- Ar'ox -

“Disaster!”

“Enemies!”

“Ruin!”

I wake up to a considerable commotion outside, with many voices talking, and for a moment I think we've slept to the middle of the day. Then someone knocks on the door, and I get up and open, still groggy with sleep.

Outside the sun hasn't risen yet, but there's a glow on the horizon.

Ver'ex is there, and he looks agitated. “Come quick! Everyone is needed!”

I'm still half asleep. “Why? Where?”

He's already walking quickly away. “The Lifegivers!”

I scratch my head, and an ominous feeling is starting to overpower the sleepiness. Everyone needed at the Lifegivers?

I get my sword and Emilia stirs. “Where you go?”

“Something's wrong with the Lifegivers.” A part of my mind wants to just stay in the skins with her and enjoy her heat and her wetness and her sounds again. Surely the other men can handle the crisis, whatever it might be?

But my curiosity wins and I stride out of the cave. The Lifegivers are the most important things we have. Without them, there'll be no more children born and the tribe is doomed.

When I get to the enclosure, many tribesmen are there already. And now I see why.

I feel a ball of ice settle in my stomach.

“Killvines,” Ver'ex says tightly.

I can hardly see the Lifegivers under a chaos of thin, green vines and large knots of ugly, black thorns. They stretch from outside the Lifegiver enclosure and through the fence, passing over and under it and even through the tiny cracks between the logs in the fence to reach the vulnerable Lifegiver pods. I've never seen that before, but it's something that we're always warned about.

I'm stunned. What will Emilia think about this disaster? “How did this happen?”

Ver'ex points with his one hand. It trembles and he's quite pale, and now I remember that he was the latest tribesman to give of his seed into a Lifegiver. His offspring is growing somewhere under that ugly chaos. “Look. Killvines came from inside the wall. Five nests right in the middle of the Safe Circle next to the enclosure. It looks like someone took out the guardgrass and inserted killvines instead. Some enemy tribe, no doubt. But which tribe would do something as terrible as this? Even the Fetis wouldn't. There's only shame in this, no glory at all!”

Indeed there isn't. The Lifegivers are so fragile and vulnerable that no tribe would dream of doing anything to harm them, even those of another tribe. Their Ancestors would denounce them, their whole tribe would be shamed forever.

“How many are there?”

“Six,” Ver'ex says without hesitation. “They are the offspring of Erid'ox, Wurt'ex, Eder'ex, Insim'ox and Ion'ex. And ...” His voice trails off.

“And you,” I say darkly.

He takes a deep, shaking breath. “And me.”

The tribesmen are milling all over the killvines, using knives and swords to cut them, but they're tough and they can move in a writhing motion that entangles them with each other even more. The balls of thorns can explode at the slightest touch, sending killvine seeds in all directions. The men must work slowly.

I even see the buds of the brilliantly white flowers that always make me shudder whenever I come across them in the jungle. They look innocent, but they're as evil as most other things out there. They seek out Lifegivers especially and do their best to steal all the nutrition in them, the nutrition that's meant for the fetus growing in the pod. It's a terrible infestation that threatens the lives of the unborn.

But it can't have been here for long. Someone checks on the Lifegivers every morning and evening. Of course, last night we had a party, so I suppose nobody thought of coming here to check. In the worst case, the killvines have been growing here for a day and a night. That might be long enough to kill.

I kneel down where the killvines seem to have originated. It does indeed look like the guardgrass that keeps other plants away has been removed in the Safe Circle around the Lifegiver enclosure, where nothing else is allowed to grow. And then someone put down five killvine plants instead.

I hear a thin gasp behind me.

Emilia is standing there with one hand over her mouth. “Is ... what ...”

“Enemy attack,” I state. “Someone planted killvines to ruin our Lifegivers.”

Her skin tone usually has a warm glow to it, but now she looks more gray. “But ... cloudflowers ... I plant ...”

“No, not cloudflowers,” I say and point. “These are white. Cloudflowers are gray. None of them have been seen close to the village for years. The white ones are killvines what will kill the Lifegivers and their contents.”

She's looking at me with eyes that are huge and wet, and her lower lip is trembling. “Is... the Lifegivers ... the babies ... they ... dead?”

“I don't know,” I say tightly and go to embrace her. She shakes in my arms. She must be shocked by what we have allowed to happen here. “We will do our best to save them. Hopefully all will be alive still. No one came to check on them last night.”

It doesn't help. She's still trembling and her breath comes in sore sobs.

Then something she just said stands out in my mind. “You've planted cloudflower?”

Her shoulders are shaking. “I thought ... cloudflower. But ...”

A painful thought occurs to me and I hold her out to look at her gray face, red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. “But what?”

“I plant ... here. Last day. I thought cloudflower. But now ...”

I almost black out when I think I understand. The killvines do look slightly like cloudflower. “You planted these?” My lips suddenly feel numb and I have trouble forming the words.

I've never seen a more frightened face, and I have to grab her harder when it feels like she's collapsing in my arms.

“Yes!” It's little more than a distressed scream.

The world spins around me and I just stare blindly into the enclosure where the men are working desperately to save our future.

That would fit. She was gone for a while yesterday, and as the Woman Messenger she keeps testing us. I accept that. But this test seems ... excessive.

I want to slap her, to shake some sense into her. I control myself and just take my arms off her, turning away as I feel my hands balling into fists. She's kneeling on the ground and gripping my knees with both arms, babbling in her own language. “Ahm sarree, ahm sarree ...”

Testing us for readiness to accept women is well and good. But this ... this is murderous. The unborn in their Lifegiver pods are innocent.

She tries to get hold of my hands, but I slap her arms away and turn my back.

And then I'm looking straight into Hen'ex's face. I can see that he heard everything.

“So this was her doing,” he says calmly, but he's as pale as all the rest of us and his voice is trembling. “You didn't keep her under control, as I told you to. And now she's given us the ultimate test.”

I have no idea what to say to that. He's right. This is my failure. The Messenger was entrusted to me, and I failed the whole tribe.

“Well,” he continues. “We failed it. Again. And honestly, I wouldn't blame her if she now finds us completely unworthy of Women. We let her plant killvines within easy distance from the Lifegivers. What will she do next? How will she test us further?”

I stiffly shake my head. I can't think of anything worse, except for breaking into the Lifegiver enclosure with a sword and kill the unborn outright. But I'm sure she can think of worse things to do.

Hen'ex puts a hand on my shoulder. “Don't blame yourself too much, Ar'ox. You're just a hunter, not a shaman. You're simple and trusting, and no match for a Woman Messenger. But we're on the verge of losing the Women forever. I would suggest keeping her under more control from now on. Still, I leave it up to you what to do next. After all, you're the Mate, as you keep reminding us.”

He walks over to the Lifegivers and makes holy signs, then starts chanting, calling for the aid of the Ancestors. The unborn need all the help they can get now.

I stand there for a while, thinking and doing a little praying myself.

Then I turn my attention to Emilia.