Glade and Ivory Ch. 20

Chapter Twenty

Glade was by far the villager least visibly upset by the discovery that the winter route was blocked. While the chief and his most experienced hunters spent the rest of the day and all the next exploring and evaluating the few limited options available to them, she was preoccupied in checking the health and well-being of the woman and children. While Ivory anxiously gnawed on the last morsel of aurochs meat when the village gathered around the fire at the end of the day, Glade seemed comparatively unruffled.

"I suppose this disaster is as nothing compared to the trials and tribulationsyou'vebeen through," Ivory said almost bitterly.

Glade smiled and placed a loving hand on Ivory's cross-legged knee. "That's all too true, my darling. Be of good cheer. It is by trials such as this that you learn to cope with all that life can throw at you."

"We will starve if we don't find somewhere to stay in the winter months before the worst descends on us from the North," Ivory wailed. "Everything and everyone I've ever loved or known will perish under the snow, left to be eaten by wolves and vultures."

Glade knew better than to disparage Ivory's anxieties by comparing it with those she and Demure had suffered on their travels north. The mismatched couple's wandering soon led them to a company of desert wanderers who understood not one word from Glade's and Demure's growing repertoire of languages and although they were generally friendly, it became obvious that this wasn't a community with which the pair could remain for even as much as half a moon.

For the next year or so, the two itinerants continued to roam northwards with no opportunity to settle down. The ocean was to their left and the endless dust and dirt of the desert to their right. They trudged sometimes through sand, sometimes through woodland, but more often over patchy bush and savannah. On occasion they followed the path of a river that took them deep inland, but as both women now knew better how to find food from the shore than from the desert as soon as an opportunity presented itself they would cross the river and resume their journey on the other bank. They never travelled with a purpose beyond the need to find a place to rest for the night. Everywhere they came across was either uninhabitable or already inhabited, so the couple's northward pursuit was essentially to find a community in which they could make their home. It soon became clear that food and shelter was most easily available on the beaches and shores that were constrained by ocean to the West and by inhospitable desert to the East. This desert became steadily more formidable as they advanced north. The sand was often so fine that it was impossible to walk on it, even if their feet could endure its burning heat by day and the constant risk of treading on a scorpion in the evening.

Just where did Glade and Demure hope to finally find? At first, it was obvious. They needed to find a home for themselves. But as they moved from one village to the next, such a relatively modest ambition seemed increasingly out of reach. The villagers had little to spare to feed a pair of alien women who couldn't even speak their language. Furthermore, since no tribe they encountered had skin as dark as Demure's, her complexion was usually enough for villagers to be superstitiously wary of both women. And this was despite Demure's willingness to trade her physical beauty to whatever demands the men (or sometimes women) might make. Another much more disturbing pattern was that the further north the two women wandered along the shore, the more sparse the population and the scarcer the supply of food.

"We have to continue walking every day simply to find enough to eat," Glade complained bitterly as the two women trudged under the shadow of scattered palm trees between the sands and pebbles on the shore and the expanse of sand that stretched eastwards to their right. "If we rest for long, we'll exhaust all the little that the spirits have provided for us."

"And very mean the spirits are too," said Demure bitterly. "Perhaps soon we'll have nothing to eat at all."

Glade was convinced that this could not be true. Surely somewhere ahead of them the desert would give way to forest and savannah. Surely there would again be plentiful game and verdant pastures. Perhaps there would once more be villages and people amongst whom Glade and Demure could live. And, if not that, perhaps somewhere they could live with only one another for company and what little of their nerves that the other hadn't frayed to shreds.

What did Glade and Demure have to eat? There was the occasional flesh of fish and turtle the two women managed to net in the sea; a more reliable diet of shellfish and seaweed; small insects and grubs from rotting trees; and sometimes dates and other fruit dropped down from trees onto the sandy shore. The larger animals they saw were either out at sea, such as dolphins, manatees and seals, or in the distant sand dunes, such as the occasional antelope or elephant. In both cases, the animals were far too distant for the women to hunt, even if they had the tools and expertise to do so.

Where too now were the villages? There was now no one foolish enough to settle on these inhospitable shores where there was so little food, so little shelter and where the oases and streams of fresh water were further and further apart. Had the two women not learnt the practise of not eating all they could find when they could and of carrying vessels and animal hides in which to store the fruit, meat and water of an earlier day's scavenging, they would have starved to death. A bonanza of dates lasted the two women several days, during which they would have otherwise subsisted only on molluscs that weren't always as easy to find as one would like.

"It's been two moons since we last saw another soul," said Glade in the moonlight while the two women sat around a small fire under a palm tree.

"It's been four or five moons since we saw any rain," replied Demure, who was fingering a bosom that sagged from malnutrition. "Perhaps we are near the end of the world. Perhaps we'll soon come to the edge beyond which there is only the same darkness that fills the sky."

Glade nodded her head. It seemed that they'd been disowned by the world of humanity and the game and fruit that supported it.

"Perhaps as we walk away from the Sun, which is always behind us, we are also leaving behind its blessings," Demure speculated. "Perhaps the Sun is the source of rain, food and humanity and by turning our backs on it, we are heading towards only death."

"I don't know," said Glade miserably. "I don't know."

It was about this time, however, that Glade and Demure first came across the melted remains of an iceberg from the north that had somehow become beached on the desert shore. Even at this latitude, the iceberg was still cold but this was only because it had once been so very large. It was still taller than a giraffe and almost as immense as a whale, but it was rapidly melting beneath the hot sunlight on the even hotter sand. This was the first time Glade had ever felt anything as cold as ice on her skin. It was so cold it almost burnt, but it was a welcome respite from the burning heat. The water that melted from it was fresh rather than salt. There were even a few nuts, fruit and even frozen fish trapped inside the ice as it melted.

"There must be an end to this desert," said Glade as she and Demure set up camp for the night. "See, out there, on the waves, there are other floating white boulders." She waved towards a procession of other icebergs that passed by over the ocean. "There must be a place in the north where the desert ends."

"And the birds that fly north must know that there is food at the end of their flight," admitted Demure. "I just hope you're right."

"What other choice have we got?" Glade asked. "We can't now go back the way we came."

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The predicament that confronted Glade many years ago on the desert shore were very different from those confronting her now. The cold that would have been occasionally welcome then was most certainly not welcome now. And for the moment there was as yet no shortage of food.

"We've found no way to get through the barrier," Chief Cave Lion announced regretfully to the anxious villagers around the evening fires. "There are no paths up the valley side that we can climb and no other valley within a half-day of here. We have only two choices. One is to winter here where we are. The other is to retreat back to the Wide River and follow it wherever it may lead. It may lead us to another valley where we can settle for the bleak winter months."

"What do you think?" Ivory asked Glade anxiously.

"I've already spoken to the Chief," said the shaman. "And he has decided to take my advice. If we stay here we will be well-fed for the next moon as the animals migrating south enter this valley and are easily picked off by the hunters. But there is no spring or river from which to drink and there will soon be no more migrating animals coming this way. We have no choice. We must follow the Wide River and hope for the best."

The travellers were eventually drawn by argument and debate to the position Chief Cave Lion had already decided. The following day, after a night of despondent resignation, in great contrast to the optimism of the earlier night, the travellers reluctantly marched back out of the valley by the way they had entered to follow the river path to where it flowed from the white-peaked mountains.

It soon became apparent that this wasn't going to be an easy journey. The river became faster, more torrential and treacherous as the villagers ascended the valley through which it flowed, whilst the valley along which the river flowed narrowed from a broad sweeping plain to a densely forested gorge with steep cliffs on either side. Glade became apprehensive and ran ahead to speak to the Chief while Ivory fell behind, the weight of the food and weapons she carried becoming ever more onerous.

Glade eventually returned to Ivory's side with a worried expression on her face.

"What's the matter?" Ivory wondered.

"There is no game migrating this way," said Glade. "The only animals we can see are deer, antelope and bison, and they look like they live here all year. Where are the mammoth, rhinoceros and elk? I think we should either set up camp by the riverside using the forest as shelter or turn back. If the animals aren't travelling this way, then there may well be no food for us ahead."

"If we turn back, where do we go from there?"

"We follow the game," said Glade. "It may not take us to a valley such as the one we wintered in earlier years, but at least we know that there'll be food to eat."

However, Chief Cave Lion was not to be swayed and urged his people on through the dense forest, past the bears and leopards that preyed on small forest animals such as deer or boar. He hoped that the valley would widen like so many others did and open up to a broad vista of mammoth, rhinoceros and aurochs scattered amongst herds of horse, antelope and deer. It was therefore disappointing after two days of plodding through woodland, the children crying and the women complaining, that when the valley did at last widen it was at the foot of a cliff from the top of which the Wide River cascaded as a great waterfall many times the height of the tallest trees.

This was undeniably beautiful countryside. The waterfall crashed down into a small lake that lapped against the sides of the wooded shores, over which swooped ducks and geese and from which sipped a herd of deer under the watchful eye of a leopard. But this was also a deadly place. There was only a narrow shore on which the tribe could set up a settlement, and the inhabitable land had a restricted range—far smaller than the Mammoth Hunters were normally accustomed. They would soon hunt to death all the game that lived there and eat all the fruits of the forest.

"What do we do now?" Ivory moaned, sharing everyone's sentiments.

"There are paths up the valley walls," Glade remarked. "They may have been worn away by sheep, but I think also by people. I don't believe we're the only people in this vicinity. We must find the tribe that lives near here and ask them for help."

"And if they won't help us?" Ivory wailed.

"Then," Glade said with stoic resignation, "it will be very hard for us."

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Glade knew that it is easier to be stoical at the start of a crisis than when it is fully underway and one has suffered from it for many moons. When Glade and Demure walked north along the desolate desert coast, despair truly seemed to be the only rational response. The two women's skins were baked and peeling in the burning heat: Glade's especially. The soles of their feet were scratched and blistered on the hot sand. They'd both suffered from eating poisonous shellfish that had emptied their already frail frames of precious fluids. And the path ahead continued to be long and arduous.

Both women blamed the other for their predicament especially now that poor health and frayed spirits made carnal release impossible.

"If you weren't such a bitch," railed Glade, "we'd still be living with the Ocean People."

"Don't you fucking blameme," Demure snapped back. "It was them that kicked us out. They were just cunts."

"You provoked them!"

"I suppose we couldn't have stayed longer with the tribe we met by the river five moons ago if you'd not been so fucking prissy with your pussy..."

"It was because you tried seducing the men that the women forced us to leave..."

"How can you blame me for being a slut, when you're the biggest slut that's ever lived?"

Considering that Demure had in a sense just complimented her by the ethical standards of her own now-extinct tribe, Glade wasn't at all sure how she should retort In any case, rational argument was difficult to pursue.

"Cunt!" she snarled.

"Slut!"

"Bitch!"

"I hate you!"

"I hate you, too!"

But in truth both women were far too much in love with one another to properly hate each other. When they at last cuddled together by a sputtering fire in a small cave carved into a cliff a long way inland from the sea they returned to terms of endearment that belied their earlier aggression, although Glade was saddened that neither she nor Demure could generate enough juice between their legs for their lovemaking to be successful.

Glade had become ever more resigned to her fate. Soon, she was sure, she wouldn't have the energy to wake up in the morning on the sand that was such a comfortable, if barren, mattress and she would simply lie there until she was torn apart by the vultures that occasionally perched on the palm trees or the gulls that swooped on the carcass of any seal or manatee that had dragged itself onto the shore. Demure, however, was the more resilient woman even though her life amongst the Knights had been one of luxury. She would complain far more bitterly than Glade, but it was her anger and vitriol that kept her spirits the more buoyant.

But the two women's perseverance was eventually rewarded. The desert that accompanied them on their right as they walked north became less sandy. More trees and shrubs were scattered about the dusty ground. Soon, too, they saw animals they hadn't seen for many moons. There was big game such as elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe and buffalo. There was also horse, deer and antelope, whilst preying on them could be seen animals such as cheetah, hyena and wolves.

And then for the first time that either woman could recall the clouds that drifted harmlessly across the sky gathered together in greater density and gave sudden vent to a rain-shower. The two women rushed out onto the open sand that became harder and more solid as it was soaked by the droplets of rain and spontaneously danced in the welcoming shower in a state of utter joy.

Glade circled around Demure while the dampening strands of her hair tangled together and clung to her face and shoulders. She waved her head wildly from side to side so that with each shake a fresh shower splashed over her lover. There was no sign of the distance that Demure normally maintained between her emotions and her expression of them. Her face lit up with unmediated delight as she danced with a step that she must have learnt as a child that followed a percussive rhythm in her head with a sharp aggressive stomp after every fourth beat. Each woman pulled the other towards her bosom and slapped the other's buttocks.

Then, inevitably, the dancing became more intimate, less wild and one in which the remembered rhythms of feast-days and holy rites were replaced by another beat. They lay on the muddy sand, their bodies entwined, their hips moving, but their legs entangled, the rain streaming off their bare flesh and soaking every hair of their head and their pubes.

The lovemaking was passionate, although it was still painful for Glade when Demure's fingers first plunged into her vagina: a hole that once welcomed such ingress with a spurt of juices that would dampen her lover's wrist. She hadn't regained the juice her passion deserved as neither had Demure when Glade's tongue delved into the valley that she had so often ploughed. But the water from the sky helped compensate for the drought of juices from within to enable the lubrication required for their lovemaking to be passionate and prolonged.

When exhaustion at last defeated them, the two women lay on their backs with the rain still beating down on them: the only beings out in the open, while wiser animals sheltered under trees and nearby rocks. Where there was rain, there was food. And the more rain, the more food to eat.

Nevertheless, although the fear of starvation and thirst now receded, there were still risks. This wasn't a savannah as bountiful as that further south. There was less game and the animals were quite different. The lions and hyenas weren't as large. The giraffes towered less high. The elephants were more modest with smaller tusks. There were animals such as boar, aurochs and Barbary ape they'd never seen before. But even smaller lions could kill a human with little difficulty and a pride could easily kill them both.

So, after the moons of relatively care-free nights where the couple had slept in the open, fearing only small insects and the occasional sniffing prairie dog, there was now a need to guard against predators. But at least they didn't need to skim quite so close to the coast. And then, after a few more days wandering, Glade and Demure decided to halt their incessant wandering and settle in one place.

Doing so made it easier to catch prey, because the women could lay a trap for a small animal—a hole in the ground covered by leaves into which it might stumble—and return regularly to see whether the trap had been successful. They found a cave in which to shelter from the rain once its novelty had worn off. They could forage together in different places and return to the same cave each night. And all these tasks they did together. In fact, the two women were inseparable.

These few moons were probably the happiest that Glade ever spent with her black lover. There were no intrigues in which Demure could engage. They relied equally on one another. There were no other lovers. And they were alone.

Or at least they thought they were.

This comfortable notion was soon dispelled when they first came across footprints that could only have been made by men, and by their depth and size they belonged to relatively tall men. They also encountered the occasional trap that was laid with ingenuity and cleverness. But of these other people there was no actual sight.

"Shall we follow the footprints to their village?" Demure asked Glade. "They're fresh: less than three days old."