Half a day's walk to the north, Chukha-Trok and Asha were patrolling the forest as the earlier would usually do each winter morning, afraid that the lean and green distant cousins of their own species were up to no good again. Two snows ago, the redhead warrior herself chased them out of the forest, but knowing their ways and short memory, they could've been back.
The burly woodcutter sniffed the air and then shook his head. So many scents typical for the forest were simply absent, as if there were no living creatures in it. Seconds later, he tripped onto something. He muttered a single k'vark and started digging in the snow, solely to find a carcass. He uncovered a dead yayax cub. He picked it up, examined it and noticed that there was no sign of injury, not even a single wound. The carcass' bones were not broken, either. Even its neck was intact.
"Asha, you'd better come see this. I have not seen anything like it ever since I inherited this duty!"
She observed the dead animal and shrugged.
"Do you think it was poisoned? I can't find any remains of a dart, nor I think it vomited prior to its death. Otherwise, it would stink even more."
"No. Whoever or whatever has killed it is using a method we're not aware of. I'm worried."
"Me too. Let's get rid of it before it could attract any unwanted guests."
They said a prayer to the Father Tree and buried the yayax, after having managed to dig a hole in the frozen soil using the wood-cutting axe. As they were having a very modest breakfast back in the cave outpost, Chukha-Trok was thinking out loud.
"I don't understand this. If this was Duloks, we would see their traces, we would be able to make out their vile odour, their swamp breath...I mean, we would just KNOW it's them!"
"I agree,they are not capable of doing something like this and getting away with it. Also, did this animal somehow escape a place where all of the other animals were taken and paid with its life for doing so? Do you think it would be a good idea if you were to go back to the village and report it?"
"And leave you here, unprotected?"
"Arandee, Chukha, I spent fourteen snows in the woods, I can take care of myself. If I come across anything that I can't handle, I will summon a korrina and get away from this place. As a matter of a fact, I might summon them to sleep here with me. Just go and don't worry about me."
Chukha-Trok mounted a bordok and rode away. It was only an hour later when he realized the obvious – how was Asha to summon her korrinas when the larger animals were nowhere to be found?
He sighed. It wouldn't have been the first time the chief's older daughter tricked him. During most of the years she spent in the wild, she somehow managed to evade both him and the woodsman before him. There were times when he would fall in her traps, get bruises and cuts and swear he would find the prankster whoever they may be. Once she decided to reveal herself, he forgot most of it and assured her that he was not angry and that her causes were indeed noble, but that wasn't stopping her from using his naivety every now and then.
With those thoughts, after a couple of hours of riding through the snow, he arrived to the village, left the bordok in the warm stable and headed straight to the royal hut, hoping to speak to chief Chirpa. Instead of him, he encountered princess Kneesaa and Teebo in the middle of what looked like a food fight with a bunch of woklings. The situation seemed to be getting out of control. The princess had a bowl full of some sort of a vegetable dish stuck on top of her head and the food was dripping all over the floor. Malani was trying to get it off her head, while her younger friends were tossing whatever they could find on the table at her, as if she had betrayed the ways of woklings. The infant Winda Warrick was sitting in a high chair, laughing at her unfortunate babysitters, covered in the remaining food up to her shoulders.
The woodsman was bemused.
"What kind of a war did I just run into? Can't anybody else babysit these brats?"
"No!" yelled Teebo who was running after Wiley and Nippet, in hopes of reclaiming his satchel, "Head elder Kazak assigned this to us next to some other odd duties, as the usual babysitter is out hunting! No, no, don't touch that! ANYTHING BUT THAT! Uh…too late."
Wiley got his little hands on a piece of parchment, with something scribbled on it, solely to stick it in his mouth. Teebo shook his head. The mischievous little Ewok continued running towards the fire pit, but Chukha-Trok picked him up as if he was handling korrina cubs.
"Now I got you, you little rascal! Pal, sorry about…whatever the writing you cherished was."
"Well, at least he didn't take the utility knife." the shaman apprentice muttered as he was dusting his bag, while Kneesaa was trying to get food out of her white fur, "What brings you here? And why isn't Asha with you?"
"Good question…really, where is my sister?"
"She decided to remain in the cave, as otherwise we could risk losing a bunch of innocent animals to Duloks and their unethical ways. I've come here as we encountered something really strange and I want to report it to your father and master Logray, immediately!"
"They're not here, they're visiting the Tulgah traders and they will be back in a couple of days. The village is a mess right now – it's the two of us vs. head elder Kazak and most of the young warriors have gone to aid the hunters."
"Aid the hunters? Where did they go to? There is no single animal worth hunting in the forest, only rodents, birds and an occasional maramu. As for predators…can't remember the last time I saw any. Asha and I came across a carcass with no visible traces of any living thing around it. Whatever is going on, we are in trouble. And it's not the kind of trouble that somebody as simple as me can grasp…and that is why I was hoping Logray would be around."
Teebo and Kneesaa looked at each other in hope for clues and ideas, realizing they had none. This was precisely what the head elder Kazak would want to happen – something was coming the village's way and they were too young and inexperienced to handle it. The only things they could do was search through the scrolls, bottles and jars.
They headed over to master Logray's hut, leaving Malani with the woklings.
"You betrayed us!" claimed Leeni the moment they were gone, "I thought you would play with us and make a mess!"
Malani didn't know how or why they couldn't understand that she had to be nice. Kneesaa was best friends with nobody other than her crush, why would she want to go against her? Perhaps, if she continued being nice, she'd be able to be the first to greet Wicket when he's back from wherever everybody has gone to. All of this was enough for her age of eight snows to comprehend, but her much younger friends would probably just tease her about it.
"Chak, you betrayed us, you're a telltale and that's why I won't give you this!" Wiley waved a piece of parchment in front of Malani's face, "I stole this from your brother!"
"Maybe it's a magic spell!" gushed Nippet.
"Or maybe it's instructions on how to operate something master Logray invented!"
"GIVE THAT BACK!" Malani went after Latara's younger siblings and eventually caught Wiley by his bandanna, tripped him and landed on top of him, "I SAID GIVE THAT BACK."
Wiley was terrified of his friend. She never seemed to care much about anything that belonged to her older brother, or pretty much anybody else. It was always about Wicket, Wicket and even more Wicket. He dropped the piece of parchment and climbed on top of the cupboard.
"Climb here with me!" he yelled to Leeni, Nippet and little Winda, "She is a lurdo, just like her brother!"
He barely managed to duck, as a large piece of honey melon was flung his way.
"Take it back, Wiley! My brother is not a lurdo!"
"But…but my sister Latara says that he is." claimed the wokling.
"Your sister also says you're a barf-eater, which I couldn't agree more on right now!"
Malani nearly snarled at four woklings on top of the cupboard, went to Kneesaa's chamber and hid under the bed, to try and read the writing on the parchment in peace. If her brother was trusted with some serious wizard business, that was not to be lost. At the same time, she thought that there would be nothing wrong with taking a sneak peak. After all, she could hear the trees to a certain extent as well; perhaps, just perhaps she would be able to perform a spell, if it was a spell at all.
It took her a while to make sense of the writing, as she had only started to learn the basics of the complicated sign alphabet the Ewoks were using and, at the same time, her brother's signs were messily drawn and a couple of them were crossed, out of the line, one piece of parchment was even torn away.
Malani's excitement was fading away, as she was reading. She blushed. This was not a spell, not a secret plan, nothing like that. It was a love poem and there was a mention of kissing! And kissing was gross, gross, gross…unless it was to involve her and Wicket, of course.
She folded the note and hid it underneath her hood, then went back to the central chamber. Her friends, who'd climbed down the cupboard in the meantime, immediately ran away again. Not used to having any power over them, she laughed at herself and sat down to finish her lunch in peace.
Hours away, Asha was having her meal too, in the cave. It was about to get dark, just like it would on any other short winter day. She was worried where her former family could be. The Korrinas who raised her could defend themselves, but the sole idea of a predator large enough to destroy them or an enemy evil enough to manipulate the forest creature was consuming her mind, to the point she could barely eat.
She had ideas on what to do, though none seemed good enough. Perhaps Logray and that clumsy apprentice of his could perform a summoning ritual? Or use the Sunstar? No, that seemed ridiculous, Sunstar never functioned that way. How about getting the Duloks to cooperate and join the search? They would probably turn that against the Ewoks. Getting far enough to find others who could help? No, the Happy Grove was too far away from other forests known for Ewok settlements, and they were hard to reach at this time of the year.
She got outside for some fresh air, and the silence, only interrupted by an occasional chirp of a bird was something she was not used to. The forest was supposed to be alive and be an orchestra of multiple sounds. Nothing has changed since Chukha-Trok parted that morning, and he's got to have been back in the village by now, unless something had happened to him. Could it be so?
And then, all of the sudden, a fireball headed towards the sky in the distance, accompanied by roaring noise. Asha ducked and covered her head with her hood. When she looked up again, while it seemed that some treetops in the distance were slightly charred, there was no sign of forest fire.
"Hmmm, I'd better scout the area!" the red-furred Ewok mumbled to herself.
Asha returned to the cave, donned her snowshoes and filled a bag with some basic tools that could be useful. She slurped the rest of her soup and set off as the sun was setting.