Rakki had no word for the number of people who lived in the caves. They were more than the fingers on his hands, fewer than the feathers on the caw-birds, which they sometimes caught in nets tied from vines. Their names meant nothing to Rakki; he couldn't remember them, and so gave them his own names. While he sat chipping an edge along a flake of hardstone in the way he had been told, he watched Fire Keeper scraping the last scraps of meat from the bones of a long-haired horn-head, cracking open the ones with marrow, and separating the sinews for bowstrings and thongs. The sight produced an aching to eat deep in Rakki's stomach. He had vague memories of the times of darkness, when food had been the only thought and people fought over a sprig of weed carrying berries, fungus found in a rock crevice, worms dug out of the mud, flesh from corpses—anything that could be eaten. Now there was light, and more things were starting to grow. But still the hunger was always there.
The Cavers had ways of making traps for animals that the Swamp People didn't know. Ones like bush-pigs and horn-heads that they didn't kill immediately, they kept captive inside a walled pen built from rocks at one end of the space behind the rampart enclosing the caves. A female that Rakki called Pig Woman brought grass for them and collected the dung to be dried by the fire for fuel. There was also a cleared area outside the rampart that they had crossed the day before when Rakki was brought in, where there seemed to be some kind of attempt being made to induce food plants to grow. All the food that was prepared or collected went into Fire Keeper's stock, which was kept in a guarded recess behind the cooking area. The law against stealing was strict. The Screecher—thus named permanently by now—had told Rakki gleefully of how the last one to be caught pilfering from the common stock had been impaled on a stake by Mistameg's order, and the body hacked into pieces for the dogs.
Mistameg—the Oldworlders called him Meggs—was the Cavers' chief. He was large, even for an Oldworlder, and immensely strong, with eyes and teeth shining white against his face and a mane of hair hanging to his shoulders, tied in a braided leather band. He was fierce, violent, and allowed no questioning of his decisions. Rakki was impressed. He could learn much about power and controlling others to do one's will from such a man. Three of the few Oldworld women were Mistameg's. One that Rakki had dubbed Yellow Hair was pink of face like the man he had thought of as Lightskin yesterday, but knew now was called Bo and held place as Mistameg's second. Although Bo seemed to have a choice of Neffer females, he didn't like Mistameg owning Yellow Hair. Rakki could see it in his eyes and read it in his body talk. But Bo was not enough of a warrior to challenge Mistameg, and so he took out his anger on others beneath him in the order. Yellow Hair might have had other children also for all Rakki knew, but one was a Neffer girl with the same hair and light skin. Rakki called her Shell Eyes, since they were the color of a reed-nester's eggs, unlike anything he'd seen before. The vision conjured itself up in his mind of him one day killing Mistameg and taking Shell Eyes for his female. Then Bo would hate him too, and he'd kill Bo. Then he would be worthy to become a chief. The thought was sweet and helped him forget his hunger.
"The way to become a great warrior is not to let your thoughts show," a voice said. Rakki turned toward White Head, who had to be the oldest among the Oldworlders. Rakki didn't understand all the words that White Head used, but he spoke in a tongue that was closer to the Swamp People's than the one most of the Cavers used. He was sitting on a mat of reeds among the rocks at the cliff base, trying one of the stone edges on a piece of root wood from a fangleaf bush. There were several larger pieces of a firmer, straighter-grained wood than scrub roots in the cave behind him, but they had come from afar and were kept for cutting shapes needed for special purposes. Before the Long Night, so it was said, bushes with stems as wide as the span of a man's arms and as straight as a taut vine had grown higher than a bow could shoot. Dead pieces of them sometimes turned up buried in mud or washed up among rocks, and were highly valued. Rakki sometimes saw images in his mind of huge green growths and the sky lit by a brilliant light, but he didn't know if they were from things he had seen once or just imagination. Far to the north there was supposed to be a land where such things remained, but he had always doubted the story . . . until White Head showed him the round wooden rocks in the cave where he worked. Rakki's edged club of Oldworld metal had aroused great excitement when Screecher presented it on their arrival, and Rakki hadn't seen it since. After being questioned by Mistameg, he wasn't of a mind to protest.
"What you know about warrior? You don't seem like warrior man," Rakki said.
"I know about life," White Head replied. Rakki had little doubt that he had been assigned to keep an eye on Rakki as much as to keep him busy and useful.
"Oldworld life." Rakki said. "Oldworld had great warriors? Make strong chief?"
White Head paused and thought, his eyes distant. "Not just warriors. Gods walked the earth then. Men were as gods. But they grew lazy."
"What are gods?" Rakki asked.
"Like men, but with unimaginable powers. They built shining towers as high as mountains . . ."
"Towers?"
White Head looked perplexed, then made an expansive gesture with both arms. "Like long rocks that stand on end, but hollow. Caves inside. Thousands of caves, layer over layer, over each other, going up and up."
"Thousand? What does thousand mean, White Head?"
"Many, many. More than leaves on a stick-seed tree. Chambers. Like you see in nests the ants make. They made giant birds and flew in them beyond the sky. Floating cliffs that crossed oceans of water vaster than all the land you have ever seen."
Rakki had heard tell of a greater sky that lay above the sky, but he was unable to conceive what it meant. He was about to reply, when a foot kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling onto his arms, still clutching the stones he had been working. He whirled about to find Screecher leering down at him, standing arrogantly, hands on hips, as if lording over some lower form of life. "Mistameg send me, Dog Meat. You come talk real stuff now. We go three days, get bullet like you say. Leave two day from now. Today, tomorrow, you work." Rakki climbed to his feet, his eyes blazing, forcing down the impulse to drive the sharpened hardstone into the Screecher's face. "Bullet better be there, else Mistameg mad." Screecher cackled inanely. "Then you end up dog shit, you see."
One day, Rakki promised himself as he stumbled ahead under another kick. One day he'd settle the score. When he ruled the caves.