Grun’s Trail

A story of Kzeyland

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Grun did not know much about the world.

What little she knew she overheard from the mystess,

Who would drink and tell tales while the other wives weaved,

Totora reed into fabric for twine or nets,

Or baskets and belts or mats to sleep on,

(Shorefolk bound the uncut reed into boats).

Wine brought forth an ill temper from the mystess,

But her words held wisdom, so Grun listened closely,

And this is what she understood:

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Father Earth puffed like a meyz cake,

Swollen with fire when he breathed,

And every morning, from his anus,

The Earth shit out Brother Sun,

Who then soared across the sea of sky,

And rained his heat upon the land,

Ever pursued by Sister moon, his old enemy.

When Brother Sun touched down, behind the mountains of the setting side,

Earth opened his mouth and swallowed the Sun again.

Grun did not know why Sister Moon chased the Sun,

Or what the Moon planned to do if she caught him.

But such affairs were the least of her worries right now.

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Flecks of snow like mites began to sting,

The spaces on Grun’s flesh that were uncovered,

Her cheeks and hands, her knees and the tops of her feet.

She sat on the ground where Vorl had left her,

And pulled the bearskin collar tight around her throat,

Against the sudden blizzard’s bite.

Leather and twine protected her arms and her shins from the worst,

But she would die if she did not find cover soon.

The thought entered her mind, as she laid her head on her arm,

Maybe that would not be a bad thing.

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A noise came to her ears: hyuf, hyuf, hyuf, hyuf.

Grun’s eyelids fluttered. She woke and tilted her head,

To look for where the foul sound had come.

A drift of snow slid off her shoulder as she rose,

The skitter of feet behind her made her turn,

And she caught sight of a kepybar, fat as a dog.

The rodent trotted away, but from its teeth,

It pulled the deerskin pouch that held Grun’s only food,

Dried beynya fruit, and salted teypr belly,

Enough to last no more than a day or two,

While Grun skirred the desert platte for fresher game.

Her hands empty, she fell to her knees and swept away,

The fallen snow until she found her lance,

And with a jump she rushed into the whiteness,

Where last she saw the little thief.

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Brother Sun lowered on his haunches.

Drawing near the mouth of Father Earth,

And the wind that whipped from down the platte,

Tore at Grun’s face as if to turn her from pursuit.

If not for the rut in the snow, left by the pouch of food,

Grun would have lost the kepybar’s trail.

But she was tired and cold and hungry, and could not go on forever.

Once, when the blanket of white thickened,

And no ground sign remained to guide her sight,

Grun put her nose down, and sniffed like a dog,

For her quarry sprayed his water freely,

And the acrid tang that filled her nostrils,

Betrayed the spoor of the beast.

Again, she took up the chase.

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The Kzeyfolk did not always rule the platte.

In ancient times, before the mystess was born,

Before even, the time of the Great One’s father,

Or of his grandfather’s father’s father,

A different folk roamed the desert plain.

The Chanka they were called, and they fought with sling and stone,

Not long lance as the Kzeyfolk did.

When the mystess told their story, her voice hushed,

At the name of the Chanka, whose blackened ghosts,

Could still be heard across the sand of the platte.

After Veydl, the Kzeyfolk champion, captured the enemy totem,

(A tiny Chanka warrior, carved from jade, bearing the head of a teypr)

He routed the Chanka host from the field,

Then even the stones rose up to join the Kzeyfolk in victory,

And Veydl ordered the dead to be torched,

And the bones buried in a chasm of rock so deep,

And narrow that even their spirits could not escape.

The Chanka prisoners, in despair at the loss of their totem,

Leapt after the bones to join them in death.

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Hour upon hour she walked, until Brother Sun,

Touched the jagged lip of Father Earth,

A mountain range, that guarded the leafy world beyond the peaks,

Whose wonders Grun could neither see nor imagine.

Now the snow had loosed its grip, and

The trail verged on a cleft in the rocky ground,

That slanted lower than the platte.

The kepybar made its den in the gloom of this ravine,

But Grun needed refuge for the night.

To shut her eyes on the plain would tempt the wolfpack, so

She thrust her lance forward and followed its point,

Down the slope and into the chasm.

The purple twilight threw its shadow over a recess in the wall,

Where Grun could rest until Brother Sun popped out his head to break the darkness.

She set her long lance against the rock,

For the fickle ledge would not admit its shaft,

Then she twisted her body into the crack,

Drew her feet into the stony niche,

And held still her breath to listen,

For the whispered howl of Chanka spirits,

But only the whine of the wind met her ears,

Or so it was that she told herself,

And though her body trembled, she blamed the chill,

And closed her eyes to sleep the sleep of the brave.

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