Mokessa raised her dirtied hand.
Mud was deeply lodged beneath her nails, in the skin's creases, and on the fuzz of her wrist. She gazed at it with the scrutiny of one decoding a divine message.
— The Stone-Hide was birthed from the warm earth and the sludge. From the stone that holds the sun. Nothing should make it quake. Nothing should steal its warmth. And yet, that ember did.
— Do you suspect the bare-skins brought the cold?
— I am unsure. I have never seen them before. — she offered a look of concern. — But I fear they might resurrect the great cold.
She stood up. The stone arm swayed with considerable heft. The jungle teemed: insects, foliage, the hush of breathing, the far-off sound of cracking wood, a liquid drop tracing the leaves. Yet, it seemed this entire environment quieted to heed Mokessa.
Huyn scrutinized the track marks.
— If we follow now, will we approach them? These indications lead somewhere.
— Better. — Mokessa strode past him. — Better to ascertain their numbers.
Huyn remained silent for a moment and then declared:
— That was not my query.
Mokessa traversed the indentations without glancing back.
— It was the answer deserved.
They advanced. The forest closed around them like an unhurried mouth. The trail of broken branches sliced through the undergrowth unevenly, sometimes clear, sometimes almost concealed beneath fallen plant matter.
Huyn moved ahead when the markings ascended roots or merged with animal prints. Mokessa followed closely, hushed when possible, burdened when she could not be. The lithic arm occasionally scraped against trunks and leaves, generating rather audible noise.
With every segment, the evidence shouted the truth. There, a broad impression in the muck, with short, separated digits. Bare-skin. Creatures that progressed on two supports. Further on, vine filaments cut with the sharpness of a flaked rock. Not gnawed. Not ripped. Severed. This difference unsettled Huyn.
They discovered an immense leaf with its periphery pierced at small points. Mokessa lifted it. There were perforations from slender twigs.
— They stitch together foliage — Huyn muttered.
The phrase sounded foolish the instant he spoke it. Mokessa, however, did not chuckle:
— They fasten the forest into shapes?
Huyn touched one of the small openings.
— For what purpose?
Mokessa let the leaf drop.
— Perhaps, to remain. The word sank between them like a stone in deep water. To stay. It was not merely a passage. It was not an escape. It was not an injured troop attempting to cross hostile territory. The bare-skins were pulling down boughs, severing creepers, puncturing leaves, marking the deposit. They were telling the wild, without seeking permission: we will settle here.
For an instant, Huyn thought she might sanction the observation. But the Matriarch simply inclined her skull, catching a sound he had yet to distinguish. Voices. Rhythmic speech, distant.
They were indistinct, like small stones rolling inside a hollow drum. They resembled birds, trying to vocalize through parched throats. Huyn mounted a nearby outcrop and became motionless.
— Many.
Mokessa heard it too.
Numerous. The word did not require repeating. Night's shroud fell beneath the dense crowns and among the gnarled roots. The sky was the final thing to turn pitch, as though the darkness were a sluggish, relentless forward movement. Green gave way to black. Black changed into an intense blue.
Huyn navigated among shafts with the carefulness of one stepping inside an adversary's ear. Mokessa selected wider routes, avoiding high roots that could cause her to stumble. On one occasion, her foot submerged in a hidden puddle. The sound was minor, but Huyn froze instantly.
Nothing stirred forward. Only the voices. Clearer now.
— Ga-wan.
The utterance came from afar. Huyn rotated his face.
— Did you perceive that?
Mokessa nodded. Another utterance:
— Onaki.
This was followed by a quick laugh, then a cough, and finally, the noise of something splintering. Huyn knitted his brows. They did not grasp the tongue of these people.
— Summons?
— Perhaps.
Mokessa crouched behind a giant root, which exceeded her in height. The twisted wood looked like an archaic beast, full of bumps and protuberances. Huyn squeezed in next to her. Ahead, the concentrated growth started to thin.
Between spaced trunks, there was illumination. Initially, Huyn suspected fireflies, yet the glow did not flicker. Nor was it the usual yellow hue of the rays that set the arid underbrush alight. It was frigid and anomalous.
It was Blue.
Mokessa ceased respiration. The flame was present. Not a singular point. Several. Tiny blue flares suffered and blinked in the low hearths, as though the night itself, in a moment of desperation, had gouged out its own organs of sight and hurled them onto the terrain.
Ordinary fire, with its shades of orange and red, diffused at the periphery, but at the core of the combustion burned that rare, terrifying pigment: the sapphire shade of a ravaged sky, of a coldness that should not exist, promising the ultimate demise of all. At least, that is how it appeared to Kessa.
On the hill, the natural clearing harbored the simple, unobtrusive bivouac of the "bare-skins." The small dwellings, fashioned from broad leaves and branches, were very low, nearly merging with the scenery like minor mounds.
The subtle arrangement of the formations showed they were constructed by people: tight creepers covered the surface of the structures in severe, repeated patterns, showing relentless order, an endeavor to manage the shape through reiteration.
There were approximately forty organisms. Some slumbered. Others circulated around the heat sources. They possessed sleek, exposed bodies, pale or dark beneath the cerulean radiance. No thick coats. No caudal appendages. No capable talons. Still, they did not appear entirely vulnerable. They gripped chipped rocks. Sharpened shafts. Bones. One carried a crooked spear with a tip blackened by the heat.