---Ksem’s perspective---

  “Aaaaand where are you going?” I hear the shamaness ask someone through the walls of the hut, waking me up.

  “I’m waking him up!… We need to leave later and, if he sleeps to nearly noon (like his people apparently have no problem with) we might not-”

  “Absolutely not!” the old woman interrupts.

  “But grandmother…!” Raala objects.

  “No ‘buts’! It’s bad luck and bad manners to pull a man out of bed the morning after a celebration in his honour! I won’t allow it in this hearthstead!”

  There is a silence for a few moments as I imagine the strong, young woman and the aged, venerable one staring eachother down on the other side of the door curtain.

  “…FINE!” Raala finally relents “Don’t blame me if his laziness makes us miss the light and we have to stay here another night for it, though!”

  Relieved that I’m not about to be hauled from my bed and thrown into the snow again, I snuggle down beneath my cloak.

  I don’t drift back off… I just enjoy the cosiness for another 1,728 heartbeats or so.

  Eventually, I decide I simply need to bite the sling stone and get up.

  I rise from my slumber, groaning as I stretch up my arms and flex my back… then stop… and sniff…

  “*Pugh*!” I grimace as I catch a whiff of myself.

  Though it wasn’t on me for long, the stink of the blood that spread over nearly my entire body last night still clings to me, mixing with the sweat from the dancing and feasting to create a none too pleasant stench!

  I rise to my feet, step to the door and emerge from the empty sleeping hut.

  The only one I see is the brunette assistant to the shamaness, sat beside the ashy hearth watching as her baby raises himself to a supported standing position on one of the (to him) chest height ringstones.

  She jumps to her feet as she sees me and (clearly intimidated) asks “Bear Bane…! Sir…! Is there…? Can I… help you with… anything?”

  I smile down at her and say “Actually, Wulra… would you be able to direct me to-Ah-ah!” breaking off at the sight of the boy scooping up a handful of ash and trying to bring it to his mouth.

  The mother startles but manages to swiftly intercept the offending arm before the inedible powder can reach her son’s lips.

  “Korbuuuuuuuu!” she chides, wrestling his fingers open to brush the ash out of his palm.

  Scooping him up while keeping his ashy hand detained in hers, she returns her attention to me, looking very embarrassed.

  “Deepest apologies, Sir. You were saying?”

  “No problem at all!… I was just wondering if I could trouble you for some warm water and a private place to wash myself?” I ask, realising as I do that there’s no fire lit currently.

  Frowning regretfully, she gestures the pit to her left and apologises “I’m sorry, Sir… I’ve yet to clean out last night’s fire… Until I have, we can’t light another… buuuuut…”

  “But?” I smile.

  “Well… if you don’t mind a bit of an uphill walk, Sir, I know a place where you’ll have both warm water and privacy?”

  ---later---

  I’ve died…

  I’ve died and, despite apparently having practiced the wrong religion, been rewarded with a paradise regardless(!)

  I lie back against the bank of this mountainside hot pool, staring up at the ceiling of overhanging rock.

  ‘Privacy’ is a slightly relative term, given that, looking North, I can see all the way to where Wulra told me Golden Eagle’s territory gives way to Elk’s, but there’s certainly no one close enough that I need to be concerned.

  The water does have the slightest whiff of rotten egg to my nose but, she assured me, it is clean and doesn’t smell that way to anyone who’s regularly used a hotspring enough in their life.

  The full body relaxation of this warmth, unlike anything I’ve experienced since arriving in these lands, is more than worth the slightly peculiar smell!

  I really never want to leave this pool!

  But… of course… I can already see Raala’s fury if I waste the whole morning and keep us stranded at her grandmother’s until tomorrow(!)

  I sigh and, gritting my teeth, rise from the water.

  The utter bliss still being experienced by my feet and calves is replaced by torture in the rest of my body as the wind immediately rips away all the warmth the pool gave me!

  I’m instantly shivering and hurriedly reach for the buckskin towel I brought.

  Stepping out of the pool and rushing to the side, out of the wind, I dry off every last fingerwidth of my wet skin.

  I take particular care to ring out my dreads as, I know if I don’t, the trapped water will make them mildewy… and no one wants that!

  Once I’m as dry as I think I’m going to get, I grab my clothes and quickly get myself redressed.

  I breathe a sigh of relief that, even though my clothes are cold from not being worn for the last 1,152 heartbeats, my skin is at least a bit shielded from the chill wind that blows up here above the treeline…

  I sling my quiver over my cloak, onto my back, and pick up my bow.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  I look down the snowblanketed mountainside to the forest where I know Golden Eagle Hearthstead is.

  “Well… time to head back…” I announce to myself before stepping out from the shelter of the overhang.

  I haven’t made it more than 12 paces, however, when my attention is captured by something I didn’t notice before…

  A little more than an arrow shot away, I see a stone… painted in six colours.

  Curious, I start towards it up the slope.

  As I approach, I’m able to make out the shapes that have been painted there.

  They’re footprints.

  I recognise the charcoal black of Bison, the chalk white of Wolf, the orange ochre of Golden Eagle and the malachite green of Moufflon.

  The umber brown and the haematite red footprints must be for Boar and Elk… though I couldn’t guess which was which.

  What on earth is this doing here?

  I’ve never seen six different footprints all lined up and pointing the same way before!

  The most I’ve seen in one place was three, down South. It marked the tripoint of the territories of three clans, each footprint pointing down the path to that clan’s hearthstead.

  All six stacked up and pointed in the same direction like this suggests, whatever this place is, it isn’t just common land… it’s a jointly owned condominium of all the clans of the Plateau?

  I consider just asking about it when I get back to Golden Eagle… then decide that… well, since I’m already heeeeere… I might as well have a look at least…?

  As of yesterday, I’m an honorary Plateauman… meaning this place is as much for my eyes as anyone’s, right?

  No harm in looking, so long as I don’t touch or take anything… and when am I going to be here again!?

  ---Raala’s perspective---

  “Outlander!” I shout angrily from down the path, below the lip of the steaming hot pool “It’s time to GO! Get out, dry off, get dressed and let’s get moving!”

  No answer comes, save the whistling of the wind.

  “Have you fallen asleep in the water?! You’ll get HEATSTROKE like that, idiot!!!”

  Still no answer.

  “I’m coming up!… If I see your dick in the course of saving your life, it WON’T make me your woman, alright(!?)”

  Honestly! Wulra should’ve just told him to deal with being a bit smelly!

  Telling him about this place halfway to the Cave of Bones, when she knew we had a deadline, is thoughtless at best and sabotage at worst(!)

  My head rises above the steaming water.

  I frown slightly as I realise there’s no break in the surface. There’s no flat, brown skinned face and ropey black hair visible.

  OK, maybe he’s just holding his breath?

  I get right up to the edge of the water and, from this angle, am able to see that this pool is completely absent its outlander!

  I feel the briefest wash of disappointment, followed immediately by alarm at that last feeling, followed by me reassuring myself that the disappointment is just for the extra time it’s going to take to find him now…

  Definitely didn’t have anything to do with losing the opportunity to see him naked! A thought so ludicrous, I immediately throw it away and resolve never to think it again!

  Anyway, where’s that idiot lanklet?

  Did he get lost on his way here?

  I look around and quickly spot a very distinctive, long, slim, crescent shaped wet footprint on a rock… disconfirming the idea that he never made it here.

  My people touch our whole foot to the ground with each step, you’d need a foot that looked like the inside half of the sole had been carved off to leave a print that shape… and he’s the only person I know within a week’s travel to have soles like that!

  Where is he then?

  If he was done here, he should’ve come back and I would’ve run into him on the path!

  Narrowing my eyes, I walk left, around the water, and come under the overhang where the wind dies.

  Then, I spot it.

  A shoed footprint, broken through the virgin snow… not pointed to Golden Eagle… pointed the other way… up the mountain… to…

  “Oh nooooooo!” I groan, breaking into a run to follow the nosey cretin!

  ---Ksem’s perspective---

  OK, so… I took a torch… but that was clearly what they were in that box for!

  They’re obviously for lighting the way in this cave! I’ll be in and out in a few hundred heartbeats, I’ll extinguish it in the snow and no one will know the difference!

  I can’t not see what’s in this cave at this point!

  I step forward.

  The flame flickers as I pass inside.

  Soon, the light begins illuminating symbols painted all over the walls.

  I recognise the meaning of a few of these ideographs but the rest are ones Old Red either didn’t know himself or just never taught me.

  Some of them are so high up the walls that even I wouldn’t be able to reach that far! Those must have been made with some kind of ladder or scaffold, I suppose?

  Some look like they’ve been painted (or at least touched up) in the last few years… some look much older!

  I find myself wondering, as I often did with Old Red, whether these symbols could one day be expanded to allow a person to paint any message onto a surface that they could say with their mouths… and quickly dismiss the idea with a chuckle, remembering his answer to that ‘Who would ever have time to learn that many symbols!? Even shamanesses only have one lifetime! Even if someone did, it would be no good at all if it was just one person who knew them, would it! You’d need many to all have learned the same symbols and then be able to keep those straight with themselves and eachother!… I don’t think a system like that would ever work! Life’s just too short for it!’

  I look to my left where a tunnel heads off what I think is East?

  It’s marked as a path, so I guess it must lead somewhere?

  I hear a faint rumbling echoing from it… Hmmm… Maybe let’s not go that way(?)

  I turn back to the Southward corridor.

  Another few steps bring an absolutely foul stink to my nostrils.

  “*Ugh*!” I gag loudly on the stench of death as my suspicion about what might be causing it is confirmed by seeing a symbol I recognise.

  A handprint would normally signify ‘I was here’… but not this one…

  Rather than pigmenting their palm, pressing it to the wall and withdrawing it cleanly, the artist slid it to their right, smudging out the pigment until there was none left…

  I remember Old Red teaching me this symbol, the day after my mother’s funeral… dipping his hand in the Great River and sliding it across a dry stone.

  ‘I was here… and am no longer…’

  I’ve stumbled on the six clans’ mortuary cave.

  Shame wells up in my stomach as I realise just what a trespass I’ve committed.

  What exactly was I even hoping to find?! An entrance to their Forest of Plenty(!?)

  Cycle damn my curiosity!

  OK, I just need to leave, put back the torch, head back to the hearthstead and not tell anyone I came h-

  “OOOOUTLANDEEEEEEEER!” a fearsome voice echoes through the cave, briefly terrifying me into thinking I might be about to be smote by a powerful local god, proving their existence to me, a moment before ending my life and sending my essence to be chewed on for all time for my intrusion on this sacred place(!)

  Echoing footsteps quickly reassure me that my pursuer is at least mortal… a relief that lasts until the exact moment I see her face!

  Raala is charging towards me in the pitch black cave, her torch illuminating her expression.

  Her features immediately make me flash back to that cedar forest where I was nearly gutted.

  Her eyes are full of that same mix of fear, fury and hatred as that man’s were… and she has her spear in her hand.

  My mind is not involved in the decision.

  I’m sprinting away down the rumbling passageway before I know what’s happening.

  ---Raala’s perspective---

  “NOT THAT WAY! IDIOT! COME BACK!!!” I shout at the moron who (after he was done freezing like a startled deer(!)) sprinted for the worst direction he possibly could have!

  He doesn’t answer.

  He either didn’t hear me over his own panic or did but decided he can’t spare the breath.

  I’m gaining on him, just a few more moments and…

  *Boom* the stone above us shifts in a way stone should not shift!

  The idiot once again does exactly the worst thing he could do! He skids to a halt!

  He wheels in place but, understanding that neither of us have any chance of making it back the way we came, I aim my shoulder for his midriff.

  With no time to dodge around me, his feet are lifted off the ground with the force of the impact.

  Still charging forward, I scream, desperately trying to put as much distance behind me as possible before I trip or overbalance.

  Then my toes strike a rock.

  I come down on top of him as the entire mountain collapses around us!

  Wulra |