Proof of Passing

By Mike O'Donnell

Hundreds of years separate the familes but their fears are similar when their lives are torn apart in changing times of violence and hate. They seek a refuge and dream of peace and a new beginning.

The cave provides shelter and an inspiration.

Nok, the last survivor of an early Stone-Age people and pregnant Meera, an outcast from a newer race, are hunted.

Roman settlers, Marcus, Flavia and son Octavian, caught in a tribal uprising in Germania Magna. The gypsy Lilli and criminal Wolf, escaping a Todesmarsch column, and academics, Bernd, Anna and baby Daniel fleeing across the East German border to freedom, all find the sanctuay of the cave and leave a PROOF OF PASSING unknowingly inspiring generations to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: FaulknerBooks
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201643768

Mike O'Donnell

Mike was a slow starter at the writing game. For the first two years of his life he seemed intent on eating and sleeping. Once these skills were mastered he did begin to make his mark, mostly with dirty fingers, lumps of mud and soft crayon. His father was in the RAF (as was his Sergeant Mum during the war) which meant that every so often the family moved on. He was therefore very nearly educated at a lot of schools; two weeks and three days at one lucky establishment. He did eventually learn to wield a pen, but mostly for activities other than writing. As all his forebears, he entered the Armed Forces. Three grandparents in the Army, both parents in the RAF, so he joined the RN. (Historical note: Great uncle George Rowe survived the Titanic and surprisingly he wasn't to blame. He was ex-RN.) The RN was extremely educational. Mike learned how to get blisters on his feet from marching and tabbing across Dartmoor, the Brecon Beacons, and a variety of parade grounds; and on his hands from sawing, chipping and filing cast iron and lumps of steel. He was professionally sick in the Atlantic, the North Sea, and up in the ice during the contretemps with Icelandic fishermen. And, because he was young he wasn't too well in a couple of ports like Hamburg and Amsterdam - water wasn't involved. He left the Navy, tried as many jobs as possible to see what made the world work, and sold a few pathetic stories. After four years servicing the Sultan of Oman's Navy and ten years trying to keep some of the Royal Army of Oman's radio equipment going he had a BA(Hons) and an MBA and sold about fifty stories.

Book preview

A TIME BEFORE

CHAPTER ONE

They were still coming.

Through the faint mist Nok heard the rattle of a dislodged rock bouncing away below him. He could taste the fear in the dryness of his mouth, sour like old blood. He was no stranger to the panic during a hunt, when a wounded bison turned in a last snorting charge, but that was in the momentary excitement of the chase. This new dread froze his gut like swallowed snow: he and Meera were the quarry.

He recalled in the long-gone days how he and his now missing companions had pursued a herd of mammoth, moving them inexorably on until a weaker calf had fallen. Now he and Meera were like that weak mammoth – they were being hounded to death.

He squinted back over the low scrub and tumbled rocks, searching for signs of their pursuers, and then up the thinly grassed slope where Meera was scrabbling to reach the cover of the trees. She was as tall as Nok, although the finer limbs and lighter frame suggested a different heritage, and she lacked his climbing power. Nok knew his escape would be easy if he left her behind. He could be safe in the trees long before she reached cover. He wanted her to move much faster. If he could have managed, he would have picked her up and charged up the slope, but her swollen belly ruled that out.

He tugged the brown bearskin higher on his shoulder, gripped the fire-hardened lance tighter in his powerful fingers, and leapt up the sedge-covered slope.

The pregnant Meera was panting with the exertion of hauling her growing body up the hill. Despite the overwhelming urge to keep running, Nok laid a restraining hand on her arm.

Rest.

She sank gratefully onto the stubby cold grass, fighting to catch her breath. Her hands automatically cradled her lower stomach as she lay back. Nok squatted to face down the slope.

They are closer.

Climbing into the mountains meant they would travel slower than their pursuers because of Meera’s condition, but on the open plain they would always be in sight.

We need to hide.

They had to get off the rocky flat and into the wooded heights. The highlands offered cover because the slopes were forest-clad unlike the flat plain of bog, dwarf trees, shrubs, and jumbled rocks.

The new hunters were tracking them to revenge their dead women, but they had first made their deadly presence felt a handful of seasons before. They had come from the softer, warmer lands. They were less well adapted to the cold, as were the deer that were their main prey, but both were spreading from their original homes.

One day, foragers from Nok’s tribe had returned empty-handed from the hunt, a man short. Things had gone well with the chase and kill. The last of the blood still pumped from the fallen beast when the six strangers arrived, bundled in skins and furs. They were taller than Nok’s people and slender. All carried thin lances: flint headed, barbed and polished. Their prey were slender deer, and not the substantial body that lay steaming on the ground, but they were twice as many as the rightful owners of the meat.

Although Nok's friends were outnumbered, they were an intimidating sight. They had shed their mantles for the battle with the cornered animal, and all were in their prime. Slabs of muscle at the shoulder, thigh and calf, and a sense of massive power in their compact strength. They wore short fur leggings, each with a stone hand axe thrust into the waistband. Two carried  poles with the points black from the fire, the middle part shiny from much use in broad-fingered hands that looked hard and competent. Both groups eyed the other. The six spread out instinctively although there was no sign or sound from the tallest of their number, who was recognisable as the leader by necklets of teeth and bone.

Perhaps the excitement of the kill was still on him, or maybe Gor merely felt threatened by the new arrivals; he gave vent to a challenging roar and leapt forward. It was not a sight for the faint-hearted, and such ferocious action had always secured the use of any female Gor had a fancy to. His black neck-length hair and beard were flecked with blood, and his square brown teeth were bared. His right hand still held the short weapon that had destroyed the bison. Gor’s two companions expected the six to turn tail and flee rather than encounter the enraged hunter.

If the distance had been shorter, things might have been different, but the speed and accuracy of the lance throw was devastatingly sudden. The leader tensed, planted one foot to use as a pivot, then whipped his trailing spear arm forward. The lance flew with a slight wobble and made a swishing noise before it hit the charging Gor. He had begun to raise an arm to fend it off but was already too late. The flint point, narrow and polished, hit him where the thick neck joined his chest, and their combined speeds were enough to drive the projectile deep into the muscular body. Gor’s legs crumpled and his momentum carried him shambling forward before he fell. The springy wood of the lance did not snap when the end hit the ground but drove it further through Gor, and he toppled sideways, his legs still trying to run. His companions were stunned. They remembered Gor’s feats with wolf, bear, mammoth and bison, the struggles often long, and ferocious, but he had always triumphed. Now in a moment, he had been felled, all his strength, power and cunning brought to nothing.

Gor’s companions had been allowed to flee by the six strangers, who were content with the carcass of the bison. The lance was retrieved from the rapidly expiring Gor with difficulty; it took two of them wrenching, and another jumping on his broad chest, before they could pull it free. Gor was still shuddering in last shock when they turned their attention to the dead animal.

The two returning escapees had difficulty in relating the frightening ease with which Gor had been despatched. Acting out with a thick pole designed for close-quarter smashing gave no sense of the lightning-fast javelin attack over distance.

All the males gathered their weapons, and set out for revenge. They found Gor’s body, partially disfigured from the ravages of small scavengers, and the butchered remains of the bison. The newcomers were long gone.

Over the following seasons they were to lose more and more of the tribe in chance encounters with their tall rivals. They were always outnumbered and they never succeeded in striking one of the enemy, let alone wounding or killing. Hunts became less successful, fewer large beasts were encountered, and the increasing number of deer were too shy and too quick for any of the tribe to get close enough to grapple with.

We need food. Meera's smile was wan. Your son tells me. She pressed her belly.

For the first time since the chase began, Nok was reminded of his empty stomach. He had thought of nothing but flight since the previous day, but now the blunt teeth of hunger gnawed at his innards. Hunting by himself was still new to him. Loma, their last companion, had died only since the last hard rain.

Nok and Loma had chased a wild pig, losing their quarry in a twisting pursuit through the brush. They’d seen the berries. The clusters of bright bunches were unfamiliar to both men, and Loma had devoured several handfuls. Nok found the small red berries far too bitter, and since he was not as hungry as Loma, had left them to him. During the night Loma had cried out and curled and uncurled, groaning, sweating, and shouting. Nok did not know what to do and Meera tried to give him water. He had died before the sun was a finger width above the horizon, teeth drawn back in a snarl of agony, baring his teeth at approaching death. Nok and Meera were alone.

The berries made Nok cautious of eating anything except meat.

This is good. Meera would smile at his wary look as she plucked from a bush. She knew better than he what to avoid and what could be eaten. Her people ate hard little nuts, roots, berries and even leaves. Occasionally she would also suck on tiny pieces of stone and Nok pretended not to notice since he did not know what to do about it. He had been with a woman who had died one winter, and he would beat her if she did anything he found objectionable, but Meera was much more frail, and he could not bring himself to strike her. They had been together through four seasons, and he still felt an unfamiliar urge to protect her even though he knew that despite appearances she had great stamina and a wiry strength.

On the long-ago day he found her, he had been alone, working his way round an outcrop of rock in order to come in behind a small herd of black buffalo. The remaining four men in the tribe were waiting in a narrow box canyon to throw rocks down. Unless Nok let the animals get past him there was nowhere to run except into the canyon. It was a perfect opportunity.

The going was difficult; the granite terrain was split and tumbled; narrow ravines had to be skirted or leapt. Nok was jogging quickly in case the buffalo decided to move away. His feet were bound in rough coverings of skin, held in place by dried strips of twisted hide. When he slipped and slithered down a steep bank riding on his bearskin mantle, he didn’t know who was the more surprised: the two men, the girl, or himself. The girl, Meera, had been stunned by a blow; blood dripped from her hairline. One man wore nothing at all. He had flung aside his deerskin breeches and it was clear that they were both intent on mounting Meera.

By good fortune, Nok came flying down in a welter of dust, pebbles, and rocks between the men and their lances, which were propped against a boulder. The naked man was unarmed and the other carried the short club with which he’d hit the girl. Both were taller than Nok but less well built, they were stringy, although the naked man had a substantial paunch. They both looked nervously back up the slope wondering whether more intruders would come clattering down in the same abrupt manner.

Nok was on his feet the instant his back hit the pebbly floor of the ravine. A lifetime of facing danger brought the quick realisation that neither of the female’s molesters was keen to fight. Nok still clutched the sturdy spear with which he’d tried to slow his descent, but something made him spurn this familiar friend for the two slender, flint-headed lances propped against the boulder. He picked up both together. The man with the club advanced, while his undressed partner moved backwards, the tumescence already vanishing. Nok had forgotten the buffalo hunt. He had seen a number of his tribe killed by these tall strangers. He could smell the odd odour they carried with them, different from the smell of his people, and it made his hackles rise. He pushed the twin points of the spears forward and made a growling noise in the back of his throat.

He presented a fearsome sight. The bearskin mantle gave his already broad body even more width, and his shaggy black hair and beard gave him a wild aspect, made more menacing by the weapons he held easily in his scarred hands. The lances were throwing weapons, which was the reason neither of the men turned their backs to flee; they had no idea that Nok had no skill at throwing them accurately. They also did not realise that he had a lifetime’s practise at moving quickly and stabbing with rapid jabs.

The man with the club virtually walked onto Nok’s spears. He came in swinging, and expected to smash the lance points aside and batter Nok with the weighty club. He had not reckoned with the speed generated by powerful muscles. Nok moved the lances aside allowing the club to swish harmlessly past, and bounded forward. It was enough. The spears were twisted out of his hands as the man was impaled, the sharp flint points driving through his abdomen.

He would have allowed the paunchy man to run rather than risk injury in the fight, but the naked man was given no opportunity to escape. Nok had forgotten the woman, although she was always in his vision. To him she represented no danger, which the next few seconds showed was a serious miscalculation. Before Nok moved, the female brought a rock the size of her own head crashing down on the back of the man’s skull. The blow contained all her anger and fear and was payment for the humiliation and indignity that the two molesters had caused or intended to cause her. The rock dropped from her fingers as the man slumped lifeless as the stone. Nok advanced to ensure that the man was finished, and the female backed away. She made no attempt to pick up another rock for defence, instinctively realising that such a move would be fruitless. Nok, after a cursory look at the fallen man, turned his attention to her.

She was dark-haired, equally tall, but appeared more vulnerable because of her slender arms and slight figure. She wore a shift-like deerskin that had been formed from pieces of hide held together by sinews. The fur she had worn over the top had been ripped off by one of her attackers, and lay nearby. Nok was intrigued by the giant stitch-like joining of the woman’s deerskin. Unlike the gathered and bound corners of his own mantle and leggings, her dress displayed none of these awkward lumps. He moved forward peering under heavy brows at the joining below her waist. She mistook his intention from the direction of his gaze, and backed towards the ravine wall, darting a look to see if she could escape. Nok, thwarted for a second in his inspection of this new way of pelt-joining, reached to pick up her discarded cloak to see if it had been constructed similarly. He did not take his eyes off the woman as he retrieved the fur, he had seen her handiness with a lump of rock.

As he picked up the robe, a shiver, like a muscular wave, ran through the woman’s body. Whether it was delayed reaction from shock or merely from the cold, Nok could not have known, but it reminded him of a day long ago on a hunt; he had seen a newborn bison emerge into the world in a shooting mess of mucus membrane. Nok had been very young and had never seen a birth. In minutes the spindly calf was up on its trembling legs while the mother licked it, and it had shivered with its whole body just like this female. The sense of helplessness was identical, and the unaccustomed feeling Nok had was also similar. Without thinking, he handed the woman the cloak of fur to put on. It must have seemed to the woman that he had picked up the cloak for the express purpose of returning it to her, and an uncertain look crossed her face as she grabbed the skin and wrapped it round her.

Nok! he said, touching his chest.

Meera, she whispered, lowering her head. She saw the man she had felled and her chin came up. Meera. And she copied Nok's action.

The man with the lances sticking up through his belly gave a shudder, rattling the pebbles beneath him. Nok turned quickly, grabbing one of the lances. Pools of blood covered the ground making it surprising that the man still lived, but even as Nok watched, he gave a final shiver and gurgle. Nok easily pulled the two spears from the body despite the clinging effect of the flesh. The flint heads came clear of the wounds with a sucking noise. He turned back to the female and the blackness of the fur cloak suddenly recalled the memory of the herd of black buffalo he was meant to be driving towards his companions. Even now, the grazing animals might be moving away from the certain trap, and the tribe were desperate for food.

Nok could have left the strange female to follow or not, as she chose; but in his head he saw a picture of the four buffalo and the broadening funnel of grass leading to the ravine. He stood motionless, studying the mental image; how the grass widened away from the defile. He held out one of the lances to the woman.

Take it. He gave it an impatient shake so that she grabbed the spear. Come. He jerked his shaggy head to indicate she should follow, and set off at a jog without looking back.

The floor of the narrow rift into which Nok had plunged, rose slowly to meet the surrounding grass and sedge-covered plain, and Nok scrambled the last few feet keeping his head low when he reached ground level. To his delight he saw that the ravine had brought him out at the rear of the grazing herd. Three animals were grouped closely together, while the fourth was wider to the right. He slithered over the lip of the canyon. The wind came over Nok’s right shoulder carrying his scent to the small herd. He had almost forgotten about the woman when he heard the clatter of stones behind him. He looked back, his eyes flaring wide, and the woman was immediately still. Nok flung his arm out to the right and then lowered his hand downward, commanding her.

She moved to obey. The animals grew nervous when the first faint wafts of her wind-blown scent reached them. They raised their heads from the coarse grass and looked to windward, their nostrils twitching and their brown eyes restless. Nok rose in the line of their intended escape. Three heads jerked round at movement coming from this unexpected quarter, and they instantly reacted, their hooves thundering on the hard ground. The smell of danger drove them in the direction Nok intended. The fourth animal, a big buck, in the widest part of the funnel had more options. Nok gave him up for lost and pounded in pursuit of the three cows, making sure they couldn't turn aside.

He shouted gleefully behind him. Come! Meera. Come.

The buffalo galloped straight and fast, unaware in their panic that the vee shape between the two low rock walls steadily narrowed and the open plain was denied them.

In all his life Nok had never had such a successful day. The three panic-stricken cows clattered into the narrow gully and death rained down in the shape of jagged boulders. Nok picked up fist-sized stones and added his own volley of accurately aimed missiles as he advanced into the low gorge. He did not even think of hurling the javelin he carried in his left hand.

Nok and the hunters had gathered joyously at the site of their triumph when Meera arrived; she had scrambled back into the ravine to avoid the charging bull buffalo. She was as astounded at the bounty produced by the powerful men as they were at the appearance of a lithe, armed female.

The delight caused by the successful hunt made Meera’s entry into the group easier than it might have been. From the beginning, Meera was considered Nok’s property and a good luck charm. She owed him her life for his intervention in the ravine, and could not forget the sense of acceptance she felt with his casual handing back of her bearskin. She stayed close to him during the first days. The four women of the tribe, two now past child-bearing age, although more powerful than the slender Meera, did not take advantage of their strength. They treated her as they would a child, and then with increasing respect once it became obvious that she could do things they could not. They were able to tear flesh apart with ease, but her power lay in her mind; she knew things they didn’t, and her delicate fingers were far more nimble. Within days she knew all the words they used.

Eating roots had been one of the things she knew, and she taught the women how to find succulent tubers.

Dig! She used an ancient shoulder bone to chop round a tap-root and taught them the new words. Dig, and rowta.

Nok realised that he was vastly superior physically, but she possessed an understanding of relationships between things that he was unable to grasp. The tribe had always used pieces of sinew wound round furs to bind them together. Meera brought them the simple concept of knotting.

Turn like two grass worms, put their heads together, and push one down the hole. She pulled tight to the wide-eyed stares of the women.

For a while there was a magical novelty in being able to make one long sinew from several pieces. It was something that had never occurred to them. Her sensitive fingers were a treasure, as was her understanding of how to shape a piece of flint. She created a sharper edge by design rather than luck, and so made instant friends with the women who struggled to scrape the fat and meat from a hide. She brought them something even more magical and mysterious: she could make pictures.

One afternoon, a fierce storm of lightning and deep cracking thunder crossed the plain. Meera had crept forward to sit close to the cave entrance to watch the flashes and downpour which fascinated her. Nok and the remainder of the tribe had retreated further into the recesses of the cave. The thunder didn’t bother them, but the jagged flashes of lightning were universally shunned.

The rain formed puddles at the cave entrance, and a rill dribbled within reaching distance while Meera sat on the earth floor and gazed out. She circled a finger in the trickle of water making a muddy pan of deep brown.

In her original group two men sat aside from the rest. They were not required to go out on the hunt, but were the source of advice and wisdom. They wore necklets of bones, teeth, shells and dried beans. They could read signs that no-one else seemed to see. The older one was teaching the younger the mysteries of his art, and they were the only ones allowed to make pictures. No-one defied this ban because it was known that a youth, who had made the shape of a mammoth, had been crushed by one a few days later.

Meera was barely thinking, her mind lulled by the drumming rain and the rumbling thunder. She ran her muddy finger over the light-coloured flat rock embedded in the ground in front of her. She had just satisfied her hunger chewing on a rib that remained from the great hunt. The memory of the four grazing animals filled her mind, and her finger traced the outline of the large black buck that had streaked towards her. She had never attempted painting before, although she had secretly used a stick to make marks on the ground, imitating the shapes of things she saw. In the past, if she had been observed, she would have been severely beaten at the insistence of the wise man, but she couldn’t help herself. Her fingers itched to make shapes. Nok’s tribe had no such special man, and no-one felt the urge to make shapes anyway. She had never used mud, and the flowing freedom of the marks excited her in a way she had seldom experienced. The lines gave the sense of movement of the charging bull, and she gasped at what she’d accomplished a few minutes later. She had captured its power and frantic dash for safety in a few joined strokes.

From then on she made shapes on all the walls of the caves they stayed in, to the delight and chattering amazement of Nok’s people. That was until the group began to be hunted, and then they tried to leave no trace of their passing. It had been to little avail. The hunters still found them. Their numbers steadily dwindled as the months passed. Now they were two.

*

Nok let Meera rest for as long as he dared. We must hide. You want sleep and food.

Her cheeks had a haggard look, despite the fact that they had filled out during her pregnancy. She was nearing the end of her endurance.

He took her hand as they reached a dried-up waterway that concealed them from their pursuers, but it made Nok nervous not being able to see behind. The going was easier on the rock-strewn riverbed, where it ran straight up the slope and evened out the steeper parts that were a struggle for Meera. They climbed steadily, but the tree line appeared no closer, and Meera paused for longer, leaning her weight forward, using every convenient boulder for support. Their capture and death were inevitable at this pace. As the hill steepened, so the path cut by the water got deeper, and in areas, the banks were head high.

The trees are near. You go up, he said, then repeatedly ran back and listened for sounds from below.

At last the tree line was close enough for Nok to leap out of the river bed.

Go on. I go back and see if they are near. Hide in the trees.

He made his way back to a jutting pier of grey and black speckled granite, and pulled himself up the back slope, his fur-covered feet providing purchase on the smooth rock. Lying flat, he pulled himself forward to look downhill. He jerked his head back in surprise to see that the hunters were within calling distance. In the single glance he had seen five in a line. They walked one behind the other, which meant they weren’t searching along a wide front. Nok shuffled sideways in order to peer round a projecting knob. The reason for their single file became obvious immediately. One of the number squatted and examined the ground. He was following a trail. Nok had assumed that their covered feet would leave no trace in the coarse scrubby grass, or on the pebble-covered bare patches. The crouching man stood, and the leader, who had been following, joined him. The tracker used his thin throwing lance to indicate how Nok had used his pole to thrust himself up onto a high point in order to look back. Nok had left marks in the earth from the end of his stout spear. He hadn’t thought about the tracks it might leave.

The five men were now together and the last two were clearly experiencing difficulty with the climb. Nok heard the harsh cough of one, whilst the other spat copiously several times before slumping onto the grass. The sick pair had slowed the pursuit, but the gap had closed. He and Meera desperately needed a hiding place.

The tracker and the leader were clearly intent upon making up ground on their quarry, but the three others had already set their weapons down, and one dropped a bundle from his back onto a convenient rock, and began undoing it. Nok’s eyes widened, his stomach yawned and he could almost smell the haunch of meat the man slapped onto the stone table. His hunger, which had temporarily been forgotten on seeing the men, now roared into life at the sight of the meat. He had a strong urge to leap up, race downhill and grab the huge chunk of red flesh and bury his teeth in it. The five lances alone would have deterred him; he would be hit by all five before he had covered half the intervening distance. Reluctantly, Nok pulled back, his eyes still fixed on the meat. They were stopping to eat, and for the sick men to regain their strength, and that would give him and Meera more time to find refuge.

Nok clambered backwards, remembering not to let his spear mark the ground. He caught up with Meera, who had reached the point where the river bed emerged from the trees. He was within a few paces when she slipped and fell; he heard her gasp as her elbow took the brunt of her weight. She lay where she’d fallen, breathing loudly in quick pants.

Are you hurt? He wiped the sand from her grazed elbow.

She shook her head, but she looked pale and distressed. In the enclosed quiet of the first rows of trees, Meera’s breathing sounded louder. He lifted her gently and helped her into a sitting position. It was not comfortable because the old flow of the water had undercut the bank.

Not good.

Nok looked round for something to support her back. On the opposite side was a water-washed slab, the size of his torso, that lay vertically against the steep bank. He could have lifted Meera and carried her to the stone backrest. The thought did not occur to Nok, who crossed the pebble and rock-strewn riverbed to pick up the slab and bring it to Meera. Its lower edge was buried in the coarse gravel-like soil, and it was thicker than his wrist. Nok worked it back and forward like a loose tooth, pulling and pushing at the upper edge. He retrieved his spear and used it to wedge in behind the slab, hoping to rip it free. He drove the thick wooden shaft in behind,