10. IN THE FOREST

Spring is in the air, and so is something else...

Doesn’t time fly? Or rather, seem to, as one season overtakes another in a crazy race through time?

That’s what Owongo thought, anyway, as he slipped silently into the forest, spear at the ready and loving the sight of the first glimmers of spring green on the earliest branches.

The seasons meant a lot to Owongo. They were the changes wrought by forces he couldn’t begin to understand but which controlled the greater part of his life. And now spring was showing its first peeping signs, and his heart felt light. Soon the hunt would be an easier thing, he wouldn’t have to spend long hours in pursuit of the few half-starved creatures that had remained whilst the majority, the fit ones, the strong ones, the healthy ones, had wandered far to the south to escape the keening winter winds that swept along the valley floor and chilled one and all to the bone.

His winter prey was on its last legs anyway and he almost felt that he was doing the mangy creatures he was sneaking after a favour, relieving them of the burden of the end of life before their suffering became unbearable.

But now there was green, and the herds would return and there would be meat-aplenty in the Owongo cave soon enough.

He was happily almost sauntering along when he caught a flash of something moving, something that was neither deer nor any of the other creatures who had over-wintered in the cold forest. And it was gone before he had properly seen it, for it had been in sight for no more than an instant before it vanished.

But he knew one thing all right. He knew the colour orange when he saw it and this microsecond’s movement had been solidly orange.

And orange meant only one thing to him. It meant Fart-fart, the leader-to-be who had been pooh-poohed out of the holdings of the River Bank and made its own solitary and rather desperate escape.

Maybe we should have pursued the wretch, he thought. Maybe we should have made sure he was well away from our lands whilst we could. But it has been well nigh half a turning of the year since we saw him at that meeting, and cast him out. So if it’s him I saw for that fractured instant, has he come back? What’s he doing here?

And with those thoughts uppermost in his mind and going round and round in troubling circles, he decided to investigate.

Owongo was one of the finest hunters the tribe had known. He had the skill of approaching his prey, unsuspected by it, until it was virtually certain that he would have a kill, and he rarely failed. And he could move almost unseen through the deepest and thickest forest, not causing even a twiglet to move and thus give his presence away. He was good, all right, even better than good.

And the orange flicker he was pursuing wasn’t.

The flicker he was pursuing was almost clumsy as it barged along, pushing saplings aside in unseemly haste and cursing when a thorn or bramble snared him. Owongo would have sneered, but he knew that the luxury of even sneering was one distraction too many, so he kept his mind on his target.

He was led far into the forest by the snatch of orange flesh until it paused by a great tree marked by a savage notch and raised a horn to its mouth and blew a toneless note to the wilds.

That’s not much of an instrument, mused Owongo, for we have much finer back home, and can charm the birds from the trees with a single note. Which wasn’t actually true, but at that moment it was convenient for him to think that it was.

He slowly and with utmost care moved ever closer to the snatch of orange until he could see, quite clearly, that he was right. This was Fart-fart, and he didn’t look anything like the man he had looked half a year earlier. For a start, he had lost weight, quite a lot of it and testament to that fact was the way his dirty skins hung loosely from his still-orange frame. And that hair … it still retained the colour he’d disguised its albino thatch with. But besides the colour there was an unpleasant degree of filth, and Owongo had no respect for a lack of hygiene, even in the freezing days of winter when washing in the cold river was never pleasant.

Then there was another movement, and a pair of strangers emerged from the shadows, the same rough kind who had accompanied Fart-fart when he had attempted to talk his way into the leadership of the people, and fortunately been rejected. And when they formed words in their own foul tongue he knew they were the same type, croaking and barking with the odd squeak that made the whole sound most unlike a language.

“I’ve called you to me for victory,” said Fart-fart to them. Owongo could hear quite clearly and he shuddered at the sound of the orange man’s voice. “I’m going to free you,” he continued, “I’m going to take the burden of life from your shoulders and in return for your loyalty and tithes made to me I’ll reward you with land upon which to live and a clean river in which to drown your foes!”

There were only two listening, but it sounded as if the grotesque creature was making a major speech to dozens.

“You’ve said that before,” snarled one of them, the clicks and clacks of his speech forming recognisable words.

“And I meant it!” retorted Fart-fart. “We will return to the great river and the puny folks who live there, and we will kill everyone of the men! And we will take their women and do such pleasure to them that our hearts will rejoice for the rest of our lives! And that river, that flows so swiftly and cleanly, has fish within it. Fish you can eat, my friends, while I eat meat!”

“But there’s only us two,” clicked and clacked one of his audience.

“But I will recruit more,” Fart-fart assured him, “I will go to the land of you savages and promise an army as much hunting land as they can wander through in a day in return for some small services...”

“Bah! You let them down last year!” sneered the other savage, and right before Owongo’s unbelieving eyes Fart-fart produced a blow-pipe from within his filthy furs and took careful aim with it, pointing it unerringly at the rebellious savage.

“One puff of this and you are a dead man,” he hissed. “I have loaded this pipe with a sharpened spike soaked in a noxious concentration of toxic juices, and one nick of it on your skin will reduce you to death in an instant!”

“Bah!” laughed Fart-fart’s threatened victim.

And in response the orange man blew on his blow-pipe and almost immediately the other fell to the ground and after writhing for a few moments, lay still.

“All who are with me will gain great freedom. Those that are against me will go the way of this unhappy wretch!” bellowed the killer, and he held the other with eyes that still had a little strength remaining in their gaze.

“Seven days from now we will meet at this tree again,” and he indicated a deep notch in the tree he was standing against, “and you will bring with you all who want wealth and freedom beyond their wildest dreams. Together we will form an army that will guarantee victory. Fail me, and… “ he kicked the dead fellow on the ground, “well, fail me and I will search you out and… need I say any more?”

Then he left the scene, swiftly yet not silently, more like a wounded bull in the woodland than a skilled hunter moving stealthily in a place where danger may always lurk.

“I must tell Gondut,” thought Owongo, and his departure when there was nobody left to see it was as silent as an invisible spirit’s, and as unseen.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 19.04.17