Glade and Ivory Ch 16
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Glade And IvoryChapter 25 free porn video
When Chief Cave Lion and his party reached the top of the ridge above the Mountain Valley after their first ascent, they could now look across a wide vista of valleys and hills peppered with bushes and thickets. There were patches of snow that had fallen earlier in the season but hadn't properly settled. Horse and antelope galloped over the coarse-leafed savannah. It was a glorious sight for hunters who'd seen so little game for so long, but as Glade reminded Ivory as they huddled beneath the furs, the expedition hadn't set off merely to admire the view.
There were ample traces of men and women who'd previously trod along the animal paths that crisscrossed the uplands. To a huntsman like the Chief who so often pursued animals as light of foot as antelope and deer, it wasn't at all difficult to find evidence of where they'd been, where they were going and what they'd been doing. However, as the hunters followed the trails they soon discovered some unsettling signs. The people they were trailing were nimble travellers who gathered in groups that never numbered less than ten and, judging from the incisions made on branches, rocks and tree trunks, possessed a set of stone tools of undeniably superior quality. This was a tribe of professional huntsmen that might even outclass the Mammoth Hunters. Glade was soon able to identify evidence that these hunters most likely belonged to the tribe of Cave Painters she'd known so well many years before.
Chief Cave Lion had determined that the purpose of the expedition was to find land where he and his people could winter while thick snow made it impossible to hunt in the north. Glade reminded Ivory that this was the expected duty of the chief of any village. Chief Cave Lion had been elected to provide for the village's needs and he, more than anyone else, was mindful of the expectations invested in him. The very moment he failed to execute his duty would be when his prestige would be irretrievably lost. However, the mission had now become much more complicated. He had found good hunting grounds but they were already claimed by another tribe of great skill and expertise. What should he do? Could they just settle on the land where they now were?
"That would be the wisest policy, my lord," advised Wolverine speaking for the huntsmen. "It is our duty to provide for our tribe. The tribe must eat. There is an abundance of horse and aurochs, deer and goat, boar and hare. We should take possession of the first good cave or sheltered grove near a source of fresh water that we find. And then we should return to fetch the other villagers. It is what we came up here to do. It is what we should do."
The other warriors agreed, but the Chief and the shaman were more cautious.
"I'd already conferred with the Chief," Glade told Ivory as they huddled together. "I told him that I was anxious that the signs indicated that we were in the territory of the Cave Painters and I told him what I knew about the tribe."
"And what did you tell him?" asked Ivory. "What did you know that made you wary?"
Glade sighed and then shivered as a blast of cold air whistled through the threaded seams of the shelter. It was obvious that Ivory had neglected to properly maintain the shelter's fabric now that her every night was spent in Ptarmigan's company.
"When I first arrived in the northern lands, I discovered that many tribes are exceptionally sophisticated. Perhaps those tribes that thrive in the harsh climate are the ones that are the most ingenious. Of all the tribes, the cleverest and most sophisticated are the Cave Painters who live in these mountains. Their language and culture spreads for many days' walk in all directions. Like the Mammoth Hunters, their tribe is not presided over by one ruler. The tribe is spread far and wide in many villages and communities. I first met the Cave Painters south of the mountains towards the Great Sea. I didn't know then that the Cave Painters also lived so far to the north. On my previous Winter migrations with your tribe, we'd encountered very few other tribes and most were more like the poor wretches you permitted to shelter in the Mountain Valley while we were away. The Cave Painters' tribe is another matter."
"Are they evil demons?" wondered Ivory.
"They aren't demons," said Glade. "They are people just like you and me. And they aren't evil. But they possess a culture, a religion and a set of technical skills far in advance of your tribe. They mostly live near and about caves, because the spirits they worship live there. The same caves are also where they exhibit statues and paintings that venerate the spirits and record their history. Homes made of mud and clay, fur and stones, ivory and tree-branches: none of these last forever. The Cave Painters live in and around caves because they are eternal and where they can preserve their culture forever."
"And how do they do this?"
"The most important artefacts of their tribe are hidden in the caves' innermost chambers," said Glade. "At the cave entrances the tribe display statues they've fashioned from earth and mud, figurines made from sticks and fur, and paintings on the rock face of horse, mammoth and rhinoceros pursued by hunters. None of these artworks last for very long. They decay to nothing within a human lifetime. Inside the caves where only shamans and the most notable Cave Painters may enter apart from especially auspicious days, there are paintings and statues of grandeur and true craft that will endure until the caves collapse and the mountains tumble."
"Have you seen any of these paintings?"
"As a shaman and one of foreign aspect with skin so dark and features so alien, I was so privileged," said Glade. "They are deep, deep inside the caves, through passages so narrow that it is difficult to crawl and far beyond where the sunlight has ever fallen, sometimes in caverns where icicles of rock fall from the roof and rise from the ground, past subterranean ponds where swim pallid fish without eyes and ashen spiders the size of a man's palm: far from where a person might wander by chance. There are chambers that are as warm in Winter as they are in Summer in which are beautiful life-like paintings of animals and hunters and statues of the Mother Goddess of the Cave Painters..."
"Mother Goddess?"
"They have a name for the goddess, but she isn't a spirit as you understand it," said Glade. "She is a spirit of birth and rebirth. She permeates the seasons. She is what ensures that the sun rises each day; that Winter gives way to Summer; that crops grow; and that babies are born. If she is a spirit of anything she is the spirit of fecundity..."
"This is just pagan superstition," said Ivory dismissively.
"Whatever," Glade conceded. "The Mother Goddess is worshipped by the Cave Painters of the mountains and is revered with a passion truly difficult to express. The Cave Painters identify themselves not as cave dwellers as we would but as worshippers of the Mother Goddess. It is as if your tribe thought of itself not as the Mammoth Hunters of the steppes but as worshippers of the permafrost."
"That is just blasphemy," Ivory argued. "The spirits exist to serve our tribe and keep us safe from harm."
Glade didn't offer any alternative view, but Ivory already knew that her older lover no more respected the spirits of her tribe than she any longer did the spirits of her ancestral forest. Perhaps she had more faith in this Mother Goddess?
"The Cave Painters are a tribe whose needs you disregard at peril," said Glade. "I told the Chief this and impressed upon him what we were up against. The Cave Painters' mastery of the spear is such that they can kill birds in flight. Their skill at stone-knapping is such that they have stone needles with small holes through which a thread can be inserted. These are people with mastery of medicine, who are skilled at digging wells, who have tamed wild animals and plants, and who could easily bring evil on our tribe."
"In which case, they should be treated as foes not friends."
"And thereby cause the death of us all. The spirits of your tribe won't protect you against a well-shot arrow tipped with poison or a spear with a flint tip so sharp that it can pierce even a rhinoceros hide."
"What did you counsel the chief?"
"I advised him to parley with the Cave Painters. And he persuaded the rest of our sceptical party that this was the most prudent course to take. It mightn't be the most pleasing, but it was the one most likely to succeed. As I reminded the chief, if we antagonised the Cave Painters there was a Mountain Valley full of defenceless women and children they could massacre."
Ivory gasped. "They would do that?"
"Probably not," said Glade. "Why waste time and energy on migrants who're going to leave in the Spring anyway and who don't impinge on their hunting grounds? But I needed to impress on the company the scale of the risk incurred by getting on the wrong side of the Cave Painters. Of course, the people most at risk were us."
Chief Cave Lion wasn't the expedition's most physically fit or capable hunter, but he insisted on taking the lead as the trail wound tirelessly up and over steep hillsides and across plains. It was apparent that the Cave Painters were adept hill climbers. There was evidence that some of them vaulted up the hills with the agility of a goat. The higher the trail ascended the hills the colder it got. On occasion, the Chief and his hunters had to trudge through thick snow. As the day drew to a close, the company settled down beneath a cedar tree's dark forbidding shadows and pulled their furs tightly up to their chins while the snow fell gently over them.
The Chief again led the way the following day. He trudged onwards with a heavy step and was getting visibly fatigued. It was only respect for their Chief that persuaded the other hunters to persist on the trail however much they would rather take advantage of the abundant game around them. Glade feared that Wolverine and Lynx were disregarding etiquette when she saw them separate from the rest of the company to scout ahead at a pace the Chief couldn't match. When the two hunters still hadn't returned by nightfall and the company hadn't caught up with them, Glade was justifiably anxious.
Chief Cave Lion and his hunters nestled down under the shadow of an overhang that sheltered them from the huge flakes of snow that was now threatening to settle around them. Some hunters expressed concern that the trail they were following would soon be obscured by snow and that they might never catch up with Wolverine and Lynx.
When morning came, Glade was awoken from heavy dreamless sleep by a cacophony of angry curses from those hunters who were already awake. She roughly shook awake Chief Cave Lion with whom she'd been sharing her furs and body during the night. His bleary eyes opened and before he could lash out at Glade for disturbing him so impudently she announced: "Something bad has happened!"
And indeed it had. Just beyond the shelter were two recently decapitated heads from which still dripped blood that gathered in a rich red patch on the snowy ground. These heads had, of course, only recently been held aloft on the shoulders of the two impetuous hunters.
"What does this mean?" asked the Chief as he brushed tears of sorrow and rage from below his eyes with the back of his hand.
"It's a warning," said Glade.
"A warning?"
"A warning not to go onward."
"What the fuck else are we supposed to do?"
"Stay where we are," suggested Glade.
"And get killed?"
"We may be safe as long as we don't do anything that antagonises the Cave Painters."
"Like what?"
"Like hunting game such as horse or deer."
Haven
- 11.01.2022
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