He woke to another morning.
This time he was not alone, a beautiful woman lay with her leg draped over him.
After a few quiet minutes they rose.
He dressed: shrugged his fur over his shoulders, secured the horned skull to his head, slung his spears across his back, and wrapped the cord around his waist.
He took his knives; no hunter went out unarmed.
Annabel woke and asked what he was doing.
"I'm going out tonight to keep watch."
he told her.
"Before I go, I will give tasks to the people in the village."
While he finished packing, she walked toward her cave.
She pressed a small kiss to his lips before turning away.
The day was for work. He had a plan in his head for the village; he could not do everything himself.
He would teach and delegate.
Today's list: make axe and shovel heads, fashion spear points.
He stepped outside and greeted the people.
A scavenger bird waited in its cage, dead-eyed and awkward, and the crowd stood around it as if it were a trophy.
He liked that; the trap was his, and he should be the one to take the final strike.
The crowd watched his hand as he reached for the spear and, in a single, clean motion, drove the point through the bird's neck.
Blood arced and pooled; the bird slumped.
The young men stepped forward without hesitation when he ordered them to skin and quarter the meat.
They looked at him and nodded, the way men nodded to a leader.
He found a long, flat stone nearby and gathered two or three strong young men.
Scooping some of the bird's blood into a dish, he used it to mark out shapes on the rock, axe blades, spearheads, and shovel edges.
The red stains made the patterns stand out.
He handed them sharp flakes of stone and told them to strike those lines until a usable shape emerged.
They worked fast, chipping and pounding, sparks flying when stone met.
He told them he would show them later how to secure those blades to handles and strengthen the bindings.
They grunted and kept working, motivated by the noise and the purpose.
Karlmos appeared while they were busy.
He said that Chief Pre wanted to see him.
Ako nodded and followed.
Inside Pre's cave, Karlmos, Ako, and a couple of other hardened warriors gathered around the fire pit, though the fire was only for light here; neither tribe had full control of fire the way he did.
Chief Pre spread a rough map on the ground and pointed.
"This is where they keep watch. Here is the river crossing.
Here is the ridge where their best hunters sit."
He named the paths and chokepoints, the likely routes for raiders, and the slow tracks used for carrying loads.
Ako listened, measuring in his mind the opportunities and the risks.
Pre asked,
"What do you intend to do?"
He answered plainly:
"I will watch them from a distance. I will make a detailed map and learn what tools they use."
Then he added, to sharpen the point,
"If necessary, I could remove their leader."
The men fell silent; Karlmos scoffed at first.
"We could never kill him."
He said, but Ako saw the thought spill across their faces like a shadow.
They gauged him in that moment.
Words had weight now.
Calmly he told them,
"Yesterday you did not understand the fire.
Now you light a flame because of me.
You warm yourselves and cook.
Trust me; I can do more."
His voice held the calm of someone who had seen outcomes and learned patterns.
Pre nodded but cautioned patience.
"Watch."
he said.
"Report."
Ako accepted and left with approval that tasted like steel.
As dusk fell, he smeared mud over his face, arms, and legs to blend into the undergrowth.
The wet grit dulled the shine of his skin and carried the scent of earth; it kept him part of the night.
He moved out with his bow and the new arrows, his spears balanced against his shoulder like quiet promises.
The forest swallowed him, and he became a shadow among shadows.
He found the other tribe not by accident, but by following faint signs: the angled poles of a simple corral, the regular placement of small fires for cooking, and the path flattened by repeated use.
From a distance he observed, shifting his position every few minutes to avoid detection.
He kept low, crawled when necessary, and let the wind guide him; the smallest sound could betray a watcher.
At first glance, their camp looked larger and more organized than his.
Their shelters were more uniform, the posts tied with twisted fibers that held tension.
Some men carried tools more refined than his tribe's: flaked blades with sharper, narrower points and hafts wrapped with sinew so they would not slip.
He saw short, broad axes, not clumsy lumps but well-shaped tools whose edges looked ready to peg into wood cleanly.
A few men had long poles tipped with thin, balanced spearheads, the kind that flew truer in a throw.
Their slings were better spun and their stones smoother; he watched a young boy practice, the pebble whistling on a path and landing dead-center between two markers.
They were practiced.
They iterated.
What surprised him was their system.
At certain points along the ridge, he saw camouflaged hollows, rimmed with dead leaves, where traps were set.
Hunters rotated duty at these points, organized, someone stored meat here, and someone else watched and signaled.
They used small smoke channels to keep insects away from food, even though they had not learned to tend an open fire the way he could.
Their ingenuity showed without the one advantage he alone wielded.
Women at work moved with rhythm: one scraped hide with a smooth, polished bone; another twisted fiber into cord with efficient fingers.
Children learned crafts by carrying small bits of bark for the adults.
Their leader moved among them with a clipped word and a pointed look; his presence bent the rhythm into order.
He was not fat with comfort; he was sharp, his face scored by hunts.
His men moved as a unit, trained by the grind of daily practice and small, ingenious improvements.
He noted numbers: roughly forty to sixty adults; perhaps half the men were armed.
They rotated sentries on the high knolls.
He watched the pattern, and a crude signaling system using slate knocks and small mirrors or polished shells placed in line.
Their defense was practical and worked out; they compensated for lack of fire with discipline and craft.
Sometimes a sound betrayed him, a dry twig snapped under his foot where a mouse passed.
Heads turned.
A woman gave a quick call; a man looked toward his direction.
He froze, pressed into the loam, heartbeat loud.
A shadow moved across a path, and the watchman returned to his place.
For a moment he tasted iron, and his throat tightened.
He could not risk an open fight or a discovery that would alert them to him.
He slipped back and lowered himself into thicker brush.
The rule was plain: observe more, act later.
Up close, their leader's armor showed a clever use of layered hides and fastened plates, secured with cords that distributed shock.
He studied the seams, they were reinforced at stress points where clubs and spears would hit.
If they faced them in battle, striking at seams and breaking formation would be key.
He noted where they kept water caches and the paths used to fetch them: a small supply route that, if severed, would slow them in a fight.
By the time the moon sank low, numbers of smaller details were sketched into his memory: the pattern of their watch rotations, the location of their best hunters, which families produced the strongest warriors, and where the weaker stores were kept.
He tested his patience and held to Pre's instruction: for now he would only watch.
He filed each fact away like a carved notch on a spear shaft.
Just before dawn he slipped back toward his village.
The sky peeled into gray, and the first birds began to call.
He moved like a shadow returning to its den.
Entering his cave, he sat with his notes in mind, reviewing every observation and sequence he had committed to memory.
With a stick he traced routes on the dirt floor as if drawing a map, marking choke points and likely weak spots.
Their lack of fire did not make them harmless; in many ways they were more dangerous, with better tools, better discipline, and a refined approach to defense.
He waited.
Before the people woke, before he presented his report, he polished each detail in his mind so that when they asked, he offered not guesses but plans.
If war was unavoidable, this information would tell them where to strike and where to avoid.
If peace were possible, it would tell them how to speak from a place of knowledge.
And for now, he sat quiet, watching the entrance, waiting to be called.