The mother had listen to Vig and then gone out on ledge while the rest of the clan remained inside. It was cold and freezing and that meant squandering the few precious calories their bodies had managed to store, and such squandering they could not afford, not knowing when they would get fresh meat again.
Vig stayed inside because he needed to think, and he needed advice, so with some effort he walked over to the wise man and sat down next to him.
“Almost all animals have disappeared and we have no hunters left,” he said as a matter of fact to the man who went by the name of Tirak.
His white hair and similarly coloured beard gave him away as the oldest man in the clan, as he was the only one who had managed to live long enough to acquire that colour.
Tirak kept stroking his scruffy looking beard as he listened to Vig, nodding, but without saying anything. He never did talk much, as life had thought him it was better to speak when you had something to say, and in all other cases stay silent.
“The mother goddess is very angry with us, she painted the night sky, made the earth shake and took away all the animals.”
Tirak nodded in agreement, but still said nothing, just looked down at the fur they were sitting on. It was the pelt of a cave lion, a big one, that Tirak had killed when he had been young and strong, a kill that made him the leader of the clan.
“There are still some animals left, but I can not hunt them alone, I need more hunters, but there are none.”
“The women can hunt,” said Tirak.
“It takes time to train them to hunt big game, time we do not have and even so the big animals are gone.”
“There are the ancient ones,” said the old man.
The ancient ones where a tribe that had always been here, they had existed forever, born out of mountains and ice they believed themselves.
Vig looked at him, then down at the fur, and finally he looked at Tirak again, “We are not the same, they are not like us.”
“They are not the same, but they can hunt, they trade fairly, so maybe not so different?”
Vig went silent again, thinking over what Tirak had just said. The ancient people were strong with a stocky build, short in language but rich in signs, and they could hunt, that he knew.
He had once seen them hunt down a mammoth in their slow but steady way, they just kept going after the beast until it was worn down. His own people were quicker, but they did not have the stamina of the ancient ones.
Vig had meet them several times to trade flint objects like knifes and spearheads for food and sturdy pots, and it had always been a fair trade. It had been a long time since they had meet them, so maybe it was time, and after all what other choice did they have.
Their stock of flint was not as large as it could have been if the traders had shown up, but this year they had not come, maybe the mother goddess had scared them away. Not that it mattered that much as they would have had very little to trade with as it were. What they had would have to be enough, it just had to be.
Vig would need someone to go with him as he could not go alone. Tradition dictated that they had to be two or the ancient ones would not meet them, but who could he take? The obvious choice would have been Tirak, but he was too old, would slow him down and he would also show weakness, and that would not do.
He did not have much time to think about it before he heard a shout from outside, it was the voice of Askils mother. Vig, and the rest of the tribe rushed out, flinging the hides away from the cave opening as they made their way onto the ledge.
There they could see Askils mother climbing over the stopping stone, showing more agility than her age should have allowed her.
“Stop”, shouted Vig, but it was too late, she was already over the stone running down the path.
Below her, on the plain, they could see a figure that was without a doubt Askil. He was standing still, looking confused, moaning, covered in snow that even seemed to cling to his face without melting. All of that must have escaped his mother or maybe she did not care, maybe she only saw her son coming home after she had been told he wouldn't.
They watch her run down, and as she did the motionless figure came to life, holding out his arms in a stiff and jerky kind of embrace that looked very unnatural.
“The mother goddess have possessed him,” someone said behind Vig, but he said nothing, kept his eyes fixed on what was happening down on the plain.
Askil embraced his mother, and for a moment it looked just like an embrace, nothing more. Then he tilted his head and kissed her, they had time to see a short struggle before a red fountain emerged from her neck and then the sound reached them, a short heartbreaking scream.
Askil, or what had been Askil, had almost bitten his mothers head clean off. The figure kept biting, showing them a horrific scene that made most of the people scream before they ran back into the cave, leaving only Vig and Tirak on the ledge.
“We are trapped,” whispered Vig, feeling a chill run up his spine as he kept watching the creature feast on what had been its mother. The thing, as it could no longer be called Askil, had begun eating the rest of the body in its stiff and cumbersome way that did not lack ferocity as pieces of flesh was ripped out in big chunks from the body.
They stood and watched without saying anything, they also saw that when the body cooled down and the heat that had melted the snow around it froze, the creature stopped eating. It stood up, looked slowly around, and then started wandering back and forth without any apparent goal.
“I don't think it will be able to climb the stepping stone, we should go inside and talk, I have questions,” said Tirak.
Vig nodded, but he did not put all his faith in the blocking stone.
“Jig come out here,” he said to a boy, no more than 11 years old, who had been looking out from under the hides.
“I have a task for you. Watch the blocking stone and let us know if the creature starts climbing it, do you understand?” Vig said impatiently to Jig.
“I...I understand,” the boy said with a vibrating voice.
“Well, go out then, and don't you take your eyes off that stone or I will rip them out.”
The boy shrugged away from Vig, but did as he was told and went out on the ledge without venturing to far from the entrance.
Vig went inside together with Tirak to talk, he needed to find some solution to their current problem.
They walked over to Tiraks place that was not so close to the fire, but it was conveniently placed away from the rest of the people so they could talk more freely.
Vig waited for Tiraks questions or advice after they had sat down. He was at a loss what to do, the weight felt like it was pressing him down into the bare rock. They were stuck in a cave guarded by a roaming thing that could not be killed, the food was running out and he couldn't see any way out.
“Why can't someone else do something,” he complained to himself while he waited for Tirak to start talking.
“Tell me about the cave lion and exactly how you fought it?” Tirak asked.
Vig explained what had happened, how the predator seemed to ignore any pain he inflicted, and how he finally had managed to nail it to the ice with two spears.
“And Askil was bitten or clawed?”
“He was clawed only I think. It all happened so fast and I was so focused on the fight that I did not have time to see what happened to him.”
“Hmm I see,” said the old man bending down his head, painting the air with his finger as he mumbled, “Yes that should work.”
“What are you thinking,” asked Vig.
“We can not kill it. If we escape it would follow us, so the only solution is to pin it down like you did with the lion, cover it with stones and then we can leave.”
“You mean we should fight it with spears and hope to pin it down? This is not a lion but a man, a much more dangerous creature than the cat ever was, no Tirak this will never work. I was lucky once, but with a damaged foot I would only make myself a victim of the mother goddess, be possessed like that creature outside.”
As Vig said it he thought, “What is he thinking that old fool? should I sacrifice myself, and for what? Without me they will all die!”
“I think we can make it safer, take some long strips of leather and turn them into nooses, like this,” he tied a noose and showed it to Vig.
“The possessed man is slow and stiff, he is not as agile as you might think. I watched him carefully, he was slow and only got dangerous when he managed to grab hold and bite. We can handle him, I am sure of it, and after all, what other choice do we have?” Tirak replied.
Vig did not want to think about it, it made him scared, something his trembling hands manifested in a very physical way. He did not want to fight that thing, he did not want to starve to death, he wanted to sacrifice someone else, and it frightened him that nobody else could do it.
Sounds from outside got Vig quickly on his feet and out of his mind torpor. His ankle started pumping pain to his brain, making him clench his teeth. Disregarding the pain as well as he could, he picked up a spear and hobbled to the cave entrance as the rest of the clan worriedly watched him.
Jig was looking and screaming in defiance at the stopping stone where the creature was trying to claw its way through the pure granite with its blood soaked hands. Its mouth biting into thin air and the clouded eyes staring at Jig and the cave.
It did not try to climb over the stone which a person could have done, even an injured one, instead it just tried to force its way through. Sometimes it bumped into the rock so hard that it bounced back several feet, but it always tried again, constantly moaning a begging kind of a sound.
“When did it come up the path?” Vig asked the boy.
“I watched it just standing there for a long time. Seeing it walk over the body of its mother angered me, so I threw a stone trying to hit its head and kill it,” Jig said in a proud voice.
“After I had thrown the stone it started walking up the path, so I threw more stones to kill it, but even when I hit its head it did not stop, it just kept coming.”
Vig could not help himself, he slapped the boy hard across his cheek, making him fall to the ground whimpering.
“That stupid little boy, why could he not just have done what he was told to do, just watch. How in the name of the mother goddess can we now pin it down? I should throw him to the monster and have one less mouth to feed,” were some of the thoughts that rush through his mind.
Some people had been looking out through the entrance, and they now watched him with something approaching despise. Vig took a couple of deep breaths, let his anger simmer down a bit, reached out, and dragged the boy up on his feet.
“You did something very bad Jig, now the monster knows where we are,” he said without being able to hide his anger completely, “But what is done is done, and I am sure you will do what your told from now on!”
The boy did not look up, just nodded as he held a hand over his face where Vig had struck him.
“Now sit behind the pelts, watch the creature but do not let it see you, and if you throw another rock the next thing that will be thrown at it will be you.”
Jig went behind the pelts and started watching as tears were falling down his cheeks.
“That stupid little boy will get me killed,” Vig thought, as inside he was still fuming with rage.
Something had snapped, Vig had always been good at hiding his selfishness but now a last barrier had been broken, snapped with an almost audible crack.
He wanted to break the boy in two, but looking around he realise that something like that would turn the whole clan against him, and he needed them, so he did nothing except going back inside, uncontrollably snapping his fingers as he did so.
Tirak never went out so Vig told him what happened, leaving out the way he had treated the boy. Tirak must have suspected something had happened as he gave him a queer look when he sat down.
“So now we know that the creature can not climb the stopping stone, maybe this can work to our advantage,” Tirak said half to himself.
“We could use some spears and push it over the edge, then quickly run down before it manages to get up and nail it to the ice. If it walks down the path we use the leather strips and drag it to the ground and do the same.”
Vig still unintentionally snapping his fingers shook his head at first, but the more he thought about it the more plausible it sounded. He had seen how stiff and stupid the creature was, it did not even try to climb the stone just banged its head against it, over and over again.
It would be dangerous, very dangerous especially for him, and he really did not want to fight another demon again. Who could he hand this task over to, his mind raced trying to find someone but drew a blank, it was a task only he could do.
“What then? We can not kill it, and we can not live here, even if we could stand being so close to it.”
“We must leave, as leave we would have to do anyway. We must go to the ancient ones, it is the only way!” exclaimed Tirak more forcefully than anything else he had said before.
Vig thought about it, tried to find some other alternative, something that would be easier for him, give him a greater chance to survive, no matter who else he had to sacrifice. They might be able to kill the creature, but would he manage to walk all the way to the ancient ones on his swollen ankle? Would the rest of the clan leave him behind if he couldn't keep up?
As his mind went over scenario after scenario his fingers snapped ever harder until finally he saw Tiraks inquisitive look, making him take notice of what he was doing. He mentally forced his hand to stop snapping but then it started to shake instead, so he sat on it, feeling the vibration oscillating up through his leg.
“Yes, you are right, it is the only way. I will tell people to start packing as we should leave while we still have some food left, and you should start making more leather nooses, I will cut some straps for you.”
Vig wanted to get away, he felt like Tiraks eyes kept staring at his hand, feeling like a boy getting caught doing something he shouldn't have done. So rather than stay and argue for an action that would put him out of harms way he just agreed to get away.
He told the clan to start packing all belongings they could carry especially any flint objects they had, and instructed some people to cut leather straps and bring them to Tirak. That done he went to Jig to see what was happening outside.
“He tried to walk through the stone a couple of more times, but now he is just standing there sniffing the air, like he does not know what to do,” said Jig.
Vig pushed the boy aside and peered out through the hanging pelts, but he could not see the creature at the stopping stone. He started listening intently and thought he could hear a faint moan just as the boy moved which drowned out the sound. His temperament instantly flamed up, and before he could stop himself he slapped the boy down to the ground, “Stupid boy, can't you do anything right.”
He did not need to turn around to know what people were thinking or what they would be whispering behind his back. He knew he should not be hard on the boy but he could not help it, he was just so rattled by everything that the smallest thing would set him off.
“The old rules do not apply any more, it's pure survival, everyone for himself,” the voice in his head kept repeating as he started to snap his fingers again.
After some time Vig got down on his knees and crawled out on the ledge. Seeing nothing he ventured closer to the stone itself, sweat dripping down his neck, his ankle hurting every time it touched the ground, especially when it made contact with the small pebbles embedded in the snow.
The stopping stone did not fit perfect against the side of the hill, but it made a good enough job of stopping bigger predators, so it served its purpose. Through the crack between the hill and the stone he saw the creature moving back and forward on the path, maybe 50 meters away, hitting the side of the hill, stumbling on rocks, but never falling over the other side.
“Go right, just go right...,” Vig said, like he could will it to the right, but what had been Askil did not get effected by Vigs wishes.
A sound of falling pebbles made Vig turn around. Jig had crept out, managed to dislodge some small rocks that loudly fell down the hillside. That did not only get Vigs attention but also the creature's, it turned around and started stumbling up the path again moaning loudly. Vig stood up, disregarding if the creature could see him or not and half stomped, half limped, to Jig, grabbed his neck and started dragging him towards the stone.
“I told you what I would do,” he screamed to the struggling boy.
Tirak, who had been watching the exchange, went out and grabbed Vigs arm, with more strength than expected, and said two words, “Let go.”
Those two words snapped him out of the rage, fear and panic that had made him lash out, and he released the boy.
“Get out of my sight or I will really throw you to the beast.”
Jig hurried to get up on his feet and ran into the cave, getting as far away as possible from the beast and the equally scary Vig.
Tirak and Vig stared at each other, the hand of the old man still holding Vigs arms in a firm grip.
“Will you get a hold of yourself,” the old wise man said.
“Let go off my arm,” replied Vig.
The old man looked at him for a second longer and then released his hand, gave him another long look before he went into the cave, leaving him alone on the ledge. Vig lowered his shaking hand to his side, where it stopped shaking as he started snapping his fingers instead.
He watched the creature walking into the stone which made his red hot anger cool down, getting replaced with a growing fear that also drove him back inside the cave.
People looked at him with doubt, or was it condescension mixed with some fear, but they kept quiet and continued packing.