Frost blanketed the plains in a thin layer, stretching out for miles into the distance. Ugnok could tell it was morning by the faint lightness on the horizon. Turning he picked his way back down the side of his hilltop vantage point into the valley the tribe called home. The ritualistic greeting of the sun he had performed all these years as a tribal shaman seemed less important these days, and nobody paid enough attention to his comings or going to notice his lapse of duty anyway. Rather than huddle on a cold ridge he could be searching for mushrooms or getting a nap before the tribe packed up camp to head out on the trail.
Some of the elders had suggested just staying until the bounty of deer that filled the area were depleted, but it wasn't like anywhere else they had gone was worse. Maybe they would head back toward the caves. Ugnok had always loved the caves, especially as a child. His mother told him to stay by the campfire and not wander into the dark places as a child, but he never listened. The first time he fell down a hole, he panicked, calling out for someone, anyone. Nobody came; hours passed. Feeling around he had crawled back up and out, worse a few bruises and cuts. The second time he fell from higher, knocked himself out, and had to guess where he needed to climb. He did not fall a third time. Since then his hands were calloused as much from the ceremonial knife as from ascending and descending ridges like this and the caves of his youth.
By the time he had reached the bottom, the top of the hill was lit up, sendiing out a long shadow stretching like a finger across the valley. He might have gone up one of the smaller hills, but this one was less forested at the top, and closer to camp anyway. Ugnok took the long way back anyway. No need to be the first one stirring in camp if he couldn't help it. When he did arrive, the fire was back, blazing to heat the deer they killed the day before. Ulna tended it with Urutar sitting close by watching and waiting.
Ugnok thought his friend's fascination with fire probably rivaled his own with darkness, possibly in a significant way, if his old teacher had lived to see it grow. Sabre-teeth don't mind stringy men in funny outfits for breakfast though. "What signs does the sun bring us, Shaman?" Urutar said, looking up from the fire. For a hunter, he had a great gift in noticing things sneaking up on him, though all the ones who lived long shared that trait or were paranoid to the point of perfection. "The frost covers the plains and soon melts at the movement of the sun. The signs point to good weather and a fine catch at before sundown," Ugnok replied as he sat down next to Urutar. His teacher had at least taught him the basics of telling the fortune. Seeing hundreds of suns rise and set didn't hurt his bluff either. "Like the sun, we must move, following the finger out across the valley."
Ugnok knew that the elders could hear him in their huts around the central fire, for they surely were awake, though still in their furs. They may not hold much personal respect for him, but he was the shaman, so they kept their ears open. It helped when he agreed with them. "We must eat quickly then. Come, the meat is hot now." Urutar pulled his knife out, cutting off a chunk of the deer and splitting it in two. Ugnok managed to catch Ulna's subtle sigh and eyeroll before she left to rouse the others. She had doubtless been kept waiting by Urutar claiming it wasn't hot enough, knowing he really just wanted to watch the way the fire flamed a bit longer.
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