A gash in the rock face unfurled inwards to the dark recesses of the mountain's guts, expelling odd echoes of some distant dripping likely tucked away in what sounded like one of many vast anti chambers and tunnelled routes. The cavern entrance was just large enough to fit two shoulders abreast, and tucked behind a large shapely rock in such a way as to be invisible from the valley unless someone knew exactly where to look. An upright, arrow-headed stone erected to be indistinguishable from afar, like a bronze-age Menhir; placed with intent.
"How exactly did you find out about this place again?" The Stranger asked.
"A Prospector." The Old Seer lent on a ragged and blackened branch carried from the Dead valley, when they left it had merely been a souvenir, but the toils of the journey had started to render that stick as his necessary third leg. "Mountain men who live on the fruits of the wilds and the fish in the streams. He passed on our way on his trip to a land bathed in lights, recently settled. His journey started in the far south at the tip of the world, but rumours and whisper of fortune in the land temped him up north, across the Modesto, and through many caves just like this one. He told us how to find this rock, the secret behind it and the gold-tipped gate out the other end."
" 'Tip of the world', huh?" The Stranger did not want to shine doubt upon these kindly trusting Tribals, but 'Prospectors', or Scavengers as they're known in any other land, were renowned for their tall tales. "I'm not exactly a spelunker, but I've been underground enough to know that most caves don't pass through whole mountains and out the other side like your friend said. 'Specially not for a big mountain like this one. The deeper and longer a cave gets, the more unstable it becomes; your typical cave system collapses into rubble before too far."
The Seer bowed his head to the young man's wisdom, receptive to matters he held no experience of. A life long lived was no match for a short, but better travelled, counterpart. But he did have an edge on wisdom and insight. "He was a kind man, ever mindful of the balance of nature, picking bounties only from caves he knew to be long lost, even sparing the lives of wolves when hunted. And he was not lying."
The Stranger glanced over his shoulder at the older man, weighing his certainty. There was something immutable in his silvery eyes, some glinting chasm of insight not entirely of that frail body, but burrowing far deeper. Maybe he could not explain it, maybe he could not vouch for it, but the Stranger had to concede; the old man believed in his judgement.
"Alright, I'll scout it out in the morning."
That night Lari took up his vigil again, tucked in the jutting outcrop on the ledge of the mountain, peering out on rolling hills dipped in silver moonlight. Most nights Catha came to join his watch, 'a chieftain should share her Tribe's duties', she would argue. Catha made for a spectacular eagle with that thousand-yard eye of hers, strong enough to discern shapes and colours from the fog of the far distance before even the animals of the land could sense their scent, but she was lacking in the fortitude. Which is to say, the girl would invariably pass out a mere two hours into their night watch shift, and Lari would be left staying up all night to cover for her supposed shift. She was still just a girl afterall, a girl with the legacy of dozens soon to be resting on her slim shoulders.
She needed the rest.
Lari liked to keep up for his night watch, it was what he had trained his body for. Short naps throughout the daylight and a statue vigil in the dusk kept him active at all the times when he was needed, which usually ended up being most of the day given he was the only fit tribesman within the camp. Propping the back wheels of the food wagon whenever the spoke snapped, carrying sacks of game in the early morning to be skinned for breakfast, herding and tracking the scores of wild, sometimes errant, children who were too innocent and ignorant to really grasp the dire position of being one of the Displaced; all of these jobs and responsibilities stuffed the waking hours of his day. So when the black curtains pulled across the sky and Lari had the time to find a good watching spot and take vigil with nothing but the stars and his thoughts to entertain him, that was a special time.
That night in particular, however, was not as blissful as most. Largely because as much as it was his job to scour the plains for the coming threat, it felt very much as though such a threat had already breached his watch and was currently setting up by his sleeping bag near the river bed. That foreign element, the Stranger, offered little viable justification for his sudden appearance, no viable excuse for how he managed to happen upon their carefully hidden valley. He appeared from nowhere, with no ties to any Displaced and no reason to linger beyond a weak play of 'curiosity', from which he quite suddenly moved onto volunteering to vanguard the Tribes through the caves? Lari could not understand how Seer Pinac failed to see the potential threat now bubbling in their midst. The spectre of death hung like a cloud over the faux curiosity and folksy cheer of the interloper. The judgement to accept his help was the Seer's responsibility to make, of course, in lack of a proper of Chieftain, but it was the old man that told Lari always to perceive the world for himself, rather than to let it be dictated by decree and instruction. So Lari had double the vigil duties that night, and no space for sullen introspection.
In the early hours of dawn Lari took off early from his vigil spot, careful not to wake little Catha still tucked away in her sleeping bag. The boy Pathfinder set-up before the Seer's tent and paced back and forth for the many hours he had until Pinac awoke, going over the decision he had reached in the darkest hour of the night when moon's wicked shadow flittered over his vantage for a single moment of elucidating clarity.
When the wafted delights of the morning stew finally tempted the aged Seer from his tent, he found the boy standing right in his path, sticky with sweat and worry.
"I want to scout the caves." Lari blurted out as soon as he saw him, totally fumbling the hours of rehearsal he just had. "Seer Pinac, Sir!"
The Seer frowned with his caterpillar eyebrows. "Good morning to you too, little Lari. Quiet vigil, was it?"
"Hmm? Oh- yes. That is- I saw a herd of Bighorners wander into the valley, the bull had lost a horn so there might be some predators might have followed them into the area; but I've yet to spot any wolves so it might just be some Geckos. Oh- and Good morning, sir!" Lari hastily added.
"Good." The old man picked at the gunk in his eyes in a attempt to fully wake himself up for the arguement they were about to have. "Now we've had our greetings, spoken like men instead of barking like wolves- What foolishness are you spouting?"
Lari winced, annoying old man Pinac was always a recipe for misfortune. Either for a tongue lashing in the immediate or over-stacked extra chores for the rest of the month. The Seer could hold a mean grudge. But that was the price the boy had accepted long before the morning woke.
"It's my right. My responsibility." Lari insisted, sounding braver than he felt. "I was chosen as Pathfinder, Chief Cede wanted me to be the one who guides us. I'm supposed to keep us safe. Not some... Stomper!" He used the word of the Shallow Holes Tribe, the very same they had used on the Dead Trees when they first come to settle in the Basin. But Lari could not quite mimic that intrinsic vitriol they used to embody with the expletive. "The Chief would want it to be me- he meant it to be. And I- I have to be strong. He believed in me to bring us to the New Home, why can't you?"
Old Seer Pinac eyes narrowed until they vanished under the unkempt bush of his brow. "And you know everything the Chief thought and felt, do you? Quite a little Seer yourself, aren't you? Maybe I should just hurry up and rot so you can take my place?"
"I didn't mean... What I meant to say was..." Words were not Lari's talent. Not like they were for little Catha. Most talents tended to prove little trial for her. "Nobody trusted me to do anything back in the valley. Rubra wouldn't let me become a skinner because I lacked her pedigree, Acer stopped taking me hunting with him, he said I was so clumsy that I wasn't worth the time to teach. Ketel tried to teach me all about cultivation one season after I begged him through the winter, but I was so bad at remembering which leaf came from what plant that he gave up. He never said it to me- but I saw him and Catha plotting out the coming harvest without me. The Chief didn't even let me stand for the Basin like every other man, woman, boy and girl my age did! But he did let me be Pathfinder."
Lari remembered the moment vividly, like the imprint of a waking dream stamped directly onto his forethoughts. When Chief Cede came to his tent the day before the old, the sick and young were due to evacuate. Lari had spent the night before awake and sweating, fixated on the conjured images of Bull banners and burning hills aflame with the coming fires. He was wide awake when the Chief came and sat on the foot of his bedcot. " Pinac and the other's will be leaving soon. The same night the Lone Star falls under the Southern Belt, the excess of the Tribes, past and future, will pass under the night. You will be going with them. " Lari was upset at first, angry. Despite that sticky, grasping dread the past few days has shackled on him, the idea of running away seemed unimaginably worse than anything which awaited them. A sin worse than cowardice, a betrayal against every Dead Tree who proudly squared themselves to their fate. A betrayal towards his own fate, looming and morbid though it was. It was not until the Chief himself introduced the title of 'Pathfinder' and explained the significance such a role would have for the successful evacuation of the Displaced Tribes. That was then Lari realised his leaving would not running away from grim fate, it was powering towards that murky thing called 'purpose'.
"We have the help of this Stranger now." Old Pinac said. Pulling Lari back into the moment. "And he looks to be the capable type. Resilient, experienced, more prepared than any of us for the what lies in those caves."
"I know- I know he's more travelled. But- how can I be the Pathfinder from behind him? How am I going to- to learn? About what walking the Wastes is like, about how to traverse new lands and... and how to deal with the threats we know nothing about? Maybe he is... maybe the Stranger is the better choice. But I have to lead us through those caves, Seer Pinac. I can't explain it but- It has to be me!"
Seer Pinac wanted to say so much. 'bravery festers as arrogance', 'experience comes with time, you need to be alive to have that time', and any number of antiquated, tinned quips his own grandfather used to hurl his way when he was a troublesome upstart. He wanted to raise his voice, clip the young fool round the ear and confine him to his tent, but the boy was too old to be treated like that. The truth was, he recognised that desperation in the young boy's eyes, the hunger for validation that no degree of piteous assurance and backhanded platitude would satiate. He needed to sate that from within.
"Chief Cede wouldn't approve of you throwing yourself into the path of danger. Unnecessarily." Pinac opined.
"It's not unnecessary, it's the furthest thing!" Lari insisted "And he would want me to lead us, I just know it!"
"Do not presume to know the Chief's thoughts. I can promise you haven't a grasp on the faintest leaf out of that book." the Old man grumbled. "But he conjured up that damnable title for you, didn't he?" Cede was the freest of spirits to all the best and worst extremes. Pinac loved him enough never so much as entertain that it might have been that same spirit which befouled him. "You need this, don't you?"
The boy nodded emphatically, needy distress practically dripping from his bulging eyes ducts. The very sight of him teetered on pathetic.
"You will not go alone. We have a worldly and talented Traveller who has graciously put himself at our disposal and we will not happily stare that Brahmin in it's mouths. If you need to throw yourself in those caves so badly you'll do so beside the Traveller, and obeying his every instruction, is that clear?"
"I- Yes, Seer Pinac sir!" Lari breathed, buzzing with an appeased shock.
"Every provision he provides, every warning he lays, every rule he dictates will become your unshaking law the second he utters it. Even, and especially, if he tells you to turn back and run. Know that any disobedience might put our guest in as much danger as you!"
"I understand completely Seer!" He promised, nodding dumbly." I am fully ready for this, I promise! I was born for this duty!"
Every word blossomed the Old Man's regret more and more. " Then hurry up and get your couple hours' nap before I change my mind. I have to go and figure out how to propose these unexpected babysitter duties on our fine guest."
The Stranger accepted his surprise charge gracefully and with no compliant, he knew how to travel in packs he said, and he would ensure the boy got through safe. It was a confidence that soothed Pinac's old soul some small way, even knowing the dangers of the caves was still much a mystery to them both. Some glint of the Traveller's eye told plainly how much they had seen and judged, as though no surprise in the land, short of a fire-breathing Gecko with wings, could get the better of him.
The extra hand did necessitate the expedition's delay from the break of morning so that Lari could be brought up to speed. The dutiful and abruptly studious Pathfinder watched as the Traveller laid out his strange arsenal of weapons and equipment from inside of his duffle bag on a flat stone face not far from the Menhir. Lari noticed the delicate care with which the Traveller placed each tool, careful not to cause a single undue scratch in friction between the metal and rock. The black-steel sheen on each gun spoke unfavourably against the rusted and battered workings of his old inherited hunting rifle.
"What's that one?" Lari asked, pointing towards one large-ish handgun with a smooth rounded barrel and polished wood grip.
"That is a twelve point seven millimetre hand cannon, known as the 'Head Knocker' around certain parts of Reno." The Stranger proudly announced "Just having this Iron strapped to your hip is typically more than enough to douse any arguement before it sparks up, 'cause no sensible soul is going to put themselves in danger of receiving one of these shots. I don't need to tell you that's one big calibre- or maybe I do..."
Lari stared back blankly. The tools of the Tribe were uniform and functional, the farmers back in the valley carried their thermo-charged hoes, the bruiser Tribesmen had their knobbed war clubs, and hunters carried their rustic hunting rifles. Everyone was fitted with tools fitting their station and each tool was equal. He had seen nothing like this single-handed 'cannon' or the shoulder slung wooden stock 'shotgun' the Stranger placed next to it, nor the blocky metal hand device next to that.
"This is an AEP7 Laser pistol." The Stranger explained noting the Pathfinders apprehensive fascination. "A lightweight little thing, not exactly powerful enough to melt a charging Deathclaw, but it's good to have some versatility in your pack."
"And what about this?" Interrupted an imperious little girl manhandling a sheathed knife with a blade the width of a flat palm. The Stranger leapt to attention.
"Woah there, little miss; don't you think you're a little young to be waving something like that around?" The Stranger raised his hand, primed to make a grab for the blade if she did anything dangerous. "Maybe you should just put that down before you hurt yourself."
The girl's nose curled as it tended to do whenever her competence was challenged. "I can handle a knife!" She deftly whipped the sheathe from the giant blade and tested the tip of the blade on her finger. The point was sharp enough to draw a pin prick of red with even the slightest pressure, and the girl did not so much as flinch. "I know how knives work. And rifles. And I can till, and I can scout. I saw you stomping up from miles away. Just ask Lari. Tell me what kind of knife this is."
The Stranger silently consulted with Lari, who could offer no more than a half-hearted apologetic nod of encouragement.
"That would be a Bowie Knife, little miss. That curve up there at the bevel- uh, the tip; that makes it easier to slip under the skin of a carcass when skinning, and the straight edge cuts straight into the meat. It's a multipurpose little thing, that knife."
"So it's a hunter's tool then?" The girl toyed with the blade, enchanted with how it's mirror gleam caught in early day sun. "Are you a hunter?"
"No miss, not professionally." The Stranger chuckled. "I mean everyone needs to eat and she serves me well for that. But like I said, that there is a multipurpose knife that I don't just use for hunting."
Some wicked understanding flashed into the girl's eyes. With a second more of consideration, she sheathed the blade once more and handed it into the Stranger's grasp. "My name is Catha. Under the authority of the Chief, my father, I command you to teach me how to use these... tools."
"Catha!" Lari found his voice again. "These are dangerous weapons, I think. You're too young to be using any of them!"
"I have to agree. I was told I only had to babys- I mean, 'oversee', one tribal kid today; I'm not bringing some twelve year old down into the caves too. There's no telling what's down there."
"I'm Thirteen!" She stomped a foot indignantly. "And one day I'm going to be the one leading the tribes. Not just the Dead Trees, but everyone here. Once I am old enough. When I do I need to know of these things, these 'bowing' knives and laser guns, and how they work. We're not in the Valley anymore and if these are the tools of this world, then I will learn them to become a Chief fit for this world!" She spoke with prideful expectation that the Stanger found morbidly adorable. Adorable in that a child so young as she should have a crystal clear vision of who she wants to become. Morbid in how that very tone of voice dripped from many of the most megalomaniacal people he had known in his time.
"Leave that weight off your back." Lari insisted. "You do not have to be Chief so early, Catha. I know you worry, but that is why you have me. The Chief wanted me to be the Pathfinder Catha- your Pathfinder. Taking these dangers, leading our pack- that's my responsibility right now, and I need you to trust me to carry that. Trust me like your Father did."
Catha pouted. She was a girl used to getting her way, but Lari knew which strings to pull and twist in order to soothe her bull-headed ego, the wants and whims of her late father proved especially effective. She spat on the dirt.
"But I need to learn. How long will we travel before we find another skilled traveller that Pinac trusts? If he can't teach me what these things are and how to use them, who can?"
"Me!" Lari said, surprising himself with how naturally the solution came to his lips. "That is the job of the Pathfinder, I think. Find the path of the Tribes and guide the path of the Chief-to-be."
Catha scratched her head. "Is that what a Pathfinder does? Do you know, Traveller?"
The Stranger shrugged his shoulders. In truth, Lari could not insist that he knew himself either. Back when Chief Cede has laid that position upon him, the boy had never heard it mentioned before, and he knew every role of the Tribe before that day. No one in the Displaced seemed to question his duties whenever he assumed them, and Lari was set far too firmly in his role to just ask any of them if they knew the boundaries and duties of a typical Pathfinder. So he ended up just doing everything that felt right to him, and teaching Catha how to use tools and weapons only when she was good and ready felt like the sort of thing a Pathfinder should do.
"Okay then." She grumbled. "But make sure you pay the most amount of attention, Lari! No nodding off when the Traveller starts using long words like you do doing lessons!"
"I do not!" Lari defended himself, whilst challenging his own memory. How often did he skimp out on lessons by way of a sneaky upright nap? And how many times had Catha caught him?
"Do not miss a single detail, Lari. I want you to teach me everything the Traveller teaches you. Like a Pathfinder should." She nodded with the fullest of confidence. Upset to be shooed away but sure beyond a doubt that she was properly playing her role as the heir-apparent. Lari envied that confidence.
"She's gonna be heck in a basket when she's grown." The Stranger observed with a hint of admiration. "And it sounds like we've got some learning to get done if you're going to be her ideal tutor."
The Stranger taught the basics to Lari: how to stand with his feet in the right place before firing his old hunting rifle in order to absorb the kickback of the shot, where to hold the gun when carrying it so that it can be drawn and fired with the least amount of downtime and fumbling, and the optimal timing of breathing in and out to maintain adequate shooting composure. Then the Traveller forced the long-barrel gun he had entered the valley holding into the boy's hands.
"But I have a rifle."
"You sure do, and far be from me to judge the reliability of a gun that looks to be more rust than metal but I have a feeling this here might just serve you a bit better. It's called a 'Caravan Shotgun', as in the sort of weapon that mercs guarding Caravans pull to fend of Raiders and Geckos and such like. It's decent at close range and packs a hell of a kick, so much, in fact, that you better remember what I showed you and plant that stock right in your shoulder before firing, else that bull is liable to buck right out your hands!" The gun looked mean and deadly, like a branch ripped from the blackened trees of the valley and forged into a tool of killing. It's faded wood butt and stiff trigger guard had seen the action of more battles than the young Pathfinder could envision. It was not a tool for hunting, it was a weapon of death.
"I figure when we're in those caves, you won't be getting many opportunities to pull out that rifle anyway, we'll be looking at tight corners and maybe, if we're unlucky, close quarters combatants. Stick behind me and I'll deal with the worst of it, but if anything or anyone manages to slip by me, use this to make sure they don't get too close. Okay?"
Lari hefted the weight of the shotgun in both hands, feeling how it felt to jump and rest in his arms. And shrugged. "Maybe... what if I hold onto my rifle, just for now?"
"Lari, look-"
"Just until you are sure I need to switch!" The boy pleaded. "Then I will do it, with no arguments! My- my rifle... it's important. To me."
Arguments make for poor first impressions, still the Traveller eye's narrowed. Then rolled. Not worth the hassle. "Whatever. But get used to how that shotgun feels, I will not being offering crash courses in the middle of any firefights."
If felt so heavy. Like a chunk of raw iron pulled from the mountainside and lumped in his arms. Lari's rifle was not exactly a feather itself, but the shotgun felt close to half a sack of grain. It was cumbersome, but that was what would make him strong.
As the Traveller packed away the last of his things in his duffle bag, silently bemoaning the amount of left-over space he could have filled if only he was a bit more prudent when leaving; the girl returned to loom over him. She did so silently, not seeking to disturb his zen, but soon found she could not hold her tongue once her presence became impossible to ignore.
"Are you an engineer?" She asked.
The Stranger scoffed. "I'm not exactly up-to-date on whatever modern board certifies 'expertise' these days, but whoever it is, I'm not on their rooster. Which ain't to say I don't understand the theory behind engineering, mind; I've just never gotten paid for my troubles. Why, have you guys got a generator somewhere you need me to deliver a swift kick to?"
"Theory? Is 'theory' how you made that?" The girl pointed a stubby finger at his compact computer unit strapped to his forearm.
"Hmm? Oh I appreciate the compliment, and I'll sure accept it, but I didn't make this 'Pipboy', no. She was given as a gift. Or, more like a charge of duty, actually. Kind of like your friend over there." Lari was still trying to twirl the heavy shotgun from his back strap into his hand in the manner that the Traveller flashed off to him a little while back. "No, a machine this complex is way beyond my... is it?" He challenged himself, really considering the compact simplicity of the machine. It's knobs and dials set around a small compact green-scale screen. "You know, I've never actually tried to make one before. Maybe I'll do that one day. I'd have to hit a RobCo or two for supplies, but I think I could swing that. Yeah. Really stick it to the doubters out there, like you."
She frowned. "I'm not a doubter. Didn't say anything like that, actually."
"Not yet you haven't." The Traveller said, waggling his finger. "But you would have. Or you would have thought it! That's how it always goes, ya see. People see the gaps in your armour and they start to get the idea you're a pushover!"
The girl cocked her head and grimaced. "You're silly. And paranoid."
"Ah, but there's nothing wrong with being a little bit paranoid." he smiled. "It's healthy, it reminds us that there's always someone better and faster than you, and they might just be around the corner waiting to bushwhack you! That can be a useful concern to hold when you're walking and trading across the Wastes, best you find and hold onto that yourself, little miss. Little humility never killed nobody."
The majority of the Displaced Tribes came to see Lari and the Traveller off for their cave expedition once the sun was fully risen. The Old Seer gave the Traveller his verbal blessings and Lari a wordless grip on his shoulder before leaving them to squeeze behind the towering Mehnir into the stone crack of the mountain face and inside the mouth of the caves beyond.
Their journey took them not, as some in the Tribes had believed, into a blanket of abject darkness, but rather into a recess of bioluminescence as natural light gave way to the pleasant green throb of mutated mushrooms. Lari released a sigh of relief he did not know he was holding once it had become clear that his waking nightmares about the suffocating depths of endless blackness were proven hyperbolic. His eyes adjusted to the dim glow with ease, the jagged cavern walls were not closing in on him with every step, and the steady stride of the Stranger spoke of a familiarity with their surroundings that Lari could draw comfort from. It seemed a little embarrassing, a Pathfinder finding peace following the steps of a more experienced guide, almost as though a part of him was failing to meet his old Chief's challenge. But that feeling was more of a nagging for now, Lari could supress that under the waves of relief that this would not be quite as bad a venture as he had imagined.
The veins of the cavern cut deep and straight, not petering out into several dead end forks after a couple of hundred feet like the Traveller expected. Certainly this was a larger system then he had typically delved inside of, which gave him no lack of foreboding regarding the very structure of the place. A man made tunnel burrowing this far into packed earth would be susceptible to the odd cave-in or two, but a naturally formed system like theirs, lacking supports and practical design, could very well be filthy with them. Every now and then the Traveller would pause briefly and glance over at his young companion under the guise of making sure the boy was holding up fine, they would share a nod or thumbs up, but really the man was taking a moment of quiet to listen out for the telltale shifting of earth, the grumble of the mountain's bowels protesting their passage. But the caves were uncharacteristically quiet, the wet slapping echo of the pair's footsteps bounced beyond them unchallenged and unimpeded.
At least until the Traveller heard the dripping again.
When the two of them had started out in the caves, and just after the cheers and well-wishes of the tribesmen had faded into nothing, they had been left with little more than the silence between them, their footfalls and the dripping of the moisture that slicked the rocks. As such, the dripping was an expected member of the cave choir, particularly for a cave system which opened up just a few feet from a running stream, and in an unforgivingly humid part of the state. Evaporated water from the stream would drift into the cave system and collect in between the cracks until it sweated back down again as droplets. Hardly rocket science. But logic would dictate that as the two of them delved deeper into the caves and the air around them became more dry, the constant dripping of the caverns would cease. And it did.
But after an hour or so it started up once more and that alone really began to grate at the Traveller. Not that the presence of some unaccountable phenomena unnerved him, indeed after living a life as he did the unexplainable proved something closer to a siren's song to him. It was the sheer gall that something so scientific, so supposedly logically rigid, should confound him. Lari had not noticed the issue, how could he? Which left the Traveller to stew in solitude.
Once they had journeyed deep enough for the cave system to actually start branching off into seemingly significant forks, one veering down into the earth to their west and another veering slightly higher to the south; the Traveller gave into his frustrations and led them down the southern cave and closer to where the vague dripping sounds were originating from.
Lari was happy to follow his more informed lead, although he had started to pick up in some of the more subtle cues that indicated not all was entirely okay with the Stranger. His gait was no longer so carefree and casual, but now seemed pressed and driven. He had not paused to check up on the boy for a while now, small breaks that Lari had come to actually appreciate for how they reinforced their unit. And he could hear the sound of the man kissing his teeth and tutting to himself periodically. Is he upset with me? Lari asked himself. He's definitely upset with me.
The Traveller's singular obsession with the dripping was so all-encompassing that he honestly did not notice it the first time a rustling flurry joined the sounds of the dim cavern orchestra. Lari noticed it first, and it was only when the boy himself fully stopped, craned his neck and asked out loud, "What is that?" that he snapped out of his funk.
The Traveller glanced back over his shoulder in a momentary daze, caught the quickly building furious flapping of what he knew instantly to be the fluttering of paper-thin wings and cussed loudly. Lari saw the blood drain from his face, what he had assumed to be mere artistic expression until that very moment, and shared in his guardian's sudden spark of terror.
Lari froze as the Stranger dived over to him and clapped a palm over the boy's mouth, deftly flicked his pistol into his free hand and pressed the two of them against wall of the cave.
The boy went rigid, alert to the approaching danger and totally powerless to react to it. He had never been in actual peril before and the intoxicating stench of adrenaline had utterly paralyzed him. The Stranger, luckily, was a fair bit more prepared.
Above and ahead of them, down a narrow in the caves that seemed to have become inexplicably blurry to Lari's vision, maybe due to the blood rushing to his head, some large, black thing fluttered from around the bend carried on two buzzing wings of violent orange, and a dozen hairy legs. It's body was insectoid and segmented like a wasp's, but the overall scale of the creature was horrendous, easily larger than a full grown man. And it was fast, darting several feet in the blink of an eye, propelled by four turbine-like wings and guided with groping mandibles.
As it grew closer the Traveller carefully relaxed them into a crouch and tucked them into a small space under a rock shelf, into the embrace of the dark between the glow of the mushrooms.
Lari wanted to squirm free and run, convinced that they were now in the domain of that thing and there was no way they could hope to hide from it, but lucky for them both his body still was not quite functioning, and so the boy allowed himself to be folded into the tight cracks of the cavern.
The giant insect dashed above them with a single burst of it's wings, then landed right by the cave floor they had just occupied.
It's glossy, slick head followed the path of it's two curved antennae to scan the cavern rocks, as though sniffing them out. From this distance, Lari could seem the scattered millions of it's deep red compound eyes, like the surface of a crude gem, and thought he saw himself reflected in each one.
But then the moment passed and so did the creature. It picked itself up on those wings, now cacophonous from their proximity, and flittered down the caves they had came from, chasing it's prize.
They lingered for few minutes more after the buzzing of the wings had died before the Traveller carefully pulled them out from their nook. Lari wanted to speak first, but the sticky slick of his throat had sealed his tongue. He could merely stare at the Traveller with horror and mouth 'What was that?'
" 'Cazadore' " The Traveller breathed in a low voice. " The devil's own rejects. Mutant wasps that hunt in hives and pack a sting strong enough to kill a man. No wonder these caves seem so empty. No molerats, no Mantis'; not even a Deathclaw would be suicidal enough to become bunkmates with a Cazadore den." The Stranger glanced at his heavy pistol, knowing full well he had bought no where near enough ammo to tackle an entire hive. "And where there's one, there will be more."
"It's a good thing you didn't bump into them alone." The Traveller mused. "I just can't figure out what Cazadores would be doing this deep underground. They aren't deep-cave creatures, they can't see in the dark too well, this just isn't their environment. And where is that damn dripping coming from?"
"Dripping?" Lari found his voice again, though now it came to him as something more of a croak.
The Traveller ignored him, focusing more presently on the issue. These caves were beyond dangerous for anyone, let alone a procession of elderly and young. They could trace their way back to the fork and see if the other path would lead them somewhere free of the Cazadores, but there would be no guaranteeing a wandering stray would not creep up on the Tribes as they were squeezing through the tunnels. No, they would have to find a way to seal off the caves from the hives. Which, regrettably, meant finding the Hive and assessing the damage from there. "We need to go deeper." He announced to Lari's horror. "If you want to stay here and burrow back into that little abscess I'm not going to hold it against you, but I can't exactly keep you safe there so I'd prefer if you stuck with me."
The offer was tempting, more so than Lari was comfortable admitting. But what good was he if he did, brave Pathfinder he was supposed to be? The Chief told him to lead the Tribes, he could not do that tucked under a rock whilst a stranger solved their problems for them. Besides, he needed to learn everything he could to pass it onto Catha. Lari nodded, solemn but firm, ready to follow this through to the end.
The opening that the wasp had crawled out of was actually more like a split, likely recently formed, in the cave face and demanded that the two of them squeeze their bodies between tight shelves of rock to proceed.
A prospect that made Lari's stomach drop to consider, but he had made a commitment he could not give up now. On the plus side for the Traveller's neuroticism, they did not have to squeeze their way too far into the crack before a particulate of moisture dripped down on his face. Finally, here was the source of that infernal dripping. And on the negative side, the further they crawled, the louder they picked up another errant noise; the deafening cacophony of countless buzzing wings beating to a chaos march.
As the buzzing rose, the Traveller caught a perplexing glimmer ahead of them, a beam of light breaking through the rock cracks like the ray of a flashlight, but warm and inviting. And with it came a whisper of air, not stale and dead but fresh and blown on a wind.
They sped their pace, gaining some cuts and scrapes for their haste, ignoring the ear-drum shattering intensity of the insect opera. They alighted into a massive grotto, still technically underground but exposed to glorious sunlight courtesy of a total cave-in high above their heads exposing the roof to the tips of the mountain around it. And everywhere around them, fluttering in and out of the sunroof, battling in bundles on the floor and tucking themselves out of giant bulbus cocoons, were thousands of orange-winged demons.
The two of them clung to the shadows that their tiny crevice opening was flanked by, and pressed their backs against the craggy cave wall, inchingly as gradually as they dared so as to not catch the stray eye of any of those thousand insects, even with their weakness for light. One Cazador had already somehow found its way into the dark and through that passage, neither of them wanted to risk bumping into a second curious explorer.
Atop a little rocky crop, deeper into the cave shadows, Lari and The Traveller found a spot where they could lie down on their bellies and peer between little rock formations at the tornado of wasps, as they tried to assess the task before them. Wraps of dried out dead wood were twisted in swirl-like cocoon nest which sprouted out of the walls and the floor like an infection, totally transforming the climate of this cave into a home for the beasts to grow and feed their larvae young.
Retrieving his binoculars, an implement he somehow remembered to actually pack, The Traveller could observe even further, and even more grisly, details of their nests. Such as the Giant Mutant Geckos and Brahmin calves glued to the walls of the nest with their bodies decayed and half-consumed by the hatched larvae eggs that had been laid on their bodies whilst they were still alive. He never had the displeasure of observing this deep inside of a Cazadore nest before, and though natural studies informed these were a parasitoid type of wasp, seeing it from behind magnified lens' was essentially watching that nightmare come to life. As though anyone needed a reason to hate these buzzing beasts anymore than they already justifiably do.
The Displaced could not be safely led through the caves around a nest this large. Even a single Cazador could rip through half of the camp before anyone could stop it. There was no telling how many other cave tunnels would feature similar wall cracks leading into that same grotto, making the obvious solution of simply closing off entry points unviable. Still, directly clearing a nest of such magnitude would be a hell of a task on it's own. The Traveller wasn't even nearly equipped for that sort of operation, his conservatively prepared duffle bag was starting to feel like a severe miscalculation.
Now tucked safely away in the dark, Lari could settle his roaring chest and really observe his would-be hunters. He knew them to be dangerous, the way that The Traveller reacted to them spoke from a place of obviously traumatic experience, but from the view of the outcrop Lari could only see creatures driven by animal instinct. Bugs that built, and bred, and fed, as they are driven to do. Pinac taught that the vicious sand Gecko holds no evil will, the wild Radstag crafts no plans of vengeance. The beasts of the plains are uncorrupted by the taint of pride and selfishness that is inexorably bound to the gift of consciousness. Which is why it is the duty of man to manage their balance, to hunt in moderation to the flow of nature, and share his bounties with even the weak of the clan, least they squander their gifts and fall further than the animals.
The Traveller whistled a low note which soaked into the deadening rocks. "I ain't never seen a single nest this big. It's like an army. Only with the devil's own foot soldiers. A window into Perdition itself."
Lari shook his head. "This is not just one nest." He pointed to a couple of who were scurrying across the floor about each other. "Look at the markings on their wings, the dark splotches, they are different. Unique. And that one!" Some had slightly darker shades of orange, others swirling dimples in their wings. finding two of the same breed was actually something of a challenge. "These aren't an army. They're refugees."
"How do you figure?"
"Different hives would not flock together on a whim. Unless they were forced to. Destroyed nests, encroached lands, effective hunting, all must of driven them in search of somewhere safe. Somewhere that predators and threats could not easily reach." Lari looked up again at the brilliant rays of sunlight pouring in from the open ceiling, probably leading to a egress somewhere half-way up the mountain. "A home that could only be reached with wings."
He could fear them and what they could do, but Lari could not blame that which only acted as it's nature demanded. There was a cold beauty in that process, even with the danger of death. The Traveller beside him, however, did not quite share the same breed of philosophy. Lari could feel the hate and disgust radiating off him like a bowl of rotted figs. His snarl was warped with malice, his fingers twitched irritably; The Traveller wanted to kill. Indiscriminately.
"So you're saying these bug are backed into a corner." He chewed on the inside of his cheek, simulating the saliva around his mouth. "And they're not going to want to share these caves with anyone."
"Maybe if we're quiet-"
"No." The Traveller was definitive. Certain. "With that many Tribals, moving slowly, carrying children too; there's no chance we don't stir a few. The two of us alone woke one up. And after we deal with the first two, that will wake up a dozen more bugs to come searching, and before you know it the entire camp is swarmed." He contemplated it for a brief few seconds before shaking his head roughly. "No, there's nothing for it. We can't co-exist in these caves. You and I have got to clear them."
Those wasp refugees were victims of circumstance. A pothole on the path that needed to be filled up before the little one's feet could tread above it. Lari accepted that truth of the Traveller's words, even if it made him feel disquiet. Disrupting a conflux of nests like this was not respecting the steady balance of nature, but was it far enough to tip into the trappings of being prideful? Was placing the flight of the Displaced above the retreat of those misbegotten a fair and just sacrifice in the steady eyes of nature? Perhaps not, but Lari had to remind himself that this was not a fair and just world, and it was not them who upset the balance of nature first.
"I've got it." The Traveller spoke, but even from their outcrop in the far end of the massive cave, a sudden flood of nearby Cazador wings stole the noise. Lari had to read the movement of his lips, a task little Catha was better for. "There's too many to shoot down and we'd be swarmed to death before we even made a dent. But what if we take advantage of this cave? You see those nests all over the place? They're made from dried wood, which makes them sturdy, but also flammable."
Lari nodded along with the general gist, catching various words that managed to slip through the din to understand his rough ideas.
"This right here." He produced the boxy laser pistol from his pack in steady, slow, movements; careful that the metal finish caught no bouncing beam of light. "Fires a focused laser projectile hot enough to slice through metal. if we give ourselves enough distance to run, and take steady aim, we can light their nests from across the cave and flee before they even know we're here. Give it an hour for the fire and smoke to pick up, and any winged bastard that hasn't fled will have choked to death."
A brutal proposition that gave Lari no pleasure to consider, and one The Traveller seemed to take some undue delight from concocting. Lari grimaced.
"And you would be happy doing that? Happy with wiping out a dozens of these insect nests in that way? Burning them out of their home?"
The Traveller blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about? Would I be 'okay' with it- of course I would. I only wish clearing out Cazadore nests could always been wrapped up practically remotely. It'd have saved me a lot of trouble in the past, let me tell you."
Lari wrestled with the right words to say. How to convey that inner turmoil to such an indignant face as his." These wasps have been beaten down. They have been driven and hunted and... and displaced! I don't know if it- I think there must be a way for us to survive their home without wiping them out."
The lines of the Traveller's face hardened to stone. "Wait, wait- these aren't just wasps, okay? Or bugs, or insects or any other the names you want to use to soften their edge. These are Cazadores, swarming monsters from hell. I'm not sure how I can explain to you the levels of carnage that creatures like these have wrought, and often, not without dragging you out there and showing you smoking carcasses of wiped out farmsteads or scattered ruins of ripped-up caravans. These beasts kill, and they pillage and they infest. If they've been driven out in the past, it has been in response to the horrors they spearheaded. They are the architects of their own comeuppance. Until you've been there, until you've seen all that for yourself, you're just going to have to take my word that these 'wasps' are monsters. They deserve every wisp of fire we can burn them with and everything worse besides!"
"They are only insects." Lari murmured.
"Maybe once." The Traveller agreed. "But the War made demons of less."
From their view of the crack in the wall, the two of them could make out clear shots to several of the larger hives across the cavern wall, and by resting his arm in the groves of the rock wall, The Traveller was certain he could line up several sure shots.
"The dry wood should pick up the fire quickly, but not immediately." He explained "And the Cazadores are going to try and rip us apart until they realise their homes are on fire. In that knowledge, you should get heading down the passage back towards the tunnels first. In fact, get a headstart, I can handle this myself."
Lari wanted to follow the Traveller's advice, the man was experienced, he knew that. But the more he allowed the reality of what they were doing to fester, the more firmly Lari entrenched himself in the wrongness of it all. This could not be the duties of a Pathfinder's work. What kind of guide happily burns down the brush he navigates? So instead, Lari stood there playing nervously with his feet.
"Lari?" The Traveller saw the boy's trepidation, and found himself looking at a kid. Not the cocky hardhead trying to prove himself from the night before, but an unsure child still clutching to boyhood fantasies of morality and the right way to act. His was a quiet innocence. The man sighed.
"What if-" Lari started with trembling words. "What if we warned them?"
"Lari look-"
"They are us!" Lari stamped his foot in a defiance that caught them both. "Stranded hives cut from their homes, trying to survive as a unit. They are us!" Lari looked fierce in the height of his passion, such that The Traveller held his tongue and listened. "All of the Displaced, they are scared and beaten and searching for somewhere where they don't have to keep picking up and running every other week. These wasps thought they had found that here and we- we have to take that from them. I- I understand that. But we should not have to destroy them! We should give them the chance, to flee if they can, so that- their journey can go on. So that their tribes don't die and vanish here!"
The boy's eyes blazed, but his words still pleaded a compromise. It was a naive and warped sensibility, bleeding humanity onto simple bugs that do not deserve it. It was a weakness that would fail him in crisis, The Traveller mused, but it was also impassioned. He knew young Lari was wrong, disastrously so, about the Cazadores. The equation was foolish. But the boy held his ideals so staunchly- he almost felt like to push the kid off his box and smother that spark of personality would be to shatter his foundations of righteousness and hope. The very fuel which a kid like that would one day need to grow into in that position of his, guide to his Tribes. God, am I really considering capitulating to this kid for his own good? He was. Or maybe some prideful part of The Traveller had recognised the glimmer of respect in Lari's wide eyes and did not want to lose that just yet.
"What do you suggest?" He asked after a breathless silence.
"Huh?" Lari's voice caught in this throat; totally amazed to be given the floor. He had insisted, sure; but he never really expected to actually persuade the man. "Well I- um... you are right; we have to burn the hives so they don't return. But maybe we could startle the bugs first. Maybe with a big spark or a loud noise or... something..." It was a weak suggestion. Substanceless.
"Like an explosion." The Traveller finished flatly. "It could work. But only for most of them. If there are any warrior wasps, they might try to stop us whilst their workers flee."
Lari bilnked with some surprise. "You- you know about wasps? How they live and work?"
"Meh, I've read a bit." He said with an half smile. "Not much else to do but 'read' when you grow up in a- ah, it's not important. If we're going to do it, it's got to be a blitz. I've got some dynamite in my bag, not good for much more than a fireworks show but it should send them scattering if we do it by surprise. However-" The Traveller levelled his eye with Lari. "This is going to be significantly more dangerous. We're going to have to get close enough to throw our dynamite under their noses, and it's got to be both of us in order to ensure we can cover enough ground to shake up the whole hive. So you have to stay close to me, Lari. Even a glance of their stingers will flood enough paralytic toxin to stop your heart, got that?"
The warning was deeply sobering, but the excitement of commiting to the 'right thing' was enough to bolster Lari's esteem. "Yes sir!"
The Traveller reached in the clanking mess of his pack and handed Lari three long red sticks as well as the cigerette lighter he had, apparently, packed right alongisde the dangerous explosives. "That's a one second fuse. The trick is to make sure it's no longer in your hand when the wick dies down."
"I know!" Lari snapped.
"Well, it never hurts to reiterate the basics."
Picking the right moment to slink out of the shadows was like trying to lay a pinic across a minefield, in that the buzzing swarm was innumerable and darting everywhere. Lari tried to count them all, as they darted in and out of their cuccoons and ducked and dived in swirling torrents, but they seemed unending and ceaseless, with their thousand eyed beads staring in every direction at once. The Traveller was the spine Lari was threatening to lack, knowing himself the limited eye sight of these waspish mutants. He knew their moment would rely primarily on timing and distance.
They crept to the edge of the deepest shadows in the cave, and watched the dancing pairs of insects scuffle on the cave floor as they fought their rough courtship. There was no pattern in their movements to speak of, how could there be, but the Traveller counted their coming and going all the same. One pair would rise and another would land, three seconds apart, the next gap would be five seconds. If anything he was counting the breaths of his luck and willing the moment to last.
And then the pair of Cazadores directly before them lifted, and the Traveller lept from the shadows, literally pulling the boy along with him lest his body fail him.
They darted like rabbits between the rocks, praying that their drowning choir were duly preoccupied with the daily musings of mutant wasps.
Together they stood exposed at the center of the hive, bathed in the glorious beam of sunlight peaking from between the mountain peaks above, regularly snatched from them by a locust swarm of black insect bodies.
In hardly a few split seconds they would both be spotted, and in Lari's mind a diving squadron would be soon ontop of them. The racketing wings were everywhere, above around and inside their heads; those thunderous clacks beat so furiously they seemed to vibrate their very bones.
Which was perhaps why Lari's sweaty palms fumbled the cigarrete lighter, it's little silver body slipping through his fingers, costing precious free moments of their surprise attack.
Time seemed to stop along with his leaping heart as the tiny instrument danced and weaved around his slicked up digits, threatening to jump off and get itself lost in the cave. In a sudden bout of desperation, the boy quickly closed his arms around his chest, jamming the lighter into his chest, and allowing him to wipe off all that nasty sweat coating his fingers.
Next time he was a lot more careful about handling the device, striking the switch and lighting his Dynamite's wick with overly careful movements.
He made to pass the lit lighter over to his companion only to find the Traveller waiting for him patiently with the muzzle of his laser pistol pressed against the wicks of a whole handful of dynamite in his hand.
With a shared communion of eyes and an inciting nod, they both thew their payloads. Lari's was a single lobbed stick between two of the largest insect hives he could see, the Traveller's was a wide arch of scattered sticks saturating a wide berth across the entire grotto.
The Traveller ducked into a fetal crouch pulling the boy with him. Just in time for the first popping stick to explode, drowing out the cacophany of wings with a halting plume of violence. Then others joined in, like a fire cracker of carnage, stringing a procession of eye-shattering crashes and bangs that showered the cowering pair of them in increasingly heavy rains of dirt clumps and hard rock.
Once the show had ceased the ringing in their ears bought a moment of buzzing peace, before the flurry of wings roared up again, more furious than ever; and Lari could see why. Just as they had planned, hundreds of Cazadores had recoiled in shock and took to the sky hole at the highest egress of the cave. The larger, older Cazadores squeezed out of their hives, and their young, too weak to carry their little black bodies with fledgling wings, struggled to climb themselves up the cave walls to escape their loud death. Maybe the even younger could not even make it out of their dens. Lari had no time to process that possibility though, as red beams of firey death were already incinerating holes in each hive, quickly caughting into flames.
It's can be hard for an objective observer to feel bad for the maggots that were burning in their homes, but Lari saw only children and managed to shoulder a weight of guilt anyway. The Traveller held no such qualms. He had lived up to his end of the bargin, given them fair warning to run, and now took to eradicating the last of their number with a grim statisfaction. Each laser shot was exacting and perfect, taking but a single spark to start lasting fires. And in the twenty seconds of disorganised insect flapping he managed to wreathe the whole cave in heavy flames.
Then a giant black blur zipped from the shadows and collided with the boy. Crushing the wind out of his lungs with their immense charging force and sending him tumbling across the hard rocks.
Black spots popped all over his view as his forcibly deflated lungs strugged to reoxygenate his swimming head. All shapes and colours seemed to swirl into a mush, occasionally cut by brilliant straight beams of glittering scarlet ricocheting off the cavern rocks in strict angles.
His brain focused on those lights, bought them into defintion, and then the world around them, as his shattered sense stitched back together. Just in time to see his guide, the Traveller, struggling beneath the giant black body of a Cazador furiously fluttering in pain.
Every manic laser shot the Traveller could sneak in, through bouts of battering away the wasps stabbing abdonminal stinger with his boots, burnt readily blackening holes through the thin membrane of those orange Cazadore wings.
Lari watched helplessly from his sat spot as the mortal struggle before reminding himself that he did not need to be helpless.
A Pathfinder would never be helpless.
The boy slung his hunting rifle from his shoulder strap, wrangled down the firing bolt and snapped it back to the wooden stock. Then he planted that rilfe-butt carefully in the crook his his shoulder, squinted down the rangefinder and squeezed the trigger.
With a metallic pop the rifle fired a powerful 308. round which struck right through the struggling Cazadore's upper mass.
That impact threw the bug from the Traveller and sent it crashing into a heap. The Traveller was quick on the advantage- he sprang up, slipped his Caravan shotgun from it's strap and braced it on his forearm, then blasted a spray of magnum buckshot.
Exploding buckshot blew the Cazador's head apart in a sickly haze of yellow vicera. A short lived victory as two more black-bodied warrior insects broke from the fleeing flurry of wasps and flew down to the defence.
The two bugs danced and weaved in synchronised descending spirals before shifting their weight into a death plunge for Lari, stingers beared.
With some hunting experience behind him, the boy knew the tricks of shooting, but not for creatures charging him down. Typically fauna knew to fear and flee the 'rocket sticks', shooting at an active aggressor bought it's own entirely new pressures.
Pressures that struck at Lari's nerves.
He clumisly swung his rifle to the sky, with the glare of the outside sun peaking through the wasp swarm enough to poke and blind at his eyes, and fired a wild shot.
A shot that flew right by both assilants and off into the sky.
The closer of the two Cazadore warriors, black spirals imprinted on it's orange wings, darted at the boy. It's monstorous black body smothered the sun from the sky as it beared down on the boy.
Until a second buckshot blast blew the creature off course and sent it crashing down into a crumbled mess on the rocks.
That Cazadore's wing-bug, with dotted-pattern wings, recognised the more present threat it's partner has just suffered from. It twisted abruptly in the air on it's jittery wings and careend itself right at the Traveller and his freshly emptied barrel.
Before he could react the black bug slammed it's body into the man, driving a long, sharp pincer directly into his gut as it went. Like a jagged tooth, the oversized knife tail stabbed right through his vest plates and drove through the soft flesh into his stomach.
He gasped as the sudden stabbing shock loosed every muscle in his body, dropping the deadly shotgun to the cave floor and gritting his teeth as every sinew tensed in a sudden surge of struggle.
In a flash of practised fingers, he whipped the bowie knife he kept in his belt and stabbed it's wide blade with wild abandon into the black body of the wasp twice his size, whilst his other hand reached around the mutant, grabbed a chunk of it's hairs and forced the stinger deeper into his gut, stopping the Cazador from wiggling free.
Spasming and twisting more and more every time the man drove his shining blade through it's tough skin, the fear of death dawned on the mutant. In as much understanding as any insect can possess, it base-most instinct suffered the ferocity of the wounded man and it's flight response won out.
It pulled and beat it's orange dotted wings with an impossible strength, wrenching itself and it's stinger out of the Traveller in a sudden motion like the stopper being pulled from a full drain. He felt as though all his intestines might have fallen out from his stomach in a single mad moment, before sense wrestled it's way past the agonising waves.
As the Cazadore rushed to take into the air, that knife-weilding maniac lurched forth, swiping one powerful vertical slash up the length of it's aft wing. The huge slicing blade of the Bowie Knife cut through the thin wing membrane like a ribbon, shortening the bug's flight and sending it flapping back down into an inelegant scamble on it's side.
Pressing the advantage, the Traveller bit down on his lip and fell atop the flailing beast, clambouring up it's huge form and stabbing wide gashes as he went. Until he crawled enough along to reach it's head, there he devoted a single driven plunge and twist belong the neck with enough force to pop it's round head off like a bottle cap.
His foe defeated, and adreanline thinning throughout his blood, the Traveller fought his ailing body for one last spur so that he could draw his 12.7mm pistol from his belt holster and point it directly towards Lari. The boy hardly had time to flinch before the heavy pistol shot flew right past his head and blasted a deadly hole through the body of the, swirling-wing Cazadore, which had just started to stir out of it's daze.
Only then did The Traveller fall unconscious.
Lari clamoured up to go help him, but as the overbearing buzz of the hive started to die with the last of the evacuees, the distinctive flutterings of the Warriors who stayed behind became more apparent. Three more coursed through the sky and then circled down upon the two of them, and only Lari had the presence of mind to defend the pair. He had missed a shot before, and for a second doubt wrestled against the length of his barrel; but a Pathfinder must never doubt.
The wasps had slipped from the pack just before thier number broke from the roof of the grotto and into the mountains, giving the boy time to properly attune his shots.
He assumed the shooter's stance, straight back and gun butt in shoulder, picked his shot through the gunsight and took to judging the rythym of their decent just like he had once learned to match the rise and fall of a galloping radstag. Their black bodies melted against the dark rocks, but those bright orange wings served as perfect sight liners, even as they fluttered with crazed abandon.
Just as the hunter knows before the arrow leaves it's nock if the shot has made his target, did Lari know the shot had connected before the first of the three Cazadores stiffened and fell from the sky in a graceless thud.
It's two friends dived, unfazed by their fallen comrade, applying their weight into dropping like deadly focused darts.
The boy cocked his bolt and adjusted his sight. Sweat had already begun accumilating on his fingertips, muddling the precision of his hands as the bugs beared down on him.
Their bodies had streamlined in their charge, making their target smaller and the shot harder. He could not miss again or he would not get the chance for another shot.
His eyes bleared, his mouth dried, but his barrel remained steady as they lined up the first of his frantic last line of defence.
Then two perfectly placed glistening noisy red leaser beams cut through each one, burning holes through their wings and sending the wasps careening and collapsing like falling rocks. They crashed into slumps, hitting the rock with a audible crunch.
The Traveller,having granted himself but a few seconds to pass out before dragging himself back into consciousness, waved his pistol delriously as the man wiped his sweat drenched face with his equally filthy free-arm.
The man carefully got up on unsteady legs, then took his time equally emptying the reminder of his Energy Cell pack into the wasps crumpled and broken forms; executing the deadly bugs.
Taking his example, Lari followed suit with the first warrior he had successfully shot. Ensuring the stunned would remain silenced.
Once the last of those franticly chittering Cazadore wings fell dead, a empty hush settled across the grotto, like the somber silence that hangs over a graveyard, broken only by the crackling of lapping flames as they ate apart the insect nests from the inside out. Lari stood alone amidst the still pit of dead insects strewing in pool of their own yellowish blood, except for the keeling form of the Traveller, doubled over and grabbing the wound in his stomach.
Lari hurried over to assist.
"Don't move." The boy told him. "We need to adminster an antivenom and drain some of the blood before it reaches the heart. I think-" He tried to summon to mind those clammy summer afternoons with a slightly less-grey Pinac as the old sage crushed together flowers plucked from the ground for demonstration. Lessons he and other kids had more endured than learned from. "-Maybe we need some Broc Flower and- and..."
"Xander Root." The Traveller grunted roughly. Though battered, the man refused Lari's shoulder and instead commanded the boy to hold on with a raised finger. The man rapped hard against the hard plates on his stomach and took several loud chesty coughs until he could cough up something phlegmy and black to spit onto the rocks. "Don't trouble yourself. I'll be fine."
"N- No, you won't!" They call this 'delirium', as the toxins wrack your system so roughly that the wires get crossed in your head, and the victim starts to think the pain is dying down. It is usually swiftly followed by death. "The stinger hit you directly in the stomach, if the poison is bad enough- that could kill you in minutes if it manages to reach your heart!"
The Stranger heard his words, read the concern in the boys eyes, and just laughed. It was no healthy laugh, racking and coughing like he was, but it was still a mocking chortle in the very real face of death. Somehow that scared Lari more, the ease to which a insect's toxins could break a healthy man's mind. How many times had old Pinac warned him of the dangers of hunting off in the brush alone; this must be how the old man pictured finding him.
"You're got the right head on, kid." The Traveller said, neatly condescending Lari. "But save your bellyaching for someone who needs it. This right here-" he rapped his ribcage, right over his heart. "It's metal. Synthetic. Courtesy of modern technology. It filters toxins right out of my blood, I actually couldn't get drunk when it first went in. Took a little tweaking." The Traveller took a moment to fondly remember that night, half out of his mind on Med-X and directing a folksy Auto-doc through his own open heart surgery. "But the point is I'm fine. Totally. I wouldn't have taken that Stinger for you if I wasn't, even I'm not that crazy!" He winked warmly, but all Lari felt was cold.
"Metal? Your heart is... a robot?"
"No! Well kinda... but more like- synthetic. It's a fake heart. Hop around the wastes long enough and you're bound to wrack up all types of cuts and bruises, replacing a body part here or there ain't no great crime. Heck, ten years more of this kind of work and it won't be long before I'm more machine than man." The idea seemed to make him shiver, though he had no idea why.
Lari, on the otherhand, shivered with full cognisance. If his heart was not real than what did that make him? What kind of a man can live without the seat of their very being? Chief Cede always used to say things like "Have heart", "You have a strong heart" and "That took heart". The soul of a warrior was born and nurtured in the heart. Those with blackened and diseased hearts were little more than beasts, directionless, moral-less; it was that future Lari feared for himself more than anything else. But someone totally devoid of it altogether... where they even alive? Somehow this revelation disturbed Lari much more than the image of a broken man laughing himself to death in front of him.
The Traveller saw the fear in Lari's eyes and softened his face. "Hey, Lari you did good today; you know that? You held your nerve and stood up to some of the worst creatures ever to crawl out of that radioactive slop we call the Wastes; I've seen men twice your age brown their britches and break down in tears when slapped into spots just as bad as ours. You showed guts."
The boy nodded slowly. "The Pathfinder is fearless." Lari recited some of Cede's words.
"Well, I don't know about that." The Traveller smiled. "But this Pathfinder made for a decent shooting partner today."
For the next hour the Traveller and Lari combed the huge emptied grotto, open to the reddening skies, for any lingering survivors before patrolling the many protruding little cave systems that directly connected to it through various wall cracks. Most were not big enough to fit people, let alone the girthy Cazadores, but they found a couple of Stragglers that stood little chance between the two of them. As the blacked hives finally began to shrivel to nothing and break apart, the Traveller deemed the space clear enough to lead the tribes in before it got too dark out in the valley.
The Displaced had moved many times and despite their sprawling camp it only took twenty minutes for everyone to pack up and prepare, although that time Lari spent gently coaxing the Plains people who had never lived a day not under the sky into the bowels of the mountain caves, had them still herding the last of the clan when the last of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. Before following them himself, Lari took the time to climb a short ways up the cliff face until he could reach a vantage that peaked out over the flat stretch of land above their cove, so that he could scan the meeting line between sky and land one last time. It might be some days yet before they would have such a clear view of what was behind them. In the back of his mind, he saw the tops of banners poking out from the skyline, bearing thee black arrowheads cut with a single sharp strike.
Squeezing through the rocks was a bracing experience for many of the Tribesfolk. Some of the youngest cried loudly, clutching their mother's hands, whilst the oldest wept silently fearing for a sky they were not ready to forsake. Which is why so many of them breathed deep sighs to find their night's camp would be in the huge cavernous grotto under the hole in the mountain, a vantage for them to sleep under the stars for one last night.
A peace that would no doubt be a damn sight more elusive if any of them knew they rested on the former breeding hives of bug demons.
The camp was quieter than usual, children were less eager to run around lest they get swallowed by the cave's shadows and the mature folk preferred to spend their time in quiet gratitude than chatter. All except for the ring tents of the elders, who remained about as demure and reserved as they usually were. Pinac said that was just how all people tended to get when they were older, tired enough to be miserable, miserable enough to be taciturn. Lari liked to think he would never get tired of being around his Tribe. That night, however, tiredness weighed on his bones and kept him far away from Catha, the only kid actually excited to be exploring a whole new world.
As the Tribes had been kind enough to set up his own tent, albeit somewhat away from the others and not even technically under the skies, since they had cramped up every last available spot of 'under the sky' space, the Traveller made to entreat with the elders once again. Sitting respectfully at the space encompassed by their semi circle and partaking, once more, in his black coffee libations. The cave was too stuffy for the elders to brew their drink as they liked, in smoking cauldrons of soot that curled up your nose and stung your eyes, but they substituted the brining with a shimmering flash-heating instead.
"You've done us a great kindness, Traveller" Old man Pinac spoke when the younger had finished the bout of involuntary facial spasms usually expected along with black coffee consumption.
"Mmhmm, ain't no need to be thanking anyone yet. We're got plenty more tunnel to traverse ahead."
"You have bled for us." The Seer said, noting The Traveller's tightly bandaged waistband that Lari had insisted on wrapping. "That is much more than we asked or expected."
"And yet no more than I expected." The Travelled flashed his wicked grin. "No Job these days comes without a bit of bloodshed and struggle. Actually, come to think of it I can't think I ever remember not trading blows over a job."
"Never?" The old man's eyes fogged like the dusty windows of some blown out shack. "That must have been a hard life."
"No harder than yours." The Traveller said. "I've seen the type of devastation Caser's Legion engenders first-hand and the tribes it guts and leaves broken. But I've never seen so many chased tribes come together and flee their powers like you all have. I'll admit, it makes me a mite curious."
"We were not fast allies. Not as we should have been." Pinac replied. The pale woman beside the seer looked over and silently chorused his sentiment with a sad bow of the head. "In fact, at first us of the Dead Trees reaped nothing but suspicion for the tribes who encroached in our valley. Not only did they bring with them portents of the Dread Bull and the many tribes crushed under them, but they brought their own naivete and imbalances too. Remember that for generations our ecosystem was an art of balance: Chief, Seer and Foreman, all primed to understand the fragile bounties of our basin and how to most carefully exploit them. Hunting only the flocks that threatened to unbalance the food chain, laying just enough crops to feed our young without exhausting the soil. For decades our biggest concern was managing the population growth so that our Tribe never outgrew what our basin could provide, and then an entire tribe of starving hungry Doves arrived to upset that balance."
Pale Coloumbia hung her head with lingering shame. "We were undisciplined to the scarcities of nature."
"As are all children." Pinac agreed, grimacing even deeper lines into his wrinkles. "But our children were long taught to bear the weight of responsible living before we handed them guns. It was hardly a week after their arrival that the Doves were decimating the Ragstag populace, and our people were enraged. Rumour sparked about these 'newcomer devils', accusations that the Doves were agents of Bull sent to starve us dead in our homes! Foul, vile stories. Such that even my council fell deaf to most of the Dead Trees. Most, but not Cede. Never Cede. My boy would always search for the best in the least, and when I told him our Dove neighbours were just misguided, he alone listened.
When Chief Cede announced his intentions to reach out and incorporate the Doves into our numbers, teach our ways to them for the betterment of us all, dissenters stopped speaking in the open. They held their venom in their hearts instead of their tongues. And I-" Pinac gaze drooped low. "Came to sympathise with them. The Doves were scared and foolish, but I did not need to consult my other son to know; the Valley could by no means sustain us both. When the next Tribe arrived in our valley, fleeing the same demons, we started to feel like prime game caught in our own snare. That was when I knew we would one day have to leave."
The Traveller's demeanour darkened. "And only Chief Cede couldn't see the inevitable shortages?"
The Seer shook his head. "I could not say. Cede was a righteous boy, and so certain of his morals. If he had doubts, he shared them with no one. Not even me."
"I can only hope he didn't." The younger man said, poking at the dregs of his black coffee cup. "Otherwise what you're telling me is that your Chief knowingly jeopardised the future of both your clans by accepting a burden his Tribe couldn't possibly bear!"
Coloumbia felt compelled to speak up." Chief Cede only meant to provide brief shelter to our hunted people. I told him of the many from our best who had been strung up, broken, on Caesar's crosses; he knew our expulsion would mean death."
"Maybe." The Traveller scowled. "But accepting your numbers ensured a slower but no less-as-certain death for both of your tribes, and any more who showed up, smothering you all under his false veneer of hope. All because some self-righteous fool couldn't contain his saviour complex long enough to absorb the repercussions of playing 'hero', endangering everyone in the process!"
The Traveller spat his venomous condemnation with bitter spite, consumed by some dark shadow of his usually affable self. Upon recognising the slightly taken aback faces of the Elder circle, The Traveller snapped out of himself and corrected his posture. "I'm sorry, that was rude of me."
But the Elder was not an easily disturbed man. He nodded grimly. "Yours is not the first voice I heard say very similar words. One raised to be the leader of all, like Cede was under me, would always have trouble peeling cold realism from gleaming idealism. I only wish I had the foresight to teach him how to navigate both"
The Traveller shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Seer, I didn't mean to-"
Sudden violent, throaty coughs racked the old man, the other Elders startled in alarm and Coloumbia tried to reach out, but the Seer refused her help. He held the fabric of his chest clothes to catch the ugly wheezes until their convulsions ran still. When Pinac pulled the material away, it was stained red.
"We have spoken a great deal, but you and Lari have much more Pathfinding to conduct in the morning." The Seer explained, frail as a cobweb. "I do not wish to deprive you of well earned rest. Please, sleep." Those were his last words for the night, as Coloumbia helped the old man to retire in his own tent.
The Traveller suffered little sleep that night as he considered the state the old man was last in, and the story he had told him. The Traveller had seen more than a few with coughs that drew blood, and none of them tended to last all that long, even with access to proper medical care. Here under a mountain in the middle of nowhere... it made for a grim portent.
