*** Chapter Thirteen Day 22 The Family ***

Wrooo!

An old bull’s horn was used to trumpet the warning to alert everyone of potential danger, it was something of an heirloom.

“There are people coming!” Maira shouted. She had taken to staying on the rooftop in hopes of one day seeing Santos return to the point that she had gradually taken up the task of lookout.

At once everyone was moved, so used to invasion were they that the entirety of the clan moved as one. A few flooded out onto the rooftop with Maira, all bearing long barrel guns. Out on the first floor everyone rushed into the house closing up the barricades while those that were armed with pistols, most of the elders, went out to meet the danger.

“Looks like its only these two,” George said to his brothers.

“Keep an eye on the forest,” Raphael said, pointing his gun beyond the two.

These people were the tribals Moses had mentioned, their clothing was fur and vine straps, much like how the young member of the family had described them. The only weapons they could spot on them were the two bows they carried and knives on their waists.

The two were an adult male and a young female, the looked like family and reminded everyone of the long gone people of the aztec. The color of their darker brown skin and raven black hair as well as the contours of their faces were so similar.

They carried with them a leather satchel that they laid before the elders of the clan and opened it revealing several items. There were a few long furs, some moccasins, stone knives, and a bundle revealing peppers, fresh peppers of varying kinds.

With so many people in the house and after so many days of feeding them, spices had run out, seeing something as simple as fresh looking peppers, specially with a people that enjoy spicy foods, was enough to cause a commotion among the elders.

The tribal male motioned for them to take the items by rewrapping the bundle and handing it over to Aurelio, without meaning to he had chosen the patriarch as the receiver of the gifts. This was well received as it unintentionally showed their family great respect.

Since words could not be used between the two hand gestures and motions were made to invite the two to join them. Half the group of elders detached to inform the family that there was no present danger, the other half guided the two towards a fire pit where several quails were being roasted.

From exactly the direction the two had come appeared Moses and David from the woods, so silently had they appeared that no one had noticed them except for the hunter.

***Quetzchitl - Lizatl ***

He did not know what to expect once he arrived at the settlement of the people of the north, it would be the first time that he would be interacting with any other people than those of the forest. There were other people besides those of the north, but everyone lived too far from each other and everything they needed was provided by the forest.

His first glimpses of the settlement had made it seem as if there was a great village there, there were so many buildings and so much work going on that it felt as if hundreds of people lived there, but as he got closer and closer he realized that was not the case. There were less than a hundred people, including children, milling about doing their daily tasks.

The main great hall was surrounded by a barrier barely as tall as he and set up with pointed stakes to make it difficult to climb over the low wall. The great hall itself appeared to have several additions made to it to make it difficult to get inside. Spaces that appeared to once have been open windows now had wood barricades. Beyond the great hall were a number of small buildings whose purpose were completely unknown, except for one, the largest of these buildings. It appeared to be a sort of work station for wood, it was likely there that they create the wood that allows such amazing works of carpentry.

Surrounding this was a sort of moat, the moat itself appeared to be a temporary defense as it was slowly being filled in with thick three trunks. This would one day be a great wood wall.

When he arrived within the settlement he was surprised by the immediate response to his presence. As soon as a horn was sounded by what appeared to be a young girl lookout on top of their great hall, the people of this clan moved quickly. The women and children rushed inside while other men appeared on the rooftop pointing something at them as a group of elder men walked towards them from the house bearing something in their hands that they treated as some sort of weapon. The barrel reminded Quetzchitl of a blow dart, but it was far too short and there did not appear a way for them to blow air into it.

When he met the elders, words were used, but not understood so communication devolved to hand gestures. Quetzchitl decided to present the gifts of his village to the people, great quality furs were the first item revealed. He had expected to get some reaction out of them, furs of this quality were rare and extremely valuable, They were nearly the size of robes and were made of Mizton fur, they had been lucky last year in their hunt and had managed to kill the two large predators while preserving well the skins, an extremely difficult feat. However, to his disappointment, the elders did not appear impressed. Nor were they impressed by the rabbit skin moccasins, great quality footwear that was rarely worn by villagers except during special occasions.

Seeing as how unimpressed they were with the furs, he felt that the knives would also fail as well. He revealed each knife, each was crafted with grand excellence, they were finely sharp obsidian blades. Here some of the men took interest and tested the sharpness of the blades, but they weren’t overly impressed.

At this point Quetzchitl reconciled the failure to impress with the fact that at least they were receiving him well. He then revealed the last gift. Food and fruit was sparse and could not be spared, but his people grew many gardens and from them they compiled fresh peppers. There were yellow, red, and green peppers, ranging from small cherry peppers to larger thumb size peppers.

It was a meager gift, one that was thrown in as a simple and small offering.

The look in their eyes as he revealed the small bundle was much more than he could have imagined, it was far too bizarre. Nothing else had impressed them or held their attention as much as these peppers did. Immediately the atmosphere was much more cheerful and the men started to smile and life inviting them over to their cooking fire.

As they followed these people Quetzchitl felt a presence behind him, with a quick glance he saw two young men materialize from the forest, in their hands they held a bundle of birds. He had seen a grouping of those birds, a kind of quail with long tail feathers, on their way here. This suggested to the older hunter that these boys had succeeded in hunting several of these birds and had been behind them all this time. He had never sensed nor had the birds scattered, how had they managed to kill the quail? The only thing that appeared to be a weapon on them was a longer version of the thing the elders had held in hand.

He and his daughter were offered a seat near the fire where several quails and ducks were roasting. The number of poultry was clearly enough to feed the entire clan. It was difficult for him to believe that they had a hunter so efficient and yet so young.

He watched as the young man who held the long barreled weapon handed over his caught prey to the women of his clan who proceeded to defeather the birds. To his utter shock and horror they simply yanked off the tail feathers damaging several of them.

“Wait!” Quetzchitl rushed over to the woman, knowing that his words would mean nothing to them, but he could not help but desire to save the remaining feathers. As he picked up the tail feathers she had thrown several of the men stood and pointed their strange weapons at him.

The oldest among them spoke and motioned for them to lower their weapons.

“Feathers for arrows,” Quetzchitl spoke, showing them one of the fine undamaged feathers. Seeing as how they could not understand him he pulled an arrow from his quiver and showed them the feather on it. It was not as fine quality as that of the quail, hunting quail was not easy and they only had between five and seven of the fine feathers.

They appeared to understand. The young man who had just handed over his prey offered the remaining feathers to him and even motioned for his kin to offer his own.

With feathers of this quality his people would be able to fashion finer arrows to replace the many lost during the night raids. They would also be able to trade those very arrows to other villages who were also lacking arrows.

These several dozen feathers would be enough to make multiple full quivers of arrows, this more than made up for the gifts he had brought with him, they would be able to trade for precious food and other resources with the arrows they would make, but as if that small fortune was not enough he was shown to a pile of other feathers from previous hunts, but there were enough high quality and low quality feathers that his people would be making arrows for weeks.

To carry them he was offered a box, it was made of some soft material, it felt fibrous, almost as if it was made of tree, but no tree could be so soft.

When it came time to part ways he was given another box containing two whole ducks and a bottle of spirits.

His people were stunned by the generosity of the people of the north when he returned and displayed the feathers to the entire village. They were also shocked to hear of how strange and different they were. While Quetzchitl wanted to keep the ducks to himself, the suffering of the hungry young made him offer the meat to the women saying to them that to feed only the children. Many of them had not eaten meat for weeks, it was hard enough hunting with the exhaustive night invasions, most of the meat would go to the warriors and some essential people to keep up their strength. This gift, he said to them, that it was directly given for the children so that no one would lay claim to the poultry.

As for the spirits, he kept to himself.