Ember of a New World (12 page)

Ember stood still for a moment and asked the Gods to watch over these fallen people in the afterlife. The more she thought about their fate, the more pain she felt welling in her chest. Ember gave the village one last look and brushed back a tear as she pushed the little boat into the water.

What if the ra
iders had come to my village?
she
thought. This had been a bigger village, and she knew it was assuredly better guarded. When she returned she would disc
uss the matter with the Elders.

“
If I return
…
,
”
she grimaced.

When Ember sat in the boat, she noticed the water becoming choppy and the wind blowing more steadily now. Ember pushed the boat into the current with her steering pole. She had two choices
, either
k
eep the boat close to the bank where she could easily get out of the river if the rain started, or move towards the center of the river where the current was the fastest. She might put more distance between herself and the dead village before the storm, at the risk of being too far out when the storm hit. Ember chose the latter of the two and maneuvered the boat into the center of the river, the thought of the dead village adding fear to every action.

The boat was tugged constantly by the water as the wind picked up. The current made controlling the boat harder, but the images of the half decayed skeletons were still on her mind. Ember composed herself and threw the pot of
arrow and spear
heads into the water with a loud curse to the vile warriors. She hoped the Gods heard and took action for those poor people.

The wind blew ever stronger while the choppy waters became a rough, treacherous current as the little boat bobbed about, barely controllable. The sky had become dark, suddenly, and the wind was really picking up fast. Though the boat bobbed about, buffeted by the winds, Ember still felt that she had control. She started to maneuver the boat towards the shore expecting to have to abandon the river for the night, soon. Ember was quite familiar with steering the little craft as she had grown up using such boats to fish the deeper waters, but all hopes of continuing vanished when the first blast of light
n
ing hit not 60 lengths of a man from Ember!

The sound pained her ears and she was temporarily blinded. After a moment, Ember regained her sight and realized, to her horror, that her paddle pole was gone! She must have dropped it into the river as she reeled back from the blast. Panic ensued, and a cold rush of fear danced up her spine. The storm was not
getting
close
r
, it was upo
n her now!
Ember had misread her environment and taken too great of a risk. Fear made Ember's blood run as cold as the suddenly cooling air. A boat without a paddle was a feather falling in the wind! She would have no control where she went or upon what she landed.

The boat was already starting to turn slightly sideways, a dangerous event as the boat would soon capsize! Ember noticed the small fishing spear she had beside her and removed the leather thong which lashed it down to the boat. Using her fishing spear she could try to control the boat in the ever faster moving river. She dipped the spear handle into the water and pulled hard against the current. The effect was noticeable, but the boat continued to grow increasingly hard to control. Drag in the water created by the rounded spear handle couldn't compare to the pole oar, which had a flat paddle side. The boat started drifting into the dead center of the river wh
ere the current was strongest.

Ember couldn't believe how fast the river had turned to deadly. This was not the way the river behaved, normally. Storms usually moved from west to east, which meant the river wouldn't have filled with water so fast as it was now doing. How could a storm from
downstream
cause water to flow more greatly? As her muscles fought the current furiously, Ember wondered how a storm could cause such a torrent of water.

Little did Ember know that the storm was a massive front moving north by north
east.
A larger portion of the storm system had already dumped a massive amount of water east of Ember. Only by happenstance did she now encounter the rise and rush of water at the same time as the storm. This truly was a very odd weather pattern. Somewhere not too far up the river a boulder fought a deadly duel with the onrush of water. The proud
boul
der seemed to be winning.

Water rushed, and the rain fell as Ember rode her boat through what resembled a tidal bore. Ember was suddenly thrust aside as a hard knock from a hidden rock sent the little boat tumbling to the right. Ember dropped her spear in surprise, feeling her body lurching to the right. Reacting instinctively, Ember threw her weight to the other side of the boat in an act of desperation which she knew would likely result in the boat flipping over the opposite way, but without the ability to resist the attempt.

The little boat obliged, nearly turning over, but held fast against her weight. Unfortunately, the force of Ember rocking the boat against the water had an equal and opposite effect as the boat barreled over in the direction she had moved her body, propelled by its own buoyancy as much as her movement and the shape of the hull. Over turned the boat and into the cold rapids went Ember and all of her precious supplies. The end of her perilous run had been around a major turn north in the river. The water was forced around the bend in the river pushing the water out wide and
through rapids at either side.

As luck or irony would have it, the rapids were caused by fast moving
water against the riverbank
. Ember knew that she had perhaps twelve lengths of a man to swim to the bank, but she was already under water and being pulled deeper by the second.

Ember pulled hard against the current and fought to orient herself, but the water wouldn't allow her freedom. Down Ember went as the river pulled her, tumbling end over end. Her saving grace was the feel of the cool and soft silty sand against her feet as she hit the bottom of the river; she must have capsized in the shallows of the river, she realized, but how? She had been in the center of the river when she lost her oar. Had the boat moved into the shallows while out of her control? The rock which turned her boat
over
had to have been in the shallows...

Her lungs burned for air whipping any thoughts from her mind, but one, Ember knew she would have to allow the river to have its way a moment longer. Ember allowed the river to win and stopped struggling, letting her body glide to the bottom fully,
and
her
feet
making solid contact, before springing upwards with all of the force she could muster. Ember could see the water becoming less dark as she pulled upwards, but the effect diminished quickly as her own eyesight began to turn black from lack of air. She let the air from her lungs leave her mouth, needing them free if she emerged from the water, for even a second.

Suddenly, her head broke the surface, and she pulled in air furiously before she was again thrust under. Were her face not already wet, tears would be seen in her eyes as she was pulled down again. Suddenly Ember's face became free of the river once more, and she gasped in air. The river was indeed forcing her up and down, but she could see that she was nearly ashore! Ember swam with all of the energy she had left, which was not much. As she started to feel the sand in her grasp, she felt her body give way to the strain. The water still had her, and she was being pushed and pulled without any control. She took another half breath, but she had used too much energy in her burst of swimming and was giving in to the water now. This time when she was tugged down, by her exhaustion and not the water, she gave in. The light of the evening slowly faded into darkness as Ember just simply let go.

There really isn't much evidence for large scale combat in early Neolithic Europe. Armies, warriors, battlements, and fortresses arose much later in history. There is evidence fo
r raids during the Neolithic period
but wholesale slaughter, and total war were not commonplace due to the lack of nations and the massive resources needed for such battle. Individual tribes may have practiced raids for food, tools, or even for women. These would have been local events and fatalities were probably more incidental than routine.

Though the notion of taking women sounds quite misogynist, raids may have helped with gene pool diversification, with women being generally uninjured and on occasion, perhaps even staged as part of a ritualistic event. It is important to consider that modern conventions of right and wrong may have been vastly different in ancient times, though secular morality is seemingly a construct of social species and a
ssuredly existed in some form.

The sight of a full destroyed village with dead everywhere and mass murder would have been abhorrent to Ember. Such raids, more akin to Saxon or Viking style, would not become common in Europe for perhaps another five or six thousand years. Regardless of the reduced threat of raids, Ember grew up in a time when child birth was very risky, when a poor harvest or a bad winter could kill an entire people, and when harmony with natu
re was still required for life.

That life, in general, was quite hard and dangerous. Ember watched her mother light fires by hand, plant and raise crops, and a multitude of domestic chores. Ember would have been fully able to gut an animal as easily as she could make pots and plates from clay and fi
re. Reconstructing and reenacting
every skill used by Ember
requires years
of dedication and many painful injuries. Flint knapping cuts your fingers while weaving reeds leaves your fingers raw. Unfortunately, the skills Ember may not have had were related to hunting. She probably would be resourceful at gathering shellfish, flora, and hunting fish. Perhaps that will be enough.

Ember opened her eyes and looked out at blackness. She was dead, and the river had carried her body away. Perhaps she would drift along the river and decay in some dark place. She felt no pain now and hoped it wouldn't come. The strange
thing about dying was
the stars all around her.
Ember did not move for a short time simply watching the stars, when suddenly a shooting star caught her eye and snapped her from her daze.

Did the dead float in the sky?
she wondered.

As Ember slowly became conscious, she realized that she had not died but had apparently washed ashore; or had she finished her swim? Ember was lying strewn along a pebbly bank with one of her legs still in the water. She couldn't remember anything past blacking out. The sky was dark, and it had become night, but the rain had subsided leaving a mostly clear sky. As a slight wind fell upon her skin, she realized that she wore no skirt. Looking down
,
Ember took a quick and half dazed inventory of her person. She still wore her precious doe skin shirt, though it was quite wet. Her woven fiber skirt had apparently been torn away by the currents and her leather boots with it. Ember carefully propped herself up on her elbows and looked around.

A quick check revealed that she was alone on the pebbly river bank with none of her supplies to be seen. With great effort Ember pulled herself to her feet and stumbled off of the beach towards the brush farther ashore. She felt the chill again and a pang of modesty took her, causing her to
grasp
at her doe skinned shirt pulling it lower. Her breechcloth had come loose in the back, and she tucked it back into place, nearly falling in the
process, as she was very weak.

What a silly thing to worry about!
, she thought as there was probably no pers
on within a day's journey, and
of course, the rabbits and deer don't worry with such things as modesty. Thankfully
,
the
well-made
shirt hung slightly below the waist and kept her somewhat covered, as much as a long shirt could. Ember's mind slowly began to go blank. The swim and her ordeal had tired her out much more than she expected. As Ember walked up the bank, she nearly toppled over several times from weakness. Dazed, Ember struggled to walk farther and fell limply into the brush. She curled into a tight ball against the wi
nd and shivered back to sleep.

That night Ember dreamed deep dreams in which she was a Raven. Ember took to the night skies and flew high with the stars. Below her, she saw dark forests for as far as the eye could see, but dotted with small points of light. Each point of light was a great distance from the next. Ember flew towards one of these points of light and came in low for a look. The lights turned out to be central hearth fires from small villages. Below her
,
people walked around talking and living their lives.

Ember the bird landed upon a wooden post and watched the people. One couple of merry makers came from a longhouse in
each other’s
arms laughing and talking romantically, though Ember couldn't understand them. As they approached, she realized that the woman was her! She was perhaps a few harvests older, but the long red hair and green eyes were a
giveaway
. In her arms, she embraced a dark haired man who reminded her of a boy she had seen, and had a crush on, from another tribe close by. Her older
self-had
a necklace with a large shiny blue pendant and a large dagger at her waist. She carried herself as a warrior. Her hands were painted a deep blue from finger to elbow, and her legs were equally pained from toe to knee. As the couple wandered off for some romantically secluded spot, Ember suddenly felt alone. She had transitioned from a girl to a woman and ended up on a crazy adventure, the apparent will of the Gods! How would she ever go about being a woman? She took to the sky to con
template these questions.

Ember awoke to a welcoming sun warming her skin. She was covered in mud, dirt, and a bit of vegetation. She slowly sat up and took better note of her surroundings. She was sitting on a large pile of drift brush by a deceptively calm river. After a pleasant series of stretches, Ember slowly stood and walked down to the river’s edge to clean herself. She removed her doe skin shirt and walked carefully into the same water, now calm, which had nearly been her end just the day before. The water was slightly warmer with the sun, but the wind and the light upon her skin made the real difference. Ember placed her hands upon the river's surface and closed her eyes. She said a prayer to the River Spirits thanking them for letting her go, or at least for not taking her. With her ritual thanks given, Ember dove under the water and ran her fingers through her long hair cleaning the debris from it. With a second lung full of air, she dove and scooped handfuls of mud and clay from the bottom of the river. She emerged from the water and began to spread the mud on her skin. Ember recalled her mother making a special paste from tubers and some other plant she couldn't recall. The paste allowed her to clean her hair more effectively, but fo
r now the river would provide.

After a short while she had covered her entire upper body with the mud. Ember proceeded to rub the mud vigorously over her skin before diving into the water again and cleaning it off. The mud had an exfoliating effect which left any who used this method feeling clean and refreshed. Standing at ankles depth in the shallows, Ember cleaned her lower body
using
the same method. She removed her breechcloth and rubbed it clean with the sand, all while in waist deep water. Afterward she came ashore and took her doe skin shirt and beat it against a large rock until much of the dirt had been removed. The sun had done its work, and the dried mud and the debris merely fell off of the shirt. As Ember replaced the shirt and the breechcloth, she suddenly realized that she had not checked for her pr
ecious knife or sack of flint!

A feeling
of
fear and foreboding dread trickled down her spine and like a startled rabbit she was off running barefoot down the river bank looking for her possessions. She clearly knew the possibility was remote, but she had to check. Her capsizing had occurred, as best as she remembered, in the shallows at a bend in the river. Much of her possessions would have been lost as she swam ashore. Perhaps some had been washed ashore or were merely left by the water when she awoke, tired as she was. The ground around her had the
telltale
signs of having been submerged recently. Perhaps the river had flooded, and she now stood on what had been
under water the night before.

Regardless of the hopes, Ember needed help and she had an idea how to get it. Dropping to her knees on a patch of wet sand, she traced a long wavy line with her index finger. She placed her finger at the end of the wavy line and made a big dot, the head of a snake. She knew that the image was simple and would probably not interest the Snake God or any Snake Spirits near enough to see, but she hoped she might garner some favor in her search from her crude effigy. Gods and Spirits tended to like their own images or symbols drawn; in fact many Elders spent much time perfecting the addition of such symbols to the symbol-banded pottery her tribe and surrounding tribes made. Ember said a prayer to snakes, slithery creatures who tended to find the
ir way into unexpected places.

“Snake God, Snake Spirits, here me. The Gods wished me here, and I need my dagger, at least, or I will surely die! Please help me find the dagger.” Ember knew snakes were very chaotic and as likely to bite as to help, but she also knew that a snake lives to cause mischief and what better sport than to defy the fate of the mighty Great River? Perhaps with some luck, at least the Snake Spirits migh
t hear her prayer and aid her.

How long would she be searching before she found flint to make another clean edge, though not as good as her obsidian knife? It had been her father's dagger, taken from his hand by her mother when she found him all of those harvests before. He had used that dagger to defend the people when his quiver had run dry of arrows. She must get it back, besides Ember was not a skilled knapper, and her ability to shape flint came from either randomly flaking pieces off with a rock, called percussion knapping, or pressing against the edges with a pointy stone until pieces came free, called pressure knapping. She was terrible at both.

After she finished her prayer, Ember stood and moved for the place where she had come ashore, wasting no time. Arriving, she searched the scuffled sandy pebbles and foot prints looking for any sign of her items. With a weak heart, Ember turned and walked
North West
along the bank following the river with little hope in her. The bank was strewn with branches and other debris washed ashore by the river. The river ahead of Ember turned sharply pro
ducing a small inlet of sorts.

While river inlets afforded calmer waters for swimming, an inlet worked as a trap where water was forced with great pressure during such storms. Her people often set nets and traps within such an inlet to capture fish, and anything else, which wandered into the protected area. The inlet was full of beached wood and even a few dead fish!
What torrent must have come through here last night! Perha
ps the river had even overrun
the inlet's bank. That might explain the way the ground appeared
, she conjec
tured.

Ember approached the far side of the inlet and noticed a large tangle of brush covered in debris, which looked fresh as though it had collected the night before. This was the exact sort of scenario Ember had hoped to find. The destroyed brush covered the bank of the piece of land which stuck out into the river and formed the wall of the inlet. There was a muddy trail from one side of the jut of land forming the backside of the inlet to the other side. This was solid proof that water had indeed overrun the inlet. The water would have flowed over the brambles and drift wood, which worked like a filter catching anything in the water as it
may
have caught Ember's possessions. Even more, the spot where she now stood was directly in line with where Ember had fallen into the water. Anything falling from her would have been forced into the inlet and over the beach by the water surge, she hoped. Th
e brush might have snagged it!

A surge of hope filled her as she dove into the brush and started pulling large pieces of wood away and casting them to the
side
. For a long while, Ember dug and tore at the wood and brush, moving from pile to pile without luck. Ember stood from her fourth such pile and walked over to the last pile remaining. She was starting to run low on luck. Ember knelt and began to pull sun warmed pieces of wood from the tangled mass. She dug with rec
kless abandon, throwing wood in all directions.

Ember caught the glimpse of a stick which was twisted in an odd curly shape. As she reached for the stick, it suddenly moved at her! Ember recoiled instantly as the “stick” struck with a hiss! The stick was actually a snake! Had the snake been fully coiled
,
it might have had the range to bite Ember's hand. Luck was with Ember as the snake which nearly bit her was a sort her people called a Black Snake, what would one day be called a European Adder. These little black and gray colored snakes were vipers having two long fangs and a venom which could kill a small animal. The snake slithered off deep into the pile of debris, obviously offended. Ember sat
back
on her butt
for a moment
with her hands stretched behind h
er and a wide eyed expression.