The air was damp and warm beneath the canopy of trees, heavy with the scent of leaf mold. Kira could feel her heart thumping time to the drums, too slow, too slow. The tempo increased in pace, until the whole world was the beat. She didn't see the people crouched beside her, nor the patches of sunlight filtering from high above, and neither did she feel the cushiony loam beneath her knees and belly and forearms. The trees became a hazy blur at the edge of her perception and there was only the constant hammering around her and within her going faster and faster.

A rustling added in beneath the steady pulse and made the music richer. Somewhere outside of her focus a bird took flight, then two and three, and cawed their fear. The air came alive with the thrum of arrows and the twang of strings, and from the throats of those around her a sound of bravery joined the song. She felt rather than heard a high pitched calling from her own throat, and it was the melody.

Her big young eyes were coloured warm as honey and shining with excitement as she waved her spear above her head and beat at the bushes beside her. Other young women and boys let loose the same wild yell- Leeaiiii Leeaiiii Arooooo! over and over again and the undergrowth shook to their beating and trampling. The archers in their trees were perched with lean golden bodies taut as their bowstrings, arrows notched and ready to fly. And before Kira and her beaters crouched the ring of warriors with red crosses painted on their backs.

The forest came alive with roar and the world was full of teeth and claws and thick white fur. Metal and slaver glinted in equal parts beneath the light, and the air became red and frenzied as the wounded. Kira drew back to her place and back to back with her partner. The young boy stood facing outwards to fend off the small scavenger dogs who arrived within moments of bloodshed and sought to enter the ring of fighters, while she herself took the more dangerous position, facing inwards, watching the fight, ready to step forward with her life in hand should the warriors before her fall. Her nostrils flared at the scent of blood, and she heard the signal yipping of the scavenger dogs, but the forest was returned too quickly to a now bloodied quiet.

Of the two dozen who had set out -ten beaters, ten warriors and four archers- they had lost three. Two warriors had fallen to the Larrin they hunted, and one of the beaters, a boy facing away from the fight, had been caught by a stray arrow. The archer who loosed it would pay his trainer for his life, and carry the shame of missing his target until such time as he could redeem himself. The archers, also trained as healers, clambered down by rope ladders to see to the remaining warriors, all of who had sustained injuries of varying degrees. Despite the loss of their companions, they were jubilant. Others had sacrificed more, and for less.

This Larrin was large even for its kind, standing near to half again the height of a man. Even in death both it's heads were snarling, jaws bloodied and eyes only just beginning to cloud and lose their predatory gleam. It had two tails as well, so it was mature, and likely an experienced fighter. Kira stalked forwards, evading a carnivorous vine that reached for her ankle, and circled around the carcass, marvelling at the thickness of the pelt. It would go to join 15 brothers that carpeted the hall, and visitors to their village would know that Muririn warriors were the bravest.

She stepped forwards, to view the great jaws up close, as the warriors and archers, women and boys, stood leaning on their spears or in small groups and prided themselves on their teamwork. As the last few nerves in the creatures brain shut down their circuits, the paw nearest her twitched, and glass sharp claws scythed towards her ankle. In a fraction of a heartbeat, her spear was down off her shoulder and slamming through the paw, pinning it to the already blood damp earth and away from her leg. Her eyes had narrowed and a patter of fear erupted in her throat, and feeling foolish, she calmed her breathing from the fright. Behind her, she heard laughter.

"Look how well the little beater handles that spear of hers."

She recognised the voice of Tarpun, a warrior renowned for bravery and, some whispered, cruelty to his inferiors. Kira, a mere trained beater, was such, and dropped her gaze as befit her status.

"She evidently did not trust our warriors to have killed it, and thought to do so herself.. retrieve your weapon, leelin."

Her cheeks flushed at the injustice of the name, in effect dubbing her a slave. Although beaters had owners and trainers, and were technically children of defeated clans, they were something more than slaves, and many considered it an honorable position. Beaters who were not brave and apt fighters would not survive the training, or the hunts they were sent to face for. Brought up in the village of the shadowmen the beaters were the orphaned children left over after a clan was defeated. They had no identity as they were taken too young to remember their original clan, and kept all together, nameless, so others could not place their origin. They were named by the clans they were taken into, and adopted that clan as their family. They had rights, and were respected, and could gain status and freedom. True slaves were slaves for life, and lived a much poorer life as captives. But Tarpun was high on blood lust and adrenalin and violence, and Kira knew better than to argue. She fetched her spear.

"Rather, she is demonstrating how well she has been trained."

This was Damir, Tarpun's cousin, and a well loved, well respected, just warrior. Both were quite young, Tarpun was two years senior, two and twenty summers. Damir at nineteen would normally have been the junior, but for the fact that he was the Muririn chief's son. Tarpun respected him as his future leader and his cousin, and even managed to hold back the sneer that formed.

"Well trained?"

"Of course. She was relaxed, focused on something else, and yet at the slightest movement her weapon was unslung, and found its target. This is the sort of beater the Muririn train to guard our children, is it not?"

Tarpun paused, but grudgingly had to agree. Kira realised she had held her breath and that her cheeks were flushed. She had only ever dreamed of such praise from Damir. Come the summer, when he was twenty and expected to take a wife, she would have joined the other girls in contest for his attention, but she was not a fully free person and not fit for him. She would be sixteen this summer, and she knew that she was strong enough to bear children. The intake of air cooled both her lungs and her mind, and she regained control of her thoughts and pushed them aside.

The minor confrontation stirred the others into action, and they moved to the carcass, first to take what belonged to them, and then to roll the bulk onto a broadleaf stretcher to carry it back to the village. Tonight all would feast on the rich red meat. To the warriors went the teeth, the size and number division decided by the individuals part in the battle. To the archers, the ears, to be dried and made into purses for arrow heads or herbs, an important status item. The beaters received the claws.

As Kira knelt beside the paw she had speared to remove the two claws that were now her property, one pair of the feet crossing behind her paused and something heavy dropped across her neck. One end fell down into her field of vision as she turned, startled, and she saw a matt of blood with bone sticking out. When she turned the other way she saw a thick tuft of white, and realised that the thing draped over her shoulders was one of the long thin tails of the Larrin. She turned to see Damir's half smiling face.

"A reward for your display of skill, since you may not have a tooth."

He turned and was gone, as quickly as that, but Kira saw Tarpuns heavy glare from across the carcass, and turned guiltily back to her work of removing the claws, not daring to touch the great gift she had just been given.

****************************************

It was well dark by the time they were safely behind their wooden walls, and the sounds of laughter, crackling fire and spitting fat, mingled with the smoke above the happy Muririn. Kira had eaten quickly and retreated, finally granted a moment of time to herself. She examined the tail almost reverently, stroking it's thick white fur and the tuft of longer hair at the end. She didn't want to ruin it, but she knew it would be more ruined if she did not clean it. Taking a knife up, she carefully cut down all the way along it, trying her best not to make the incision jagged or ugly. She was glad to be able to focus on the work, or she should not have been able to keep herself from watching Damir's every movement. It seemed that as each day passed he proved himself more and more her private hero, and today had made it especially hard to remember her place.

She was glad also for the heat of the fire, a fitting excuse for her flushed cheeks. Once she had thought she saw him looking at her, but then decided he was looking at the warrior before him, with whom he was sharing drink and laughter. She could not have known that he was admiring the three green feathers that hung from her earlobe in contrast to her skin, and the way the pieces of shiny black rock thrust through each cheek reflected the flames and matched the fire-flush of her face.

Cutting carefully, she removed the vertebrae and little finger-like bones from the tail, and began scraping away what little flesh clung to the inside of the skin. She would have to cure and stuff it, and perhaps make it into a necklace, the way it had first been placed about her neck. The meat was worth nothing, but she felt she should own every piece of this gift, so she put each shred into her mouth raw as it came away, and chewed carefully as she worked. The bones would make fine ornaments for her hair. As she worked she realised that the tail was far too long for a necklace, although if looped around twice it might still work. She could make the tufted end the fixing-point, perhaps attach a hook into the fur and a loop to the other end to make a clasp. It would be loose though, even impractical. Perhaps it would be better suited to a belt. On her slim frame it might just reach twice. She would have to find some way to make it adjustable.

As the fires began to die down, Kira was called from her work by Tarpun, who silently disagreed with the honour his cousin had chosen to gift her with. He assigned her to the night watch over the three dead, and to cleaning the bodies to make them as presentable as possible for their trip to the afterlife. It was a loathsome and tiring job, and lonely too, especially on a night after festivities like this, when all the rest of the village would be sleeping and she would be left with the stiffening dead. It should have rightly been assigned to one of the fresher beaters who had not been on the hunt that day, but Kira decided it was a small price to pay for Damir's attention, however momentary. The Muririn filtered away one by one to their huts, until Kira was left in silence to tend to the dead.

One of the warriors had been caught full in the solarplex by a great paw, and his abdomen and lower chest was a mess of torn flesh. The other's head had been near to taken off. With food still heavy in her belly, she was not eager to touch either. She fetched a bucket of water first, and with a cloth began to clean the body of the boy, who had only the one relatively small hole, right through his heart. She washed him and dressed him in a fresh cloth, closed his startled eyes and washed his hair, plastering it back down with mud again when it was clean, and drawing the customary patterns on his face with charcoal. She sat back a while, knowing there were long hours to go, and only when she thought her stomach was well settled did she fetch her box and set about the men. She worked first on the one with the open belly, because already he was beginning to smell.

It was foul work to tuck the ends of innards back in through a rent above his left hip, and try and fold the flesh back over, sewing it closed as best as she could. The torn skin was like a jagged puzzle, and she worked as slowly as she dared, keeping the stitches as small and neat as possible so Tarpun would not punish her for doing the dead dishonor with poor work. When she had done, she cleaned him with the cloth and water as best as she could, washed his hair and combed red dust through it. She laid a thin layer of mud across his wounded stomach, and dusted it over with soot, before rubbing more of the black powder into the rest of his skin. When she was finished, he looked nearly whole again. Her limbs were beginning to feel heavy, as well as her eyelids, and she realised it would soon be light again, and she had one body yet to go. It was more than she should have been expected to do, but doubtless Tarpun had not told anyone else it was her he had assigned, and to fail would be to let him win.

She aligned the head as well as she could, sewed it to the neck with traditional long, diagonal stitches in heavy gut thread, and cleaned the body as swiftly as she could. Again she washed the hair and dusted it with red, and rubbed the body with soot. She fetched three reed mats and lifted the boy onto one, surprised by how light he was. It was beyond her to lift the two dead warriors, stiff and heavy, especially in her exhaustion, and so she laid them out beside them. To enter her hut now would be to wake the others, and so she simply dropped where she was.

"...didn't even stay all night with them! The dead have never known such dishonor!"

"But we don't know... might have been... and finished.."

The voices invaded her sleep. The ground was hard and cold, but she had curled around herself, childlike, and slept as soundly as the dead beside her. They made no sense to her, and so she was content to stay within her fuzzy blanket of semi-consciousness, but the voices would not leave her be. They kept up, one loud, the others softer, somewhere very near.

"...shouldn't even have been assigned!"

There was harsh laughter in response to the angry voice, then a fourth.

"..did see her, and.. but, alone.."

"DON'T SPEAK BACK TO ME IN THAT TONE, HAG!"

That did cut through, it was so loud, and so recognisable, it could only be Tarpun. Terrified, she realised he was standing right above her, and dared not open her eyes. She tried to keep on breathing like she was still asleep.

"Don't yell at her, brother."

One of the other warriors, a large and good hearted one who ate alot. Kira didn't know his name.

"She is not one to lie. And there are others who agree with her."

"The morning women were already tending the fires before she fell asleep."

Was that true? She hadn't even noticed them, so complete was her exhaustion.

"Well you can't deny she left them lying in the dust, and that is shameful, anyone could see that plainly!"

"She is only a woman, and these full grown men, and her having fought one day already."

This voice was more accusing, as was the one that joined it next.

"And you left her alone to do the job of three. And they should have been three rested. Leaving exhausted girls to guard our warriors ghosts is shameful in itself, wouldn't you agree, brother?"

The voice was mocking, flat and angry, and at first she did not recognise it, although she assumed it would be one of the other warriors. The accusation was obviously directed at Tarpun, and she heard his heavy footsteps stomping away. Even he couldn't blame her for this though, when she was asleep. At least she hoped not. Nervously, she opened her eyes and sat up, looking to those who stood beside her. As she scrambled to her feet, ashamed to having been caught asleep, she looked at the speakers around her. Two old women, who had doubtless been her witnesses and saviours, the large warrior, and... Damir? Could he have been the one who defended her so harshly, against his own cousin? She could not believe it, until he spoke, and his voice was that same flat anger, although slightly warmer now. He patted her lightly on the shoulder before he left to see to his own duties.

"Do not be angry with Tarpun, he is too proud, but a good warrior we would do sorely without."

She had no words to say, it was not her place to 'be angry with Tarpun', much less voice it publicly.

"You are not in trouble. You have done very well this night. I doubt any of the others could have prepared these bodies so well for their rites."

"..thankyou."

She murmured it, unsure of what to say.

"Rest today, you are free from your duties. You have earned it."

Mercifully, he left too quickly for her to have to find more words, so she gathered her things, and returned to her hut, to blissful rest.

****************************************

It was another week before the call went up. Another Larrin had been spotted, and since it was so soon after the last, it could only be the mate of the one they had already slain. Mate's for life, she would be restless, and as old and experienced as he had been. Kira was called for beater duty again, although she had been last time. More of Tarpuns doing; perhaps he hoped she might be killed as he had been told off twice on her account already. She did not mind overly much though, she loved the thrill of the hunt, and she loved to add to her collection of claws.

The drumbeats possessed her as thoroughly as they always did, but this time it was better. The she-beast was more wary, less madly ferocious, and landed her attacks more carefully on the ring of humans around her. Things seemed to happen much faster than they had on other hunts, but all of a sudden the world was slow motion. Kira saw the two warriors in front of her fall to the creature, one flung aside with his leg broken, and the other knocked out against a tree. Even though the Larrin had turned aside, Kira knew that they had left a weakness in the ring of fighters. Too full of adrenalin to fear yet, she stepped forward to fill the gap as she was expected to do.

The creature turned it's head away and she flung her spear at its neck, but it moved at the last minute and the spearhead found its mark in the heavy shoulder muscle instead, where it would do relatively little damage to the already pain crazed animal. She didn't know what happened next, but somehow she had a long bladed dagger in her hand, and it was all she could do to protect herself from the occasional paw swipes that came her way. That was all she was meant to do at any rate, it was for the warriors to attack, she was a defender. She held her position according to duty, until something caught her attention at the corner of her eye.

The man beside her staggered, with a wound in his thigh, and she could see great slavering jaws coming towards him. He was going to die, she realised in what seemed to long a moment. He looked up, grim determination on his face, and she saw that it was Damir. Kira would never know how she had the time to realise, but somehow it occured to her that the head coming towards him was the left head, and that its left shoulder, the one her spear still stuck out of, was facing her. It's leg was supporting it beneath it's turn, and it was not likely to attack with it. With feet swifter than she knew she had, she darted forward and grabbed hold of her spear, pulling herself up onto a back that stood higher than her head. Her foot stood on the spear a moment before it snapped off, but it didn't matter because somehow her knife was buried to the hilt at the base of the Larrin's left skull. You had to kill the left head before it dies, an old crone had once told her. The right head just follows orders. Kill the left, and the beast will die.

****************************************

Kira had clung terrified, crouched against it's neck, fearful of being thrown off and attacked, fearful that she had not really killed it. When it had fallen, all twitches stopped, and everyone was sure it was dead, they had to help her unclench her hands from around tufts of thick white fur. She stood up trembling, and gazed at the faces of those around her, a mixture of surprise, wonder, and admiration. Even Tarpun seemed unable to hate her. When Kira's mind stopped racing to the memory of drumbeats, an immense joy bloomed within her chest. She had proved herself a warrior, and saved the life of the future Muririn chief. There had been few woman- warriors, but she knew that there was only one prize worthy of her acheivements.

****************************************

The girls lined up in a row, with crowns of summer flowers on their heads. The men stood to watch the race, exchanging jokes before it started. There were six, with feathers in their ears and the close cut hair of free women. Not many of the village women were fully free, but those who were were considered equal to men, and only they were fit to contest to be the wife of a someday chief. Before the race started there was a hush, as a seventh joined the field. She had eyes as warm as honey, and three green feathers in her ear. Her cheeks were tastefully pierced with shiny black stone, and her hair was newly cropped and oiled. Like the others, she was topless, so all could see the curve of her child-bearing hips and her breasts. Unlike the others, she wore a decoration over her pants. Looped twice around her slender waist was a silky white belt, clasped to one side behind a decorative tuft of fur.