White Ghost and the Poison Arrow (2 page)

A mother paloa
fox hunts at the side of the lake. Arella crouches in one of the
bushes by the water’s edge. She loves watching other animals hunt.
The fox gets down low, almost so low her belly is scraping the
floor. Her dark brown coat blending in with the ground around her.
She crawls forwards, ears pointing forwards, eyes clear and sharp,
directed right at the malo duck grooming himself on the bank of the
lake. His bright green plumage shining from the water dripping off
his bill. He ruffles his feathers, causing the gravel under his
feet to shift. The paloa fox takes this as her chance and springs
at the duck. He catches sight of the fox at the last minute, but
she is too quick for him and catches his left wing. Dust flies into
the air as the two battle it out. The fox wins in the end, as they
usually do, and she takes her prize back to the three cubs waiting
in the bushes just a few meters away. The cubs are the same dark
brown as their mother, but they have speckles of lighter orangey
brown in the top of their fur. They fight amongst each other for
the best bit of the duck, but soon settle into eating it out of
sight of Arella, deep in the bushes where they cannot be seen.

The land around
Arella begins to change, become for green and full of foliage.
There are bushes to her left, and trees beginning to come clearly
into view in front of her. It is darker here. Shadows from the
trees and interlocking branches are cast onto the ground. Birds now
sleep almost soundlessly in the trees. The faint cooing of pigeons
can be heard as they snore in their dreams. The leaves dance and
move in the breeze, blossom falling like dust. Arella sneezes. She
is not normally allergic to flowers, but the pollen just caught in
her nose.

Arella can hear
the faint buzz of bees, sleeping in their hive. An abundance of
colourful flowers line the ground under the trees, a colourful
blanket and a paradise for bees. The smell of the honey in their
hive is tantalising, but the pain of a bee sting is not something
Arella would like to feel twice. She was stung by a bee when she
was little, eating a sweet fig and it wanted some as well. However,
the bee did not take kindly to Arella shooing it off. It stung her
hand and caused it to swell. She will never forget that pain, and
would not risk it happening again in a hurry.

The mossy
ground of the forest feels strange on her feet after the hard
gravel of the lakeside. The sponginess of the lycan makes every
step feel like she is walking on air. It’s a strange but welcome
feeling. The cool smooth stones beneath the lycan give Arella a
solid footing. The forest grows thicker, and the trees stronger the
further Arella walks. Roots twist and turn, interlocking under the
grass and moss covering the floor, their solid foundations rooted
deep in the fertile earth, strong and never failing. There is life
in this forest. It feels as though the forest its self is alive and
beating.

Arella walks
for quite some time in the moonlight. She follows a path made
through the trees by the animals that live here, breathing in the
smells of the wild, taking in its beauty. She looks behind her, but
cannot see the plains from which she came. Arella knows she will be
able to follow her own tracks back to the edge of the forest, and
so walks on deeper into the woods.

A noise stops
Arella in her tracks. The sound of a man shouting, the laughter.
This intrigues Arella. All of the men in her tribe are at the
gathering for the chiefs new son, so who are these men in the
woods? They sound different, voices she cannot recall, and in words
she cannot quite make out. They are too far away to hear what they
are saying. Arella moves off the footpath and through the trees
towards the strange voices.

Arella stops by
the edge of a clearing, hidden by the bushes and trees that line
it, but with a perfect sight on the men in the glade. There are
five of them, all tall and fairly well built. They must all be
warriors or hunters, but she does not recognise any of them. They
do not belong to her tribe and she did not know there were any
others close by here. Arella has been walking through the forest
for quite some time though, perhaps she has travelled further than
she thought she had.

The men are all
dressed in dark coloured furs, some with tattoo's on their arms,
and others on their legs. The dark black rings and patterns showing
up on their red brown skin. All of the men have long dark hair,
some of them have it tied back loosely, and others let it flow
freely past their shoulders. They're all young, a similar age to
Arella, if not a few years older.

"Who's crazy
idea was it to do a training session in the dark anyway?" A young
man with bright red feathers in his hair asks.

"Old Man
Ujarak." Replies the one with the darkest skin and broad shoulders.
"He thinks we need to learn how to fight at night as well as during
the day. I don't know what difference it makes myself, but who am I
to judge."

"Well I think
it will do us good Nootau. You're as blind as a bat in the day,
maybe you will be able to hit me in the dark." One of the red
skinned men laughs. His eyes seem to shine when he does so. They
are a bright shade of green and stand out from the others as they
all have varying shades of brown eyes.

"Oh very funny
Nashoba. You know I can kick your arse any day of the week." Nootau
retaliates. With that the red feathered man lunges at green eyes
and they tumble to the floor laughing and pinning each other
down.

"All right
boys, enough fooling around" Says a bigger man, with a deep voice.
"Let’s get on to what we are meant to be doing."

"You're no fun
Mato." Says the smallest man in the group. "I was enjoying watching
Nootau and Nashoba fight." He laughs. "If you can call that
fighting anyway."

"I'd like to
see you do better!" Nashoba spits back, a wink in his green eyes.
"Bring it on Doahte" Both men unsheathe long sharp weapons Arella
has not seen before. Swords, with long, slightly curved blades of
shiny sharp stone and dark strong handles. Arella has heard stories
of weapons like this, but never seen one. High pitched sounds ring
out as the stone of the two blades clash together.

The two men
fight each other for a while, each dipping and diving and never
touching skin with blade, but getting close on several occasions.
This is fascinating for Arella. She is never allowed to watch the
men in her tribe practice combat. "It is a secret affair which
women do not need to witness." Everyone would tell her when she
asked if she could watch. But this is much better. They do not know
she is there, and they will not chase her away and tell her not to
watch. Arella may be able to learn how to fight properly by
watching these men. She wonders to herself "do they come here every
day? Or is this a one off and I will not get this opportunity
again?" Either way she was not going to leave the forest until they
did.

Arella takes
advantage of the loud noises coming from the contact of stone on
stone and the grunts of exertion coming from the men to hide the
noise she makes climbing into a nearby tree. A low branch holds
strong as she uses it to climb into the bow, giving her a higher
perspective and less likelihood of one of the men discovering her
by falling into the bush she was hiding in. She is well hidden by
the leaves, but her white hair might give her away if one of the
men were to look in her direction. She carefully tucks her braid
behind her ear, and pulls her hood further around her face.

The men's
fighting continues for a good hour or so, and they all look really
tired by the end. Faces all red, well redder than usual, and sweat
dripping off all of their heads. Beads of sweat glisten on the
shoulders of the green eyed man. He had taken his shirt off at one
point during the fight, revealing a well sculpted body beneath. All
of the men look as though they are well toned, although some more
than others, but it was Nashoba who caught Arella's eye.

"We'd better
head back to the village." Mato says. "I think we are done for the
night." Arella's heart sinks a little. Will they come back, or will
she just go back to the way things were, with nothing interesting
happening in her life?

"I like this
place." Nashoba says. Hope brews in Arella's chest. "It's much
quieter than our usual training grounds."

Mato laughs.
"You only like this place better because you have somewhere soft to
land when you fall."

"Not fair Mato,
you caught me off guard earlier. But I mean it, I do like this
place. I will come back here."

"No you're
right though. It does seem like a good place to practice. Aren't
you worried about that tribe on the other side of the woodland
though? They don't live far from the edge."

"They do not
dare come this deep into the forest, you know that as well as I.
They rear it, and prefer to live in the open on the plains. Plus
they are weak. They do not teach their young how to fight early
enough, and many die from exposure and lack of food." Nashoba says.
With that the men pick up their belongings and begin to leave the
clearing. Arella waits in the tree for a few minutes more before
climbing down, to be sure they do not hear her. She lands on the
floor with a soft thud.

As Arella walks
back towards her village, she begins thinking about what green eyes
had said. "They are weak." Is that really what people thought of
her tribe. She had always seen them as strong men with no fear, but
clearly they are not so strong when compared to others. She knew
that the people of her tribe did not enter the forest, but always
believed it was just because they had no need to.

The walk back
seems to take forever. Arella must have really walked far. By the
time she reaches the old tree by the side of the lake, the faint
orange glow of the sun can be seen on the horizon. No more noise
can be heard coming from her village, and it will be hours before
anyone wakes up from their long night partying. Arella rubs her
sleepy eyes, makes her way to her tent and crawls into bed. Her
feet sore and tired from walking so far. It feels nice to take her
boots off and lie on a bed of furs, warm and comfortable underneath
her tired body. She drifts off into a deep sleep, dreaming of the
moon and stars with wolves surrounding her, howling and calling her
to join them.

Chapter 2

The smell of
cooking meat fills Arella nostrils as she awakens from her deep
sleep. She breaths in deeply. "Mmm, I love that smell." She says to
herself. Just at that moment, her stomach grumbles. Arella realises
she hasn't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and is famished. When
she crawls from her tent, the sun is bright and high in the sky.
She lifts her hood up onto her head, shielding her eyes from the
sunlight, and using the bucket of water next to her tent as a
mirror, reapplies the black charcoal to under her eyes. "Much
better." she says as the glare dies down and her vision becomes
clear again. The sun is already high in the sky, but no one seems
to mind that they are all late up today. No one will be hunting
after the celebration last night, and nothing else really needs
doing urgently. Today will be a day for Arella's tribe to relax and
eat but not for Arella. She has lots to do today, and she would
like to go back to the clearing in the forest again, see if the men
are there. Arella has decided that she will use them as guides, and
will learn to fight by watching them.

Arella puts on
her boots, then pulls her hood up over her head before moving away
from her small tent at the edge of the village. She makes her way
to the fire pit at the centre. Over the fire, roasting on a spit,
is a large and meaty looking hog, his tusks slightly charred from
the fire. An older woman sits tending the fire, keeping it alight
while the meat cooks. A few feet away, hanging from the branch of a
dead tree is the boars skin, drying in the sun. Beautiful stripes
and spots of black cover its pale brown skin. This boar was big,
and will feed the entire tribe, all thirty four of them. The Apaloa
tribe are small in comparison to other tribes in the area, but this
is how the chief likes it. "A big tribe is harder to feed, harder
to protect and too many children are a nuisance." He would say when
anyone questioned him. You see, only certain members of the tribe
are allowed to have children. The chief, although he can take as
many wives as he sees fit, and there are two other men in the tribe
with this right. Both are members of the hunting team, and have two
children each. By doing it this way, it ensures that the numbers in
the tribe never get more than the chief can handle. All children
born to women that were not with one of these men are killed at
birth. Arella was one of the lucky ones. Nayleen was the wife of
one of the tribesmen aloud to have children, and when she took
Arella in, this made her safe.

Arella breaths
in deep. It's going to be another hour till that boar is cooked,
then she will have to wait her turn to eat. She is at the bottom of
the pecking order, so won't be getting food any time soon. Arella
walks past the fire pit and the cooking boar, through the village
to the small stream that runs down the back of the site. The water
still flows strong, fuelled by melting snow high in the mountains.
This stream runs down to the lake Arella was sitting by just the
day before. A group of young children play together by the stream
on the other side, they are laughing and chasing each other around.
They are watched by their mothers, both the wives of hunters. These
women are strong and bigger built than Arella. In fact, all of the
women in the Apaloa tribe are bigger built than Arella... Joys of
being at the bottom of the pecking order, you get the last and
usually smallest portion of food.

Being the
bottom of the pecking order also has its advantages. Because of the
small amount of food Arella has access to, she has learnt to forage
for her own fruit and vegetables. Her growling stomach drives her
on, she must eat something soon, there won't be much of that boar
left once the men have had their fill, and she will be left with
the grisly bits that no one likes anyway.