Chapter 7
"What's got you all worked up, kitten?" BroadPaw demanded on his brother, seeing the way that Twitchear was dancing around beside him.
"I just don't want to leave Beyshann alone for too long," Twitchear explained worriedly.
His brother gave a soft chuff of laughter. "You'd think that no-hair was YOUR kitten," he jeered. “It'll be fine until we get back. Nobody's going to hurt it."
"I know. I just..." Twitchear trailed off because he couldn't even explain to himself his unease about leaving Beythan alone, let alone explain it to his impatient brother.
A cuff on his shoulder left him staggering. "Come on, kitten. Let's catch something so that you can go home and mother hen that ridiculous no-hair," BroadPaw strode off after the rest of the hunting party, and after a moment Twitchear followed quickly. He knew his brother was right; the faster they caught something big, the faster he could return home to Beythan...
The came across a herd of Spiral Horns soon after. The rams were grazing to the outside of the herd, so that they could put down their formidable horns and act as a defensive line against predators at the first sign of trouble. The leader of their hunting party, an older female called White Scar because of a nasty old scar that ran over one side of her face from her eye to her mouth(she'd acquired it on her first hunt, when she'd been careless and the Plains buck she'd been stalking had charged her), crouched in the long grass and studied the herd.
"I think we’ll try to take that older ram there," she said in a low voice to the gathered hunting party. She indicated a ram with chipped horns and gray beginning to appear in his sandy coat. "We just need to cut him out of the herd. BroadPaw, RedSpear, you two circle around behind him. LongLance, DewClaw, you go wide and make the rest of the herd uneasy. We want them moving when we cut him out. Twitchear and I will come at him from the other side, and force him to leave the protection of the herd."
There were soft hisses of agreement, and the hunters loped off silently through the grass to take their positions. Twitchear stayed with WhiteScar, trying to to wriggle with excitement and nervousness alike. WhiteScar would not appreciate it if he screwed up this hunt. She might even send him home empty-handed, and he didn't want that. Redmane had been explicit when he'd said that Twitchear could only keep his human around if he replaced the food that Beythan ate. He needed to hunt something big, and he couldn't do that alone.
He slid through the grass at WhiteScar's heels, as his brother and another hunter closed in from the other side, and two more went behind the herd to spook them into movement. The Spiral Horns were sniffing the air uneasily now; then one of them made a low sound that carried to the rest, a sound of warning. The ewes in the center of the herd began to move, and the rams went alongside them.
The ram they intended to cut out of the herd was toward the back. His horns went down as BroadPaw and RedSpear appeared, and he whirled around to offer then those horns rather than his vulnerable flank. The herd streamed past, driven by the two hunters into a slow run. The old ram's senses weren't what they once had been; he didn't hear or smell the two hunters creeping up behind him. WhiteScar nodded at Twitchear, and at the same time they rushed up on the ram together.
The ram cried out as WhiteScar's spear took him in the belly, while Twitchear's long stone knife cut one of the tendons in his back leg. He tried to run then, but his leg gave out from under him and he had to limp. BroadPaw danced past his horns and put another spear in his throat, just under his chin. RedSpear drove yet another one into his chest, and the ram was done for. He continued to struggle, but the hunters finished him off quickly after that. BroadPaw used his own knife to cut the ram's throat, letting the red blood flow into the grass.
The body fell to the ground. BroadPaw crouched down and began to gut the ram, cutting open his belly to clean out the organs and the intestines. RedSpear and Long Lance began to skin the ram deftly, while WhiteScar, Twitchear, and DewClaw lashed together the long, flexible poles they'd tie the carcass to once it was skinned and gutted so that they could carry it back to the camp.
"Hey, kitten, catch," BroadPaw rumbled. He tossed his brother the heart, still steaming. As one of the hunters who'd taken the ram down, he got his pick of the organs. He bit into it, relishing the taste of fresh blood in his mouth. The others were already devouring the kidneys, liver, pancreas, and the tongue.
BroadPaw cut the large intestines into shorter lengths. They'd be washed out and used later to carry water, or cut into strips and dried to be used as thread, rope, and other useful things for the tribe. Very little of the kill would go to waste. They even cut off the spiral horns, and Twitchear carried them as BroadPaw and RedSpear lashed the kill to the poles and shouldered them for the journey home.
Twitchear was very happy that they'd found something big to kill so soon. The sun was only halfway across the sky. He strode along, the horns resting on his shoulders, eager to see Beythan and make sure that he was all right. Perhaps he did see the human as a sort of kitten; he didn't know. All he did know was that he worried when he had to be away from Beythan for any length of time.
Not that he really thought that any of his people would hurt Beythan, of course. None of them would even venture into his tent without his permission, though some of them had to be very curious by now. He supposed that he'd better start introducing Beythan to the rest of his tribe soon. He wanted the human to see that his people were not violent, and that they wouldn't hurt him. he wanted the poor, abused little human to have a safe haven where he could mend. In fact, Twitchear didn't even like to think of ever sending Beythan back to his own people. Why should he have to go back to those horrible beings who had done such awful things to him? He knew that Chief Redmane and Elder Lashtail would probably start to encourage him to let Beythan go back to his own kind, but he mutinously resisted the very idea. Beythan was his!
Okay, that wasn't true. He didn't own the human, any more than those other humans had. Beythan could go where he wanted to go, and do what he wanted to do. If he decided to go back to his people, Twitchear wouldn't try to stop him or talk him out of it. He only wished, rather wistfully, that Beythan would choose to stay with his people rather than return to his fellow humans...
The hunters were greeted with cheerful calls as they appeared, the ram's carcass swinging from the carry poles as they took it toward the cooking pit. Eager kittens ran alongside them, chattering and eyeing the kill as they imagined what it would be like when THEY were old enough to hunt. A small swarm of kittens descended on the hunters themselves, and resolved into the various families of the hunters. RedSpear called a verbal greeting to his three, a pair of twins and a younger female, while DewClaw picked up her male kitten in the crook of her arm and carried him along as she told him about the hunt. WhiteScar's two grown kittens, now both hunters in their own right, came to greet their mother and display their smaller catches, rabbits they'd caught in cunning snares.
Twitchear looked at all of the kittens wistfully. He hoped that BroadPaw would settle down with that female hunter he was interested in sometime soon, so that he could have nieces and nephews to play with and pamper and indulge. He really did like little ones. Now that he knew the way he was, he accepted the fact that he'd never have any kittens of his own. But kittens of his brother's get would be almost as good...
Since he wasn't carrying the ram itself, he managed to leave the hunting party and hurry away to his tent. He was eager to see how Beythan was getting on with his basket weaving. Arriving at the flap, he ducked his head and looked inside. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dimmer light inside, and he looked around for Beythan. But he felt his insides clench when he saw a heap of woven baskets lying beside the fire pit, but no sign of the human...
Twitchear pulled his head back and looked around wildly. Where was his human! He never should have left the camp! Anxious and a little bit scared, he loped around the side of the tent to see if the human was relieving himself in the long grass behind it. But no. Still no sign of Beythan. Growling in anxiety now, Twitchear dashed back around to the front of the tent and called out to a passing hunter: "Have you seen my no-hair?"
She shook her head. Twitchear darted through the camp, asking everybody he passed whether they'd seen his no-hair. But nothing. What could have happened to him?! Had he wandered away from the camp? Was he somewhere out in the grasslands, maybe hurt? His hair was trying to stand on end by the time he arrived at the healer's tent and called out to her.
She appeared at the opening. "Ah, Twitchear, there you are. I brought your no-hair here to look him over, rather than taking all of my supplies to your tent. He seems to have mended very well; you've taken good care of him. Come inside and collect him."
So relieved that he wanted to melt down into a puddle in the grass, Twitchear pushed into her tent and found Beythan sitting on the bed. The human rose to his feet with that weird baring of teeth which he called a 'smile', which Twitchear now understood was some sort of happy gesture rather than a threat. "Twitchear!" he cried in his own language. "You're back! Did you catch something?"
"A Spiral Horn," he replied. "A big old ram. He'll feed the entire camp. That's why we came back so early. We had good luck."
"Oh, that's great," Beythan said. "Did you see that I finished making the baskets?"
"Yes. I'll take them to LongScar a bit later. He's sure to be pleased with them. Perhaps you can even show him how to make them some time?"
"I can try," Beythan said as the healer watched them both curiously.
"You can understand what he's saying?" she asked Twitchear.
"Yes, mostly. He can understand our language a bit, but he can't speak it. So I've tried to learn to speak his language. It's not easy, though," Twitchear said ruefully.
"Well, that explains why he came with me so docilely when I said I wanted to examine him in my tent. He knew I wasn't trying to hurt him," the healer remarked. "And since he's quite healthy now, you can take him home, Twitchear."
"Beyshann? You come home with me?" Twitchear asked the human.
Beythan nodded. "Of course," he said eagerly, and Twitchear felt a warm glow as he led the way out of the healer's tent and back to his own. It was nice that the human already thought of his tent as home.
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"What's got you all worked up, kitten?" BroadPaw demanded on his brother, seeing the way that Twitchear was dancing around beside him.
"I just don't want to leave Beyshann alone for too long," Twitchear explained worriedly.
His brother gave a soft chuff of laughter. "You'd think that no-hair was YOUR kitten," he jeered. “It'll be fine until we get back. Nobody's going to hurt it."
"I know. I just..." Twitchear trailed off because he couldn't even explain to himself his unease about leaving Beythan alone, let alone explain it to his impatient brother.
A cuff on his shoulder left him staggering. "Come on, kitten. Let's catch something so that you can go home and mother hen that ridiculous no-hair," BroadPaw strode off after the rest of the hunting party, and after a moment Twitchear followed quickly. He knew his brother was right; the faster they caught something big, the faster he could return home to Beythan...
The came across a herd of Spiral Horns soon after. The rams were grazing to the outside of the herd, so that they could put down their formidable horns and act as a defensive line against predators at the first sign of trouble. The leader of their hunting party, an older female called White Scar because of a nasty old scar that ran over one side of her face from her eye to her mouth(she'd acquired it on her first hunt, when she'd been careless and the Plains buck she'd been stalking had charged her), crouched in the long grass and studied the herd.
"I think we’ll try to take that older ram there," she said in a low voice to the gathered hunting party. She indicated a ram with chipped horns and gray beginning to appear in his sandy coat. "We just need to cut him out of the herd. BroadPaw, RedSpear, you two circle around behind him. LongLance, DewClaw, you go wide and make the rest of the herd uneasy. We want them moving when we cut him out. Twitchear and I will come at him from the other side, and force him to leave the protection of the herd."
There were soft hisses of agreement, and the hunters loped off silently through the grass to take their positions. Twitchear stayed with WhiteScar, trying to to wriggle with excitement and nervousness alike. WhiteScar would not appreciate it if he screwed up this hunt. She might even send him home empty-handed, and he didn't want that. Redmane had been explicit when he'd said that Twitchear could only keep his human around if he replaced the food that Beythan ate. He needed to hunt something big, and he couldn't do that alone.
He slid through the grass at WhiteScar's heels, as his brother and another hunter closed in from the other side, and two more went behind the herd to spook them into movement. The Spiral Horns were sniffing the air uneasily now; then one of them made a low sound that carried to the rest, a sound of warning. The ewes in the center of the herd began to move, and the rams went alongside them.
The ram they intended to cut out of the herd was toward the back. His horns went down as BroadPaw and RedSpear appeared, and he whirled around to offer then those horns rather than his vulnerable flank. The herd streamed past, driven by the two hunters into a slow run. The old ram's senses weren't what they once had been; he didn't hear or smell the two hunters creeping up behind him. WhiteScar nodded at Twitchear, and at the same time they rushed up on the ram together.
The ram cried out as WhiteScar's spear took him in the belly, while Twitchear's long stone knife cut one of the tendons in his back leg. He tried to run then, but his leg gave out from under him and he had to limp. BroadPaw danced past his horns and put another spear in his throat, just under his chin. RedSpear drove yet another one into his chest, and the ram was done for. He continued to struggle, but the hunters finished him off quickly after that. BroadPaw used his own knife to cut the ram's throat, letting the red blood flow into the grass.
The body fell to the ground. BroadPaw crouched down and began to gut the ram, cutting open his belly to clean out the organs and the intestines. RedSpear and Long Lance began to skin the ram deftly, while WhiteScar, Twitchear, and DewClaw lashed together the long, flexible poles they'd tie the carcass to once it was skinned and gutted so that they could carry it back to the camp.
"Hey, kitten, catch," BroadPaw rumbled. He tossed his brother the heart, still steaming. As one of the hunters who'd taken the ram down, he got his pick of the organs. He bit into it, relishing the taste of fresh blood in his mouth. The others were already devouring the kidneys, liver, pancreas, and the tongue.
BroadPaw cut the large intestines into shorter lengths. They'd be washed out and used later to carry water, or cut into strips and dried to be used as thread, rope, and other useful things for the tribe. Very little of the kill would go to waste. They even cut off the spiral horns, and Twitchear carried them as BroadPaw and RedSpear lashed the kill to the poles and shouldered them for the journey home.
Twitchear was very happy that they'd found something big to kill so soon. The sun was only halfway across the sky. He strode along, the horns resting on his shoulders, eager to see Beythan and make sure that he was all right. Perhaps he did see the human as a sort of kitten; he didn't know. All he did know was that he worried when he had to be away from Beythan for any length of time.
Not that he really thought that any of his people would hurt Beythan, of course. None of them would even venture into his tent without his permission, though some of them had to be very curious by now. He supposed that he'd better start introducing Beythan to the rest of his tribe soon. He wanted the human to see that his people were not violent, and that they wouldn't hurt him. he wanted the poor, abused little human to have a safe haven where he could mend. In fact, Twitchear didn't even like to think of ever sending Beythan back to his own people. Why should he have to go back to those horrible beings who had done such awful things to him? He knew that Chief Redmane and Elder Lashtail would probably start to encourage him to let Beythan go back to his own kind, but he mutinously resisted the very idea. Beythan was his!
Okay, that wasn't true. He didn't own the human, any more than those other humans had. Beythan could go where he wanted to go, and do what he wanted to do. If he decided to go back to his people, Twitchear wouldn't try to stop him or talk him out of it. He only wished, rather wistfully, that Beythan would choose to stay with his people rather than return to his fellow humans...
The hunters were greeted with cheerful calls as they appeared, the ram's carcass swinging from the carry poles as they took it toward the cooking pit. Eager kittens ran alongside them, chattering and eyeing the kill as they imagined what it would be like when THEY were old enough to hunt. A small swarm of kittens descended on the hunters themselves, and resolved into the various families of the hunters. RedSpear called a verbal greeting to his three, a pair of twins and a younger female, while DewClaw picked up her male kitten in the crook of her arm and carried him along as she told him about the hunt. WhiteScar's two grown kittens, now both hunters in their own right, came to greet their mother and display their smaller catches, rabbits they'd caught in cunning snares.
Twitchear looked at all of the kittens wistfully. He hoped that BroadPaw would settle down with that female hunter he was interested in sometime soon, so that he could have nieces and nephews to play with and pamper and indulge. He really did like little ones. Now that he knew the way he was, he accepted the fact that he'd never have any kittens of his own. But kittens of his brother's get would be almost as good...
Since he wasn't carrying the ram itself, he managed to leave the hunting party and hurry away to his tent. He was eager to see how Beythan was getting on with his basket weaving. Arriving at the flap, he ducked his head and looked inside. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dimmer light inside, and he looked around for Beythan. But he felt his insides clench when he saw a heap of woven baskets lying beside the fire pit, but no sign of the human...
Twitchear pulled his head back and looked around wildly. Where was his human! He never should have left the camp! Anxious and a little bit scared, he loped around the side of the tent to see if the human was relieving himself in the long grass behind it. But no. Still no sign of Beythan. Growling in anxiety now, Twitchear dashed back around to the front of the tent and called out to a passing hunter: "Have you seen my no-hair?"
She shook her head. Twitchear darted through the camp, asking everybody he passed whether they'd seen his no-hair. But nothing. What could have happened to him?! Had he wandered away from the camp? Was he somewhere out in the grasslands, maybe hurt? His hair was trying to stand on end by the time he arrived at the healer's tent and called out to her.
She appeared at the opening. "Ah, Twitchear, there you are. I brought your no-hair here to look him over, rather than taking all of my supplies to your tent. He seems to have mended very well; you've taken good care of him. Come inside and collect him."
So relieved that he wanted to melt down into a puddle in the grass, Twitchear pushed into her tent and found Beythan sitting on the bed. The human rose to his feet with that weird baring of teeth which he called a 'smile', which Twitchear now understood was some sort of happy gesture rather than a threat. "Twitchear!" he cried in his own language. "You're back! Did you catch something?"
"A Spiral Horn," he replied. "A big old ram. He'll feed the entire camp. That's why we came back so early. We had good luck."
"Oh, that's great," Beythan said. "Did you see that I finished making the baskets?"
"Yes. I'll take them to LongScar a bit later. He's sure to be pleased with them. Perhaps you can even show him how to make them some time?"
"I can try," Beythan said as the healer watched them both curiously.
"You can understand what he's saying?" she asked Twitchear.
"Yes, mostly. He can understand our language a bit, but he can't speak it. So I've tried to learn to speak his language. It's not easy, though," Twitchear said ruefully.
"Well, that explains why he came with me so docilely when I said I wanted to examine him in my tent. He knew I wasn't trying to hurt him," the healer remarked. "And since he's quite healthy now, you can take him home, Twitchear."
"Beyshann? You come home with me?" Twitchear asked the human.
Beythan nodded. "Of course," he said eagerly, and Twitchear felt a warm glow as he led the way out of the healer's tent and back to his own. It was nice that the human already thought of his tent as home.
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