HEY GUYS, IVE DECIDED TO ADD A NEW IMAGE TO THE BOOK COVER EVERY TIME WE REACH A NEW ARC, I FIND HAVING A MENTAK IMAGE HELPS WHILE WRITING AND I THINK HAVING AN INAGE TO GO WITH THE STORY WOULD GO WELL WITH IT. AS YOUVE SEEN IVE ADDED THE FIRST ONE TODAY, WITH T FIGHTING THE CREATURE , I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT AND OTHERS TO COME.
A FUTURE PLOT POINT FOR SURE IS THAT T BECOMES AN INTEREST TO PARTIES INVOLVED, AND BECAUSE OF IT PEOPLE COME LOOKING FOR NATHAN AND HIS EXPERTISE. IT ABOUT BUILDING THE RECOGNITION OVER TIME THAT T HIMSELF IS DIFFERENT, AS IT STANDS OTHERS SEE HIM AS STRONG AND BRAVE ... THERES STILL MORE THAN NEEDS TO HAPPEN BEFORE THEY REALISE HIS BEYOND NORMAL LIMITS.
AND IT WILL FOR SURE BE A POINT THAT MATHAN GETS MORE GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE, HOWEVER IT WILL BE THROUGH OTHER MEANS HE GETS IT, HE CANT USE HIS OWN FACE AND IDENTITY TO DO IT, SO WHY NOT USE MARKUS OR SOMEONE ELSE.
ALSO I REALLY DO LIKE THE IDEA OF WADLOW BEING NATHANS LAWYER, I BELIEVE I MIGHT ADD THAT TO THE STORY LATER.
LOL WOULD YOU GUYS BELIEVE ME IF I SAID IVE ALREADY WRITTEN THE LAST CHAPTER, I KNOW EXACTLY HOW I WANT THIS STORY TO END LOL.
LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK
ONTO THE CHAPTER FRIENDS
...
The village received them beneath torchlight and smoke.
By the time the hunting parties came out of the deeper marsh, the last bruised colour had drained from the western sky and the water surrounding the Ndipaya settlement had become a broken mirror for fire. Flames from cooking hearths and resinous torches ran across the black channels in long trembling ribbons whenever anyone crossed a walkway, breaking apart beneath bare feet or British boots before gathering themselves again farther downstream. Mist had begun creeping back into the lower places now that the heat of the afternoon was dying, not yet enough to hide anything but enough to soften the farther platforms and make the limestone behind the village seem farther away than it had under daylight. Smoke hung low beneath the roofs, carrying the smell of cooked fish, wet timber, herbs and something sweet that none of Mallory's soldiers could identify, and every few yards the returning men crossed from one pool of orange light into another while the reeds between them remained black.
They did not look like men coming back from a successful hunt.
The formation with which they had entered the forest had ceased to exist. British soldiers and Ndipaya hunters came back almost shoulder to shoulder now, not because Joseph had ordered the groups to remain mixed but because the experience inside the trees had made the earlier separation feel absurd. Men who had spent the morning studying one another as possible enemies now carried one another's weight without discussing whose people had first thrown spears at whom two nights earlier. Byrne's torn webbing had been tied around his chest well enough to keep the remaining equipment from sliding, although one of the older Ndipaya hunters still carried the heavier ammunition pouch he had taken from him during the return, refusing to hand it back when Byrne attempted to reach for it at the last water crossing. Another British soldier walked with one arm braced beneath the shoulder of the hunter the creature had struck into the tree, slowing every few yards whenever the man's breath shortened and pretending the pauses were for his own benefit so the injured hunter did not have to admit how badly his ribs hurt. Carter carried two rifles for part of the way because one of the younger Ndipaya had injured his hand, while Ellison had somehow acquired a spear he did not know what to do with after its owner needed both arms to help bear the dead.
Joseph walked among them with the Winchester held low across his chest, and the firelight turned what remained of T into something the villagers recognised before they recognised many of the men beside him. The upper edge of the Ledermaske bore three ragged cuts where the creature's claws had dragged across it, one mark deep enough to expose lighter material beneath the blackened surface, while dirt from the grenade blast remained worked into his left shoulder despite an attempt to brush it away. His neck had stiffened during the return and his shoulder had begun aching with every step now that the immediate danger no longer demanded the body's complete attention, although neither discomfort concerned him as much as the ringing in his ears. It had faded from the violent whine that followed the explosion into something thin and intermittent, appearing whenever another man struck timber too sharply with a heel or the butt of a spear knocked against a walkway. Those noises seemed to arrive too cleanly now, as though the new hearing Nathan had awakened inside him had not yet learned what to do with an injury ordinary ears were never intended to survive.
The village had announced itself to that hearing long before the first dwelling appeared.
He had heard children whispering behind reed walls while the search party was still several bends away, their voices hushed by adults every time they grew too excited. Women moved between dwellings preparing water, food and cloth before anyone could know exactly who was coming back. Someone had been crying in one of the houses nearest the limestone, stopping whenever another person approached and beginning again when they were alone. A wooden bowl had struck the edge of a platform twice. A baby fussed and was soothed. Fires were being fed. Farther inward a drum had begun before Joseph could see any of the settlement, one slow note followed by another at intervals long enough for the vibration to travel through the timber and wet earth beneath his boots. At first he thought it was a signal announcing the returning hunters. By the time they reached the first raised structures, he understood it was something else.
The people waiting for them did not cheer, and that absence was the first thing several British soldiers noticed.
Relief moved through the village more privately than celebration would have. One man called his brother's name from across a channel and received an exhausted answer, then laughed so hard that the sound almost became a sob before he crossed the walkway and seized him by both shoulders. A boy no older than six slipped from an older woman's hand and sprinted onto the nearest platform, bare feet slapping the wood until his father saw him coming and raised one palm sharply, stopping the child several yards short because the returning party had not yet completely emerged from the dark. Another child ignored a similar warning and ran directly into the legs of a wounded hunter, wrapping herself around one of his knees with enough force to make him wince before his face broke into exhausted laughter. An elderly woman pushed past two younger relatives to reach one of the men near the rear, struck him twice across the upper arm while crying and then pulled his forehead against hers as though the blows and the embrace belonged to the same emotion. Names travelled across the settlement. Men who had remained behind counted brothers, cousins and sons. Women looked beyond those who appeared first, searching the line behind them for faces that had not yet emerged.
The first bier came out of the reeds while they were still counting.
The voices changed before the people nearest it could see what was being carried. Perhaps the returning men walked differently. Perhaps it was the way those holding the improvised poles refused to meet anyone's eyes. Whatever the signal was, recognition passed ahead of the body like a shadow. A woman standing beside one of the central fires stopped speaking with her hand half-raised near her mouth. An older man beside her looked toward the wrapped shape between the hunters, then at the faces of those carrying it, and whatever question he had intended to ask died before reaching his lips. The woman began crying quietly. Children who had been trying to see between adult bodies were drawn backward and held there, not roughly, but with a firmness that immediately told them the thing approaching should not be met with curiosity.
The hunter killed in the forest had been wrapped as well as the searchers could manage before the return. They had cut two straight lengths of wood and bound cloth between them, then covered as much of the wound as possible because the branch had left damage no one needed to see again. The Ndipaya carrying him did not lower the bier at the first platform or at the nearest fire. They continued deeper, through the spaces between the dwellings, while people moved aside without needing instruction. British soldiers followed more slowly and began to understand that the village itself had become part of the dead man's return. Every walkway crossed beneath familiar roofs. Every fire they passed belonged to people who knew him. Whatever the thing in the forest had made of his final moments, he was being carried back through the ordinary places of his life before anything else was done with him.
The bier was lowered only when they reached firmer central ground close to several larger dwellings and one of the old communal fires. The men carrying it knelt first and then lowered the poles carefully together, taking longer than would have been necessary merely to place a body on the ground. Several older relatives came forward before the cloth was touched. One woman rested both hands on the wrapped chest and bowed her head until another woman placed an arm around her shoulders. An old man touched the dead hunter's forehead through the cloth and remained there, lips moving quietly while the surrounding conversation receded until Joseph could hear the small friction of fingers against fabric.
"What is he saying?" Joseph asked softly once the linguist moved near enough, and his voice beneath the mask sounded too hard for the moment until he deliberately lowered it.
"He's speaking to him," the linguist replied after listening, his own exhaustion visible in the way he blinked slowly before translating. "Telling him where he is. Telling him he has come home. I don't know all the words they use for the dead."
Joseph nodded and did not ask again.
The village did not treat what followed as something performed for foreigners, and that made watching it feel more intimate than any formal ceremony arranged for guests could have done. Water was brought in shallow bowls and mixed with crushed leaves taken from bundles stored beneath one of the dwellings, filling the damp night with a green bitter smell that pushed briefly through the smoke. The outer wrapping was removed only after the family had gathered close enough that British eyes could no longer see much of the body, and the hunter was washed with slow, deliberate movements by people who knew exactly where they were permitted to touch him and in what order. Dirt was cleaned from his hands. Blood was wiped from the uninjured portions of his chest and face. His hair was combed back with fingers and water rather than any tool. The terrible injury through his abdomen was covered again almost immediately after the condition had been acknowledged, as if there was no purpose in letting the violence by which he died become the thing everyone saw whenever they looked at him.
One relative placed a small item near the dead man's right hand. Joseph could not see what it was from where the British had been asked to stand, only that the woman setting it down touched it once against her own chest before leaving it there. A second man placed what looked like a short tool beside the body. Another brought a narrow woven band and wrapped it around one wrist. None of the gestures were explained to the foreigners and nobody asked.
Ellison removed his cap.
Byrne noticed and did the same, then Carter and Shaw followed. Campbell had already lowered his head without thinking. Joseph could not uncover himself without revealing a face nobody beyond Nathan, Hale and a very small circle had permission to know, so he did the only thing available to him and lowered the Winchester until the butt rested against the timber beside one boot. The Ledermaske remained facing the dead hunter while the shifting firelight moved through the gouges made by the creature and left the black lenses reflecting dozens of small flames.
The drum continued from farther inward.
A second answered it.
Then a woman began singing.
Her voice was low enough that the British nearest the central platform had to stop moving to hear it, and the melody did not climb toward anything grand. A few phrases returned again and again, altered slightly each time, until another woman joined and then several men answered from the far side of the body. The song passed between them rather than belonging to any single person. Water beneath the platforms carried part of it farther than air should have done. The limestone returned the deeper notes faintly from somewhere beyond the firelight, thinner and more distant, until Joseph began hearing one line start among the women and return from the rock after the next had already begun.
An old man poured a small amount of liquid into the earth near the dead hunter and spoke toward him as though expecting that somewhere between the words, smoke, memory and whatever waited after life, the man might still hear.
Joseph looked away once.
The ceremony itself did not disturb him. The man's death did.
He had been close enough to see the creature's hand close around the hunter's middle. He could still hear the scream climbing through the branches if he allowed himself to remember it properly, followed by the smaller, uglier sound of a body meeting broken timber after the impossible height of the throw. In the forest there had been no room for the dead man to remain a person. One second he was a hunter, the next a tactical casualty hanging above them while everyone still alive had to decide whether to pursue, regroup or defend themselves against the thing moving through the trees. Joseph had looked at the wound, known there was nothing he could do and forced his attention elsewhere because other men were still breathing.
The village would not let the death remain that simple.
A woman near the body knew how the dead man drank his water and what he complained about when the rain lasted too long. A child somewhere in the settlement had probably annoyed him that morning. Somebody knew the sound of his laugh before anyone else heard enough of it to laugh as well. Someone had shared food with him a week earlier. Someone had argued with him and perhaps gone home believing there would be time to finish the argument later.
There had been supper waiting for him.
There had been tomorrow waiting for him.
The creature had not merely killed a man.
It had torn a hole through relationships that continued existing after he no longer did.
Joseph kept looking toward the fire because staring at the forest beyond the village would have been easier.
Kafele's absence made the grief stranger still. There was no second bier. No body had been carried home from the place where the missing warrior supposedly disappeared, and his name moved around the village in conversations lower than those surrounding the dead hunter. Every time Joseph heard it, the word seemed to draw eyes toward the black edge of the settlement. Kafele's family had no body to wash, no hand in which to place a familiar object and no wound that could be covered before the children saw it. They had only a route a man had begun walking and never finished.
Joseph wondered whether uncertainty was crueller than death.
He decided he did not know.
The hunter thrown against the tree during the later attack had been taken toward another fire and was sitting with his back supported against a post while a woman who might have been his wife, sister or simply someone with authority over injured men inspected his ribs. She pressed one place and he recoiled. She spoke sharply. He tried to wave her away and received an expression so severe that Byrne, despite understanding none of the exchange, almost smiled. The man's breathing had remained shallow all the way back and Joseph had already decided Nathan would examine him whether the hunter liked it or not.
The British had their own injuries to pretend were smaller than they were. Byrne kept touching the torn webbing where the creature's claws had passed close enough that he could probably still feel the air from them against his chest whenever he thought about it. Shaw had a cut along the side of his head, shallow but swollen now. Carter's hands had stopped shaking during the march but had begun again once he sat down, and he dealt with the problem by cleaning a rifle that did not need cleaning. Ellison had spoken very little since the creature disappeared. Campbell repeatedly looked at large trees beyond the nearest fires and then caught himself doing it.
Lewis stood because sitting hurt.
Joseph noticed that last.
The elder who had spoken with them that morning did not approach T immediately. He came from the direction of the limestone accompanied by two other older men and moved first to the returning hunters, speaking in a low voice while the village continued preparing the dead. The coordinator from the hunt gave the account. Joseph could follow none of the words but understood much of the structure from tone and gesture: the long search, the silence in the forest, the first appearance of the creature and the death that followed.
When the coordinator attempted to describe its height, he raised one hand above his head and then looked up toward it as though irritated by how badly the gesture failed. Another hunter stepped in and lifted his own spear upright, pointing near the upper section to indicate where the creature's face had been. A younger man spoke rapidly, arms moving as he described something that was almost certainly the moment the thing pretended to be a tree, and the elder interrupted with a quiet question that made three men answer at once.
Joseph's name, or whatever the Ndipaya were calling T now, entered the conversation repeatedly.
When the shotgun wound was described, several faces turned toward him.
When the grenade came, the coordinator spread both hands violently apart and made a sound that needed no translation. Someone behind him imitated the creature's scream badly enough that several children moved nearer to their mothers.
The elder listened through all of it.
He neither dismissed nor exaggerated anything.
Eventually his eyes moved to Joseph and remained there.
"He wants to know whether the thing died," the linguist said when he came across, rubbing both palms down his face before crouching beside the British group. The man looked as though the day's work had stripped away several years of his life. His voice had grown rough from hours of shouting across marsh and translating conversations nobody else could follow, and even now he kept glancing toward the elder because exhaustion did not release him from usefulness.
"No," Joseph said, and the answer drew looks from Byrne and Carter even though both had been present.
The linguist translated.
The elder asked something else.
"He wants to know how you can be certain."
"Because we didn't find a body," Joseph replied while looking toward the black edge of the village rather than pretending certainty he did not possess. "The grenade wounded it badly. We saw blood and pieces of the pale growth from its head. We found where the explosion happened. We found nowhere it landed."
The linguist relayed the answer slowly.
Joseph continued once the elder had heard it. "No tracks leaving. No disturbed water. Nothing moving through the trees that I could hear. It disappeared."
The mention of the forest produced more discussion among the Ndipaya than the grenade had.
The elder raised a hand and waited until everyone else became quiet.
"He says the frogs came back," the linguist translated after listening.
"I heard them."
The elder spoke again.
"He says that means the thing was no longer there."
Joseph thought about the way sound had returned in patches after the creature vanished, the first solitary frog calling into darkness as though testing whether the world was safe enough to speak again.
"That is what I believe too."
The elder nodded once, though nothing about the gesture suggested satisfaction. Whatever his people believed about the silence, the disappearance of the creature did not make the dead less dead.
He went to join the family after that, leaving the British beneath the supervision of the older coordinator who had hunted beside them.
Joseph did not sit until one of the Ndipaya pointed explicitly toward a low section of raised timber beside a fire and then mimed the movement strongly enough that refusing would have become rude. Once he lowered himself, his shoulder informed him of every inch of the impact from the grenade. His neck had tightened enough that turning his head fully required moving part of the torso with it, and he could already imagine Nathan's expression when he saw the damaged Ledermaske and asked the question Joseph hated most after any operation.
Were you injured?
The answer, technically, would be yes.
Joseph disliked technicalities.
Ellison lowered himself beside him with the careful stiffness of a man whose knees had suffered enough country for one day. Byrne sat a little farther along the same platform, and the Ndipaya hunter still carrying his ammunition pouch finally placed it beside him.
"Thank you," Byrne said, knowing the man did not understand English but finding the silence worse.
The hunter looked at him.
Byrne touched the pouch, then pointed toward the man's chest and gave a small nod.
Recognition crossed the hunter's face and he returned the nod.
Neither smiled.
Neither needed to.
Two nights earlier one might have shot the other.
This afternoon they had watched the same thing move through trees and learned that, compared with whatever stood silently among the trunks, many human differences could become smaller very quickly.
"They're saying you're welcome in the village," the linguist said when he finally lowered himself beside Joseph, one leg extended because apparently even translators could develop opinions about marching through marsh. "This outer settlement, at least. We may stay the night. They will allow more of the expedition to come here."
Joseph turned the Ledermaske toward him. "All of them?"
"Not farther than this."
The linguist glanced toward the limestone, where the dark openings beyond the settlement could barely be distinguished from ordinary shadow now.
"The elder wants to speak to whoever leads the expedition before anyone is taken closer to the caves or central areas."
"That makes sense," Ellison said as he removed one boot far enough to inspect the damage wet ground had done to his sock. "Frankly I'm surprised they let us this far after the first night."
"So am I," the linguist admitted. "Helping with the hunt mattered."
Joseph watched the village while the implication settled.
The request had become the bridge Nathan hoped it might. Not forgiveness. Nobody had forgotten the British dead or Ndipaya killed during the attack. The difference was that both sides now possessed an experience which belonged to them together. British and Ndipaya had gone into the same forest, obeyed the same signals, bled under the same thing and carried one another back afterward.
That was harder to dismiss than a promise delivered through an interpreter.
The decision needed to reach Nathan.
Mallory as well.
Joseph turned slowly and counted his men properly now that nobody was running, shooting or screaming. Ellison was exhausted but unhurt. Byrne's equipment needed repairing but his body appeared intact. Carter had bruising and fatigue but no obvious injury. Campbell was filthy enough to resemble part of the marsh but otherwise sound. Shaw needed the cut on his head cleaned and checked.
Lewis was standing too carefully.
Joseph had noticed the guarded movement on the return but allowed it while the soldier continued without worsening. Now that he had time to look, the problem became obvious. Lewis kept his left elbow closer to the ribs and shifted his weight before every deeper breath. When another man bumped the platform behind him, he flinched and tried to disguise the reaction by adjusting his rifle.
Exactly the kind Nathan would notice from forty yards.
"Lewis," Joseph called.
"Sir?" Lewis replied as he came over, and the way he straightened when addressed made the movement in his ribs even more obvious.
"You're going back to camp."
Lewis looked toward the other soldiers as if the decision might have been made about somebody standing behind him. "I can stay."
"I didn't ask."
"It's just bruised ribs."
"That sentence has buried enough soldiers already."
Ellison's mouth moved faintly.
Lewis saw it and became more irritated. "I can carry my rifle."
"Excellent," Joseph replied. "Carry it to the medical tent."
The soldier's jaw worked once.
Joseph waited.
Perhaps two days earlier Lewis might have argued longer. After the hunt, the men had learned that when T became still rather than raising his voice, the discussion was generally over.
"Fine," Lewis said.
"Not fine. Listen."
Joseph leaned forward with his forearms resting against his knees, the fire throwing orange over the torn edge of the mask while the dark lenses remained fixed on Lewis.
"You return directly to the British camp. You report first to Mallory and Professor Drake, but you get examined while you're doing it. If Drake tells you to remove your tunic, you remove it instead of inventing a sudden obligation elsewhere."
Lewis's mouth tightened.
Joseph continued before he could answer. "Tell them we reached the village, the elder permitted us into the outer settlement and the surviving hunting parties are remaining here. Tell them one Ndipaya was killed during the hunt, several were injured and our men have injuries but no fatalities. The creature was driven away, not confirmed dead."
Lewis nodded.
"Tell Nathan the elder wants to speak with the expedition leader before the rest are allowed any farther toward the caves. I recommend accepting and moving a controlled party forward first, not bringing the entire camp. Medical personnel should come. Mallory chooses security. Nathan chooses which specialists."
Another nod.
"And tell him what the thing did," Joseph said.
Lewis's eyes changed.
He did not need clarification.
"Tell him a close shotgun wound began closing almost immediately. Tell him straight pursuit was useless because it could outrun every man present. Tell him it was strong enough to lift and throw an adult without stopping and intelligent enough to attack the smaller groups whenever the search line separated."
Ellison looked toward the fire.
Joseph continued, "Tell him it kept returning toward me once I began holding the groups together. At the end I drew it toward myself, put a grenade into the open wound and detonated it. The blast threw it clear. We heard the scream. We never heard it land."
Lewis swallowed.
"We searched the expected area. No body. No impact. No tracks. No water disturbance. Nothing."
"Anything else?" Lewis asked.
Joseph looked beyond him at the nearest trees.
Firelight reached only the first few trunks. Beyond those, darkness stood between them in flat black sections.
"Yes."
Lewis waited.
"Tell him we walked past it."
The soldier stared.
"We probably did it several times," Joseph said. "It stood against a tree and changed itself enough that men looked directly at it without recognising anything alive. Red mane looked like dead vegetation. The pale growths looked like branches. Nobody understood until one of the hunters saw it breathe."
Lewis's face had begun losing colour.
Joseph regretted how directly he had said it but not the information itself.
"He'll understand why that matters."
"He'd better."
"He will."
Joseph arranged for one of the local guides to take Lewis as far as the safer outer route. The agreement required another conversation through the linguist, who looked increasingly as though every new sentence was an act of personal cruelty, but one man eventually volunteered. Byrne passed Lewis a water flask without being asked.
"Don't lose it," Byrne said.
Lewis took it. "Since when do you own the bloody water?"
"Since I handed you my flask."
"That's not how ownership works."
"It is here."
Lewis almost smiled.
The little exchange mattered more than either man realised.
"And Lewis," Joseph called when he had already begun walking toward the first platform.
Lewis stopped and looked back.
"Medical tent first."
"Professor first."
"Medical tent."
"He's probably in the medical tent."
"Then you've been granted a remarkable administrative convenience."
Lewis shook his head. "Medical tent first."
"Good."
Joseph watched him leave.
The guide went beside him rather than ahead, and for the first few walkways Lewis maintained the same overly proud posture he had used since returning. Once the firelight thinned, Joseph opened his hearing enough to follow the pair farther than sight allowed. Boots on wood. Bare feet crossing the same boards. Mud after the platform ended. Water brushed by vegetation.
"He'll make it," Ellison said from beside him.
"I know."
"Then why are you listening?"
Joseph remained looking toward the darkness into which Lewis had disappeared.
Because he was listening.
He could still hear the footfalls long after an ordinary man would have heard nothing beneath the funeral song and the village conversation.
"Habit."
Ellison gave a tired sound through his nose. "That's what you're calling it?"
Joseph turned the black lenses toward him.
Ellison suddenly became interested in his boot.
The funeral continued behind them.
The dead hunter had been wrapped again, this time in cleaner cloth, and the people gathered around him were no longer speaking only in solemn tones. The song shifted. Names entered it. Particular phrases caused some listeners to laugh through tears, and because Joseph could not understand the words the emotional change took him several minutes to recognise.
"They're telling stories," the linguist murmured when Joseph looked toward him.
Joseph listened.
One of the men near the body spoke at length, acting out something with both hands. Several older people laughed. A woman shook her head while smiling through tears and corrected part of the story, which produced another burst of laughter.
"What story?"
The linguist listened, then smiled despite himself. "Something about him falling into a fishing channel when he was younger because he was showing off."
The speaker imitated the fall.
A child laughed loudly.
This time nobody hushed him.
Another relative began telling something else. The linguist caught only parts from the distance: stolen food, an argument, a man refusing to admit another hunter had been right about a trail. Ordinary things.
Joseph understood then.
They were not polishing the dead hunter into something sacred enough that nobody could recognise him anymore. They were giving the man back all the irritating, funny, embarrassing things death had no right to take.
The creature had killed him in one terrible movement.
His people refused to allow that movement to become the most important thing that had ever happened to him.
Joseph's hand touched the damaged edge of the Ledermaske.
The forest had spent the afternoon reducing everyone inside it to roles.
Hunter.
Prey.
Threat.
Target.
Dead.
The village complicated them again.
By the time the elder returned to the British, the fire had burned lower and the first part of the mourning ritual had become quieter. The older man stopped several feet from Joseph and spoke directly to the linguist.
"He asks whether your leader will come," the linguist translated.
"Yes."
The elder said something immediately.
"He says you answer quickly for someone who is not the leader."
Ellison lowered his face.
Joseph knew exactly why.
"I know him."
The answer was translated.
The elder studied T for another moment.
Another question followed.
"He asks whether your leader is the healer."
"Yes. Professor Drake."
Recognition passed through the elder's face before the translation had completely ended. Stories travelled quickly through villages. Nathan arriving at the British camp and immediately treating wounded soldiers had apparently reached them before Nathan himself did.
The elder pointed toward several injured Ndipaya.
"He says the healer may examine their wounded if he comes."
"He will."
The linguist translated.
The elder watched Joseph.
"He asks what you ask in return."
"Nothing."
Suspicion tightened the older man's expression almost immediately.
Joseph saw it.
"The expedition asked permission to learn," he continued. "Your people asked for help. Treating someone who's hurt doesn't become a separate bargain every time."
The linguist took longer with that sentence.
The elder listened to the translation, said nothing for a while and then looked toward the fire where the British and Ndipaya were sitting together.
Eventually he spoke again.
"He says Professor Drake may enter this village as a guest and speak with the elders. Then they decide who may go farther."
Joseph nodded.
"Fair."
The elder's eyes moved across the damaged Ledermaske, the Winchester and the dirt still worked into Joseph's clothing.
He asked another question.
The linguist hesitated long enough that Joseph noticed.
"What?"
"He asks whether you will hunt the red thing again."
Joseph looked toward the nearest trees.
The fire illuminated bark, vines and dark leaves.
Beyond the first line, the forest remained entirely black.
The same forest had hidden something nearly twelve feet tall from men standing close enough to shoot it.
"If it comes back," Joseph said.
The elder listened to the translation but kept watching him.
The unasked question remained.
"And if Professor Drake decides it must be found first," Joseph added, "we'll go after it."
This time the elder nodded without the old fear that had marked their first meeting. It was not trust in the complete sense. Perhaps men who had known one another for decades did not always possess that.
It was recognition.
The elder understood what T was for.
Joseph returned to the fire with the Winchester across his knees while the village mourned behind him and the black water beneath the platforms caught the flames in restless reflections. Somewhere beyond the marsh, Lewis was carrying the message back to the British camp. The expedition had come to Ndipaya believing access would be purchased through credentials, careful diplomacy and the authority of Professor Nathan Drake.
Instead the first genuine invitation had been bought by something much less elegant.
Blood.
Shared fear.
A dead man carried home by people who had entered the forest suspicious of one another and returned unwilling to leave one another there.
The caves still waited farther inland. Kafele remained missing. The red thing had not left them a body, and the men who had watched it stand like a tree would probably look twice at large trunks for the rest of their lives.
Yet the villagers were no longer arranging themselves between the British and Ndipaya.
They had made room beside the fire.
Lewis reached the British camp several hours later, and by the final stretch the guide accompanying him had stopped pretending not to notice how carefully the soldier protected his left side.
The ribs had hurt when he left the village, but the pain had been broad enough then that Lewis could call it bruising and move on. Walking had sharpened it. Each mile made breathing deeply less attractive, while stepping down hard from a root sent the discomfort around his side and into his back. He attempted to keep his ordinary pace because admitting the injury had worsened felt somehow like giving the forest one more thing after it had already taken enough.
The guide saw through the performance.
At one narrow crossing where wet earth fell toward black water, Lewis slipped slightly and the man's hand closed around his elbow before either of them considered pride. Lewis looked at the hand and then at the guide.
The guide released him.
Five minutes later Lewis stumbled again.
This time he accepted the arm.
Neither man mentioned the change.
They reached the first British sentry line well after dark. The challenge came before Lewis saw the man who issued it, followed by a second voice farther behind, and the familiar English words felt almost absurdly comforting after hours of languages he could not understand. Lanterns moved near the command area. Somebody shouted his name after recognising him.
Mallory came quickly.
"Where's T?" he asked before Lewis had completely crossed the perimeter, and the captain's eyes had already gone past him toward the road. "Where are the others?"
"They're fine, sir." Lewis stopped because breathing while walking and reporting simultaneously had become less pleasant than he intended to reveal. "All of ours are there. T stayed with them. They let us into the outer village."
The tension left Mallory's face by degrees rather than all at once.
"Casualties?"
"One Ndipaya killed during the hunt. More injured. Ours got battered about but everyone's alive."
Mallory looked at the way Lewis held himself.
"You?"
"Fine."
The captain's expression immediately suggested Lewis had chosen the wrong word.
Nathan arrived before Mallory could challenge it.
He had come down from the limestone observation point before full darkness and spent the time since checking the medical station, reviewing sentry arrangements and pretending the repeated glances toward the inland road were ordinary assessments of the perimeter. When he saw Lewis enter, he crossed the camp quickly, sleeves still rolled and collar open against the tropical night.
Nathan looked at Lewis's face first.
Then his left arm.
Then the way one side of the chest moved slightly less than the other when he inhaled.
"Medical tent."
"T said I was to report directly—"
"You are reporting directly," Nathan replied while turning him toward the canvas with one hand at his good shoulder. "I possess the remarkable ability to listen and examine you simultaneously."
Mallory fell in beside them.
The guide was intercepted by another soldier, given water and something to eat while the three British men entered the medical tent. The familiar smells of disinfectant, damp cloth and people who had been ill too long gathered beneath the canvas. One lantern already burned inside. Nathan requested another and pointed toward an empty cot.
"Sit."
Lewis sat.
"Equipment off."
"I can—"
"Lewis."
That ended it.
Nathan helped ease the webbing away. Lewis attempted to lift the left arm and hissed before he could prevent the sound.
"That's useful," Nathan said, watching him closely. "Where?"
"Ribs."
"I had inferred the general continent. Show me."
The tunic came open. Nathan lifted the shirt carefully and found a broad section of bruising running along the left side, the centre already deep purple where impact had driven Lewis against the ground. Another mark had developed near the shoulder.
Mallory's expression darkened.
"What hit you?"
"Not the thing. Another man."
Nathan's hand stopped.
"Explain."
"It came through the line. Everyone moved at once. One of theirs got thrown into a tree and somebody hit me hard enough to send both of us down."
Nathan nodded and continued the examination.
"Tell me when."
He pressed along the ribs one at a time.
Lewis remained quiet until Nathan reached the lower section.
"There."
Nathan eased the pressure and moved around the area instead.
"Deep breath."
Lewis inhaled.
Pain stopped him halfway.
"Again."
"Professor—"
"Again."
He obeyed.
Nathan listened to the chest and watched the expansion on both sides. Then he made Lewis cough.
The soldier glared at him afterward.
"If looks killed physicians, medicine would have collapsed centuries ago."
"Felt like you were trying to kill me yourself."
"That would be an extraordinarily inefficient method."
Nothing suggested a collapsed or punctured lung. There was no gross displacement beneath Nathan's fingers. One rib might have cracked. Several were certainly badly bruised.
"You've avoided becoming medically interesting," Nathan said, lowering the shirt again. "Possibly one cracked rib. Certainly enough bruising to make sneezing a spiritual crisis for the next several days."
Lewis almost smiled.
Then Nathan saw his hands.
The shaking had hidden itself during the walk because Lewis had used one arm to brace his ribs and kept the other around his rifle. Beneath medical light, with no task left to perform, both hands trembled visibly. When an orderly passed him water, the rim of the metal cup clicked twice against his teeth before he lowered it.
Lewis saw Nathan notice.
His expression hardened with embarrassment.
"Cold," he muttered.
Nathan did not contradict him.
"Tell me what happened."
Lewis stared into the water for several seconds.
Mallory remained near the entrance, but the authority had gone out of his posture now. He was simply a man listening to another man return from somewhere he had not been.
"We met their hunters where the marsh opens," Lewis began. "T split us together, locals and ours. Made us learn signals first. Nobody liked wasting the time. Turned out he was right."
Nathan settled onto the edge of the next cot rather than standing over him.
"We searched for hours. Found every bloody thing except the man." Lewis's mouth twitched without humour. "Footprints that belonged to villagers. A bit of old rope. Broken reeds. Animal marks. Mud. Then it went quiet."
"How quiet?" Nathan asked.
Lewis looked up.
"You could hear your clothes."
The answer sat in the tent.
Lewis's eyes moved toward the canvas wall and did not seem to see it anymore.
"Frogs stopped first, I suppose. Or birds. That's the thing—I don't know. We didn't notice it happening. We were looking down at tracks and whatever lived around us just stopped making noise one piece at a time. By the time T noticed, there was almost nothing."
Nathan's lips thinned.
Lewis tightened both hands around the cup.
"We'd already passed it."
Mallory frowned. "Passed what?"
"The creature."
Lewis looked at him." We saw a tree."
For a moment Mallory thought he had misunderstood.
Lewis laughed once, without any amusement.
"That's what we saw. Red growth hanging down it, pale branches at the top. A few of their hunters looked at it. Byrne remembers looking right at the thing. Shaw too, I think. We all thought it was a tree."
He swallowed.
"One of their young men stopped. Kept staring."
The metal cup trembled harder.
Nathan said nothing.
Lewis's voice became quieter.
"The tree breathed."
A shadow crossed the outside of the medical tent as someone walked between lamps.
Lewis jerked hard enough to spill water across his hand.
He stared at the spill.
"Sorry."
"You have absolutely nothing to apologise for," Nathan said.
Lewis put the cup down before he dropped it.
"It was standing there while we searched for it," he whispered. "That's the part I can't get out of my head. Not the size. Not even what it did to the poor bastard after. We walked past it. It could've reached out and taken any of us and it just stood there pretending to be bark."
"What happened when it moved?" Nathan asked.
Lewis described it.
The red mane shifting where there was no wind.
The pale section becoming a face.
The long arms unfolding from what men had accepted as the shape of a trunk.
A hunter screaming.
The first stride.
The second.
A man lifted as though his weight meant nothing and thrown upward.
Lewis stopped.
Nathan waited.
"He came down on a branch," Lewis said finally. "Went through him."
His breathing had shortened.
"He was alive for a little while."
The shaking became worse.
Nathan moved closer without interrupting.
"T got us together before everyone ran after it," Lewis continued. "Thing was too fast. You'd see red somewhere ahead and then hear it behind another group. It knew when people split apart. Maybe knew which groups were smaller."
"How do you know?"
"We didn't at first. T worked it out. Every time somebody ran after a sighting, it came from another direction."
Mallory's expression tightened.
Lewis continued.
"One Ndipaya went after it alone. We heard him scream. T found him before the rest of us. Creature hadn't killed him. Just stood over him."
Nathan's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Later it charged the line. Didn't care about the rifles. One of their men put a spear at it and it slapped him aside hard enough to throw him into a tree. Byrne almost got gutted. That's when I went down."
"And T?"
"Shot it from almost close enough to touch."
Lewis looked between Nathan and Mallory.
"Blew a hole in its side."
Mallory shifted, "What happened?"
"It closed."
The answer came so simply that for a second neither listener reacted.
Lewis shook his head.
"We watched it. Flesh pulling back together while it ran."
Nathan's mouth became a narrow line.
Lewis mistook the expression for disbelief.
"I know what it sounds like."
"I didn't say you were wrong."
"That was when it started paying more attention to T," Lewis said. "Kept coming toward wherever he moved. T worked it out toward sunset and started making himself obvious."
Mallory's face changed.
"He did what?"
Lewis looked toward him uneasily.
"Used himself as bait" ,Mallory swore.
"He kept us behind him. Fired at the thing. Kept drawing it."
"He was ordered to protect the patrol, not volunteer to be eaten."
"He did protect us," Lewis said before remembering he was disagreeing with a captain. "Sir."
Mallory looked away.
Lewis continued.
"It came straight at him at the end. He shot it again, ducked under one arm and shoved a grenade into the hole."
Nathan's eyes lifted.
"Into it?"
Lewis nodded.
"Pulled away before it went off. Barely."
He closed his eyes for a second.
"The blast threw both of them."
"What happened to the creature?" Nathan asked.
Lewis opened his eyes again.
"That scream..."
He stopped.
His hands had started shaking badly enough that Nathan reached over and steadied the cup before it slipped.
"It went up," Lewis continued eventually. "Parts of it came off. Pieces of that pale stuff. Blood. Then it screamed."
Mallory waited.
"And?"
"It didn't come down."
The silence beneath the canvas deepened.
"We searched everything," Lewis said quickly, because the words sounded ridiculous even to him. "Place where it should have landed, the water, trees. We found fragments from the grenade and some dark blood. Nothing big enough to be a body. No marks leaving."
Nathan kept his face under control.
"The frogs started calling again once it disappeared."
Lewis's voice broke slightly on the sentence.
That seemed to be the thing which undid him.
Not the body in the tree.
Not the regeneration, the frogs.
The knowledge that animals had known when the creature entered their part of the forest and had known when it left.
Lewis lowered his face into both hands.
"I've been under shellfire," he said, words muffled through his palms. "Ypres. Saw men I knew disappear into mud because there wasn't enough left to lift out. I've watched machine guns turn charges into bloody butcher's floors."
His hands dropped.
His eyes were wet.
"I have never been that scared."
The confession seemed to embarrass him more than the tears.
He looked away from both men.
"I don't know if I can go back."
Nathan sat beside him.
There was no clever line this time, no dry answer intended to ease the moment by making the soldier roll his eyes. Nathan simply lowered himself onto the stool beside the cot until he was no longer standing as Professor Drake over a subordinate.
"You don't have to decide tonight," Nathan said as Lewis looked at him.
"You are exhausted. You have at least one rib that will make breathing unpleasant for several days, and a few hours ago you watched something stand beside you disguised as a tree before killing a man. Your body is still behaving as though you're inside that forest because, as far as the part of your mind responsible for keeping you alive is concerned, the danger occurred about five minutes ago."
Lewis rubbed one hand over his face.
"It feels pathetic."
"No."
The word was quiet.
"Fear after seeing something horrifying isn't cowardice. It means you understood what you were looking at."
"I left them there."
"You obeyed T's order to return."
"I know."
"Then stop changing obedience into abandonment simply because guilt feels more dramatic."
Lewis looked at him.
Nathan rested one hand lightly on the man's uninjured forearm.
"When we move forward, not everyone is going. Half this expedition will remain here. If you choose to stay with them, rest, recover and never voluntarily walk back into that particular forest again, I will not hold it against you."
Lewis stared as though waiting for the rest.
There was no rest.
"You mean that?"
"Yes."
"I thought you'd say I needed to get over it."
"Then you have mistaken me for an idiot."
A weak breath escaped Lewis.
Nathan continued, "Dragging a terrified man back into the place that terrified him doesn't manufacture courage. It manufactures a man who is watching shadows instead of his companions and making decisions because he desperately wants to leave. That gets people killed."
Lewis's fingers remained unsteady.
Nathan squeezed his arm once.
"You came back alive. You brought the message. You told me what happened clearly enough that we can use it. That's enough work for one night."
"What happens if that thing comes back?"
Nathan's expression did not change.
"Then you stay with whoever is responsible for your group. You listen. You do not run because something moves. You survive."
A small laugh escaped Lewis, trembling close to tears.
Nathan allowed it.
"You may decide tomorrow whether you want to go forward again. Or the next day. There's no medal for making the choice while frightened and in pain."
Lewis nodded.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. I'm about to tell you not to sleep flat because your ribs will make you regret it."
That earned another small laugh, healthier this time.
Nathan stood only after the orderly had helped Lewis settle with his upper body supported and placed water within reach.
"Rest," Nathan said. "That is an order."
"Yes, Professor."
Mallory followed him outside.
The night felt warmer after the medical tent, humid air gathering instantly against skin while lanterns threw circles of yellow across the camp. For several steps neither man spoke. The forest beyond the perimeter appeared ordinary from here, and after Lewis's description that ordinariness had acquired a quality Mallory disliked.
"He made it sound bad," the captain said.
"It was bad."
"You weren't there."
Nathan looked at him.
Mallory corrected himself after a moment. "You watched from the ridge."
"Enough of it."
Mallory looked inland.
"We still going forward?"
"Yes."
The answer came without hesitation.
Mallory turned. "After that?"
"Because of that, in part. Joseph has secured us an invitation into the outer settlement, and the elder wants to speak before anybody goes farther. If we retreat now after helping them and being invited in, we turn the first trust we've gained into another story about foreigners who arrive when it suits them and leave when the cost becomes uncomfortable."
"How many are you thinking?"
"Half the expedition."
Mallory stared.
"Half?"
"Not half the rifles," Nathan replied. "Half the useful forward personnel. The wounded remain here. Lewis remains. Enough soldiers stay to secure the camp, vehicles, wireless equipment and medical stores. We take a physician, orderlies, the interpreter, enough security to keep everyone sensible and the scientists most likely to become relevant if the elder gives us permission."
"Archaeologist?"
"Yes."
"Geologist?"
"Yes."
"Botanist?"
"Yes."
Mallory rubbed one hand across his jaw.
"And there it is again."
"What?"
"Your habit of treating every journey as an opportunity to collect another profession."
Nathan's mouth moved faintly.
"It never stopped."
They spent much of the following hour deciding who was not going.
That proved harder than choosing those who were. Some men wanted to move forward because the hunt had already become the only subject in camp and staying behind felt like admitting fear. Nathan refused to let bravery become an administrative criterion. Others had necessary duties regardless of whether they now looked at the forest as though every tree might begin breathing. Ammunition was redistributed. Medical stores were divided carefully rather than carried wholesale. The forward physician chose what could reasonably be transported to the village while leaving enough behind for the wounded.
Practical gifts were added at the interpreter's suggestion: dressings, needles, thread, salt, hand tools and other small things whose usefulness mattered more than spectacle. Nathan refused anything that looked extravagantly valuable.
"We aren't buying them," he said when one officer suggested additional trade goods. "I don't want the first conversation to become a price negotiation."
The forward column began moving before sunrise had properly reached the ground.
Lewis insisted upon being outside the medical tent to watch them leave.
He stood with one hand near the ribs despite Nathan's instruction to avoid unnecessary movement, pale from poor sleep but steadier than the night before. Soldiers passed carrying reduced packs and equipment. Scientists adjusted cases that had been packed too heavily and were immediately ordered to remove half of what they considered essential.
Nathan crossed the camp near the front of the column and saw Lewis.
Neither called attention to the other.
Nathan gave one small nod.
Lewis returned it.
That was enough.
The route inward felt different to the men who had not participated in the hunt. They had heard descriptions during the night, naturally. Soldiers had always been better than official communication networks at distributing the details an officer might prefer to manage slowly, and by dawn almost everybody knew about the red mane, the tree that breathed and T putting a grenade into the creature's side.
The result followed them into the forest.
Every large trunk was looked at twice.
Nobody joked about it.
The botanist repeatedly became distracted by plants nobody else had noticed. After the third time he slowed far enough to open a specimen case, Nathan turned.
"No."
The botanist looked offended. "Professor, this species—"
"Still lives here if you leave it alone for another hour."
"I only intended—"
"You intend to ask permission before collecting anything once we reach the village."
The man reluctantly closed the case.
The geologist became so interested in the emerging limestone that he nearly stepped from one narrow walkway into black water and was caught by a soldier behind him.
"Careful," Nathan said without turning around.
The geologist looked toward him indignantly. "You weren't even looking."
"I didn't need to be."
The archaeologist said considerably less than either of them. He watched how the paths related to raised platforms, how older timber disappeared beneath newer structures and how the first distant stonework seemed to guide movement without ever becoming obvious walls. Nathan appreciated the restraint. A person who saw an unfamiliar culture and immediately decided what everything meant generally spent more time correcting himself than learning.
The village announced itself gradually.
Smoke first.
Then voices.
The knock of wood upon wood.
Children calling.
The smell of fish and wet reeds, cooking fires, mud and the colder mineral breath drifting from the limestone.
Structures appeared between vegetation piece by piece until the expedition understood they had already been inside the outer edge of the settlement for several minutes.
People were waiting.
So was T.
Nathan saw the damage to the Ledermaske immediately.
Joseph came forward far enough to meet him before the rest of the group fully entered the settlement, and even without seeing his face Nathan could read the slight stiffness in his neck.
"Lewis made it," Joseph said.
"I know. I treated him."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough that he will complain about breathing and not bad enough that I'm particularly worried."
Joseph's shoulders loosened.
"Possibly one cracked rib. Extensive bruising."
"He didn't want to go."
"I gathered that."
Nathan looked at the damaged mask.
"We will be discussing whatever interpretation of 'no injuries' produced that."
Joseph stared.
"I knew you were going to say that."
"Then the lectures are working."
The village itself looked different from the description Nathan had built through reports and stolen memory. Knowledge was one thing. Standing inside a place while its living inhabitants watched him was another.
Ash from the previous night's rites remained near one central area. Crushed leaves had darkened the ground beside a fire. A vessel still stood near the place where the dead hunter had been washed. Several women were speaking quietly beside one dwelling. Nathan recognised enough of the emotional residue to understand what had happened without staring.
He did not look for Kafele's family.
That took effort.
The elder came from one of the larger raised areas with two older Ndipaya accompanying him. The village slowly quietened around the meeting. Hunters remained nearby with weapons held naturally rather than presented. Children watched from behind adults. Several British soldiers already in the settlement stood at enough ease that the contrast with the first contact almost felt unreal.
The elder studied Nathan for a long time.
Nathan allowed him to.
This was the first proper meeting between the two men.
"He says you are the healer," the linguist translated when the elder finally spoke.
"Among other things," Nathan replied.
The translation produced the smallest alteration in the elder's expression.
"He asks whether you're the man who commands the expedition."
"Yes."
The elder looked toward T.
Nathan followed the glance.
"T is simply much better at looking alarming from a distance."
The linguist hesitated.
Nathan glanced at him.
"Translate it."
He did.
One of the elder's companions laughed.
Joseph turned his damaged mask slowly toward Nathan.
Nathan pretended not to notice.
The elder did not exactly smile, but some tension left his eyes before he gestured toward a quieter platform overlooking the water. Nathan initially moved with Joseph, Mallory and the archaeologist, but the elder stopped and indicated that only Nathan, T and the linguist should continue.
Mallory remained where he was.
That mattered.
Nathan sat opposite the elder beneath a partial reed covering while Joseph remained slightly to one side. Morning light reached across the black water between them, and beyond the settlement pale mist was lifting slowly from the limestone. Several cave openings became visible as the vapour thinned, dark enough that even daylight seemed unwilling to go far inside.
"He says they spoke about you during the night," the linguist translated. "Some wanted the expedition sent away. Others said you should be allowed here because your people helped hunt and brought their wounded home."
Nathan nodded.
The elder continued.
"He says they know why strangers come to places like this."
"What does he mean?"
The elder's voice sharpened, one hand gesturing toward the limestone while the linguist listened.
"He says foreigners see old things and decide the old things belong to them. They take stone. Bones. Sacred objects. Things left by ancestors. They open places people tell them not to open and break things because they want to know what is inside."
Nathan listened without interrupting.
"He says men with money believe paying means they did not steal."
The linguist looked uncomfortable delivering the accusation.
Nathan did not.
"Tell him he's right to be worried."
The interpreter looked at him.
Nathan held his gaze.
"Exactly that."
The translation passed.
The elder became very still.
Nathan leaned slightly forward.
"We came here to document what exists, not remove it until nothing remains except labels in a London museum. My archaeologist will draw and record. My geologist studies the stone. My botanist studies what grows here. We measure, write and observe."
The linguist translated in sections.
"If something small can be sampled without damaging the place and your people permit it, I may ask to take a sample."
Nathan waited until that had been translated.
"Ask. Not take."
The elder listened.
"No burial will be opened merely because we are curious. No sacred object leaves because someone thinks it would look interesting in a collection. We do not break carvings from stone or dig wherever we please. If there is a plant you tell us cannot be touched, we do not touch it."
The elder responded immediately.
"He asks what happens if one of your people ignores you."
Nathan looked briefly toward the scientists waiting farther away.
"They answer to me."
The elder continued looking at him.
Nathan understood the first answer was insufficient.
"If one of my people deliberately steals from you, destroys a sacred place after being warned or damages something your people placed under protection, then I understand why the Ndipaya would demand retribution."
The linguist hesitated.
Nathan's eyes moved toward him.
"Translate it."
Joseph's black lenses shifted slightly.
The words went across.
Nathan continued before the elder could interpret his willingness too broadly.
"I am not handing you one of my men to kill because he makes an honest mistake or steps somewhere without understanding. Mistakes are discussed. Deliberate desecration is different."
The elder asked another question.
"He asks whether you would punish your own people."
"Yes."
Nathan did not pause.
"I brought them here. They operate under my authority. Their behaviour is therefore my responsibility."
The elder watched him closely.
"I give you my word that we will not deliberately destroy your sacred land, remove anything without permission or harm anyone here. I cannot promise nobody will make a mistake. Nobody can honestly promise that. I can promise mistakes will not become excuses for taking whatever we want."
The translation took time.
The elder listened.
For several seconds afterward only the water beneath the platform moved.
Somewhere behind Nathan, a child laughed and was quickly quietened. The morning mist retreated farther from the limestone and exposed another opening Nathan had not been able to see when they arrived.
The elder did not hurry.
Neither did Nathan.
Eventually the older man spoke.
"He says some places cannot be entered even by many of his own people," the linguist translated. "The land belongs to those living, to the ancestors and to the gods. He cannot give all of it to strangers because it is not his alone to give."
"I understand."
The elder continued.
"He says you may be taken deeper."
Joseph became more attentive.
Then the elder raised one finger.
"Not everyone."
Nathan nodded. "Who?"
The elder listed them by purpose rather than by names.
"T," the linguist said first. "The hunter who walked in darkness and returned their wounded."
Joseph remained motionless.
"You," the linguist continued toward Nathan. "Their healer and the leader."
The elder spoke again.
"The people who study the stone, plants and old works may come if they obey what they are told."
"The geologist, botanist and archaeologist."
The linguist nodded.
"He will go as well, with Ndipaya hunters. They will tell you which routes and places may be approached."
Nathan looked toward the limestone.
"And our soldiers?"
The answer came immediately.
"They stay here."
Joseph's head turned.
"All of them?"
"All except T."
The elder explained further.
"He says many men carrying rifles cannot go into sacred ground. Some elders would consider it an insult. Hunters may carry weapons because of the red creature."
Nathan understood.
He also knew exactly how Mallory would react.
"Tell him I accept."
The linguist blinked.
The elder's eyebrows rose faintly as the answer was translated.
Perhaps he had expected bargaining.
Nathan continued. "My soldiers remain in the outer village unless invited farther. T accompanies us for security. Your hunters remain with us. My scientists obey your rules."
The elder nodded.
"If you say a place cannot be entered, we don't enter. If something cannot be touched, we don't touch it. If I want a sample, I ask first."
Another translation.
The elder leaned forward and spoke again.
"He says there is another condition."
Nathan waited.
The older man pointed toward the limestone and then at the scientific equipment.
"He says what you learn must not become a road other foreigners use to find the sacred places."
That answer required more thought.
Nathan looked past the elder toward the caves.
Maps reproduced themselves.
Reports passed between governments.
Researchers published discoveries and other researchers followed them.
He would not make a promise he could not enforce.
"I can control this expedition," Nathan said carefully. "I can control Institute records and who receives them. I can withhold exact routes and locations from public publication."
The linguist translated.
"I cannot truthfully promise nobody else in the world will ever find this place on his own."
The elder's eyes narrowed slightly but he continued listening.
"But my work will not become an invitation. No public map directing travellers into the sacred interior. No paper telling adventurers where to walk. Scientific observations can be recorded without giving anyone the path here."
The elder remained quiet.
Nathan could see that the limitation mattered. A lie promising absolute secrecy would have sounded kinder and meant less.
The older man nodded.
No handshake followed.
None was needed.
The elder rose.
Nathan stood as well.
For several seconds they faced one another above the black water while morning brightened around them and the entrances beyond the marsh remained dark.
The elder spoke one final sentence.
"He says the sacred land remembers the people who enter it," the linguist translated, and even he seemed unsure what he thought of the phrase. "He says you should remember that before you ask the land questions."
Nathan looked toward the caves.
In another place he might have called the sentence poetic and moved on.
Ndipaya had already taught him not to dismiss frightened language simply because educated men preferred cleaner words.
"Tell him that is precisely why I intend to listen before I speak."
The elder received the translation.
Then nodded.
Mallory read the outcome from Nathan's face before the professor finished crossing back toward the British group.
"Well?"
"We have permission to go deeper."
The scientists visibly brightened.
Nathan raised one hand before enthusiasm acquired legs.
"A limited party."
"How limited?" Mallory asked.
"Myself. T. The archaeologist, geologist and botanist. The elder and several Ndipaya hunters."
Mallory waited.
Nathan already knew which question came next.
"And my men?"
"They remain here."
"No."
Nathan looked at him.
"No?"
Mallory folded his arms. "I've spent the last few days watching spears come out of trees, wounded men crawl back into camp and now a twelve-foot thing that regenerates from shotgun wounds. You're asking me to let you walk deeper into the same country with one armed British man."
"One armed British man your soldiers have begun treating as a mobile siege weapon."
"That sentence does not reassure me."
"It was intended to marginally improve your mood."
"It failed."
Nathan's expression softened enough to show he understood the concern beneath the resistance.
"Their people have protected those places for generations. I have just given the elder my word that we are not an occupying force. If the first thing I do afterward is insist upon marching rifles into ground he specifically said should not contain them, then everything I said becomes theatre."
Mallory looked toward T.
"T?"
Joseph took several seconds.
"I can protect the scientists."
"That isn't what I asked."
"I know."
Mallory waited.
Joseph looked toward the limestone.
"I think Nathan's right."
Mallory muttered something so low the linguist thankfully could not hear.
"You two are becoming intolerable," Nathan said.
"You chose us," Joseph replied.
"A recurring error in judgement."
Mallory stared at both of them.
Eventually he gave in enough to move from refusal into conditions.
"Fine. My men stay in the outer settlement. You maintain communication as long as the terrain allows it."
"Agreed," Nathan said.
"And if T tells you to withdraw?"
Nathan turned toward Joseph.
"I withdraw."
Joseph became very still.
Mallory noticed.
"So everyone heard that."
Nathan sighed.
"I continue to find both your opinions of my survival instinct insulting."
Neither answered.
Nathan looked from Mallory to Joseph.
The silence extended.
"That was particularly offensive."
Mallory finally smiled.
Beyond them the elder had already begun selecting the hunters who would escort the smaller scientific party. The archaeologist was removing half his equipment after learning he would have to carry it himself. The botanist looked toward the vegetation with visible longing and considerably greater caution about touching anything now. The geologist stood studying the limestone while one of the villagers watched him with the wary expression of someone wondering whether a foreigner could become lost merely by staring too hard at a rock.
British soldiers settled into the outer village rather than pressing farther. Medical personnel began examining the hunters injured during the creature's attack. Byrne sat beside a Ndipaya man repairing the torn strap the hunter had carried for him, neither speaking the other's language and somehow managing the task anyway. Ellison had acquired a cup of something from an older woman and was drinking it with an expression that suggested he had no idea what it contained and had wisely decided not to ask.
The expedition had finally reached the threshold hidden behind the reports which brought Nathan halfway across the world.
Beyond the marsh village lay the older paths, sacred limestone, ancestral caves and blank portions of British maps whose uncertainty had once seemed merely geographical. Somewhere inside that country remained whatever the earlier detachment had encountered badly enough to return raving about things nobody in England wanted to believe.
The men who had come here to investigate were no longer laughing about frightened soldiers.
Several of them would probably look at trees differently for the rest of their lives.
Nathan looked toward the caves, And smirked slightly.