Country's War

     .10

Death's Song

     Though they were far from the village, they heard it hover over the splashes of rain. It was a confused mess that bounced off the bark and swirled high into the canopy and hung there, like a black fog in an unceasing melodic rush. Mahya felt his stomach twist with the voices. Oncoa's footsteps gathered speed, rarely had he seen his father nervous, but it was unmistakable now. As evening crept in, a silent hidden thief behind the clouds, the rain slowed to a slither, as if the unisoned noise drove it back, up into the vapor from whence it traveled.
     Becoming more clear, voices moaned, and whimpered and cried, and Oncoa stopped walking. Mahya stopped too. He looked up at his father, and at first did not recognize him. His face was pale and his eyes emotion filled and reluctant. It was fear beneath his father's face.  Why was he so afraid? Mahya had heard this song before, long ago, but it did not scare him then, nor was he frightened now. It was a song that reminded him of home. He was more afraid of the look on his father's face than the song that drowned the rain.
     "What is that song father?" He finally found the nerve to ask. After a long breath, his father pulled his chin up and looked at his son, eyes of tears.
     "It is the song of death." And the chorus grew louder. Gasped hush fell over the jungle creatures, and everything was wrapped in a coat of thick humid air. Film grew over his tongue, and he tasted his breath and the must of the jungle. Suddenly, he was in the trees, leaves slapped at his face and his arms and twigs caught his hair. Inside his chest, his lungs jumped and air flew from his throat and an involuntary gulp of a cry escaped with it.
     Like a sack, he laid cradled in his father's arms, between his massive forearms and biceps, the air gushed past him, never had he moved so fast, it was difficult to catch his breath. He watched as Oncoa palmed one branch after another, swinging violently from tree to tree, leaping cavernous gaps without thought. Low hums became high pitched cries and audible lyrics. The words were breathless and morose, they didn't so much as float as take flight on an unsuspecting air.
      Heaved over shoulder, Mahya wrapped his arms round his father's neck and held on for life, as Oncoa used two hands to swing on thinly hanging vines. One snapped, and he felt as though they would careen to the jungle floor, but Oncoa used the momentum to cling to the side of a tree, and lockstep leaped to a branch and continued his forward motion until they landed like a thud behind a pack of villagers. None of whom turned towards them. The chorus was loud but soothing, and many tears flowed with the words. To Mahya they had no meaning. He tried to cry but could not. To see his father crying uncontrollable he felt embarrassed that he too could not.
     Encircled the villagers stood motionless, all singing the same tune. As Mahya and Oncoa made their way to the center, Mahya sat in the cradle of Oncoa's arm like a toddler. He wanted to wipe away his father's tears. Then he saw the old man, lying in the middle of the singing circle. He recognized him slightly, as the man who bestowed Yahna, and told stories around the beach campfires on celebratory nights. He remembered he had come to his bedside one morning when Mahya was very sick, and gave him a bitter drink to heal him.
     "I remember him." He whispered to his father as they stood over the dead man.
     "Egahna." Oncoa whispered back.

     That night in the hut they ate only bread and water around the fire pit at the middle of the trunk. The smoke billowed up and out of the top of the tree. Oncoa stayed with the other men. It was their duty to prepare the body and care for the family Egahna left behind. Anjah allowed her children to stay up late and held them close as they listened to the death song fade into the night. Mahya could smell the wet forest floor far below. He loved the aroma of mud and leaves and wet logs after the rain.
     "What do the words of the death song mean?" Mahya asked his mother with his head upon her shoulder.
     "They have meaning only to the singer." Mahay sat with that a moment. The fire crackled and his sister nodded off on a cushion fashioned from boarhide and stuffed with feathers.
     "You mean the words have no meaning."
     "They have the meaning of what the singer feels at the time." She stroked his hair and stared into the flames. The glow of the fire painted shadows on the wall. They looked like black creatures climbing and staring.
     "What did your song mean?" Anjah closed her eyes. Mahya waited a long time for her to respond.
     "When my father died...i felt alone. I was already married to Oncoa and we had Leyah... but it felt like the person who protected me all my life, was gone. And I knew I would never get that back. That's what my song meant." Mahya thought of a day when his father would be gone. He thought of how he had been protected from the wolves that very day. And he would have to protect himself from the wolves.
     A light thud shook the silence and they looked towards the door. Oncoa entered, sullen and dejected. His usual strength and vigor seemed to have been left with the family of the fallen.
     "Father. What happened? Where is Egahna? What did you tell his family? Who will lead Yahana? What was your death song about?"
    "Bed time Mahya. Go to your cot." Oncoa lifted Leyah and laid her in her bed. Anjah sauntered over to their room and slid roundly behind the long leaved curtain. Oncoa drowned the fire and the hut filled with smoke and darkness. Mahya bounced out of the hut and onto his cot. Tridder chirped sleepily somewhere far above. He heard his father hit his bed hard, and snore immediately. Stars swayed back and forth above the thick leaves of the canopy, winking at him a promise of dreams. He watched them and blinked back slowly. He saw the wolf fangs dripping with rain. Then the old man's body in the mud soaking wet. The songs that haunted the evening played in his head until he finally blinked into sleep. The shadow creatures danced around him while he dreamed. They danced to the death song and welcomed a new member of their hidden tribe of shadows.