"Hey, You're finally awake."
I reluctantly opened my eyes only to shut them tight again from the light of the cave entrance.
"Grud, can you hear me boy?"
I groaned and moved my hands to cover my ears from the loud voice of Dhuk, the tribe's shaman that looked old and decrepit.
"Dhuk…. Too loud…. Too bright…. What happened? Why does my whole body hurt?"
"Hmm" Dhuk grunted as he inspected Grud's body. "You have been asleep for three days after we found you near the place where the sky rock fell. More than that, from the moment we found you, you were bleeding from all your holes" Dhuk looked down at Grud's crotch area and cringed thinking about it. "On top of that, you were burning up with a fever and then going almost as cold as a corpse over the course of two days. The only reason we did not bury you was that you were still breathing, I almost thought the Spirits would claim you more than a few times. It was only yesterday until now that you were sleeping normally."
Slowly as Dhuk was talking, Grud was getting accustomed to the light that was supposedly too bright and the shaman's voice that was supposedly too loud and just as the shaman finished talking, Grud's stomach made a loud growl.
"Hmm" Dhuk grunted again. "Go to the fire pit and get something to eat, I do not know what happened to you but you look like you have not eaten properly in weeks." When the shaman said that, Grud looked down at his own body and was shocked at what he saw, he looked almost emaciated with a good portion of his ribs showing but what he also saw was that what was left of his muscles were a lot more well defined.
As Grud wobbled to his feet due to not using it for three days, Dhuk said "As soon as you feel better, go finish your coming of age hunt.'' As flippant as the shaman seemed after what Grud just went through, current medical knowledge did not go beyond stopping the bleeding and throwing some herbs at the problem. And the tribe could not afford layabouts especially someone like Grud who did not have any family to depend on, his parents were killed in a raid by Big Tooth Cats when he was five winters old while the tribe was migrating.
When Grud manage to steady himself, he made his way to the fire pit just outside the cave, there the fire pit was tended to by the tribe chieftain's first wife Ito, second wife Rae and other woman of the tribe who were cooking the day's early hunt and processing what the other hunters and gatherers picked and harvested.
Iko saw Grud making his way to the fire pit and noticed his malnourished state and had a worried expression on her face. She was a woman clearly past her prime but she had a motherly look and was the de facto matriarch of the village to rally the women of the tribe for work and taking care of the tribe's children and orphans, of which there were quite a few due to the dangers of the world.
"By the Spirits Grud, look at you, get your butt here now and get some food in you" Iko practically shoved him down to sit by the fire and loaded up a big leaf full of meat, fruits and berries. And after another serving of food, she shooed him away to take a rest for the rest of the day.
Later in the day a group of men led by a huge and hairy man more akin to a bear arrived at the tribe carrying a few carcasses between them, when the huge and hairy man looked around and spotted Iko and Rae, he went up to them and kissed them as they welcomed him back from his hunt, that man is the Chieftain Froll. After exchanging a few words, the chieftain looked around and when the chieftain saw Grud, he walked up to Grud to take a look at him. "Grud, I see you are still alive, the last time I saw you I thought the Spirits would have claimed you. Besides you becoming so damn skinny, how are you doing?"
"I think I am fine, still very hungry though." Grud replied. Not that anyone noticed but despite the loss of mass in the past three days of being unconscious, he weighed slightly heavier than before. Even the bloated stomach from the food that Iko practically forced on him earlier was gone but he did feel a lot better after that meal.
"Good good. For the next week you are going to join the gatherers for work and get some meat on your bones, you do not even look fit to chase a rabbit with one leg." the chief huffed. "Later you will join me at the dinner fire and you will tell me what you remember from three days ago. Go on now, go help the hunters process the meat and we will see you at dinner" and off Grud went to join the rest of the hunters and some of the tribe women to process the meat for dinner and future use.
When it was dinner time, the whole tribe came together with the exception of a few men to look out for danger. Altogether there were around seventy people split up around a few fire pits. This is what made up the Rock Skull tribe. At one of those fire pits was the chieftain, his two wives, the shaman, a few of the elder hunters and finally, Grud. After all of them had eaten dinner, during which a few of the older hunters kept piling more food on Grud's leaf plate after seeing how skinny he had become after just three days, Froll the chieftain finally spoke. "So Grud, what do you remember about going out on your coming of age hunt?" After taking a while to recall what had happened, he started recounting what we could remember.
"It was half a day after the sun just peeked over the horizon and the shaman gave me the blessings for a good hunt. After that I found the trace of a young buck and tracked it through the forest and came to the small stream, that is where I first saw the young buck. After stalking the buck on the other side of the stream for a while, I noticed I was not the only one stalking the buck, there was a Big Tooth Cat further ahead and luckily upwind of me."
A few of the older hunters nodded and murmured about the news of a Big Tooth Cat being so close to the tribe. For a coming of age hunt, Grud could have hunted anything from a few rabbits to the biggest apex predators in the area, but the general idea for a coming of age hunt was to prove that he had the skill to hunt not only enough for himself but enough to bring back to the tribe to share, even though he saw a few smaller animals while tracking the buck, the buck was a respectable prey to hunt.
"After I noticed the Big Tooth Cat, I slowly went prone and tried to silently cover myself with dead leaves and wait for the Big Tooth Cat to either go away or give chase to the buck."
One of the older hunters grunted and said "At least you are not like some of the stupid ones that think they can take on a Big Tooth Cat alone", Froll also grunted in agreement and motioned for Grud to continue.
"After a while the Big Tooth Cat decided to give chase and the chase went further upstream until I could not sense them any more. After that I decided to go downstream to see if I could find any prey drinking. It was while I was walking down stream that I noticed the sky rock flying towards me, I started running and next thing I know is I am laying down in the cave feeling like a mammoth kicked me."
After hearing of what Grud remembered, there were some mutterings among the elder hunters. After a short while, Froll turned to Dhuk and asked "Shaman Dhuk, what do you think about all this? Is this an omen?"
The Dhuk scratched his beard for a moment while pondering and said "I will consult with the spirits tonight." and with that, dinner came to an end and the tribe broke off to rest or complete their own tasks.
—
Deep in the cave where the Rock Skull tribe built their tribe around, Dhuk was chanting the chants of his shaman predecessors while lighting some dried herbs to let them smoke and mixing some mushrooms and herbs into a concoction to let him 'consult with the spirits', what Dhuk was unwittingly doing was getting high off his ass on magic mushrooms and other intoxicating herbs. When he was done mixing his magic mushroom and herb drink while getting a bit high from the smoking dried herbs, he said in a soft voice "Oh Great Spirits hear my call and lend me your wisdom." After which, he downed the whole bowl of the intoxicating drink and laid down.
With his sense of time already being slightly distorted by being affected by the smoke it was not long before Dhuk found himself flying through the sky and while he was flying, he saw a man that resemble Grud in his malnourished state holding a spear and running through the forest only to recklessly charge and pounce on a Big Tooth Cat, the boy managed to strike the Big Tooth Cat on the head but the stone tip of the spear shattered and the the Big Tooth Cat swiped at the boy with a mighty paw that was tipped with savage claws and the boy turned into red mist. Shortly after that, the scene seemed to rewind to the point of the same boy running through the forest, but there was something different and Dhuk unconsciously slowed down everything and focused on the one difference. It was the tip of the spear, he noticed a different spear head, and it looked like the weird stone that was at the site of the sky rock.
When the hunters went to investigate the big boom that happened after the sky rock landed and found Grud, they also found the metal shattered remains of the storage box. And when it was brought to the Dhuk to find out what it was he was confused, the metal was burned black upon reentry with the planet and the shaman did all the basic tests a wise man would do. That being scratching it, bashing it, biting it, licking it and burning it. Scratching it with a stone proved to be interesting as it revealed a rough shiny surface, bashing it did not do much of anything but damaging a perfectly good stone axe, biting it did even less that that and only made what was left of Dhuk's teeth hurt, licking it only made him come to the conclusion that this was a weird tasting rock and burning it turned the scratch surface a blackish gray and did nothing else. The only thing he got from this weird rock is that this is the hardest rock he has ever seen, it may be hard to shape it though.
Concentrating back to the vision, Dhuk saw the man attack again in the same way as the first time, but this time the spear pierced the Big Tooth Cat and when he withdrew the spear, the beast slumped to the ground dead. The scene continued with the boy cutting open the Big Tooth Cat, ripped out its heart and devoured it. After which the boy rapidly began growing bulkier and stronger as the now young man roared into the sky for the world to witness him. After that his mind began to move on to other subjects while high as the rest of the night passed.
When Dhuk woke up, he went to Froll to tell him of his vision while consulting with the spirits. When Dhuk finished, the both of them were silent for a moment while Froll pondered on what the vision meant and broke the silence with the question. "So what does all this mean? Is this a good or bad omen for the tribe?" Dhuk stroked his beard as he gathered his thoughts into words. "I believe this is a trial from the Spirits set before Grud… and if he is able to overcome this trial he will grow strong and the tribe will have a powerful hunter and fighter." Hearing this, Froll smiled and nodded approvingly. But what Dhuk said next whipped that smile off his face. "But from what I have seen in the vision, he will need to hunt the Big Tooth Cat… Alone." Hearing this Froll's voice rose "What!? The boy is barely became a man, we can't expect him to hunt a Big Tooth Cat alone, you have seen him yesterday, he is barely fit to hunt a rabbit"
Dhuk raised a hand to calm Froll and said "Yes, but that does not mean we cannot prepare him for the coming trial"reaching for a roll of leather wrapping something "This is a piece of the sky rock that landed near Grud, in the vision i saw a spear tip made of this and it is the hardest rock i have ever seen. Have a spear made with this for him and I suggest he get some of the older hunters to teach Grud some pointers for the rest of the week." Froll frowned but begrudgingly nodded, he wanted to disagree but he also trusted Dhuk for his wisdom, not that throwing the young man at a Big Tooth Cat was wise but then again Dhuk was one of the wisest man he knew, even when he was a young boy himself and Dhuk had a lot less wrinkles.