Right after the battle, Ulla took care in treating the wounds of those who had fought. Tabal had a bruise on his collarbone from a blow with the blunt edge of an axe, fortunately not breaking the bone. The sorceress diligently applied herbal poultices to the bleeding wounds of the others and performed some spells and rituals on the more serious injuries. Fortunately for them, no man from the tribe died, which was quite uncommon, probably due to the extreme hunger and desperation of their adversaries.
But Unnum’s tribe wasn’t much better, and the old woman scolded the men for not leaving any of Samman’s clan warriors alive. If they had, they could have eaten one after the appropriate rituals, at the moonrise. However, these rituals had to be performed when the body was still alive, and therefore, they had no choice but to bury them to prevent the place from being overrun by wild animals. The beasts didn’t care about eating unblessed meat.
Next was the distribution of the captured women and goods. During the battle, these women had been guarded by the native females of the winning tribe, who had proceeded to strip them completely and gather the belongings of the defeated people. Ladda, the chief’s favourite, spoke up and diligently reported the inventory of confiscated materials:
“Six gazelle hides, three deer hides, and two bison hides. A sack of rotten fruit, five bone knives, two dull shards, and three sharp ones, two mortars, and a bladder of honey.”
“Is that all?” asked the chief, who had already recovered.
“That’s all. And of poor quality. The hides barely have fur, and the honey is rancid.”
“Very well. Anything else?”
At that moment, Shiba, another female from the winning clan, appeared. She approached the chief and showed him a little bag containing bones.
“These are relics,” she said. “One of the women told me they belong to her ancestors.”
“To the pyre with it!” Ulla exclaimed.
“No!” shouted the woman. “Please, no! By the gods, don’t do it!”
But the sorceress ignored the pleas. She snatched the bag from Shiba’s hands and tossed it into the newly kindled fire. The owner of the bones started to cry and moan and advanced toward the flames, trying to retrieve them, but it was already too late. The rabbit fur sack immediately caught fire, and two men had to forcibly take her away to prevent her from burning.
“My parents! My brothers! My dead children!” she shouted, inconsolable, while some women tried to comfort her. “Now they’ll be gone forever!”
A cry of pain escaped her throat, and she clung tightly to her children, who were already by her side. They were a couple of little ones, about four or five years old.
After that, Unnum and the other warriors began to inspect the captured women. The chief didn’t find any of the ones he knew, the ones his brother had taken when they separated. Ulla, the sorceress, as if reading his mind, said:
“Someone must have taken them, just like he did with ours.”
Before them stood four women and an equal number of children, along with two babies who wouldn’t stop crying. Four women, two of whom were teenagers and two were mothers, or rather, five, including the one with the relics, who remained kneeling by the fire, watching as the last remains of her ancestors burned.
They all looked miserable: emaciated, dishevelled, with greasy and matted hair. A similar appearance to their men, who were now dead.
However, there was something about them, something that tried to rise above everything, above the ragged and tattered appearance: a strong and determined will to survive, a deep and intense desire to move forward.
The four standing women stared fixedly at their new masters. The men didn’t differ much from their own, as they all had a similar appearance: dishevelled, dirty, and with a fierce gaze. Their women, on the other hand, presented better than themselves; they were slightly less gaunt and maintained a haughty expression, looking at them suspiciously.
The truth was, they all looked frightening, and the cries of the newly captured women’s children accused them of that fear, especially the babies, who couldn’t stop whimpering. One of them managed to calm down a bit when his emaciated mother, the worst of them all, offered him a breast from which the poor child could barely extract any milk.
“That won’t do anymore,” said Ulla. “We’ll eat her, and the child will be sacrificed to the gods.”
The woman mentioned was clearly sick, but upon hearing that, she summoned strength and began screaming wildly, completely hysterical. The sorceress slapped her hard to make her shut up, but it was in vain. They then tried to snatch the child from her arms, but the woman threw herself to the ground, holding the baby tightly. She only calmed down a bit and handed over the child when Masha, another woman from the chief’s group, offered her own milk-dripping breasts to feed the baby.
With the attention diverted from the poor wretch, Ator, one of the warriors who had fought, shouted, “I want that one!” He stepped forward, pointing at a teenager trying to hide behind another woman, who seemed to be the mother. “She’s mine!” he yelled again.
Ladda, the chief’s favourite, pulled the girl from where she was hiding and placed her in front of everyone to be seen. Meanwhile, the mother had tried to stop it, but another tribe woman hit her in the face, forcing her to stay still under the threat of a knife.
The girl stood in front of everyone. She was very different from what those humans had seen before. She had a narrow nose, large and slanted eyes, slightly pale skin... but what stood out the most were her breasts: two large breasts that the poor girl tried to hide behind her arms. Breasts much larger than those of any ordinary woman, whose breasts were usually no bigger than those of other mammals. In fact, no more is needed to nurture offspring.
This was the girl who, during the sighting, had covered her chest. Tabal now understood the reason: she probably didn’t want to arouse the desires of the other men in her tribe.
Ulla, the sorceress, stepped forward to observe her closely. In her long life, she had met many women suffering from obesity, but this girl was thin, as befitting those who were constantly on the move. The old woman approached even closer and squeezed one of her breasts without any milk coming out.
“Aren’t you a mother?” she asked, surprised. “Then why are your breasts so swollen?”
The young girl didn’t respond and continued trying to cover her breasts.
The witch proceed to do a close examination and then turned to the others and said:
“She’s a virgin!” she exclaimed in amazement, turning to the others.
Before anyone could react, the guy who had claimed her earlier insisted again:
“It’s mine! I’m keeping her.”
He then approached and grabbed her hand, trying to pull her away forcefully. However, not everyone agreed, and Unnum stopped him. He crossed paths with him and grabbed his arm, forcing him to let go of the girl’s hand.
“She will be mine. It’s my right by conquest.”
“No!” the other roared.
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“I’m the leader, Ator!”
“You owe me, Unnum! We agreed that I would choose first next time!”
“You’ll get the mother,” he offered in exchange.
After a quick glance at the mentioned woman, the man locked eyes with the chief, and the two stared at each other intensely. Or rather, Ator’s only eye, as he was one-eyed, fixed his gaze on Unnum’s, and for a few seconds, tension filled the air. Both men were equally burly and filled with muscles that could erupt at any moment. However, all the warriors went on guard, and Ator realized that, in case of a dispute, they would support the leader.
“The mother?” He seemed to resign.
“Yes, the mother!” insisted Unnum, with eyes as cold as ice. “That one!” he pointed towards the woman the girl seemed to be bonding with, although they looked nothing alike.
Ator contemplated the alternative ‘trophy’ assigned to him and returned a frigid look to the chief, who endured it for a moment. Finally, the warrior pointed to the other recently captured teenager and said:
“And that one?”
“She’s mine too.”
“What?” The one-eyed man was about to boil over, and Unnum realized he might have gone too far. But he couldn’t back down now to avoid showing weakness. He then looked back at the group of captured women and children and noticed there was still another woman to distribute besides the sick one. It was the one with the relics, undoubtedly the worst ‘of the package’, and theoretically, it should belong to Cadfe, another prominent warrior. But Cadfe was more docile than Ator, and Unnum finally opted for a compromise:
“If you want another woman in addition to the one you got, dispute that one —he pointed towards the unattractive female—, with your comrades.”
Another tense silence ensued, with the unfaltering chief moving his axe slightly up and down. Finally, Ator spat at the side, grabbed the mother of the teenager by one arm, and the woman followed her new husband resignedly towards a group of bushes beyond.
Once the distribution was completed, the captured women put back on their ragged hides and the tribe distributed their belongings among the members of the victorious clan. Then, the tribe shared the meagre food they had with the newcomers and their children, and after gathering enough water, the resulting tribe from that merger began its journey northward.
The two teenagers walked in the middle of everyone, in case one of them dared to escape. Meanwhile, the other three women and their children were barely watched. They had enough trouble dragging their crying offspring. Certainly, none of them would entertain the idea of running away. The chances of surviving alone in that hostile world were practically nil.
It wasn’t yet dark when suddenly two tremendous lightning bolts pierced the celestial vault, striking two distant mountains.
“Again?” exclaimed one of the women, before a bright light illuminated the sky as if it were noon.
“The gods are angry,” muttered the sorceress, who stopped and began to feel agitation in her chest that almost caused convulsions. “Oh, Baloc!” she knelt. “Fill the sky with clouds if it is your desire...! But don’t kill us!”
“Get up, old woman!” Unnum kicked her. “We need to quicken the pace if we want to arrive before nightfall.”
And finally, they arrived. As night fell, they reached a system of caves nestled on the slope of a mountain, and some men started a fire at the entrance to prevent beasts from entering. It was a vast space they had recently discovered, divided into various ‘rooms’ scattered at different heights, some quite distant from each other. A karst massif that water had carved over the ages and that could accommodate several tribes. In fact, when they discovered it, they found the remains of many fires and animal bones, an unmistakable sign that it had been used by other people in the past, even in the distant past.
On the way, the sick woman had already died, and their rituals prohibited them from eating the dead if they hadn’t been sacrificed previously. Masha, the woman who offered her breasts, took care of her baby, as the other mothers in their tribe could barely support their own.
After dinner with some berries, the sorceress invoked the gods, and the women and some men danced around the main bonfire. Then, since the girl with the large breasts was a virgin, the old woman had to perform a certain ritual before Unnum lie with her, something he had been longing for a while. But Ulla didn’t react. After the dances, the sorceress lay on the ground with blank eyes and foaming at the mouth. Impatient to consummate ‘his love’, the chief grabbed the girl and dragged her to a corner of the cave, while she tried to resist, unsuccessfully. But at that moment, the old woman woke up.
“No!” she shouted. “You can’t lie with her!”
Ulla sprung forward like a coil and hurriedly snatched the young girl from the man’s clutches.
“What are you saying, cursed witch?” Unnum roared and pushed her away with a swipe of his hand.
“You can’t do it!” she persisted. “I’ve just had a vision. The gods have revealed to me that great disasters will befall us if you do it. The thunder, the lightning... What we’ve seen so far is just a warning, and the next time, it will strike directly at our heads.”
“Alright, old woman. What does that have to do with me?”
“The young woman must die a virgin,” she said, solemnly.
“What?”
“To prevent calamity.”
“What calamity?”
“She must be sacrificed on the next full moon, or else, we’ll all perish.”
“No!” roared the chief. “She will be mine right now!”
Unnum dismissed the sorceress and grabbed the girl again, starting to move towards his ‘quarters’. But at that moment, Ator, still resentful, stood in his way, and this time he didn’t hesitate to grab him fiercely by his hide.
“Haven’t you heard what the witch said?”
The one-eyed man looked at him threateningly with his lone eye, knowing that this time he was right.
“Respect our gods, Unnum!” said another tribe member.
“Yes, respect them!” shouted another.
Even Ladda, his favourite, didn’t take long to make herself heard:
“Do you want all our children to die?”
The chief looked at everyone with a serious expression, and then, being aware that the whole tribe was against him, he seemed to resign. Ulla approached him again and whispered:
“Settle for the other girl. She’s also part of your today’s loot.”
Unnum considered the decision and nodded. The other teenager wasn’t as spectacular, but she had been friendly during the journey from the oasis to the caves. It was clear that she wanted to please him and was an intelligent woman. If she managed to become the new favourite of the chief, she would certainly live well.
“Alright,” he agreed. “She will be sacrificed on the next full moon to appease the gods. You,” he pointed at Tabal, the man he trusted the most, “take care of her until then. You’ll vouch for her virginity with your life.”
The young man stepped forward and took the girl by the hand, intending to bring her near the fire, as she seemed visibly chilled. She looked at him suspiciously, but he tried to reassure her with an affectionate smile.
Before long, everyone went to sleep. Unnum unleashed his primal instincts with his new wife, while Ator did the same with Kara, the woman assigned to him, who was the mother of the virgin girl. Despite being older, she must have been quite an expert in the art of love, as the one-eyed man engaged in the act again despite being tired from the fight and the long journey. Furthermore, he relinquished the other woman he was supposed to contend for with Cadfe, who welcomed her with open arms, as he had none at the moment, as his previous wife had been murdered by another rival wife, who died later during childbirth.
Meanwhile, Tabal went with the girl with the large breasts to the corner where he usually slept. There, they settled in and prepared to spend the night. However, the girl, understandably shocked by her death sentence, couldn’t stop crying and shivering at the same time.
And for good reason. The place in question was a secluded spot in that conglomerate of chambers, very close to the end of the cave, and it had some dampness. Tabal felt pity for the young girl and offered her one of his hides, as the one she was wearing was quite worn out and small.
She looked at him surprised, and he smiled, proceeding to show her the best way to place that thick megaloceros hide, the best one he had. Eventually, they fell asleep and spent the night, although Tabal’s sleep, like hers, was quite light.