It wasn’t a spear-thrower or a sling or dart-pipe, though the idea was similar-throw a thing further, faster and harder than an arm could. He had even, after some experimentation, learned how to bind Kimillik feathers to them with twine made from their former owner’s gut, which made them fly further and straighter. He called them bird-spears because, well, they were spears that flew. He slipped one of the bird-spears from the sheath he had made for them. A man with Werne-blades like those to his name could look forward to many children. He would be seen as a strong man with those on his belt. The blades on its face were as wide as Vemik’s hand. The bull-and it was a magnificent beast, an adult in its prime and large enough to feed the tribe for a long time and make many charms and instruments for the gods-stamped and gouged at the periphery of the nests, trampling the dirt with those huge gnarled hooves and making it very clear for the benefit of whatever threat was out there that this was their place, and that trespass would end in death. They trampled into their nesting ground, grunting and wheezing and braying as they licked the air, aware of the dangerous taste of People. Sure enough, the Werne returned before he had even begun to grow bored. He swarmed around the side of the tree until he found one of the thick arms that held up the canopy, and sat there, waiting patiently as his elders had taught him. He brought his tail up and took the object he’d been carrying with it into his hand.

He could taste water and, very distantly, smoke. There was pollen, fungal spores, crushed grass, wax-stinger nectar, a note of Ketta sap as the claw marks he had left in the trunk began to weep. He paused in the gap between that first-growth ring and the true canopy, where there was clear space and a light breeze, into which he slipped his tongue and slurped air across it, tasting for the beasts. He dug the claws of his hind feet into the bark of a sturdy Ketta tree and was up it in seconds, climbing past the ground-level crown of old, sturdy limbs that were the tree’s first stage. Vemik was so cautious, in fact, that he had spent a year working on his special idea for how to kill the bull without getting close enough for its strength and the knife-sharp blades of bone down its cheeks to be an issue. Bulls were only dangerous if the fight lasted beyond the first blow… and they were also only dangerous if the incautious hunter permitted them to smell him. Werne died quickly when you stabbed them behind the ears.

That was the point of the Trial-A child left the village, and an adult returned to his kin with a worthy prize, or not at all.Īnd after all. There could never be a better time to hunt a bull Werne, and Vemik was too proud and too driven to return to face the Singer with anything less than the very best. They would snatch a drink at the risk of being grabbed and pulled in by a Yshek, then retreat to what they would believe was the safety of their nests. The forest tasted of Werne, but he couldn’t hear any, which meant that the beasts were braving the river.

Uncharted Class 12 deathworld, Near 3Kpc Arm

Twelve o'clock song starfall