The mist softly swirled in the night. Amidst the Moss Forest, a small spot breathed in the darkened landscape. Some voices whispered.
"I don't like daylight ambushes."
"This'll be a great opportunity to show my worth!"
"Don't get yourself lost Regh, you need to focus, light is treacherous."
"Silence, you'll get us all attacked."
The last whisper snapped throughout the clumps.
The group would be moving were it not for the tendency of beetles to wake up at late hours, some might argue it makes the day safer, and at least everyone gets their own schedule to wander about. But the Nomads happened to share that liking with the insects, and were quite annoyed by that.
Silently they all waited for the moon to set, for the hunt to begin once the beasts returned to their nests after a long night of walking. And whatever giant beetles do at night. Nomads never took great interest in their nightly activities, and mostly studied their sleeping hours for hunting plans. Going against an awake beetle was as wise as tiptoeing on the Wind-Branch.
Regh was young still, but his deeds were told to equal some of the elder’s. However he in truth had no particular honed skills to make such great use of, his merits were all gathered through sheer amounts of luck.
It was the leader's duty to keep watch as long as possible, and despite his cheated achievements. His boastful nature pushed him to at least pretend to be the fabled hero he was. Staring at the wooden ceiling, his feet firmly planted on the ground, feeling every vibration. He looked for any possible threat in the ticking forest. Which is a lot them in a beetle filled place, but he would generally just try to watch out for anything hinting at a 2 ton giant insect getting close enough to visibly shake the floor.
Someone inexperienced could ask themselves, why would a group of Nomads wander far off their camp in the middle of the notoriously grim Moss Forest ? Which was called so, because the trees you would see in a normal forest were here replaced by gigantic moss clumps. The answer is the very source of the danger. And not the danger itself, they weren't particularly thrilled about that part either. The reason is that they were out to hunt much needed beetle shells, for new weapons, cutlery, dishes, and in general whatever that needed to be harder than wood and could resist fire.
Someone else, also inexperienced and probably living in the roots, and not knowing what a fully-grown live (and quite angry) beetle is. Would most probably misunderstand the hunt's nature. It wasn't quite hunt as in "use superior tactics to safely kill a prey" but more as in "use superior tactics to not die, and maybe get a prey". The difference is fundamental, especially when it comes to beetles, and not only beetles, also butterflies, and whatever would be thought as "harmless" in other worlds.
"Psh, they don't even have ears."
"He is right, as long as we don't move the beetles will not sense us."
"All deaf huh, wouldn't be so sure, we still don't know half of what lives in this damned forest."
"You mean, you think some of them could have ears? Why must you scare me like this..."
"Gung, I'm just using my head, unlike Regh."
"That's enough Vick, Regh is in trial, we must abide by his commands as if he were our chief, we will do as he says and as he thinks, we cannot compromise our task with distrust and conflict."
"Funny should you be saying this, Mound, and not our so called leader.
Silence slowly picked up where it left off.
They were four, well five if you counted the extra no-ear sleeping in the corner. They were all tucked under a cracked bark of the Great Tree. Their piercing spears carefully gathered in the middle of the improvised room.
Eventually, the clicking receded and softened. The beetles were returning to their resting corners, usually in a puffy moss, or like the Nomads, under a piece of bark, to hide from the sun’s gaze. The latter idea, seemed to fancy a particularly large old beetle. An entire night of walking and trying not to fall off the branches due to its now sheer weight wearied him quite a bit.
He would’ve been quite surprised (and angry) to find, in his usual cave, a group of strangely shaped talking mammals. Were the mammals not aware of his coming and hid deeper in the corners. Instead he slowly (and angrily) stared at the pitch black darkness. His legs eventually gave out and a loud “thud” echoed in the now significantly smaller room.
The Nomads looked at each other and silently circled the beetle. In its current state, getting up is a long and heavy process. Not that beetles don’t have any other methods of attacking, most of which include just moving without stopping, and anything in the path becoming the path. But at least it was one of them out of the way.
The aim here was to get the lapse between “waking up” and “killing” as short as possible. Which is even more complicated than it sounds. You had to spike a long spear in the small gaps of their necks. If luck has decided to take a walk nearby, the beetle won’t move and you’ll be fine. If luck ran into an inconvenience that day, or just felt like sleeping, then the beetle will move its head and you’ll find yourself with a broken spear on the back of what could be compared to a very upset boulder.
The spread out sleeping beetle legs were now carefully tied to the ground. And that was left to do was the most bothersome moment of all beetle hunts. Vick cleared her throat and knowingly looked at Gung.
“Up to you now.”
“What? Why me?” He replied with a muffled cry.
“You are the lightest of us here, it will not sense you.”
“You’re much stronger though-”
“Just shut up and go, we’re gonna wake up the beetle if this keeps going.”
The beetle’s antenna twitching indicated that was correct.
“-really should’ve slept tonight” Gung muttered as he approached the large insect.
He carefully climbed on the shell and eventually stood, one foot on the head, the other on the back.
They silence tensed as they all stood still and held their breaths. Gung nodded. The insect was still well asleep.
Vick slowly approached and passed Gung a spear.
He pressed the shovel-shaped tip against the soft neck joint, his hands both on the T shaped shaft.
“Well that’s it then!” Merrily said Regh gathering the shell parts on a sack.
“Night will come soon, we should move.” Advised Mound.
An advice Regh thought quite useful, and decided to make it an order. Regh commanding a tribe. What a good sounding thought, after today’s much successful hunt under his word, nothing stood in the way.
“Hey.” Vick’s cold tone snappily reminded him he was still in a dangerous forest.
“Where do we go now?”
“Oh right, follow me!”
The group more or less happily followed him. In Vick’s case, it was closer to a blending of exhaustion and the various emotions that a very sarcastic “really?” could transmit. Mound and Gung hearing that imaginary tone, tagged in the back exchanging looks of discouragement and deep understanding.
The hunt was only one part of their mission, getting the shells back into the camp, back into the Far-Branches, was the other. For this matter, Nomads usually prepare themselves and know safe spots to spend the night along the way. It was in fact a knowledge few possessed, making Nomad quite renown guides. Or at least they would be, if other races didn’t avoid them, considering them primitive. Which wasn’t wrong in itself. So good guides they were, they did not however know of this quite large clearing approaching their path.
They walked hidden from the sun’s burning gaze, the moss flourishing around them. It was in fact a very subjectively pretty place in day time, when large man-eating insects don’t roam about that means. Small flowers bloomed, and smaller insects busily ran around their feet. A slight breeze carefully caressed the landscape making the vegetation simmer in enjoyment.
“Hey what’s this place?”
Regh stared at an empty wooden flatland.
“We could go through here, it’d be shorter than circling through the forest around.”
Mound puzzledly looked at the shortcut.
“I don’t know Regh, we have a safe path marked already.” He paused.
“I have never seen this place before, nor heard about it.” He finally added.
But Regh was already pulling the group ahead. A few moments later they were already midway through.
“Look, isn’t that our branch behind those clumps?”
“And to the left, it looks like the Wind-Branch, interesting place, wonder if we could set up a camp here someday.”
A shadow passed them. Though that word would be quite inappropriate, as shadows are typically known as grey or black. This one however was rather colorful. Vick looked up.
The thing about butterflies, is that they do love shiny things, just like anyone. What they loved even more than shiny things, is eating. So when they saw a group of live things passing in their clearing carrying a bundle of shiny smooth shells, needless to say they got excited. In other worlds, butterflies are small insects that fly about and add much appreciated colors to a green landscape. In this one, it is very much the same, save for the size bit. They silently dived on the unsuspecting Nomads.
“BUTTERFLIES!”
That was the last thing Regh heard before a strong gust of wind blew him away into a bark crevice. What he last saw was four rainbow colored blurry wings creating a tornado of wind. If a tornado was pressing things down and not up that is.
After a little while, he heard nothing, the shells were gone, as well as the wings.
“Hello?”
Only the cold night sky replied.
He walked up to the spot he was violently pulled from. Bits of hair, some butterfly wing shards.
“This is gonna be a tough one to explain.”
The camp was just a few steps away. He slowly approached passing through the leaf huts, feeling an uneasy mumbling following him. The elder’s council greeted him.
“You come alone, Regh.”
There was obviously no way to escape a sentence, whichever way you look at it.
“Our hunt failed, they didn’t follow my advice and we got ambushed by butterflies, I barely made it.”
He took a wing shard out of his pocket. They were extremely prized jewels, it wasn’t the hunt’s purpose, but it would certainly ease the tension.
“This is your failure Regh, as a leader you were to be able to control your group. You fail the test and until further word, you shall not be tested again.”
Another council elder stepped in.
“But how did butterflies find you through the Moss Forest?”
“I’ll tell you how!”
There are always bad days in life. Regardless of how good or bad you act, from Regh’s perspective, this was a quite terrible day. Not that he was unhappy to see Vick’s very much alive fist punch him. He was however very upset once he heard the words “Regh” and “fault” in the same sentence.
He had only done that to avoid the trial for single handedly causing the death of an entire hunt team. But the lie was a lie, and in the very down-to-earth law, he was Regh no longer.
“There has been enough death. Regh, I withdraw the name from you, no-ear.”
Nomads had no standards of beauty, valuing fitness and survivability above all, they did however have a very deep pride in their ears. Which were commonly called “butterfly ears” due to their quite prominent shape. Cutting an ear’s lobe off meant the one bearing such scar was untrustworthy and was now a slave to the clan. If a Nomad has both their ears shortened, it meant only exile.
Regh’s stream of luck had ended, and so did his presence, for in the next evening, he had left the camp.
And was going to be unheard of for years to come.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
