between hunting it and eating it or trading it to you… This one’s got meat in it that’s meant for the trade… You might want to just prepare yourself… I’m really sorry…”

With that, he pulls back the curtain.

I peer past him into the dim space, piled with meat.

My eyes go wide as I see it…

Nausea twists my stomach and I turn away, retching.

---Ksem’s perspective---

I’ve got an enormous weight of cold stone in my stomach as I sit in my place in the Main Tent, looking over the fire to the door.

I don’t consider myself to be a man who’s quick to anger but, right now, I’m absolutely furious!

Kseley is sat on my left and Raala on my right as the three of us wait for the object of my ire to arrive.

He comes in, laughing with whoever it was who accompanied him here, then sees the faces of the three of us waiting for him.

He stops laughing.

His eyes flick around for a moment before he asks “You summoned me, leader?”

“I did, Qrez.” I state, simply.

“What for?”

I take a deep inhale and exhale, my eyes fixed on him, before saying “I’ve just been made aware, Qrez, that we have meat from both female and baby mammoths in our larders… Not just that but we’ve also got it specifically in our trade tent… Would you care to explain just how that happened?”

“Oh, that?… Yeah, my party drove them off a cliff on our hunt yesterday. I’ve got Ezwer and Re’lem guarding the carcasses right now while porter teams go back and forth to collect the meat.” he admits, casually.

“I… see… and what in the Cycle was it that possessed you to think that that was at all acceptable, Qrez? I know you know just how taboo they consider it to wipe out whole herds of any prey animal. I know you know they only hunt maverick mammoths! I know you know the locals consider female mammoths and calves sacred! And I KNOW I did not authorise this, Qrez!”

“Yeah… I know about their superstitions…” he sneers “…but I don’t see why we have to be beholden to them! Let these brutes think they were shat out of a hairy elephant cunt if they want! What difference does it make to us?!”

“Qrez!” I roar, rising to my feet and causing him to jump away from me “We are STRANGERS in this land!… EVERYTHING we’ve been doing since we got here has been aimed at getting these people to see us as friends and ALLIES and you’ve just pissed all over all of it with this stupid fucking stunt!!!… Not only do they now know we don’t share their religion (a conversation happening well ahead of schedule) not only do they now think of us as wanton killers of animals they hold in reverence but they have also come to think of us as people who have NO qualms about making them break their taboos with our lack of care!!!… We’ve had to STOP the trade while we figure out what’s contaminated and what’s not!… DO you have any idea of the damage you’ve done!? The TRUST you’ve lost us!?!?!?”

He does not answer, just watching me.

I let out a long, resigned sigh before informing him “…*sigh*… You’re demoted, Qrez… You are no longer my chief warrior and, until further notice, you are confined to eyeshot of camp and are not permitted to hunt. I’m putting you on nightguard duty, starting tomorrow night.”

“Whuh-uh!?… You can’t!!!” he stammers.

“I CAN and I AM, Qrez!… I can’t have someone I don’t trust sitting by my side! I can’t have someone I don’t trust giving orders to my people and, with this, you have proven you are someone I. can’t. trust! You’re lucky the penalty is not worse!… I’ll announce it in the morning… Now get out of my sight!”

His breaths hitching as his face twists with a cacophony of negative emotions, the man stands for several heartbeats… then turns and storms from the tent.