The night ape had just started wrapping the bone-face’s possessions in its woven vest when movement below drew his eye to the jungle floor.
Expecting to see a hyena going for the dead flesh, he was startled when another hairless ape moved carefully out of the thick green brush.
But this was no bone-face, this one was black in color and without hair from head to toe, and its shape and scent soon confirmed that it was female.
She carried a long knife similar to Gazda’s and unsheathing it, she moved cautiously toward the dead bone-face, her eyes alert for movement. In her other hand was a long sharp stick with a knife-like blade affixed to one end.
Gazda barked a warning and dropped rapidly branch to branch, before sliding down the tree trunk and leaping between this stranger and the body.
The hairless female’s dark face and limbs became like stone, but her eyes shone white rings of surprise as she stopped. And yet she did not flee but held her place—and Gazda wondered if she intended to eat the bone-face meat.
Her knife was out, and its tip was pointed at Gazda.
The female’s eyes narrowed as she glared at him with neither fear nor anger; and perplexed, the night ape did the only thing he could think of.
He barked again, and beat upon his chest until the dried mud-skin and hunting marks he’d daubed there came off in clouds of dust.
One corner of the female’s mouth came up in a half-smile as Gazda stamped his feet and growled at her exposed teeth.
Confused by her reaction, since it was clear she had not shown all of her fighting fangs, Gazda moved some feet back from the bone-face where he squatted in the dirt to watch, and sniff at the air between them. Already the female’s scent was growing stronger to him, and was a heady vapor that made a jumble of his thoughts.
His nostrils flared as he captured more of her perfume on the warm breeze.
The female was dressed in a leathery vest and short cape, with a knee-length loincloth that sprouted from a wide belt. Her forearms and calves were covered in the same leathery material that protected her chest and neck, and while it appeared stiff and hard it did not hamper her movements.
Gazda studied the strange designs that swirled in raised lines over her garments and he felt an urge to take them away from her. She could be no match for his strength, and it would allow him to see the body beneath.
The black female kept her long sharp stick in one hand, tipped back and balanced on her shoulder as she knelt over Gazda’s kill. The night ape growled quietly, but she did not flinch, using her knife to cut a patch of long hair from the bone-face’s scalp.
Gazda watched her puzzled, tilting his head to left and right, as she then tied this bloody trophy to a collection of similar hairy tufts that were knotted into a long, twisted cord that hung from the belt at her slim waist.
Pointing at the dead thing on the ground, she said something then in a commanding tone, “Bakwaniri!”
Gazda looked at the corpse and up at the female, and he grunted the name for “meat” in his ape language.
The female’s eyes went wide at the animal sound, but she repeated slowly: “Ba-kwa-niri.”
She followed this with complicated chattering that reminded Gazda of the irritating sounds made by the bone-face that lay dead between them.
But the black female continued this, pointing at the body, chattering and gesturing to the trophies on her belt, and while the night ape did not understand her “sounds,” he somehow understood her meaning.
The thing on the ground was not just “meat” it was a “Bakwaniri.” The bone-face was called that just as he was called Gazda...
He marveled at his sudden intuitive leap, and he hooted happily, slapping the ground in his enthusiasm as he repeated the word in garbled fashion.
The female showed all her fangs in a smile and the night ape growled menacingly, but quickly calmed down when she nodded agreeably before chattering again.
Gazda lost the words, but he was amazed to understand her meaning: “I am Harkon the huntress. I mean no harm to the ape-man.”
“Ape” he understood, but “man?” He studied her slyly, puzzling at the mental picture as it faded. Did the strange word mean “hunter” to this female? Such a meaning would make sense, since he was an ape and a hunter.
This Harkon was like Gazda, a great hunter also, but her strength was directed solely at the bone-faces. She hated the Bakwaniri.
Gazda raised nose, snuffling at the air and picking up traces of her female scent. Had he smelled her trail before? Was she familiar in these lands?
No! She was not. The night ape grunted negatively. He would have remembered her scent. Gazda gave a coughing bark as he waved at the thing on the ground, trying to make her understand that she could eat the bone-face meat if she wished.
He nodded and repeated his assent as Harkon the huntress started backing away, nodding also. The night ape hoped that she would kill many more Bakwaniri, for they had helped cause Eeda’s death.
His mother...
The bone-faces and Magnuh had played their parts, and while Gazda had plans for the Bakwaniri, of the bull elephant, there had been no sign. The night ape had yet to decide whether such a confrontation was worth tracking down when the outcome would likely mean his own death, and there was still blame enough at home.
Gazda struggled with the fact that he—the son—had fed upon and killed the only thing in his life that had ever cared for him, had raised and defended him despite his many differences.
Tears suddenly came into his eyes, and he growled to negate them, shaking his head violently so that the long black hair fell forward to cover his face.
Harkon paused
