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After they pulled the raft onto the embankment, twelve year-old Soell offered to be the first to watch over the sleeping family. He promised to wake his mother up as soon as he felt that he could not keep his eyes open any longer. The others did not find it easy to fall asleep. Hurried, confused whispers flew back and forth for a while. The mother held the two girls close to her, and her warmth comforted them. Finally, their breathing became deeper, though their worries followed them into their dreams. The father soon gave in to sleep as well, after struggling with thoughts of nameless horrors that lurked behind the dark rocks, merging with the starless sky. Not even the benevolent light of the moon was on their side tonight. The rocks bent over them like giant burglars, and their shadows startled them if they opened their eyes between troubled dreams. Awake, they felt no safer.
Soell sat on the wooden railing, to protect himself from the temptation of slumber. He wrapped a blanket around his body, but the sneaky cold wind stiffened his back, making him uncertain if he was still awake. He kneeled inside the raft after a while, next to the railing, to shield himself from the wind and from droplets that reached him from the river. He could see well enough through the logs. He listened with uneasiness to the unrelenting wailing of the water, and to the lone birds that cried in the night. Stray moon rays came through the clouds and danced on the water for brief moments, and Soell would startle, uncertain of the shapes that reached his eyes.
That is why he was not sure at first if something had really changed in his surroundings: the strange noises, the shifts in the colors of the night. Since everything moved slightly if he stared for too long, he didn’t know what to make of the two distant shadows. But his senses sharpened: these shadows had more purpose than the other morphing shapes pulsating and rustling in the night air. He could barely see them move, but they were indeed moving. They were slowly crawling toward the raft. One shadow would move first, and then the other would follow it and stop, and then the same thing happened again. It was hard to accept it but, with all of the boy’s sleepy drowsiness, the lurkers were no illusion. When the shadows drew closer, they became two skulking silhouettes: that of a man, and that of a very large animal. There was no mistake at this point, no matter how much he still wanted to doubt that their feared enemies, the man and his beast, were really creeping toward the raft. It was no dream!
Soell’s body tensed. A hot wave cut through his stomach and sped through his limbs, like a paralysis. He had to remain calm: panic might get the better of him and his family, and they would be easy prey. Soell remembered the terrible pain and fright that he had felt when, only a few days before, the tiger had charged at him from behind. With the marks of the tiger’s claws still on his back, Soell could not take any chances. He tried to make his breathing small and unrushed, although it was hard to keep his chest from gasping for more air. He lowered himself even more into the raft, and drew closer to his sleeping father. He whispered in his ear:
“Father, father, be very quiet... Wake up father, but be very quiet...”
Luckily, his father did not startle and was quick to realize that Soell didn’t want him to make noise. Soon, he understood why. As for the mother and his older sister, Soell did not disturb their sleep, for he knew that if he tried to wake them up suddenly, they both would scream. Instead, he touched the face of his ten year-old sister Benya, and when he saw that she had opened her eyes, he placed one finger on her mouth and motioned for her to come close so he could whisper. When she realized what was happening, her first impulse was to get out of the raft. Soell and the father managed to stop her before she could make herself seen.
Panic aside, the three tried to come to a solution.
“What should we do?” Soell said to the others, in a barely audible voice. “They’re close, and I think they’ll attack. Should we wait here quietly, or should we jump out to scare them away?”
“No, we better wake the others and push the raft into the water,” said the father.
They could see through the railing that the two figures were about thirty feet away, so if the family were to make a run for the river, no matter how dark and unforgiving it looked at night, they would have to do it now.
“I think the five of us can fight them,” said Benya, who had regained some of her confidence. “Why don’t we wait quietly, and when they’re here, Father, you grab the man and fight him, and we wrestle the animal. We have our weapons!”
“But the animal is much too strong!” protested the father. “At least one of us could be killed before we can overpower the beast! We shouldn’t waste any more time, so let’s just wake the others quietly, then rush for the water.”
“Yes,” said Soell. “Besides, the man must have a powerful weapon. Father’s right.”
“But...” Benya started.
Quickly, though, she realized that they could be right: maybe they would all get horribly hurt if they fought.
“Wait, wait!” said Soell, as their father was getting ready to wake up his wife. “Look!”
The three of them looked through the railings and saw that the man and the tiger were now running away from the raft, as if either they had sensed that they had been noticed, or something else had made them turn around.
“What is it? Why are they running?” said Benya out loud, and that woke up the mother and Aluna. The two jumped from their sleep and instantly knew that something serious was taking place. Their voice shaking and their hearts racing, they asked the others what was going on – and the whispers increased. Five heads were now coming out of the raft, looking in the direction in which the two shadows had disappeared. At the same time, another shadow arrived at the spot where the two had been skulking. This shadow, whatever or whoever it was, must have chased the predators away. And then, her veils fluttering in the night wind, the shape of a woman made itself seen: it was the same silent, undisturbed woman that they had seen walking in the distance that very evening. She raised her arms into the darkness and let out a piercing cry, throwing her body in the air and shaking her fists in the direction in which the man and tiger had run, as if her anger was to follow them, like a curse. And then she turned.
Seeing the woman coming toward the raft with firm steps made the five uneasy, but they did not move. For one, she was alone, and she did not carry any weapons or strange animals. Moreover, she clearly was not a friend of the man with the beast and, without any effort whatsoever, she had driven their enemy away, into the night that he had come from. For that, they could only be grateful. They waited for her to approach, and they all stood up in the raft to greet her.
While earlier in the day she had not even looked at them, let alone spoken, now her voice broke the spell of that terrifying night and brought them back to reality after a waking nightmare. Her voice was soft, but clear, and she did not falter when she announced to them imperiously:
“They’re gone now. Come with me.”
“Who are you?” the mother murmured.
“Who I am does not matter – yet. You will know more about me in the morning. Now let me offer you food and a better place to sleep. He... will not bother you, as long as you are with me,” she said, vaguely turning her head to look behind her.
Upon hearing the word “food,” the poor famished family looked at each other and felt embarrassed for not hesitating to come out of the raft. They accepted the invitation readily, even though they still felt uneasy. They knew that they owed each other some kind of caution, but this strange woman, who had chased away someone stronger and scarier than her, had to be trusted: there was no other way at that time of night and in that unwelcoming place. Even though they remembered how distant, almost not human, she had appeared to them when they had seen her only a few hours ago, now they felt they had to follow her to stay alive.
She instructed them to take their blankets and follow her to a small opening in the rocks, through a labyrinthine passage, and then up, climbing their way through another narrow passage toward the top of a big rock. It was very hard to climb at night, even though now and then the moon flickered yellow light upon the black rocks. The woman walked with ease, unlike her sorry-looking followers. They all made their way on the hard humps of the rocks for a while, until they were higher than everything else around, crossing over to what lay hidden behind the rocks – the same rocks that had seemed impossible to climb over during the day.
Finally, they began to descend, and what they saw was a small meadow, surrounded by trees and smaller rocks – another side of the same mountain. By now, their eyes were more used to discerning the lurking shadows of the dark, so it didn’t take long to realize that there were houses on the meadow – huts, rather – made of tree branches and strengthened with ropes and mud. There were some thirty or forty of them – an entire village! Judging by the sounds of heavy sleep coming through the walls, the huts were inhabited. There must have been at least a few souls in each hut, gathered to rest for the night.
There wasn’t much time for questions, with hunger, sleep, and weakness making it hard to be thrilled to see human dwellings. The woman brought them to one of the huts – an empty one – and she motioned for them to sit on the inviting straw bed that lined the wall opposite the entrance. She returned after a while with food – a strange, hard bread, a chunk of meat, and water in a big clay cup. Although rough and not entirely fresh, the food tasted better to them than the greatest feasts that had ever enchanted their palate. They wolfed down all the food and drank the water, and even groped in the dark for crumbs that might have fallen to the ground. This was not the time to feel shame. Just by looking at each other, they knew that none of them was judging the others for the lack of manners, or for the uncouth way in which they accepted and ate the food. When their hunger was finally less monstrous, they drew closer to each other and lay down on their bed, covering themselves with their blankets, then tried to get some rest for the remainder of the night.
When morning came, the five tired travelers would have lingered in their dreams for a while longer, but their sleep was cut short. Through the rays of the already bright sun, in the frame of the hut’s opening, there stood the woman who had guided them through the darkness of the unfriendly night. The five struggled to shake sleep off of their lids, and attempted to smile in greeting. The woman was not smiling, and for the first time they could see her angular, supple face hardened by winds and sun.
“Perhaps you want to thank me,” she said, still standing in the door, as rays of sun gave chase through her vaporous green veils. “I’m Kaalia...”
“Yes,” said the mother, trying hard to remember her manners. “We all thank you for your generosity and for saving us from the man...”
“Except,” the woman continued undisturbed, “that I am not the one who saved you.”
Nobody understood. Then, as if in response to the general confusion, another woman joined the other in the hut’s door. She was identical to the first, wearing the same clothes, and with the same dreamy eyes and undisturbed face.
“I am also Kaalia,” said the second woman in the same voice, “but I am also not the one who saved you. The one who brought you here does not need to be thanked.”
“What?... Who...? What is going on?” asked Soell, standing up and shaking the straw off his clothes. “Who are you?”
“Why do you look the same?” asked Aluna, rubbing her eyes to see better.
“But then again,” said the first woman, “there is nothing, really, to be thankful for. Do not try to thank us at all, because your fate will not change, no matter what you say.”
As she spoke, her dreamy, green eyes gained purpose, as she turned her gaze onto the travelers’ questioning faces. Although her eyes were small, one could simply not look away, for they were steady and unapologetic in confrontation.
“Hold on, what are you talking about?” asked the father, stepping forward.
Benya was also drawing closer to the two women, as if to convince herself that they really existed. When she peeked behind them, she jumped back in fright, for what she saw outside of the hut was even more unsettling than the incomprehensible words of the two women. Seeing her rush back to her family, the women gave a laugh and parted, to let everybody see what Benya had seen and not believed: more women just like them were approaching, more than they could count, and soon more and more of them were near the hut, watching the family: all with the same face, the same careless, piercing eyes, the same veiled walk, and the same vaporous presence that had become unpredictable and cold.
They did not, could not understand why there were so many of the same and why, all of a sudden, what seemed to be friendliness the night before, and a desire to help, had turned into a mocking threat that made them instantly regret their trust. The mother gathered her children around her and held them tight, because not even the bravery of Benya or Soell, or the newly found confidence of the father, were enough to attempt walking out of the hut. Soon enough, many of the women were gathered right at the entrance. More were arriving, while the defiant distant eyes were multiplying and multiplying, like clouds gathering to block the sun – for the sun they blocked indeed – until some made their way into the hut. These ones were carrying ropes wrapped around their arms.
“What do you want from us?” shouted the mother, and Benya hurriedly repeated the question.
“Look, we can talk about it,” said Soell, trying to stand tall, though he felt as if rolling thunder filled his chest.
“We should have put the raft in the water...” said the father sadly, as if his idea from the night before had come back to accuse him. He could not believe how easily they had trusted this woman. Why had it not crossed their minds that perhaps the man with the beast was running away from a danger more terrible than him? Now it was too late to regret what should have been done.
Aluna felt tears stream down to her chin and she hid her face at her mother’s chest.
“Yes,” said one of the countless women. “You are wise not to try to run. What would be the point? There are two hundred and seventy of us, and a few more hundreds will follow.”
“Don’t stare at us as like frightened field rats,” said another with contempt. “We don’t like to see fear.”
“We don’t like to see self-pity either,” said another, looking at Aluna and her mother.
“It would be wisest of you not to resist. We don’t like those who struggle. Come, you need to be tied up and put into the carriage.”
“Oh, you’re not very willing to be tied up?” laughed another, unwrapping the rope coils, and giving the victims a sharp look. “Then maybe you are asking for a beating first. Come, hurry, put your arms behind your backs!”
Since neither of the five was following the orders, one of the women gave a signal and they swarmed the hut in the blink of an eye, greedily gulping all the air and the light.
“They don’t like it, do they,” some of the women said. “They liked it more when we were nice to them, didn’t they.”
“They like food and water, but they don’t like to be grateful for that which they didn’t work for. They think it’s easy to raise crops, hidden from the others on the mountain, hidden from their hate!”
“Wouldn’t the others like to find our hiding place and kill us to save these pathetic ones!”
“Ha-ha! But they don’t know – they don’t know that it is them whom death seeks! You’ll never get rescued, you hear?”
“Never!”
The mention of others living on the mountain was like a ray of hope shooting across the hopeless morning. If only they could find out who else lived on the mountain and how to ask them for help!
“Somebody will rescue us!” Benya shouted, clenching her teeth and struggling with the rope that was pulled tighter and tighter around her body.
“Who? The spirit of the mountain?” laughed one of the women and slapped her over the head. “Maybe you can pray to the mountain and it will swallow us all!”
“In the pits of darkness, in the belly of the mountain, that’s where you’ll outrun us!”
“Just shut your mouths and pray that we don’t kill you before we even get to the Waiting Town!”
“The Waiting Town?” asked Soell, trying to keep his wits, but barely able to think. “What town is that?”
“It is the town where we wait!” came the curt answer.
“What do you wait for?” he said, ignoring the pain in his wrists, twisted to accommodate the invasion of the rope.
“We wait to become stronger! To become more skilled! And finally we will be able to kill them all!”
“Are you going to kill us?” asked Benya, and Aluna started sobbing, because her younger sister had expressed a thought that none of them had dared to name in their minds, although it hung in the air like a thunderous cloud.
“Silence, little one,” said one of the women. “If we wanted to kill you, wouldn’t we have killed you already? You’re still alive, aren’t you? Have you thought that, maybe, we have a use for you?”
They carried their prey outside the hut, now roped too tightly to manage more than a wriggle of resistance. There, more women were watching silently, and silently they parted, to let the small procession walk through. The five prisoners were taken to a big wooden chariot on two enormous wheels. There were other chariots around, resting on long, wooden poles that served as handles in pulling – now not in use. As they dropped the terrified family into the empty chariot, with traces of straw on the bottom, the women turned to the multitude of their sisters – or whatever the bond between them was – and asked:
“The man, should we take him?”
“Yes, for now. It’s not good to leave his body here, unless we bury him, but there’s no time for that.”
“The other army could bury him,” objected another. “When they complete the multiplication.”
“But they don’t have much time either. We all need to gather soon and start getting organized.”
“Right, right,” agreed the others. “We’ll take him with us, and kill him when we reach the Waiting Town.”
The prisoners shuddered, hoping that they misunderstood the meaning of those words.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” shouted some of the women, and the others joined in the shouting, until the message was sent to all of the veiled warriors. They all started to move toward the chariots, then most of them jumped in, some in the one where the family lay, and then the remainder of the women grabbed the poles and started running. They pulled the chariots with surprising ease, as if they had done that so many times before, that it had become second nature. Through the luscious woods where stray rays of sun barely made it through, the running women looked as if they radiated their own light. The chariots were moving fast, lined up one after the other and following an unseen trail through the woods. They went around obstacles and jumped hurdles, while the women in the chariots would cheer and ask the pullers to run faster. Veils fluttered in the air as they ran, teeth gritted, and faces grew red. On these faces, one could see a hidden pride, a hidden smile, a hidden glow of determination that would have made their prisoners exhilarated to watch, had they joined them under different circumstances.
