S'aahiri

S’aahiri edged herself closer to the fire, trying not to think about what lay beyond the edge of light it cast. Other fires among the many hastily erected makeshift shelters pushed the ominous dark at the borders of their camp back, but it still felt like the jaws of some unknown creature enclosed them, trapping her in.

Around the fire, the rest of their hunters bunched together pale-faced, their eyes occasionally darting towards the dark. They were waiting, just as she was, for something to emerge from the inky black and begin their nightmare anew.

This was how the Su’roi had lived in the week since the beast and its plainswolves had ravaged their home. Reduced to huddling together like frightened deer, always on edge, forever a moment away from having to run. 

There was at least one direction from which they did not have to be on guard for an attack. S’aahiri could barely see it now through the thick cloak of night, but they had positioned their encampment at the base of a goliath stone construction built by whatever people had come before them.

If it had been day, she would have been able to make out its colossal chest, all detail worn away by weather and time, leading up to what might once have been a man’s face, gazing into the sky. His arms had long since fallen, their stone littering the ground around the statue. 

Whatever it had been, it now covered their backs, reducing the number of directions they had to watch. If the beast did return, it would likely come from the North, where the Deep Wastes lay. Where T’aakshi and T’aarak had taken their hunting parties several days past. But, with their eastern side covered, they could spare a few more pairs of eyes for the north. It was a minor comfort, but there was little enough comfort of any sort these days that this one was worth celebrating. 

“—running low as it is! How long are we going to sit on our arses before we do something?”

S’aahiri returned her attention to the conversation at hand. They had been having variations of this discussion for days now, none of which had gone anywhere. 

“Like what?” Tali bit back, her sharp features drilling bores into the man that had just spoken. “Wander off into the wastes so plainswolves can pick you and everybody else out there off one by bloody one? Don’t be ridiculous, Kess.”

“Better ridiculous than a coward, Tali. How long before we’re chewing on our own boots?”

“We just need to hold out until T’aakshi or T’aarak return,” another added. “Without the beast skulking around out there, we’ll be fine—a few wolves have never stopped us before.”

S’aahiri admired the optimism, but even the hunter who had said it wore a strained smile that told the truth of things. Wolves hadn’t stopped them before—that was no lie. But all of them had seen the wolves that had been the vanguard of the beast’s attack.

They had been almost twice the size of any wolf S’aahiri had seen, more akin to ponies than dogs, with a ragged mane of grey and white fur on the upper part of their torsos. Beneath that, leathery black skin covered the lower half of their bodies, dotted with grey scales strong enough to protect against steel. S’aahiri had discovered that truth the hard way, and paid for it with a nasty claw wound now tightly dressed underneath her furs.

Despite the man’s words, she knew that not even T’aakshi returning with the beast’s head mounted on a damned pike would return things to how they had been before. None of them knew what, but something out in the Deep Wastes was changing, and now their lives shifted with it, the control they once had over their own lives stripped away. Now all they could do was wait to find out what new direction the change would force them in, like ice floes caught in a whirlpool.

“And what if they don’t come back?” Kess asked, arms folded.

“They’re coming back,” S’aahiri interjected, glaring at the others, daring them to disagree.

Kess looked genuinely startled, as though he hadn’t realised she was there. He raised his hands apologetically.

“Gods, S’aahiri—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” he trailed off, unsure of how to finish the sentence without lying, his eyes flitting anxiously between S’aahiri and the woman sat next to her. “For what it’s worth, if anyone is going to bring that thing down, it’ll be Shi.”

S’aahiri waved off the apology. As much as she didn’t like it, she knew well enough that there was every chance her friends might not return from the hunt. She had seen the damned thing for herself, after all. That, however, didn’t mean that she wanted to hear it.

She glanced to her left. Alana, Shi’s mother, sat cross-legged beside her, eyes locked on to the floor, showing no sign of having heard Kess’ words. S’aahiri frowned, her stomach twisting in an odd mix of both relief and concern that she hadn’t. She knew Alana had been having trouble since T’saamu had passed, but things were getting drastically worse. 

Her mood seemed to bounce between just how she had been before her partner had died, to spells of being almost entirely unresponsive, as she was now. Those spells were getting longer, and the dark rings under her eyes grew ever more pronounced. Now, even on an upswing, the exhaustion and confusion that came with it dominated everything else. 

Their village’s healers had been so close to overwhelmed dealing with those injured in the attack that she hadn’t asked them for help yet, but S’aahiri didn’t see how she could avoid it any longer. She would have to go at first light. She knew first-hand what it was to lose a mother, and Shi had been through enough.

“I’m sorry, but we need to do something!”

Kess and Tali had continued their argument, and S’aahiri’s jaw clenched reflexively as her temper flared.

“Will the two of you shut it already?” she hissed, voice carrying easily over the noise of the other hunters’ murmured conversations.

Their heads both jerked in her direction, eyes widened. Suddenly, the gentle crackle and spit of their fire was the only sound, and S’aahiri had to cling on to the annoyance the bickering had provoked like a lifeline as she realised the eyes of nearly two dozen hunters had turned to her.

“You’re both right,” she started. “We need to do something—if we don’t, Kess is right, we’ll starve.”

A smirk wormed its way across Kess’ face. 

“But Tali is right, too,” she pressed on, and Kess’ smirk vanished. “A full hunt would just be recklessly dangerous. Things have changed, and we need to face that reality, or it will be the end of us.”

“What do you suggest, then?” an older hunter, a woman S’aahiri didn’t know by name, asked.

“I think our best bet is the lake. It’s close by, and far enough south that it should be safe as long as we’re vigilant. Even those not trained to hunt can fish, which frees us up to act as guards both at camp and at the lake.”

“The pickings won’t be great,” Tali muttered.

“No,” S’aahiri agreed, “but it’ll be better than finding fuck all; or worse—winding up something else’s meal out in the wastes.”

“Now that’s for bloody sure,” the older hunter answered. “And it’s the first thing resembling a plan we’ve heard all damned night. I say we—”

Alana shot to her feet as though the floor itself had been on fire, stopping the hunter’s sentence in mid-flow. She looked around for a moment, face scrunched up as though she was trying to remember why she was standing in the first place, before abruptly turning and striding off across their camp without a word, her left hand clutching at something inside of her furs.

S’aahiri blinked, exchanging glances with the others, each of them wearing the same confused expression she imagined was on her own face. She stood, staring after Alana’s rapidly retreating form.

“I’ll go after her,” she said to the rest of the hunters, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

The others nodded, and Kess stood, a frown marring his face. “Let us know if she needs anything, S’aahiri. If it’s in our power—”

“Thank you, Kess. I will.”

She tapped her fist against her heart in thanks and hurried back towards the camp after Alana. 

Away from the hunter’s fire, the faces huddled around flames were even more pale, even more taut with worry. More than a few families sat huddled together in total silence, gaunt faces reflecting the warm orange light. 

Dozens of fires speckled the land in front of the statue where they had made their camp, a strange, amber reflection of the stars. Between them, they warmed several hundred of the Su’roi. All those people, and not one of them making a sound louder than a murmur, too afraid of what too much noise might bring. An oppressive quiet bore down on them all, the silent, crushing weight of knowing they were no longer the most dangerous predator in the Wastes.

Not for the first time since the attack, she thought about leaving. It would be easy enough to slip away into the darkness, just like her mother had, and be free—even if it was only freedom until the beast found her, alone in the dark. Her father always insisted that her mother was dead, but no remains had ever been found. The funeral pyre the elders built to free her spirit from her body had been nothing more than wood, a purely symbolic gesture. 

No, S’aahiri wouldn’t accept that her mother was dead without the proof to show for it. Instead, she believed her mother had been inflicted with the same thrice-damned longing that haunted her. The need to wander, to see other lands beyond their own small world. It was like a constant itch underneath her skin, the urge to stay only kept in check by the chains that kept her here.

She paused, not twenty paces from Alana’s tent, and pinched the bridge of her nose. The idea that the people she cared about were chains weighing her down made her feel nauseous with guilt. T’aakshi and Mura had always—well, understood wasn’t quite the correct word. They had always accepted that side of her—the side that would never be satisfied with living her entire life here, feeling trapped—even if they didn’t fully understand the feeling itself.

They had even promised to keep it a secret, despite not truly understanding. But, even with their understanding and blessing, she was not her mother. She would not slink off into the dark like a rat whilst her friends—her people—needed her, leaving them to pick up the pieces.

One day, she would wander the world in search of strange lands and adventure. She would see all there was to see of this world, or she would die in the attempt. But she would not forsake her friends and obligations to do so.

S’aahiri approached Alana’s tent, a conical structure of wooden scrap and animal hide salvaged from the village. The fire outside had fallen away to embers, and S’aahiri took a moment to add some extra wood and stoke it back to flame. She would have to remember to check back and ensure Alana didn’t allow the thing to die out.

“Alana?” she called, trying to keep her voice just loud enough to be heard.

No response. She tried again twice more, receiving no answer, her heart-rate increasing each time. S’aahiri hesitated for only a moment before worry overcame manners in her mind, and she ducked down and pulled aside the hide covering to Alana’s tent and peered inside.

Alana sat hunched up on a fur blanket, her eyes wide and peering into a strange jewel about the size and shape of a current-smoothed river stone. The gem seemed to give off a faint glimmer, like the shine of the moon’s reflection on the surface of a still lake. S’aahiri’s mouth hung for a moment, halfway to repeating Alana’s name but captivated by the beauty of the thing. 

Then, in a flash, it was gone—squirrelled away into the inside of Alana’s furs. The woman turned tired, distant eyes towards her, wearing a visibly difficult to maintain smile.

“S’aahiri! I wasn’t expecting to see you again until morning. Is everything okay?”