The Primeval Era Nov Chapter 137: The First Night

Chapter 137: The First Night

Kato had seen his mother and father go to sleep.

They went to sleep under the hooves of beasts, their bodies disappearing beneath a tide of fur and muscle and thundering feet. He had scread for them to wake up, but Uncle Mwenye grabbed his arm and Uncle Tafari lifted him onto his shoulders, and they ran. They ran until his throat was raw from crying and his uncles’ legs shook with exhaustion.

His parents did not follow.

The running lasted a very long ti.

Kato did not know how many hours passed because the sun blurred when you couldn’t stop moving. He ate scraps that his uncles shared with him. He slept on Uncle Mwenye’s back while they walked through dark forests. He woke to see the sa endless plains stretching toward horizons that never seed to get closer.

Many others ran with them. Other children whose parents had gone to sleep. Other uncles and aunts carrying those too young or too injured to walk. They ford a long line of tired people moving toward sothing none of them could na.

And then the Ancestor descended from the skies.

He was brilliant.

Blue flas surrounded him, and a pretty lady with shining wings flew beside him. The Ancestor looked much younger than Kato’s parents had been, but his eyes held sothing old and knowing. He floated above them without any wings at all, blue flas flickering beneath his feet as he pointed toward the horizon.

He told them to go toward his ho.

His voice was kind but strong, and when he spoke, everyone listened. Even Uncle Mwenye, who never listened to anyone, nodded and followed the direction the Ancestor had pointed. They walked for more hours after that, but sohow the walking felt easier. The Ancestor had given them a destination. The Ancestor had given them hope.

---

The ho of the Ancestor was more wonderful than anything Kato had ever seen.

Walls of crimson and blue rose from the earth, pulsing with light that seed alive. A mountain stood behind the tribe, massive and ancient, and coiled near the walls was a serpent so large that Kato couldn’t see where it began or ended. He should have been scared, but Uncle Tafari said the serpent was a friend, so he decided to believe that.

Then the Ancestor appeared again.

He ca from the skies riding a beast of gold and blue fla, a creature with nine tails and wings of white-gold feathers and a crown of light floating above its head. The beast was larger than any hut Kato had ever seen, larger than the great halls the elders sotis spoke of, larger than anything that should exist in the Lands.

The Ancestor flew down from the beast’s back, and the walls began to move.

Kato watched the walls reach out toward them like arms welcoming children ho.

They stretched and grew and wrapped around all the tired people standing in the plains, pulling them inside a periter that expanded with each passing mont. When the walls closed behind them, Kato felt sothing change. Warmth radiated from the barrier, sinking into his exhausted body and making his legs stop aching. The tiredness didn’t disappear, but it beca bearable.

He was inside now.

He was safe.

The old Witch Shaman appeared next.

She had sharp yellow teeth and eyes that seed to see everything, and she carried a spear that glowed with the sa colors as the walls. Her voice crackled like fire when she commanded the adults to start cutting trees and building huts. She pointed here and there, assigning tasks.

Uncle Mwenye and Uncle Tafari joined the work parties imdiately.

They told Kato to stay close, to not wander off, to help carry small branches when he could. He did as they said, watching the adults transform raw forest near the mountain outside the tribe into the beginnings of hos. The sound of axes and the sll of fresh-cut wood filled the air as day slowly turned toward evening.

While he carried branches, Kato wondered about his parents.

Uncle Mwenye said they would not be walking with him in the Lands of Stone anymore. He said they had joined the Ancestors above, that they were watching over him from wherever Ancestors went after they stopped walking. Kato didn’t fully understand what that ant.

Would his mother and father be opening their eyes again as Ancestors?

Would they be able to see him from up there?

Would they know that he had made it to safety while they had gone to sleep?

He didn’t have answers. His uncles didn’t have answers either. But maybe answers would co later, when he was older, when the hurt in his chest didn’t feel quite so big.

---

As the sun descended, Kato grew far more curious about the Ancestor Tokoloshe.

He watched the massive golden-blue beast that the Ancestor had been riding fly across the sky toward a mountain. Not the large mountain already standing near the tribe, but another one. A mountain that seed to have risen from the Lands of Stone just to give the Ancestor’s beast a place to rest.

Even mountains obeyed the Tokoloshe.

Kato decided that was very impressive.

The Ancestor himself remained in the tribe.

Kato saw him discussing many things with a powerful old warrior whose bones seed made of sothing harder than stone. Their voices carried across the growing settlent, though Kato couldn’t hear the words. The pretty lady with the vibrant wings also talked with the Ancestor late into the evening, her expression serious and thoughtful.

Sotis the Ancestor would wave his hand, and walls would grow, or huts would take shape faster than they should, or food would appear from storages that seed too small to hold so much. Everything the Tokoloshe touched beca easier.

Everything he looked at beca safer.

When nightti truly ca, they didn’t hear the wild roars of beasts.

The sounds that had haunted Kato’s since his parents went down, those terrible thundering calls that promised death, were absent from this place. Instead, there was only the crackling of a large bonfire built at the center of the tribe, flas dancing orange and gold against the darkness.

They were given food.

Real food. Hot food. Food that tasted like sothing other than scraps eaten while running. Kato sat between his uncles and ate until his stomach felt full for the first ti in days. Around him, everyone was so tired that relief was the only emotion left. So cried softly. So stared at the flas without seeing them.

Maybe their mothers and fathers had also joined the Ancestors, just like his.

It was okay.

Kato decided this while watching the Tokoloshe speak with the old Witch Shaman near the bonfire, the pretty winged lady standing nearby. The Ancestor looked tired too, but beneath that tiredness was sothing magisterial.

With the Ancestor Tokoloshe here, maybe everything would be okay.

He looked powerful enough.

Kato finished his food and leaned against Uncle Mwenye’s side, his eyes growing heavy as the warmth of the fire and the safety of the walls wrapped around him. For now, he thought he might be able to sleep without nightmares.

Tomorrow would bring more work and more questions and more sadness about what had been lost.

But tonight, he was safe.

Tonight, the Ancestor watched over them!