- \n
- A Woman of the Seer-Folk Gambles Upon the Future<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
In a way, one is always lost in the spirit world, but Selu not only saw nothing familiar around him, the spirit world seemed utterly and completely wrong.\u00a0 He gazed up at the incredible ferns around him.\u00a0 They rose like trees with thick barrel bodies, crowned with long fronds of leaves.\u00a0 For a moment his own body seemed alien to him.\u00a0 Was he tiny, like an ant?\u00a0 Such a thing could happen to a shaman, but no\u2026 no, he was not small, these things were huge.<\/p>\n
Other things grew here, full and horrid.\u00a0 He reached a hand to the hut-bird nest at his chest it was shockingly light.\u00a0 A few moments of investigation revealed what he feared:\u00a0 empty.\u00a0 He had come into the spirit world with nothing but his wits.\u00a0 He gathered a bit of wood, thick but obviously soft, and found a fist-sized stone.\u00a0 He walked through the great fronds.<\/p>\n
The logic of the spirit-world was a dream-logic:\u00a0 when he had held the neck-breaker\u2019s tooth it had taken him to a place where the neck-breaker had the advantages.\u00a0 He had Mukali\u2019s hair, he was in a place advantageous to her, or at least familiar.<\/p>\n
There were other trees here, trees he knew, and smaller plants and vines, mixed in among the alien foliage.\u00a0 A result of his will or Mukali\u2019s or simply the way of the spirit world he did not know.<\/p>\n
It was dark, the moon, crescent, seemed to glow too bright and too big in the sky.\u00a0 The night here was hot.\u00a0 The air seemed to burn his lungs.\u00a0 He checked the ground for tracks, found none, and continued.<\/p>\n
A small stream cut the ground, too small for a crocodile and he walked to a fallen tree with a strangely braided trunk to cross it.\u00a0 Something slithered in the moonlight, yellow and red, and as long as a man\u2014a great salamander of a thing.\u00a0 A salamander that dreamed of being a crocodile?\u00a0 The two looked at one another for a moment.\u00a0 Then Selu threw his stone, using the true sorcery of man, and the thing fled.<\/p>\n
He crossed the stream, found another stone\u2014smaller than he wanted\u2014and walked a bit further, then froze.\u00a0 Something was moving along the ground in front of him; at first he thought it was a snake, but then he realized it was a great centipede.\u00a0 As long as his leg, black bodied and yellow-legged, it flowed in front of him, huge and horrible as it crossed a dappled bit of sunbeam.<\/p>\n
Heart hammering, he walked on. As in a dream, it was daylight, and the sun seemed weak, casting hazy shadows from plants both alien and familiar.<\/p>\n
He pushed through the fronds and discovered a great pile of stones\u2014a tall wall of them, laid together just so, each one bigger than a hut, bigger than an elephant.\u00a0 It stretched away to both sides and rose above him higher than the Ridge of Dreams.<\/p>\n
It was something beyond his ken, like Mukali\u2019s sky-hut, but greater.\u00a0 It was like a mountainside, but who would build a mountainside?\u00a0 He stood for a moment, unsure of what to do\u2014never a good thing in the spirit world.\u00a0 He breathed the thick humid air, focused his will, strained his hearing.\u00a0 The rhythmic chirping of huge insects sounded about him\u2014and in a moment he realized something more.\u00a0 A kind of clacking, insect-like, but not rhythmic like an insect.\u00a0 It stuttered in starts and stops.<\/p>\n
He risked putting down his stone and stick and cupped his hands behind his ears to try to find the direction of the sound and realized there must have been hands of them.<\/p>\n
Stick and stone in hand, he pressed his way toward the sound.\u00a0 Another small creek, another great salamander, and then something else\u2014an arch of the queerly laid stones went over this creek.\u00a0 He went toward it and found a great odd track through the underbrush, wide enough for five men to walk side by side.\u00a0 He looked for tracks and found nothing, save the soft-toed prints of the crocomanders in the creek, and a few others that he could not recognize.<\/p>\n
He followed the track, wound around the strange woods on it, and crossed another odd bridge.\u00a0 He could hear the clacking, louder now, and closer, and as he came around a wide curve in the trail he knew whatever it was could not be far.\u00a0 Ducking off the path he pressed himself to the braided bark of one of the barrel-trees.\u00a0 He peeked around and froze at what he saw.<\/p>\n
Three things, looking like nothing so much as giant fist-of-nothing plants, seemed to glide down the path.\u00a0 But they were animals<\/em>.\u00a0 But they were plants<\/em>.\u00a0 Fear gripped him, paralyzed him, sank his feet deep as a tree root into the ground.\u00a0 They were huge, twice the size of a man, where the bloom of a fist-of-nothing would be was an orb, a tuber of some kind, with three eyes, and above them sprang sprouts like flowers.\u00a0 The clicking came from a pair of great crayfish like claws that snapped and clicked, while a fourth stalk ended in what looked like a cluster of cone-mushrooms.<\/p>\n
Two of the things were making the noises, the third, between them, slid silently.\u00a0 The eye-tubers of the two loud ones swung around on their stalks, looking into the odd forest with unblinking eyes.\u00a0 Those two carried things, disconcertingly like a hut-bird nest across their bodies\u2014but they were made of some strange material, unnaturally colored, like polished wood, but with no grain, no texture.<\/p>\n
The third\u2019s eye-tuber swayed back and forth for a bit, it raised its claws and Selu saw they were bound\u2014the same odd kind of material in three bands wrapped around them, so that it could make only the slightest clack in answer\u2014and he knew, in the way of the spirit world, that they were speaking to each other.\u00a0 Like the clans of the Hyena-Ear Tribe would drum on a hollow log to call to each other.<\/p>\n
The two outside creatures abruptly left, spinning like leaves in a breeze, before gliding away down the path.\u00a0 The third stood alone for long moments in the clearing and then, to Selu\u2019s horror, began to easing down the path toward him.<\/p>\n
He oozed back around the tree, pressing his back against the hot leathery trunk.\u00a0 He gripped his club, formed and shaped by his will when he wasn\u2019t looking into something heavier than he had originally picked up: \u00a0a wrist-thick branch with a burl and sharp broken root at the end.\u00a0 He could swing at it the eye-tuber as the living fist-of-nothing came past\u2026 swing it and run.\u00a0 Run where?\u00a0 Perhaps up a tree?\u00a0 Could it climb?\u00a0 It didn\u2019t look like it could climb, but\u2026 it didn\u2019t look like anything.\u00a0 Fist-of-none was the closest thing it could be.\u00a0 It could not be<\/em> anything.<\/p>\n
It slid along the path, a dry rustle like a snake or the undulation of the great centipede.\u00a0 He looked down at the thing\u2019s shadow as it approached and in the way of the spirit world, the hazy-edged shadow was nothing like the creature that cast it, it was the shadow of a person, a woman.<\/p>\n
There are moments in both the flesh and the spirit world where hesitation could be deadly, where one must move like one has touched a hot branch in a fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cMukali!\u201d he barked.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flint-1-Yithian-a.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe scraping stopped as did the human shadow.<\/p>\n
He licked his lips.\u00a0 \u201cMukali!\u201d he shouted again, \u201cof the Seer Folk, wife of Wafulu, sister of Clauviku.\u201d<\/p>\n
The odd rustling clicks sounded, sounded far too close, and he heard in his mind \u201cYes!\u00a0 I am Mukali.\u201d\u00a0 Then, each word-shadowed echoed by the thudding of the bound claws into the ground.\u00a0 I! Am!\u00a0 Mukali!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was right behind him, just to the other side of the tree.\u00a0 He could hear a strange kind of breathing, deep long gulps of air.\u00a0 \u201cWho are you?\u201d she demanded.<\/p>\n
One had to be cautious in the spirit world, names being one of the things that had to be guarded and traded to other spirits, but in this place\u2026\u00a0 \u201cI am Selu of the First Tribe.\u00a0\u00a0 The spirits have guided me here to find a person who is not a person, and at the banks of the Ollisim river I found her, I found you.\u00a0 But it was not you, so I have come to the spirit world to find you.\u00a0 To find answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShow yourself!\u00a0 The very outline of a man has become a memory to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every instinct warned him not to do it, not to step out from behind the braided bark of the tree.\u00a0 But men were more than instinct, and after a long breath he stepped out, atop her human shadow and made himself look.\u00a0 The thing, loomed over him, the thigh-thick stalks wound through the air, the head-bulb dipped low, almost at face-level, and the eyes, if they could be called that, looked at him.\u00a0 The claws, still bound in the odd material, reached out for him and the long cilia that sprouted from their tips touched his arm, his chest, like the feet of spiders.\u00a0\u00a0 There was a strange palsy to the limbs, that spread through the entire massive body.\u00a0 It was incredible.\u00a0 It was pitiable.<\/p>\n
He bore it until the spidery-cilia reached his neck and began to touch his face, then he ducked away.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me,\u201d she said, \u201ctell me what I\u2014what my body does\u2014in the world of men?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have left the Seer Folk, and gone to the Ollisim River.\u00a0 There you have built both a hut and a hut that stands high in the sky.\u201d\u00a0 Secrets were valuable in the realm of the spirits, but he felt there was nothing to be gained from holding anything from her.\u00a0 \u201cAnd you have bent marsh-elephants to your will and they have built a great hedge of broken trees about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The palsy stopped.\u00a0 The great claws flexed in their bands.\u00a0 \u201cAre there monkeys?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u00a0 You have used many new tricks to lure monkeys to you.\u00a0 Collared monkeys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The great mound of a body slid back, and the eye-tuber swung around and the stalk connecting it to the body grew long and thin and for long heartbeats she looked back to where the other two monsters had retreated.\u00a0 Then like a whipping branch, the eye tuber snapped back, lowered to his face level.<\/p>\n
\u201cSelu of the First Tribe, I need you to listen very carefully.\u00a0 As shamans go into the spirit world, the Yith, this thing whose skin I now wear, go into the days yet to come, into generations yet to come.\u00a0 But they do not go into the spirit world, they go into the minds of\u2026 of \u2026 people.\u00a0 Do you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not really, but he nodded.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you ever been on a hunt and realized that you missed a spore or a sign and that the prey got away?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho hasn\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you realize that if you had looked left instead of right you would have caught the prey?\u00a0 But you cannot turn back the sun in the sky to do it?\u00a0 Imagine that you have a dream of the future.\u00a0 A vision that allows you to know that if you look left instead of right, you would catch what you hunted.\u00a0 That is what the tribe of the Yith do.\u00a0 Do you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n
He perhaps did.\u00a0 Other shamans sometimes had dreams of the future, but he never had.\u00a0 He had his doubts that others did, honestly.\u00a0 But the Seer Folk were good at predicting the weather, and from there they knew what new water holes would appear and what would be drawn to them.<\/p>\n
The claws continued their weak clicking, and the voice continued in his head\u2014a voice strained with desperation.\u00a0 \u201cHave you ever put a bundle of straight grass where a hut-bird can get it? And the hut-bird will make a nest that you can carry as a basket?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course.\u00a0 Who hasn\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n
The fourth stalk, the one with the cluster of tube-mushrooms at its end, slithered, almost touching his ear, and the eye-tuber loomed closer where the single great eye turned toward him almost touched his forehead.\u00a0 \u201cListen to me,\u201d the ghost-voice said.\u00a0 \u201cListen as if your life depends upon it.\u00a0 To the tribe of the Yith the tribes of men are the straight grass.\u00a0 But instead of building a nest, they are building the marsh-elephants, forcing them over long generations from the woods to the swamps.\u00a0 They are so close to being as wise and cruel as we ourselves.\u00a0 They have lit the fire in the head. \u00a0But it burns slow, and for the marsh-elephants to thrive they need the land to be empty of the tribes of men.\u00a0 This is what the Yith want.\u00a0 This is why they have sent one of themselves forward through uncountable years.\u00a0 That is the nest they want to build.\u201d<\/p>\n
It made no sense!\u00a0 \u201cWhy would they want such a thing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause in uncountable generations the marsh-elephants will be far stronger tools for the tribe of the Yith than we could ever be.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bound claw fumbled forward and the tips opened enough to catch and hold his forearm in a toad-cold grip.\u00a0 \u201cYou must stop her!\u00a0\u00a0 You must stop me in the waking world.\u00a0 She will promise knowledge, she will want to be taken back to the Seer Folk and the Red Wasp Clan, and the Hyena-Ear Tribe.\u00a0 She will carry monkey dung and monkey brains and it will carry a \u2026an\u2026 an evil-spirit, and it will spread like a fire among all the people and all the nations.\u00a0 The Yith will destroy the race of man and the marsh-elephants shall be their new straight grass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she began to laugh, an unhinged sound in his head.\u00a0 \u201cGeneral Tuowlu, who walks upon the dust of my bones,\u00a0 Nug-Soth, with your glittering cities and sorceries, James Woodville with your caravels and coffee-shops, Estee Jozee, who walks beneath a plastic sky in the canyons of the hunters\u2019 star,\u00a0 how you will remember the names of Mukali of the Seer Folk and Selu of the First Tribe!\u201d<\/p>\n
Then as quickly as her mad laughter started it stopped and the woods were deathly quiet, far too quiet.\u00a0 \u201cThey are coming!\u201d she whispered in his mind.\u00a0 \u201cRun!\u201d<\/p>\n
And he did, his legs exploding beneath him, and he crashed through the underbrush.\u00a0 He saw them, the two other Yithians surging down the path and Mukali\u2019s long bound claws lashing out at them.\u00a0 One of them swung the odd thing up from its body and pointed it at him.<\/p>\n
A sound like all the fat of an elephant\u2019s body sizzling at once, and a smell like the moment before lighting on the plains, and behind and around him the fronds and limbs of the trees lashed and burned.\u00a0 Then Mukali\u2019s voice in his mind turned to a scream.<\/p>\n
Selu plunged ahead, heedless of the strange fronds and soft branches.\u00a0 Something,\u00a0 some great huge shadow fell atop him; he looked up and saw an impossible thing,\u00a0 a canoe made of the strange clay floated in the sky above him, it tilted far too one side and in it were easily two hands of Yithains.<\/p>\n
He ran through the shallow streams, he ran and ran, ran until his legs screamed and his lungs burned, and the limbs and leaves he crashed through became, in the way of dreams, those he knew.<\/p>\n
He stopped, stooped and gasped for air.\u00a0 He looked up and the flying canoe was nowhere to be found in the bits of sky he could see through the trees.\u00a0 He trudged through the mud.\u00a0 He needed to find\u2026 what?\u00a0 A place to rest.\u00a0 A place to sleep, and to wake back into the world of flesh.\u00a0 Find some tongue-cutter and eat it, that would work, too.<\/p>\n
He strained his ears listening for the neck-breaker.\u00a0 It would be in its nature to seek him out and avenge itself on him.\u00a0\u00a0 The slow wide creek eased past and brambles and vines grew thick at the bank.\u00a0 It was the same bank where he had outsmarted the neck-breaker, the mud and broken branches were still stirred up.\u00a0 The soggy, sagging trunk still crossed the water and looked as if it could bear his weight.\u00a0 He picked his way through the broken branches where the top of the tree rested on the muddy bank.\u00a0 He took a step onto the trunk and froze.\u00a0 Something was wrong, something was very wrong, something was out of place.<\/p>\n
Selu looked behind quickly, since it was the way of the neck-breaker to leap from behind.\u00a0 The open space behind him was empty, just leaves and small trees, less than a stone\u2019s throw away was the thicker wall of the forest.\u00a0 An easy enough jump for the neck-breaker.\u00a0 But there was nothing that he could see.\u00a0 He turned back to the fallen tree.<\/p>\n
Two steps and the tree burst up from the creek, mud and water flailed up into the sky as a marsh-elephant surged up from beneath the water.\u00a0 Selu fumbled back and the creature\u2019s thin trunk slapped into his chest and he flew backward.\u00a0 The great hard foot of the marsh-elephant thumped down on top of him, not hard enough to crush him, as it easily could.\u00a0 Instead, it pressed him into the mud, inexorably down.\u00a0 Light, as great as the laughing sun at noon, poured out of the great split that ran down the creature\u2019s face.\u00a0 The great grey-green eye looked into his.<\/p>\n
Then it spoke.\u00a0 Slow slurred words.\u00a0 \u201cA gift!\u201d<\/p>\n
The creature pushed him down.\u00a0 \u201cAs great as pulling up the hollow stump.\u00a0 As great as shaking the tree.\u00a0 A gift so that the name of Tears-the-Vine will be trumpeted in awe the same as the name of the running apes!\u201d<\/p>\n
He pounded his fists against the creature\u2019s hard horny foot and might as well have been striking a stone.\u00a0\u00a0 His vision blurred, and yet the great blue-green eye that floated in the fire in her head did not blink and the voice of Tears-the-Vine slopped out its demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive me the true sorcery of man.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flint-2-marsh-elephant-a.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
- \n
- A Hunter Sees His Stalker<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
In the waning darkness of the night, Kiptum snapped awake.\u00a0 Something outside was not right.<\/p>\n
Beside him Selu seemed to struggle to breathe.\u00a0 Beside the shaman, Clauviku slept dead to the world.\u00a0 Kiptum drew his flint knife and crept out of the tent.<\/p>\n
A marsh-elephant\u2014the male that carried the hollow stump\u2014stood right outside the fence.\u00a0 Another was further away, further into the woods.\u00a0 He could hear it move through the underbrush.<\/p>\n
The marsh-elephant was a sacred animal, they could make baskets like a man, or at least hollow out a stump with their tusks.\u00a0 They were not to be hunted.\u00a0 It was said, among the Hyena-Ear tribe, that if you left a sweet-tuber in the crotch of a tree, a marsh-elephant would take it and leave a bird-egg in its place.\u00a0 But the Hyena-Ear tribe also claimed that one night a group of marsh-elephants had destroyed their camp, tearing up their tents, and marsh-elephants could not do such a thing; they might blunder through a camp and tear up things by accident, but not purposefully.<\/p>\n
There were collared-monkeys here as well, travelling through the trees by the light of the fitful crescent moon.\u00a0 He could see them, dark little shadows in the high trees.\u00a0 The crocodiles were still in the river\u2014that was normal, at least.<\/p>\n
At last he realized it.\u00a0 What bothered him were the two monkeys trapped in their baskets. These two should have been active in the cool of the night, just like those that ran through the trees.\u00a0 In the flickering light of the fire he could see that were not drunk on fire-tadpole poison, they were sick, almost like they had been left out in the hot sun too long.\u00a0 They rarely moved, and when they did they swayed, and drooled.\u00a0 His hand itched to pick up his spear and grant them mercy.\u00a0 Mukali\u2019s cruelty did not sit well with him.<\/p>\n
Instead, he put more wood on the fire, building it to a solid blaze.\u00a0 Over the crackle of the fire he heard a moan from their shelter.\u00a0 He pulled the flap aside and peered in.<\/p>\n
Clauviku was sitting up, looking at Selu.\u00a0 A gleam of sweat stood out on the shaman\u2019s body.\u00a0 Outside of his ragged gasping breath he did not seem to move.<\/p>\n
Clauviku looked from the shaman to the hunter in the guttering firelight. \u201cHe has been like this, sweating and trembling, for almost the entire night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selu shuddered suddenly, his free hand, spasming.<\/p>\n
The ways of a shaman were odd to him, and Kiptum did not even pretend to understand them.\u00a0 \u201cHas he done that often?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he supposed to?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside they heard the marsh-elephant pacing along the perimeter.<\/p>\n
Clauviku looked up at him.\u00a0 \u201cAre they supposed to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
- \n
- A Shaman Amok in the Dreamworld<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Selu was soaked in mud.\u00a0 His side throbbed when he breathed.\u00a0 He was sure the marsh-elephant matriarch had broken a rib.<\/p>\n
Teaching her to throw was a long endless nightmare.\u00a0 She kept him close, wedged between her down-curving tusk and her trunk, so when she heaved her head and threw something he jarred against his aching side and dragged his leg across the ground.\u00a0 But worse were the horrid moments when the two of them seemed to merge and melt together.\u00a0 Those horrid flashes when he was a marsh-elephant and she was a human.<\/p>\n
There was a great riddle, a great conundrum in her massive head\u2014a kind of rage so strong that it defeated the plan<\/em>.\u00a0 Like being caught in a lion\u2019s charge, a man could stand there to scared to even lift the spear that would save his.\u00a0\u00a0 But for her it was more like trying to throw a spear, but not being able to take your eye off the spearpoint.\u00a0 The very simplicity of the act\u2014to throw with intention\u2014made it difficult.\u00a0 It was like teaching breathing, or how to hear.<\/p>\n
Again, he was Selu, again he was a man:\u00a0 feet with toes, hands with fingers, arms out of his shoulders and not that horrid limb springing from his mouth and lip.\u00a0 Again, the massive head shook, and held by the trunk against the tusk, his side shrieked in pain, and he shrieked as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo tricks!\u201d Tears-the-Vine bellowed.\u00a0 \u201cShow me the true sorcery of man!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to look at what you are throwing at!\u201d he yelled, as he had uncountable times before.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t look at the stone, you have to look where you throw!\u201d<\/p>\n
It made no sense to her and he knew it, knew it because for the briefest of seconds he had been her.\u00a0 There was too much to explain.<\/p>\n
The massive head forced him down, kneeling in the mud.\u00a0 \u201cIt cannot be done!\u201d she growled.<\/p>\n
It was almost too much for him.\u00a0\u00a0 She didn\u2019t throw with a shoulder and an arm, she threw with her neck and her trunk.\u00a0 She had to turn her head, she couldn\u2019t look.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to look as you turn your neck!\u201d he said, pleading.\u00a0 \u201cYou can only look for the last bit, before you let go, but it can be enough!\u00a0 I swear it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Again the horror of being in a body not his own, of walking in a dream of another mind.<\/p>\n
A memory, recent as a track in the mud:\u00a0 The humming of the earth interrupted by a great growing whine.\u00a0 A call to her.\u00a0 A half-day of tramping through the marsh and onto the plain and finding a running-ape that had been treed by a neck-breaker.\u00a0 The running-ape swung a bit of vine and it cried out in piercing tones.<\/p>\n
Tears-the-Vines sent Leaps-Up to smash the cat with his club.\u00a0 And as the youth did so, the running-ape spoke<\/em>, and made promises and dropped the petals of knock-down-the-tree flower.<\/p>\n
The memory ended and Selu\/Tears-the-Vine swept up a broken branch from the mud, his trunk wrapped around it, guided by the mother-gentle touch of Tears-the-Vine.\u00a0 He looked at the great thick trunk of a mangrove tree, lost sight of it as he turned the massive neck, struggled to stay on his hands and feet.\u00a0 Nothing left, no willpower or control or even to close his great dribbling mouth.\u00a0 The woods, the light of the sun, leaves and mud kaleidoscoped as he whipped the great head around and his nose\/arm whipped too.\u00a0 The mangrove tree lurched into view and somehow he locked his gaze upon it.\u00a0 The branch spun in the air and clattered against the tree, cracking in half.<\/p>\n
A fierce joy filled them then, so strong that they forgot all about throwing and the true sorcery of men and laughed.\u00a0 A vision, a memory older but still powerful:\u00a0 high grass and the sound of men\u2019s voices, then a marsh-elephant trumpeting, and surging up to run.\u00a0 A running-ape wheeling about with a man-quill and being caught in the chest by a mighty foot and crushed to the ground.\u00a0 Another step and trunk and tusks smashed into a woman, tossing her across the dusty clearing.\u00a0 Leaps-Up trotting beside her, hefted a great tree root in his trunk, reared, and brought it down on a man, crushing the upraised arm, the shoulder, the head.<\/p>\n
A vision, older and strong like a great tree:\u00a0 Sprays-the-Dew stumbling, the smell of blood like her own filling that great long nose, one of the man-quills, sticking out from beneath her armpit.\u00a0 Other quills sticking from her hide.\u00a0 They, Selu and Tears-the-Vine, rushed at the men who chased her.\u00a0 They were small, they could be beaten, but they threw stones, each one crashing into her mind, the true sorcery of men shattering her thoughts like sudden thunder.\u00a0\u00a0 And Sprays-the-Dew trumpeted at them to turn and run.<\/p>\n
Then they were separate, Selu was kneeling in the mud, the hot breath of Tears-the-Vine pouring over his neck and back.\u00a0 \u201cAgain!\u201d she said, like a child wanting a ride.\u00a0 \u201cAgain!\u00a0 Show me to not look, then look, then throw!\u201d<\/p>\n
Her trunk wrapped around his chest and began hauling him back up.\u00a0 Something, some mix of instinct and pride, some desperation sprang to his mind.\u00a0 He had the true sorcery of men; he did not need to see to throw.\u00a0 As he was lifted he snatched up a fist full of mud and debris and threw it backward over his shoulder, where Tears-the-Vine\u2019s great blue-green eye was sure to be.<\/p>\n
A jolt went through the trunk and it loosened.\u00a0 He spun and slipped out of the grip as Tears-the-Vine reared up in shock and pain.\u00a0 A wild swing of her foot caught him the shoulder and he fumbled forward, managed to keep his feet, and ran.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
- \n
- A Hunter Displays His Trophies<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Something was happening among the marsh-elephants, Kiptum was sure of it.\u00a0 He heard thrashing in the forest, in the dark well beyond the fire\u2019s light, and a slurred stammering trumpeting.\u00a0 The big male outside the barrier flexed out his ears, snapped them twice, picked up the hollow tree stump and carried it forward.\u00a0 Beyond the hedge of tree limbs it stood well within the glow of the fire.\u00a0 The marsh-elephant\u2019s trunk twisted and the contents of the stump fell out onto the ground.<\/p>\n
The trunk groped down among the items, pulled up the curving claw of a neck-breaker.\u00a0 The marsh-elephant held it up and Kiptum wasn\u2019t sure if it was showing it to him or admiring it itself.\u00a0 The elephant dropped the claw, pulled up a piece of a crocodile\u2019s lower jaw, dropped it; pulled up a smashed lion\u2019s skull.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flint-3-trophies-a.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nKiptum heard sounds behind him: \u00a0Selu grunting and shouting as he came out of the trance.\u00a0 But he himself was almost held in a trance as the marsh-elephant continued to show its trophies.\u00a0 Teeth and claws and bits of bone, and then, very clearly held so that Kiptum could see it, a flint spear with a broken haft.\u00a0 Out of the dark came the other two marsh-elephants, the big female leaning against the smaller.\u00a0 The smaller one bore her sister\u2019s weight and in her trunk she carried the long limb with a burl and sharp broken root at the end.<\/p>\n
The male leaned forward, wrapping his trunk around a thicker limb of one of the downed trees and easily dragged it back, opening a great gap in the barrier.<\/p>\n
Leaving the old matriarch, the little female trotted up, and for a moment the two of them both wrapped trunks around the haft of the club, then the male swung his head from side to side, using the club to batter and snap branches, easily breaking down the hedge before stepping into the gap.<\/p>\n
Kiptum wanted to run, but the elephants blocked the opening, and the crocodiles guarded the river.\u00a0 With rising panic, he swept up a burning limb from the fire, held it up he shouted and waved his spear.<\/p>\n
The marsh-elephant\u2019s ears snapped out, then it reared up and brought the club down with whistling force.\u00a0 A jump backward saved Kiptum\u2019s life.\u00a0 He thrust the burning limb at the creature\u2019s face, forcing it to shuffle back.\u00a0 Then it reared and swung again, crashing its club to the ground.\u00a0 It took two great steps, catching Kiptum in the hip with its knee.\u00a0 The hunter faltered and fell back.<\/p>\n
The creature could easily have crushed him beneath its feet, or rammed him with its great head.\u00a0 Instead it hesitated, then trotted back.\u00a0 It stood, panted, then turned its head for another swing of the club in its trunk.\u00a0 Kiptum flailed backwards.\u00a0 The long swing fell short, and the beast followed it up with another, even wilder, then bounded up and brought another blow down.<\/p>\n
Pain rocked down the top of Kiptum\u2019s skull as he backed into leg of the sky-hut.\u00a0 For a moment he couldn\u2019t do anything, couldn\u2019t think of anything to do, anywhere to go; nobody could help him, Clauviku was but a Seer Folk woman, and Selu was lost in his trance.<\/p>\n
\u201cMukali!\u201d he bellowed.<\/p>\n
Above him came a hum, then a whistle.\u00a0 The marsh-elephant paused in its swing, snapped its ears and turned its head up.<\/p>\n
Kiptum looked up.\u00a0 Mukali leaned far out of the sky-hut, her free hand spun a thing- a long loop of rope ending in a strange box and a beyond that a glowing ball.\u00a0 She spun it faster and faster, and the whistling grew louder and the ball glowed brighter.\u00a0 Then she let go of the rope and the glowing ball lanced down, striking the marsh-elephant on the back and burst into a roaring fire that dripped down the creature\u2019s flanks.<\/p>\n
The elephant let out a bellow and began to careen madly.<\/p>\n
Kiptum heard the trumpeting of the other two marsh-elephants, and over it the whistling of Mukali\u2019s odd weapon. He forced his feet back under him and he stood beneath the very center of the sky-hut.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- A Woman of the Seer-Folk Sees the Future<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Clauviku covered her ears, crouching by Selu.\u00a0 He moaned and struggled to wakefulness.<\/p>\n
She knew that the return journey from the spirit world was difficult, that one had to rest.\u00a0 But Selu struggled like a man laying on ants.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe quiet,\u201d she whispered. \u201cPlease, be quiet.\u00a0 They\u2019ll hear you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t know what was going on outside, but it sounded like the end of the world.\u00a0 The elephants were tramping and trumpeting, and that horrid whistling sounded above that.<\/p>\n
\u201cClauviku\u2026\u201d Selu whispered, \u201cClauviku\u2026 help me\u2026 take me to the marsh-elephants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was he mad?\u00a0 \u201cNo, no.\u00a0 We can\u2019t do that.\u00a0 The marsh-elephants are on a rampage, they will stomp us to death.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crashing around outside grew even worse and a new horror, a horrid reek of burning hair and skin came to her.<\/p>\n
She looked out the hide hut and all her desire to stay within evaporated:\u00a0 a marsh-elephant, the male, was struggling and burning, and Kiptum ran at it, stabbing at it with a spear, out of rage or mercy she could not guess.\u00a0 But the marsh-elephant was bearing down on their little hut.<\/p>\n
She grabbed Selu under his slick armpits and hauled him out.\u00a0 Panicked heartbeats later the burning marsh-elephant tore through the tent, tearing it to pieces.<\/p>\n
Together she and Selu struggled away.\u00a0 Some tiny warning went off in her mind and she risked turning her back to the chaos in the camp and gaze out at the dark sluggish water.\u00a0 The eyes of the crocodiles gleamed,\u00a0 easing toward the shore.<\/p>\n
The burning marsh-elephant spun, crashed against the wiry hedge of the wall and faltered.\u00a0 Kiptum appeared out of the smoky darkness, a new spear in his grip.\u00a0 He ran to the side of the creature and thrust the weapon deep under its foreleg.\u00a0 It let out a slurred growl and tried to swing its massive head back at him but could only drag its ears and face through the naked and jagged branches.\u00a0 The beast hung there and collapsed.<\/p>\n
With surprising strength Selu struggled in her grip, gaining his feet and limping toward the scattered fire.\u00a0 She caught up to him before he fell.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake me to the big female,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019ll kill you.\u00a0 They are mad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as the barrier, Clauviku, that\u2019s all.\u00a0 I beg you!\u00a0 Just get me that far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Above them came the wailing whistle of Mukali\u2019s magic rope.\u00a0 She looked up, her sister, the thing that possessed her sister, leaned out of the sky hut swinging the witch-rope, another sphere burning brighter and brighter on its end.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell her not to\u2014\u201d Selu started.<\/p>\n
The flaming ball flew out into the night and burst into a pool of flame, just beyond it, Clauviku saw the small female rear back.\u00a0 Then, with an almost comical deliberation, she ducked her massive head to the ground and with trunk and tusk heaved up sand at the fire.<\/p>\n
Selu paused, breathed deep and hard, then turned his sweat-slick face up.\u00a0 \u201cMukali!\u201d he yelled.\u00a0 \u201cWhat will you do now?\u00a0 You can\u2019t kill us!\u00a0 We are the arm that will throw the spear of the Yith into the tribes of men!\u00a0 Do you want to kill the marsh-elephant?\u00a0 The one you have waited so long for?\u00a0\u00a0 The one with the fire in the head?<\/p>\n
The old shaman gasped for breath for a few moments then struggled forward.<\/p>\n
Above them Mukali yelled: \u201cStay away from her!\u00a0 She\u2019s dangerous to you!\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the smoke and the horror Clauviku almost grinned.\u00a0 \u201cWhatever possesses my sister\u2019s body,\u201d she whispered to Selu, \u201cit is a terrible liar.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hung onto it, the one steady thing she knew.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
- \n
- A Shaman Witnesses the True Sorcery of Man<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Selu leaned against Clauviku, pushing forward past the scattered fire toward the broken hedge and out into the night.\u00a0 The wailing of the witch rope sounded behind and above him, then another of the burning clay pots flew into the darkness and shattered near the smaller female.\u00a0 She snorted, stamped, seemed almost angry that she had barely put out the first fire, and now here was another!<\/p>\n
He had touched minds with them, for a few moments, and knew the childish route their thoughts took, that it wasn\u2019t entirely surprising or mad that the creature would occupy itself putting out fires.<\/p>\n
And Mukali?\u00a0 Mukali would not strike at him, or Clauviku, or even Kiptum.\u00a0\u00a0 She needed them to spread the killing spirit among the tribes.\u00a0 The killing spirit she had already put into them.<\/p>\n
She might strike at the marsh-elephant shaman, though, as much as the tribe of the Yith wanted them, they didn\u2019t want them now, tonight, on the shore of this accursed river.<\/p>\n
Kiptum appeared at his right, his eyes white-wide with terror, but his jaw was set hard, his lips a flat line in his face.\u00a0 He had no spears left, just a fist-sized stone carried in a white-knuckled grip.\u00a0 The hunter swept up Selu\u2019s right arm and between them Selu half-walked and was half-carried.<\/p>\n
Again and again the witch-rope shrieked and the burning clay spheres pelted around them, but the three humans walked on, and the two marsh-elephants did not flee.<\/p>\n
\u201cTears-the-Vine,\u201d he shouted.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t hunt the Hyena-Ear tribe.\u00a0 I beg you!\u00a0 If you do this thing, they will fight back.\u00a0 The Seer Folk and the Red Wasp Clan, we can stop the Hyena-Ear tribe from raiding into the marshes!\u201d<\/p>\n
The great panting matriarch stared at him, its watery eyes glaring out of the yellow strip of paint.\u00a0 He knew she could not understand him, that human speech was beyond its ability.\u00a0 But he could see, could convince himself, that she recognized him from the spirit world.<\/p>\n
She lurched to her feet, her ears snapping hard at them.<\/p>\n
\u201cKiptum!\u201d he cried.\u00a0 \u201cGet back!\u00a0 She can smell the male\u2019s blood on you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her trunk lashed out and had she not had the weak knees of a shaman fresh from the spirit world, Kiptum would have been caught.<\/p>\n
As the young hunter dodged back, Clauviku pulled hard at Selu, dragging him away.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack!\u201d Kiptum said.\u00a0 \u201cTurn back, she cannot catch us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another clay ball shattered nearby, nearly catching the young female, who reared and skittered sideways away from it.<\/p>\n
Tears-the-Vine bent her head and wrapped her trunk around a great half-buried tree-branch.\u00a0 Wrenching it free in a spray of dirt and sand she stood with it and gazed at them.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet away!\u201d Selu shouted to his companions.\u00a0 Kiptum was already standing at a distance, and Selu shoved Clauviku hard.<\/p>\n
The two of them stood, shaman to shaman in the world of the flesh.\u00a0 Tears-the-Vine turned her head, but unlike in the spirit world she turned her head halfway around, then spun her whole body in a great circle and with terrific force let the limb fly far above Selu\u2019s head.\u00a0 As she floundered and fell to her side he heard the great limb whistle through the air and crash into the sky-tent.<\/p>\n
He heard Mukali scream, but his attention was riveted to Tears-the-Vine.\u00a0 The great matriarch breathed hard and she lashed her trunk weakly and let out a final grunt.\u00a0 He heard the young female charge away, tearing through the dark forest.\u00a0 Was the grunt some kind of signal, or had the younger one finally seen enough horror and fled?\u00a0 Selu did not know, could not know.\u00a0 And he had no strength to flee.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
- \n
- A Hunter Tries to Wash His Polluted Hands<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Kiptum wanted more than anything to flee, but the night was not done and there was lurking danger in the forest.<\/p>\n
They found Mukali trying to drag herself away from the base of the ruined sky-hut.\u00a0 She had a broken leg, between the foot and the knee, and when she breathed it sounded as ragged and wet as that of the marsh-elephant matriarch.<\/p>\n
He and Clauviku had gathered Mukali, carefully, and brought her back, while Selu, carefully re-built their fire.<\/p>\n
Dawn found Kiptum unable to stop staring at the dead marsh-elephant male.\u00a0 \u201cSelu,\u201d he said, \u201cI have killed a sacred animal.\u00a0 I fought it because it tried to kill me.\u00a0 I stabbed it deep and into the heart as a mercy.\u00a0 It was burning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou did what was right,\u201d Selu said.\u00a0 \u201cEven in this place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWill you perform a cleansing ritual?\u201d he asked.\u00a0 It worried him.\u00a0 He had come here for fame, but not the infamy that came with killing a sacred animal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will,\u201d Selu said.\u00a0 \u201cWe will do it here.\u00a0 Tomorrow, or maybe the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHere?\u201d Clauviku said, before Kiptum could.\u00a0 \u201cWhy should we stay here in this horrid place?\u201d\u00a0 She kicked at one of the many clay faces starring blankly at the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Mukali said.\u00a0 Then took a ragged breath.\u00a0 \u201cWhy stay here?\u00a0 You have so many secrets to take to your people.\u00a0 The secret of clay, the power of the sling, the-\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to stay,\u201d Selu interrupted.\u00a0 \u201cWe cannot abandon you.\u00a0 And I am weary.\u00a0 I cannot travel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kiptum had become very fond of Selu in their travels, but there was something about the edge in the old man\u2019s voice he did not like.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure what it was\u2026 A falseness not so far removed from that of Mukali.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have plenty of food,\u201d Selu continued, and passed around more of the dried monkey meat, handing out a strip to each of them, even Mukali.\u00a0 The woman\u2019s face crinkled in distaste, but then she looked at her swollen leg and took it.\u00a0 She put it between her teeth and gnawed.<\/p>\n
Kiptum bit into his as well.\u00a0 For all her knowledge, Mukali didn\u2019t seem to know how to dry meat very well at all.\u00a0 Not monkey, not crocodile.\u00a0 Not even the duiker deer, which was the easiest meat in the world to handle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met your sister in the spirit world,\u201d Selu said to Clauviku.\u00a0 \u201cIt is true that the spirit that guides her body now is like a stranger living in her hut.\u00a0 But she found me, despite the efforts of the tribe of the Yith.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are they?\u201d Clauviku asked, then turned to Mukali, \u201cwhat is the Yithian tribe?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mukali looked like she would not speak, then shrugged.\u00a0 \u201cA tribe.\u00a0 A tribe that lives in the spirit world.\u00a0 We come into the waking world sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my sister?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLearning a hundred languages in the camp of the Yith,\u201d Mukali said with a smirk.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour sister is very strong,\u201d Selu said.\u00a0 \u201cVery clever and very brave.\u00a0 For a brief time, I touched minds with her and learned a great deal, enough to break the mind of most people, even most shamans.\u00a0 But you sister had untangled a great mass of vines.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA pity,\u201d Mukali said, \u201cthat you have no way to pass such information on.\u00a0 I would have taught you such a secret, even a thousand generations hence would know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI touched minds with Tears-the-Vine\u201d Selu continued.\u00a0 \u201cI can see why your folk would be so interested in them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA pity that you will eat them all,\u201d Mukali all but spat the words.\u00a0 Then for some reason she glared up at Kiptum.<\/p>\n
The young man almost shivered under that gaze.\u00a0 \u201cThey are a sacred animal,\u201d Kiptum said.\u00a0 \u201cThey are not to be eaten!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat makes it so much more unfortunate, then.\u00a0 All you do is eat!\u00a0 All you think about is eating!\u00a0 How did I do as much as I have in this wretched little body, when I had to stop all the time to stuff food into this dripping face-hole!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet we do well enough,\u201d Selu said.\u00a0 \u201cWell enough with wood and bone, flint and fire.\u00a0 Weak tools to be sure, but we have learned to live with them.\u00a0 Perhaps the Yith will have to make due with weak tools as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of the shaman\u2019s words seemed to stab at Mukali, and Kiptum could see that Selu realized it as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnough, Selu\u201d Kiptum said.\u00a0 \u201cMan, too, is a sacred animal.\u00a0 Stop taunting her!\u201d<\/p>\n
Selu\u2019s face lost all expression for a moment, then he nodded.\u00a0 \u201cYes, you are right.\u00a0 It is this place, the events of the night.\u00a0 It has brought out a cruelty in me that I usually do not possess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kiptum stood after a moment.\u00a0 Selu was not telling him the truth, not all of it at least.\u00a0 But it was the way of shamans to have secrets.\u00a0 And he wasn\u2019t sure if all the dust and smoke from last night hadn\u2019t gotten into his lungs, he didn\u2019t feel very well.<\/p>\n
Clauviku stood, too.\u00a0 \u201cKiptum, sacred animals or not, unless we want to spend the next few days within a spear-throw of two dead marsh-elephants.\u00a0 We need to move.\u00a0 You and I can take turns carrying all the dried meat and the hut.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no denying that she was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s rest first,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cSince it is just the two of us who will do all the work, we need to gather our strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clauviku considered for a moment, took another bite of monkey, then nodded.\u00a0 \u201cWe have hardly slept.\u00a0 I think I breathed in too much smoke and too much dust.\u00a0 Let us set the hut up away from the river\u2019s edge, sleep for a time, and get to work on rebuilding a camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kiptum nodded, looked at the shaman and Mukali.\u00a0 Neither looked good.\u00a0 Mukali, he knew, would not last for long.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like something besides monkey and cattails?\u201d\u00a0 he offered.<\/p>\n
Mukali glared up at him, then laughed.\u00a0 \u201cYes.\u00a0 Maybe those\u2026 Clauviku!\u00a0 What were those things we cooked over the fire the night before I left the hut of Wafulu?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOsula root and four-strip dove.\u201d\u00a0 Clauviku answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, hunter,\u201d Mukali said, \u201cto do a favor for a sacred animal, find me some of the four-striped doves\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll look,\u201d Kiptum said\u2014four-stripe being nowhere near the marshes, a lie was the best favor he could do.<\/p>\n
\u201cOsula root I can find,\u201d Clauviku said, and to Kiptum it sounded like it was the last thing she wanted to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cSelu,\u201d he said, \u201cis there anything you want me to look for?\u201d<\/p>\n
In spite of the warning he had had just given him about taunting, the old man shook his head and looked at Mukali.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 I can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n
Adrian Simmons is co-founder and cheif editor of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.\u00a0 His work has appeared at Tales From the Magician\u2019s Skull, Cirsova, and Savage Realms.\u00a0 He has a story forthcoming in Baen\u2019s \u201cSwords and Larceny\u201d anthology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Simon Walpole has been drawing for as long as\u00a0he can remember and is fortunate to spend his freetime working as an illustrator.\u00a0He primarily use pencils, pens and markers and use a bit of digital for tweaking. As well as doing interior illustrations for various publishing formats\u00a0he has\u00a0also drawn a lot of maps for novels. his work can be found at his website\u00a0HandDrawnHeroes<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A KNOWLEDGE SHARPER THAN FLINT- pt 2, by Adrian Simmons, art by Simon Walpole Selu, a shaman of the First Tribe, following a vision from the spirit world, travels with Kiptum, a hunter of the Red Wasp Clan seeks, a man who is not a man.\u00a0 Together they travel to the Seer Folk, where they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,90,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-issue-65-archive","category-main"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4518,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions\/4518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- A Hunter Tries to Wash His Polluted Hands<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
- A Shaman Witnesses the True Sorcery of Man<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
- A Woman of the Seer-Folk Sees the Future<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
- A Hunter Displays His Trophies<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
- A Shaman Amok in the Dreamworld<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
- A Hunter Sees His Stalker<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n