Aga's
Choice
By
Lazette
Gifford
Copyright 2012, Lazette Gifford
Aga
had wanted that pigwart, scrawny thing though it had been. It annoyed her that Cat had charged in and
made the kill while she still held her spear in hand.
Cat
had looked at her, the pigwart dangling dead in her mouth, her huge teeth
dripping with blood. Her eyes had shown,
luminous and green in the late moon light.
Aga
had lifted her arm for the kill, but Cat turned and darted back into the brush
and away, pale fur lost in the shadows.
Aga wouldn't waste her throw and risk damaging the fine sharp edge of
her carefully chiseled stone. She wanted
the kill.
She
followed, even into the night. Even away
from the camp and up the valley so newly green with spring, and by dawn she
came to the land of always winter, where the river of ice ran down to the
stream.
Clack,
click, clack click -- the sound of Cat moving relentlessly above her. Aga dropped down on her knees,
listening. Sit still, very still in the
shadows before the sun comes fully over the mountains of snow. Silent, barely breathing. Mark the path Cat took.
Up,
up. And then not up. A soft rustle of
sound, pads on snow.
Aga
marked the spot in her mind; Up the ice stream, across the snowfield for a
heartbeat, another. Down into some
hidey-hole where Cat carried her long dead prey.
Only
Ipip had ever killed Cat. They made him
leader of the tribe, and he wrapped himself Cat's skin every day, dragging the
tail behind him and growling at anyone who argued with his decisions.
If
she killed Cat this time, she could rule the tribe. They would bring her food from the hunt, and
she would give her blessing to those who went out. The men would come to her at her will, and
the women would give her the choice berries.
And as long as she wore Cat's skin and brought the spirit of the
creature to them, then the tribe would be safe.
So it had been with Ipip until he drowned in the big rain, and Cat's
skin slipped away.
But
Cat was back now, grown again and hunting food in their territory, where the
tribe found little enough to eat. Cat
would drag them off when winter came down from the mountains again.
Aga
knew where Cat hid now. Aga would kill Cat and rule her people. And she would
not be stupid enough to drown.
The
sun glistened, on the edge of the ice river.
She glanced up, and saw nothing moving.
Crawling up, hands and knees -- low profile, don't let cat know a human
came her way. Cat knew humans would kill
her.
The
ice made Aga's hands ache. She stopped and blew on them, wishing she had winter
furs to protect her fingers.
Not
much farther. Up, and up, swish of her
long spear sliding against the ice, a whisper she hoped Cat didn't hear, or
ignored not thinking it human.
Up,
staring to the right . . . and there, finally, the mark of Cat's long-clawed
feet in the gray, dust-covered snow. Aga
lifted her head and marked the path. It
didn't go far, disappearing into a low walled depression and into the black
heart of the world.
She
would not go in there. Mother World
swallowed the unwary, and even sometimes the holy ones, blessed by Sun, did not
come back from the dark where they made magic to protect the tribe.
No,
Aga would not follow Cat into the world of the Dark Ones. But she would go close enough to look in, and
if she had the chance -- oh yes, she would lure Cat out.
Her
arms grew numb, elbow deep in the snow.
She feared that the spear would catch on something and she'd have to
retie the stone tip, or else fight only with her duller knife while Cat tore at
her with claws. Her heart pounded as she
neared the opening. Cat could be watching her.
Cat could be waiting to drag her down to the Dark Ones and she would
never stand in the sun again.
Being
ruler of the tribe didn't seem so important now.
She
stopped. Then slid forward an arm's
length and another so she could see down into the forbidden darkness.
Cat
stared back at her, ears drawn back, her teeth bright in the glint of snow-cast
light. Cat, not alone. Two small things tore at the pigwart she had
dragged in for them! Children of Cat!
She
lifted her spear.
Cat
moved, oh so quickly -- her head lowered and growling -- but not to the
attack. She put herself between Aga and
her children.
Aga
raised her spear. . . .
And
then she remembered Ipip, standing knee deep in the big water as it rushed down
from Always Winter. She remembered how
he had grabbed the two children from the collapsing tent and threw them to
safety just before the water rushed up over him and dragged him away, and how
Cat's skin had stayed a moment, eyeless head looking back from Big Water,
watching her.
Watching
her still.
Aga
lowered the spear and backed away. She
had long walk back to the camp, and she made three kills on the way. Gifts of Cat, she knew. And maybe of Ipip as well, who lived on in
the spirit he had taken, and protected the tribe still.
Even
the Holy Ones agreed, and after that they did not take Cat's skin again, except
when she left it for them, bereft of spirit.
The hunters took gifts to her cave where Cat lived on in her children.
And
in those years, when Aga ruled with Cat's wisdom and bravery, the tribe grew
strong.
The End
980
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