Silence. It was a thick, suffocating blanket smothering the cave. The roaring earth-fire still cast its harsh, unwavering light, but now it illuminated a tomb. The initial shock had worn off, leaving behind a raw, gut-wrenching terror. A young mother named Ela began to weep, a low, hopeless sound that was worse than any scream. Her crying was a contagion, spreading to the children, whose whimpers echoed in the dusty air. The hunters, men who faced mammoths and cave bears, stood paralyzed, staring at the void where their world had once been.
Bor was the first to break. He let out a roar of pure frustration, snatching up his spear and hurling it against the cave wall. The flint point shattered, the pieces skittering across the stone floor. "We are dead! We are all dead! The spirits have cursed us!" He rounded on Karuk, his face a mask of fury and accusation. "You and your magic! Your fire from the earth! You have brought the anger of the old ones down on us!"
Gron moved with a speed that belied his despair, stepping between Bor and his son. "Enough, Bor! The boy did not bring the mountain down."
"But the battle did! The battle of the Elder Folk! And why do they fight now? Now, when he works his strange magic?" Bor gestured wildly at the pile of black earth-root. "He has drawn their eyes to us! We were beneath their notice, but no more!"
A murmur of agreement rippled through some of the tribe. Fear was turning their awe for Karuk into suspicion. The shaman, Orla, nodded slowly, her eyes wide with superstitious dread. "Bor speaks true. The balance is broken. We have taken too much. We have reached for powers that are not meant for men."
Karuk stood his ground, his heart pounding, but not from Bor's anger. It was from the silence in his own mind. The Voice, his guide, his one certainty in this new, terrifying world, was absent. He felt utterly alone. He looked at the faces of his people—his mother's terrified eyes, Lana's confused tears, his father's grim exhaustion—and a cold knot of responsibility tightened in his chest. He had led them to this. He had to find a way out.
He walked away from the confrontation, away from the firelight, to the very edge of the cave mouth. He ignored the dizzying drop and stared out into the night, at the distant, silent peaks where the titanic battle had already moved on, leaving them broken in its wake.
Help me, he thought, pouring every ounce of his will into the silent plea. You showed me the sling. You showed me the fire. Now show me the way down. Please.
For a long time, there was nothing. Only the howl of the wind through the new-made chasm, a sound like a world in pain. He was about to turn back, defeated, when it came. Not a clear command, not a plan, but a single, simple impression.
Look.
It wasn't a voice of instruction, but of observation. Karuk frowned, peering down into the abyss. The rock dust was settling. The moon, pale and cold, broke through the clouds, casting a feeble silver light on the scarred cliff face. He saw it then. The explosion hadn't created a perfectly smooth wall. It was a raw, jagged wound in the mountain. There were fractures, narrow ledges, protruding stones. It was not a path. It was a deadly, vertical maze.
It is not a way down for the tribe, the Voice stated, its tone chillingly pragmatic. It is a way down for one.
Karuk's breath caught. One.
The children will die. The elders will fall. Your father, with his weight, will tear the stones loose. It is a path for one who is young, and light, and driven by need.
The meaning was clear, and it was a horror worse than the trap itself. He would have to go alone. He would have to leave them all here.
They have the tree-sleeper meat. They have the deep-fire. They can survive for many suns. But without a way out, this cave is a slow death. You must go.
"Go where?" Karuk whispered, the words torn away by the wind.
The valley below. There is a way. A path of the Stone-Men, old and forgotten, that leads back to the high lands. You must find it. You must then return.
The impossibility of it was staggering. To descend this sheer cliff in the dark. To cross a valley now filled with warring Elder Folk. To find a mythical path and then climb all the way back up. It was a task for a spirit, not a man.
He felt the Voice recede, its message delivered. The choice was his alone.
Karuk turned from the edge. The tribe was watching him. The argument had died down, replaced by a weary, hopeless silence. They were looking to him, the maker of miracles, for their next miracle.
He walked to the center of the cave, to where his father stood. He did not speak to the whole tribe. He spoke only to Gron, his voice low and steady, carrying a weight far beyond his years.
"The path is gone," Karuk said. "But the mountain is not."
Gron's eyes narrowed. "What are you saying, boy?"
"I am saying there is a way. But not for all. Not yet." He took a deep breath. "I have to go down."
A collective gasp went through the cave. His mother, Kala, cried out, "No! Karuk, it is certain death!"
"It is certain death if I stay," he replied, his gaze never leaving his father's. "The Voice… it has shown me. There is a path in the valley. An old path. If I can find it, I can lead us all down. But I must go alone. Now. In the dark, when the Elder Folk may be sleeping."
Gron searched his son's face. He saw no boyish bravado, only a grim, unshakable resolve. He saw the leader he had hoped his son would become, forged in a fire he never could have imagined. He saw the only chance his people had.
He placed a heavy hand on Karuk's shoulder. The grip was firm, a transfer of authority, of trust, of a father's terrible, proud fear. "What do you need?"
For the next hour, the tribe worked with a frantic, focused energy. They were no longer a people waiting to die; they were a people equipping their only hope. Fen helped Karuk braid a long, sturdy rope from strips of hide. Kala and the other women packed a small skin of water and strips of dried tree-sleeper meat. Bor, his anger forgotten in the face of this insane courage, brought Karuk his own personal spear, its shaft straight and true, its flint point the finest in the tribe.
Karuk tied one end of the new-made rope to a sturdy, unmovable rock just inside the cave mouth. He coiled the rest and slung it over his shoulder. He felt the weight of the spear, the weight of the food, the weight of every pair of eyes upon him.
He embraced his mother, who wept silently into his furs. He knelt and hugged Lana tightly. "Be brave, little one. Watch over the fire."
Then he turned to the abyss.
The moon illuminated the first few yards of the descent—a narrow, crumbling ledge that slanted downwards before disappearing into blackness. It was less than a hand's width in places.
Karuk did not look back. He took a final, steadying breath, his fingers finding the first cold, sharp handhold.
Move with the silence of the snow, the Voice whispered, a final guide into the darkness. The mountain listens.
And then, Karuk stepped off the ledge into the void, his fate, and the fate of his entire tribe, hanging by a thread of braided hide and the silent will of a mysterious Voice. The only sound was the scuff of his foot on stone, and the hammering of his own heart.