"Little Bear! Little Bear, eyes open! The sky has cracked! The Great Chief… the Great Chief has walked the Spirit Path! The Elder Mother demands your presence!"
The heavy flap of the mammoth-hide tent was thrown aside with violent force.
A man, old and weathered like a cliff face beaten by a thousand storms, stumbled in.
His eyes, usually sharp as polished obsidian, were swollen and red.
"Ugh… what?" Arthur, buried deep beneath a pile of warm furs, was jolted from the deepest sleep he had known in years.
He scrambled up, blinking against the harsh morning light piercing the entrance, and hastily asked the trembling old man,
"Old Flint? What is this noise? What has happened?"
"There is no time to count the stones, Little Bear! You must run to the Elder Mother's cave. The Chief… your father… he was struck down this morning near the River of White Stones. Now the Spear-Bearers and the wise ones are sniffing the ground like confused wolves."
Old Flint, the tribe's keeper of tools, wiped his nose with the back of a soot-stained hand, a small, choked sound escaping his throat.
"Hah? What are you saying? How could Father be killed?" Arthur felt a cold shock ripple through his chest, asking the question even though his mind refused to grasp the answer.
Arthur's father, Tor the Stone-Breaker, was the strongest arm in the history of the Black Rock Tribe.
He was the third son of the Elder Mother, the one who had single-handedly wrestled the cave lion and secured the Valley of Mists for their people. He was the Shield of the Tribe and the Breaker of Skulls!
Arthur could hardly believe that such a mountain of a man could be silenced in his own territory, so close to the safety of the clan fires.
"I do not know. The sun was good. The birds were singing. Who could have dreamed that shadows would rise to bite the throat of the Great Chief? We cannot chew on this bone now, Little Bear. First, go to the Elder Mother. Her cave is the only place where the ground is steady."
Old Flint spoke with a heaviness that seemed to pull his shoulders down to the earth.
Speaking of Old Flint's place in the tribe, although he was not a hunter of great beasts, his roots went deep.
Ever since Tor the Stone-Breaker had been given the Chieftain's spear twenty winters ago, Old Flint had been the one watching over the weapon stores and the training grounds.
He had been shaping the tribe's strength for more than two hands of winters.
During these long years, not only had Chief Tor been guided by Old Flint to become a leader who knew when to strike and when to listen, but Arthur himself had been raised under the old tool-maker's watchful gaze.
That was why Old Flint looked as if his own spirit had been gouged out upon hearing the news of the death of Tor, the Pride of the Black Rock.
"So… what do we do? What happens to the tribe?" Arthur asked.
He had inhabited this rugged, muscular body for only three moons. He still did not fully know the scent of the wind or the laws of the valley.
In addition, his previous understanding of this Stone Age world was thin as summer ice.
He knew only that the Elder Mother was the oldest living soul in the valley, a woman who remembered the time of the Great Freeze, and that she held the tribe together like the sinew on a bow.
Under these circumstances, he felt like a lost fawn in a blizzard after learning that the father of his new body, the invincible Tor, had been butchered.
"First, go to the Elder Mother. The most important thing is that your blood is not spilled, Little Bear." Old Flint spoke with the hardness of struck stone.
After losing Tor, who was like the son he never had, Old Flint could not bear the thought of a single hair being harmed on Arthur's head... the boy he had watched learn to walk and throw his first pebble.
"Good. I hear you, Old Flint." Arthur understood the weight of the stone pressing on them and nodded his head.
...
The Great Cave, The Elder Mother's Fire Circle.
At this time, the vast cavern was filled with the heavy breathing of the tribe's strongest hunters and the wisdom-keepers, all of them men and women who commanded respect and fear.
"Elder Mother, let your grief flow like the river, but we must act. It is a dark day that Tor has fallen, but now… the most important hunt is to find the beast who did this. We must sniff out the truth," grunted Gorn, the tribe's Lead Hunter, his face painted with the ash of mourning.
Regardless of the sorrow, the killing of a Chieftain and the strongest warrior of the Black Rock Tribe within their own hunting grounds was a great stain on their honor.
It was a humiliation that burned hotter than fire.
This not only challenged the strength of the Black Rock bloodline but also the safety of every family huddled in the valley.
It should be noted that the Black Rock Tribe was now the undisputed master of the region.
Their spear-throwers could hit a running hare at fifty paces, and their numbers dwarfed the second and third tribes of the riverlands combined.
Under these circumstances, anyone daring to wet their spear with the blood of a Black Rock Chieftain, here in the heart of the Valley of Mists, was openly spitting in the face of the Tribe and the Ancestors.
"Gorn speaks true. Start the hunt immediately! Before the moon is full three times, I want the name of the one who did this. I want to know if another tribe whispers in the shadows. Grab every stranger, every wanderer found near the river. Do not let them go until we know they are clean.
I will make sure that those who dared to break my son understand that the anger of the Black Rock is not a small flame," rasped the eighty-winter-old Elder Mother, her face a map of deep wrinkles etched with sorrow and a fury that burned like fresh coals from the head of the fire circle.
Tor, the Stone-Breaker, had been the Elder Mother's favorite since he first cried out at the moon.
Although her youngest daughter, Bird-Eye, shared some of her warmth, Tor remained the sun in the Elder Mother's sky.
Especially after her second son, Wolf-Tooth, wandered north to start his own pack and never returned, and her fourth son, Limping-Fox, was taken by the fever many winters ago, Tor received even more of the Elder Mother's fierce protection.
In addition, her eldest son, Broken-Hand, had never been looked upon with favor by the Elder Mother.
After he had been caught hoarding meat for himself during the Starving Moon, she cared even less for his words.
That was also why whispers floated around the campfires and the water holes that the Elder Mother intended to name Tor's line as the permanent keepers of the Chieftain's Spear.
Although the Elder Mother did not cast Broken-Hand out of the cave, no one knew if she had privately considered feeding him to the wolves.
Thump, thump, thump!
There was suddenly a heavy pounding on the wooden frame of the cave entrance, interrupting the Elder Mother's low growl of commands.
Everyone turned their heads, eyes wide, trying to figure out who had the madness to interrupt the Elder Mother's wrath at such a darkened time.
"Grandmother." Arthur walked slowly in, the bear-fur cloak heavy on his shoulders, his eyes rimmed with red, and called out into the smoky gloom.
With that one word, "Grandmother," the Elder Mother's sharp fury was instantly dulled.
Looking at the face that was the mirror image of her favorite son, her milky eyes brimmed with water, and her voice broke like a dry twig.
"Good calf… come to your grandmother. Do not fear. With your grandmother breathing, no spear can touch you."
The Elder Mother stepped forward, her joints popping, took Arthur's rough hand, and pulled him to the place of honor at the head of the fire.
"Little Bear… Arthur." The hunters and gatherers dipped their heads to Arthur, one after another, exposing their necks in submission.
"Let the word go out. All of Tor's strength, his spears, his furs, and his place by the fire shall be taken by Little Arthur. Arthur shall be given the burial rites of a Great Chief, and the tribe shall beat the drums of mourning for three suns."
With tears sliding down her leather-like cheeks and sorrow heavy in her throat, the Elder Mother lovingly ran her thumb over Arthur's face.
Arthur looked at the woman who was the most powerful entity in this primitive world. He felt the weight of the tribe's gaze settling on his shoulders.
"I will find them, Grandmother," Arthur said, his voice surprising him with its depth, sounding more like the growl of a cave lion than he expected.
"The one who did this will not see another spring."