LXVII
They didn't drag me or prod me with spears. They simply gestured with a sweep of the leader's hand, and tilt of chin the head and the entire ring of hunters shifted around me like a school of fish, opening a narrow path. I stepped into it, heart pounding, mud sucking at my boots, the hat man's cat form trotting at my heels like a disgruntled spirit familiar. It was obvious that I, being a slow modern human wouldn't be as fast as these lean muscled prime specimens. The leader gestured and made low noises that I assumed was their languages.
They didn't just gesture this time, they whooped, a sharp, rising cry that echoed across the mammoth‑bone village. It wasn't threatening. It was… collective. A decision made in a single breath. A verdict.
Before I could process it, the lead hunter stepped forward and swept me into his arms.
He was lean, but his muscles were iron under skin, shaped by a lifetime of running down megaceros and hauling mammoth bones. His grip was firm, confident, and startlingly effortless—as if I weighed no more than a bundle of hides. The sudden motion jolted me, and I instinctively grabbed onto his shoulders.
They moved fast, silent, coordinated.
I moved carefully, trying not to slip or look threatening.
Within minutes, the forest opened into a broad valley, and there nestled between mammoth‑sized trees and steaming earth, stood their village.
The Longhouse dominated the clearing like a fallen titan.
A structure the length of three mammoths, its frame built entirely from mammoth bones and massive ribs arched overhead like the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. The bones were lashed together with sinew and rawhide, reinforced with thick branches and slabs of bark. Smoke curled from holes in the roof, carrying the scent of cooked meat and damp ash.
Inside, I glimpsed firepits, their flames flickering orange against the pale bone walls. Shadows moved around them. Silhouettes of tribal women tending hides, children grinding roots, elders shaping stone tools.
The hunters guided me past the longhouse's entrance, where mammoth skulls formed a kind of ceremonial archway. Their hollow eye sockets watched me pass. Around the longhouse sprawled a cluster of smaller shelters—yurt‑like tents made from animal skins stretched over bent saplings. Each had its own tiny firepit at the center, smoke drifting through a hole at the top. The hides were decorated with ochre markings, handprints, spirals, and artistic depictions of megaloceros and mammoths.
Children peeked out from behind the tents, wide‑eyed and silent.
Women paused in their work, gripping tools, assessing me.
Men tightened their grips on spears but didn't raise them.
The hunters who escorted me remained swift and silent, their leather footwear laced up their legs making them ghostlike even on wet ground. They formed a loose ring around me, not hostile, but watchful.
The leader walked ahead, glancing back only once to make sure I followed.
The hat man's cat form trotted beside me, tail flicking irritably.
"Well," he muttered, "you've been adopted by a tribe of mammoth‑bone architects. Congratulations little lady."
I swallowed hard, taking in the village. I felt surrounded with fires, bones, hides, and the people who had mastered a world of giants with nothing but stone, sinew, and sheer intelligence.
These were not simple people. They survived to be the ancestors of modern humans.
And now I was standing in the heart of their home, hoping I could convince them not to kill me.
The hunter leader swiftly tipped me over carried me like a decision already, made straight toward the far rear of the village where the land rose into a gentle slope. The limestone ridge jutted into the air like a pale spine, its surface rough and chalky, kicked up from the earth ages ago when the glaciers receded and dropped whatever they had dragged across continents. The hunters moved up the incline with the same effortless speed they'd shown in the clearing, their leather‑laced footwear whispering against stone and mud.
I clung to the lead hunter's shoulders as he ran, feeling every flex of muscle beneath his skin. He didn't slow until we reached the mouth of a cave carved into the limestone, an opening that breathed cool air and smelled faintly of smoke, earth, and something older. He brought me inside and I slipped off his back, finding my balance with a wobble as he was easily two meters tall or more standing straight up compared to one point six meters of me jumping off.
The interior was a world of chalky grey stone, rising in jagged formations from a floor stained red ochre, the color of spilled blood. The pigment coated everything on the ground. It dyed stone, hides, even the hunters' feet painting their soles crimson as they stepped deeper into the cavern. My own boots left faint red prints behind me.
Not in a religious way I recognized, but in the way the air shifted. It seemed to have weight as I breathed in, heavy and expectant. The cave felt sacred.
The walls were alive with the tribe's history.
Whole pelts hung like banners, wolf, deer, bison, even the shaggy hide of a young mammoth.
Simple jars made from hollowed‑out wood and carved stone lined natural shelves, filled with herbs, fat, pigments, and tools.
Preserved skulls of animals, megaloceros, aurochs, cave lions, cave bears were arranged in careful patterns neatly on the walls. Each skull was decorated with streaks of ochre, charcoal, and white clay, feathers tied through eye sockets or lashed to horns.
The flickering firepits cast shadows across the skulls, making them seem to watch me with hollow eyes.
The hunters set me down gently, though their hands remained close. His large eyes were ever ready, cautious, and curious. The leader stepped forward, his beard still dripping from the earlier rain, his amber eyes reflecting the firelight. The leader said something I couldn't understand as he pointed his chin at the cave.
The hat man's cat form padded beside me, tail low, ears twitching.
"This," he whispered, "is their heart, the cave of their shaman. Their memory. Their judge of all things mystical."
I swallowed, the red ochre dust clinging to my throat.
The hunters formed a semicircle around me, their faces solemn, their spears grounded, their eyes sharp. Whatever happened next would decide whether I walked out of this cave alive.
The hunters slowed as we entered the belly of the cave cave, their crimson‑stained feet whispering over the ochre floor. The air shifted it was cooler than outside, and full of fragrances, touched by smoke and something older. And then I saw her.
She stood near the back of the cavern where the limestone rose in pale, jagged columns, her silhouette framed by flickering firelight. She looked like the near exact replica of the reconstructed figure from the dig at Bad Dürrenberg. That ancient burial of a woman who had been both healer and mystic, buried with a child and surrounded by ritual objects. The resemblance was uncanny, eerie, like stepping into a photograph of prehistory.
Her hair was long and pale, braided with strips of hide and threaded with feathers. Her face was painted in stark lines of white clay and red ochre, the pigments streaked across her cheeks and brow in patterns that felt symbolic, deliberate. Around her neck hung a collar of carved bone pieces, each one etched with spirals and animal shapes. Her eyes were dark, deep, and unsettlingly perceptive, like she saw not just me, but the bubble I'd arrived in, the void worm, the magic clinging to my skin.
She held a staff made from a mammoth's leg bone, polished smooth and capped with a carved skull of a fox. The staff thudded once against the red floor as she stepped forward.
The hunters bowed their heads.
Even the leader lowered his spear.
The shaman's gaze swept over me, lingering on the hat man's cat form, then rising to meet my eyes. She inhaled sharply, as if scent alone told her something the others couldn't perceive.
Her voice came low, rhythmic, almost chanting.
"Gal… na‑shura. Yo oh oholi ba ma."
The hunters murmured in agreement, their voices echoing off the limestone walls.
The shaman approached until she stood only a few feet away. She reached out not touching me, but hovering her hand just above my chest, feeling the air, the magic, the residue of the bubble. Her eyes widened.
She whispered something that made the hunters stiffen.
The hat man's tail puffed.
"She knows you're not from here," he murmured. "And she thinks you're… important, possibly the personification of a god. You must undergo a ceremony."
That was interesting, no-one had ever called me a god before.
The shaman's hand lowered. She tapped her staff against the floor again, the sound sharp and ceremonial.