Chương 14: B1 Chapter 13

Joa and Eyowon moved far faster than I could. Eyowon placed the sac into a clay bowl, covered it with a cloth, and immediately moved for the flap with her cane striking quickly against the ground. Joa was already through it by the time I managed to stand. I stumbled after them. My hand went to my waistband and drew my knife. Ready for what, I had no idea. Whatever waited outside, I would fight if I needed to. It wasn't the kind of fighting I was good at.

There was no trap to prepare, no animal to study, no trail to follow through the forest. I had a knife, two legs that rarely did what I asked of them, and a village full of people who were mine. That would have to be enough. I pushed through the flap. Chaos swallowed me. People screamed. Dogs barked and snarled as they tore through the village. Someone had released every one of them, and they threw themselves into the fighting with teeth bared. A dog hit a man hard enough to knock him sideways.

Its jaws closed around his forearm, and for a moment it had him. The man drove a spear through its ribs. The point came out the other side. The dog screamed. He ripped the spear free and stabbed it again. I knew the bones covering him before I knew his face. Bone Jaw. Fucking Bone Jaw. People eaters. Human ribs had been cut and tied across their chests. Pieces of skull protected shoulders and forearms. Finger bones hung from cords around necks and waists, rattling as they ran.

Some wore sections of jaw across their faces, teeth still embedded in the bone. Red, black, and white paint covered the pieces, turning what remained of the dead into armor and decoration. But what were they doing here? Bone Jaw didn't raid villages. They took people. There was a difference. Everyone who lived beneath these trees knew it. A hunter wandered too far from the others and never returned. Someone went to gather fruit alone and vanished. A fisherman failed to come home before dark.

Sometimes all that remained was blood. Sometimes a sandal. A broken spear. A trail that disappeared into the forest. Sometimes there was nothing at all. Bone Jaw hunted people the way we hunted animals. They watched. Waited. Found someone alone. Then took them. Our hunters had warned us about them since I was old enough to understand what being eaten meant. Never travel alone beyond the places we knew. Never ignore movement in the trees. Never assume the forest was empty simply because you couldn't see anyone.

Bone Jaw might be watching. But they didn't come into villages. They didn't throw themselves against hunters. They didn't attack dozens of people at once. Why would they? There were easier meals in the forest. Safer ones. They could wait for one of us to make a mistake. They always had. Yet now they were everywhere. Coming between the huts. Fighting our dogs. Fighting our hunters. Dragging people away in full view of everyone. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It made no sense. Yesterday, Bone Jaw hunted stragglers. Today, they were raiding a village. Yesterday, iguanas didn't have glowing organs filling their bellies. Today, one did. Yesterday, there hadn't been fire in the sky. My stomach tightened. Something had changed. I didn't know what. I didn't know why. But I couldn't believe all of it had happened at once by chance. Then I looked toward the center of the village. Our hunters were fighting. For a few moments, I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing.

There was too much movement. Too much blood. People I had known my entire life disappeared behind bodies and reappeared somewhere else. Spears thrust between shoulders. Clubs rose and fell. Dogs snapped at legs beneath the confusion, sometimes catching flesh, sometimes finding nothing but bone armor. Smoke from the cooking fires had been kicked into the air. Ash mixed with the dust churned up beneath dozens of feet until the center of the village had become a choking haze. Blood smelled stronger than smoke.

That frightened me. Our village had always smelled of cooking meat, damp earth, woodsmoke, sweat, river water. Now it smelled like something had been butchered in the middle of it. Someone crashed into one of the cooking racks. Clay pots shattered. A woman screamed as she grabbed two children and shoved them into a hut. She dropped the flap behind them and stood in front of it with a stone knife in both hands. She wasn't a hunter. Neither were most of the people fighting now.

An old man I knew from the fishing canoes swung a wooden club at a Bone Jaw twice his size. The first strike bounced from the man's shoulder. The second caught him across the mouth. The Bone Jaw stabbed him beneath the ribs. The old man folded around the spear. I couldn't look away. The Bone Jaw ripped it free and moved on before the old man had even finished falling. This wasn't a fight between hunters anymore. The entire village was fighting.

Makua stood near the firepit with a spear in each hand, one his own and another he'd taken from someone. Blood covered one side of his body. Three Bone Jaw pressed him at once, and Makua gave them nothing easily. He knocked one spear aside, drove his other into a man's thigh, ripped it free, then turned quickly enough to catch a club on the shaft before it struck his head. Hokan fought beside him. Joa was there too. So was my father. My father moved among them with the certainty I had watched all my life.

His spear struck once, withdrew, then struck again. A Bone Jaw man rushed him with an axe made from sharpened stone, and my father stepped inside the swing and drove his spear through the man's chest. The Bone Jaw fell. Another replaced him. Then another. My father killed that one too. The third got close enough to catch his forearm with a stone blade. Blood appeared. My chest tightened. Father didn't even look at the wound.

He smashed the butt of his spear into the man's mouth hard enough that I saw teeth fly, reversed his grip, then buried the point beneath his jaw. The Bone Jaw dropped. My father stepped over him. For one stupid moment, I felt relief. My father was there. Makua was there. Hokan and Joa were there. These were our hunters. These were the men who walked into the forest when everyone else stayed beneath the shelter of the village. They had killed jaguars. Caiman.

Boars large enough to open a man's belly with one sweep of their tusks. I had grown up believing there was very little beneath the trees they couldn't kill. Then I saw how many Bone Jaw surrounded them. That was the problem. There were too many. Our hunters killed them. Bone Jaw kept coming. The bodies were beginning to collect near the firepit. Some belonged to Bone Jaw. Enough belonged to us. A hunter I knew as Maton stumbled backward clutching his stomach. His fingers couldn't hold everything inside.

Joa grabbed him and tried to drag him away from the line. A Bone Jaw rushed them. Hokan intercepted him. Another came from the other side. Then another. Our hunters couldn't even stop long enough to save their own wounded. The line shifted backward. Only a few steps. I saw it. Everyone saw it. The villagers behind them began moving back too. Our hunters were giving ground. That frightened me. I had never seen my father give ground. A Bone Jaw spear struck the ground beside his foot.

Another passed close enough to cut across his ribs. Makua shouted something. Father answered. The hunters tightened around each other and moved back again. Not because they wanted to. Because they had to. The Bone Jaw pushed with them. One step. Another. Our village was being taken a few feet at a time. Then someone screamed Timoteo's name. I found him near the edge of the fighting. Timoteo had lost his spear. I didn't know where it was. Maybe broken. Maybe buried in someone.

There was blood pouring from his forehead, and one of his ears looked torn nearly in half. He hadn't stopped fighting. One Bone Jaw lay at his feet with half his face covered in blood. Timoteo had another by the wrist and was hammering his fist into the man's throat. Again. Again. Again. The Bone Jaw tried to stab him with a knife. Timoteo caught his wrist. Twisted. Something snapped. The man screamed. Timoteo drove his forehead into the man's nose and threw him down.

For half a heartbeat, Timoteo looked almost like the man I'd always known. Big. Loud. Impossible to keep down. Then I saw the third Bone Jaw coming behind him. He held his spear low. Running.

"Timoteo!" I shouted. The noise of the village swallowed my voice. Timoteo never heard me. The spear entered his back. Timoteo jerked. The point burst from his chest. For a heartbeat, I couldn't understand what I was seeing. Timoteo looked down. Blood ran along the stone point. His mouth opened. Nothing came out. The Bone Jaw behind him planted a foot against his back and ripped the spear free. Timoteo dropped to one knee. The man in front of him raised a club. Timoteo still fought. Of course he did.

He lunged from his knees, caught the man around the waist, and drove him into the ground. The club came down against Timoteo's back. Once. Twice. Timoteo grabbed the man's throat. His fingers closed. He squeezed. Even with a hole through his chest, he tried to kill one more. Another Bone Jaw arrived. I saw the stone axe rise. I wanted to shout again. I wanted Timoteo to turn. I wanted Hokan to reach him. I wanted my father to somehow cross the bodies between them. The axe came down.

It struck the side of Timoteo's head. His grip opened. He fell. Hokan roared. He tried to reach him. Makua caught Hokan by the shoulder and dragged him backward as three spears stabbed into the space where he'd been standing.

"Leave him!" Hokan fought Makua for half a second. Then another spear almost took him through the throat. Makua dragged him back into the line. Timoteo lay where he had fallen. One arm stretched toward our hunters. His fingers twitched once against the dirt. Then they stopped. Timoteo didn't move again.