Nature had a way of knowing when something doesn't belong, when danger is near. It always goes quiet. Nothing moves. All is still. Only breath remains. The breath of the jungle is hot; it steams from the plants and the ground, making the air thick. The sun filters through the heavy foliage in beams of gold, and lighting up the sparse patches of earth that it strives to reach. A shadow passes over them for but a second, and then is gone. And slowly, the forest dares to move again.
Bare feet don't even touch the ground. The rough bark of old wood gives the traction needed to fly through the jungle. The ground here is too soft and moist, and would leave tracks. This can be used to the advantage, intentionally running down a path, leaving prints in the soil, then up to the trees to track back and go another way. But that would be for later.
Hands grab, the muscles in the arm bulge as the body is lifted to a higher branch, a new level, and through the branches she continues. The Danda Kerekuru had gone in this direction, but that did not mean that it was where it landed. It was a graceful thing, and it could move as easily as any serpent, and just as quietly. It could have turned in any direction, and have landed miles away from the direction that she was heading in.
But she wasn't looking for the star. No, that was forbidden. It was not meant for human eyes. She was looking for them, the Paya. It had an adequate amount of time to cover much ground in the time it had taken her to perform the rituals. It could have been anywhere by now, even at her village if it wanted, her clan had learned that the hard way.
But if she was to 'see' the hunter who had chosen her this century, and know who her opponent was, the best place to start would be near where Danda Kerekuru had landed.
She had been going through the jungle for hours, and had found no signs of the Paya. It could be very possible that they were chasing each other around in circles, which meant that this could take quite a while, and their meeting could be purely accidental.
The metal of her ba scraped against the wood of a tree as she caught a branch and swung from it to another below her. She paused to catch her breath, feeling the muscles in her thighs twitch. She placed her hands on the branch and curled, making herself smaller. Slowly she gazed around and listened, holding the small cylinder at an angle that if she needed to. She would be ready to fight at a moment's notice.
She heard a snap and her head jerked, looking over and around, the sun caught on a flash of color. She flattened herself against the branch, making herself as narrow as it was and waited, eyes fixated on where the sound had come from. She held her breath as she saw a shine of gold and black bounce over a fallen branch. Muscles rippling under fur as it landed and began padding silently down the path. The leopard slowed to a stop, one paw barely lifted from the ground. Its ears turned, golden eyes wide as its pink nose quivered. She could see the sharp white teeth as the feline began panting, tasting the air as much as smelling it.
The leopard turned and moved off the trail it was following, moving to a tree and climbing up it easily, crawling up onto the lower branches and perching on one, looking around for anything amiss. It froze when it noticed her. At first it did nothing, it could not recognize the strange creature on the branch. Deciding that it didn't want her there, it crouched, ears pulled back as the lips pulled away from the teeth. It growled and hissed a warning, and Diwizama slowly eased up and turned to face it.
It wasn't there to attack her; it was just surprised by her being there. She would avoid conflict by letting it have the trees here. Without turning her back to it, as that would only invite an attack, she eased back, foot extending to feel for a branch and slid down to it. The leopard watched her with interest, ears still back, hackles still raised, but it made no more threats.
Once she was far enough away that coming after her would be too much work for the feline, she turned, her back safe at this distance, and continued on her path. There would be many more dangers in this forest besides her and the Paya, and some dangers were deceptive. The small tse-tse fly was a relentless killer, biting a human could give the human the sleeping sickness, and the whole species kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Just an insect a third the size of a fingernail. Just one of many dangers here in the jungle, and she'd have to watch for all of them. But so would the Paya.
Several miles away from her village now, Diwizama took a real rest. Her chest burned, but still she took precautions, lifting herself to the higher branches until she sat in the crook of one, stretching her body out along the branch to be as hidden as possible. She concentrated on her breathing, slowly inhaling and exhaling to make it steady. She held her ba loosely in one hand, looking over it fondly, watching the light slide along the surface as she tilted it back and forth.
A memory flowed within this weapon; hot metal, tasting the blood of its master, a dark night, a gleaming skull.
She sighed and rested the ba against the wood, closing her eyes to ease their burn. She kept so still, that the insects and smaller animals felt safe enough to begin moving again. The din of the forest was like a lullaby, and she felt her body get heavy against the branch. She wouldn't sleep, that would be dangerous, but she got close: a blank mind, slow steady breathing. The buzz of an insect moved very near her ear, investigating the smell of her, then it landed on her neck. She felt its very light feet move along to her shoulder blade, then to her back. It was drinking the sweat off of her skin, attracted to the salt, but then it flew away, probably looking for something sweeter.
Suddenly, everything went quiet again. Diwizama's eyes opened up instantly and her muscles tensed. She moved her head slowly back and forth, looking for the danger. There! Her white nails dug into the branch she was on, and she paid more care to how she was lying on top of it. Her eyes focused on a lower branch, several feet away. The leaves on the branch had settled quickly and it was still for a moment, then the branches and trees moved and shifted, a distorted blurry image, like things behind turbulent water.
Her breath caught in her throat and she concentrated on keeping her heartbeat even. She watched the large spirit move along the branch and perch where it was still strong enough to hold its weight and it froze again. A soft, rattling click emanated from its direction, and she could see where the head was, shifting slowly as it scanned the area.
The Paya was hidden from her, but she could still make out some features. It was large, as most of them were, and this one was male, the outline revealing a flatter chest in profile. She could count two of the gun weapons on his shoulders, the wristblades were retracted, and she could not see a spear like her own ba on his back. Other things she could not look for; thrown weapons, other retracted weapons, and the hand guns that the Paya carried with them would be completely hidden by the cloak unless they turned just the right way, or they used them.
The finer details that she could make out gave her a little more information about the Paya. The crest had many well-pronounced ridges that she could make out even from where she was, and the dreads were very long. It was an older Paya, not the oldest her clan had ever encountered, but that meant little. His age meant more experience, more danger.
She didn't move, even though she had learned all that she was going to here. Moving would only alert him instantly to where she was, barely hidden by the girth of the branch. She would wait for him to move on. She had just as much patience as he did.
Breathing out slowly, she set a slow pattern to her breaths to be as quiet as possible; long drawn-out intakes of as little air as she could pass through her lips, and then out the same way. The Paya was obviously in no hurry, and she lost track of how long she had been there. She held her breath as he moved, ready to leave herself once he was out of sight. He stood relocated to the main part of the tree and rested a hand against it. He was still again and Diwizama went back to her breathing technique, wondering what he was doing. They were usually not this passive, especially not on a hunt.
But it gave her a chance to see. She observed the blurry outline of the Paya, not to learn anything about him, but to admire. Though she could not see entirely, there stood the reason for her to live, the reason for everything. She felt herself relaxing. Not that she saw him as any less dangerous, but that a sense of utter calm came over her, unwittingly, as she watched him.
Then a blur suddenly moved beneath her. It jumped easily from branch to branch until it joined the Paya on his perch. Diwizama's eyes were wide, looking upon the other cloaked figure. Two Payas. She felt her heart race, looking on the second figure. Her mind raced and instincts clashed. She kept herself from moving, even though the urge to escape the dangerous area was strong. Part of her mind told her to study it, but most of it was on staying alive.
The two Payas clicked to one another, standing apart. The newer one looked around, then crouched on the branch and looked at the ground. The initial panic subsided slowly and she forced herself to look. Another male, and a younger Paya, his crest was not so ridged. He was a little smaller than the other, but no less large. He had two guns as well, pulled back in their resting position, and surprisingly, sported two wristblades. That was all she could see. It was time to move. It would be a risk, but so was staying put with two pairs of eyes looking out for her.
She slowly moved, painstakingly so. Her arms retracted from above her to beneath her, pushing herself up from the branch. The bite of the wood against her knees was ignored as she slipped down. She wasn't going to run, that would be foolish, but she wanted the larger bulk of the tree's trunk between her and them, to hide her heat. Slowly she lowered herself down the branch, feeling it scrape against her stomach and chest. She lifted her foot, catching her destination and pulled her hips to the side, twisting around the trunk until she finally let go of the branch. She pressed her back to the wood, letting out a silent breath.
The Payas were still talking to each other. Now better hidden, she listened. She understood most of what they said. Through the masks of the honored fallen, her clan had learned much about the Payas, including their different languages.
It seemed the elder one wanted for them to split up, not too far away from each other, but apart to cover more ground. The younger one was hesitant with this plan, he himself not being familiar with this terrain or their prey. He wanted to stay as a pair, hunting together. Diwizama looked around for routes to take once the two of them finished deciding what they were going to do. The older one was insisting they split up, calling the other one young, and… ignorant. At least that was what the word sounded like.
There was silence after that for a moment. The world around them was quiet. Still she waited, she knew they hadn't left. As silent as they were, movement still would make noise. Their dreads would smack their skin, metal armor would slide against the net they wore. But they were quiet, and so she had to be even more so. If she could hear herself, they could hear her easily.
Then the clicking started up again, it was the elder Paya, he was laying down his path, telling the other where he would be going. The younger one solemnly acknowledged, and they made plans to meet again when night fell. Then she heard a sound, a fizzing and crackling. She knew what it meant, and the curiosity was painful to ignore. She slowly eased her body against the tree, moving to the side, leaning, using one leg as a counter balance.
Slowly, the edge of the tree gave way to the branch that the Payas were on. But then she stopped. She had not earned the right to look upon them. She eased back to her position, hearing the movement of items and then, the sound again.
The sounds she had been waiting for finally reached her ears. First one, then the other moved, crossing across the branches. The soft rustle of leaves and creak of wood under the weight of the Payas faded easily away.
She waited, listened, until she could hear them no more, and then waited even longer. The very moment the insects began to come back to life, she was off. Through the branches, she headed south, perpendicular to where the Payas had left. She needed to move quickly, get in the right position, before the other Paya would be there.
The younger one had been right; the two of them shouldn't have split up. Diwizama would not have been so bold against two of them at once, and likely would have gone down easily. Now the odds were more in her favor, not entirely, but more.