THERE IS NOTHING OUTSIDE THE FOREST, part 7

   The sound of drums grew ever louder, and the land rose in a way that I did not understand. It was like the bank of a river, but far longer, when I looked ahead I could see that the trees were higher than me, and when i looked back the trees were lower. On we rode, and it became for difficult. We had to get off the bull and lead it carefully around huge rocks and up the strange land. I felt like a spider climbing a tree.

   Once I fell, for it was so hard to balance on such uneven land. I could not hide my shame, for I had lived my life hunting among the trees and had not lost balance since I was a baby.

   ‘You have never walked up a mountain before,’ he said.

   I shuck my head. I did not know what a mountain was, but I guessed I would see.

   The sun set, and still we climbed.

   Soon I saw the light of a huge fire above us. It cast a wild light and the shadows of many trees. I thought the Orc could have made the fire, so I held my weapons ready, but Tomm showed no alarm.

   I looked around me and saw that I stood between two Sleep Trees. I was entering some People’s land. Looking closer, the Sleep Trees were wrong, for both Yew and Oak had human bones, and there were skulls of deer, boar, rabbit and bird. I did not like these Shaman People.

   As we climbed further I saw a thing sat by the fire, beating a massive drum. The thing was the shape of a tall, thin man, but it had horns like a stag and was covered in fur.

   ‘The Shaman,’ Tomm said. ‘We must wait for him to finish.’

   I did not know why he had taken me to see this thing. He sat down a few paces from the thing and waited. The bull walked off the graze.

   Suddenly it screamed like a dying deer, stopped drumming and fell down. Tomm was not surprised, so I did not move.

   The thing rolled around for a moment, and then sat up.

   ‘I hate coming back down,’ the thing said in a deep, dry voice.

   ‘Great Shaman!’ Tomm greeted it.

   ‘What?!’ it demanded. “I have been running with the deer herd all day, I am hungry and tired, what do you want?’

   ‘It is I, Tomm Rider, and I have boar meat for you.’

   The thing stood and took a step closer, it looked at us carefully.

   ‘Tomm, my boy! Good! You have boar, that is good… and a girl, that is interesting. Come, sit and eat.’

   We did so. I inspected the thing as they cut up the meat. It was an old man, the oldest I had ever seen. He wore tree branches tied up in his hair to look like horns. Most People wear only animal scin trousers, and cloaks when it is cold, but the old man wore scin and fur everywhere apart from his face, hands and feet. He had trousers of boar fur, and wore deer scin on his chest and back, and rabbit scin on his arms. He had a belt of rabbit bones around his waist, and bird bones around his neck. I did not understand.

   Tomm and the Shaman talked about mundane things as they ate. The weather, the movement of the great aurox herds, and the quality of the meat.

   Suddently the Shaman turned to me.

   ‘You are the one who dreamed of life outside of the forest,’ he said.

   ‘How do you know,’ I replied.

   ‘I am Shaman, I live in dreams just as you live in this land of tree and meat. I know of dreams.’

   ‘Then what do you think? Is my dream real?’

   ‘All dreams are real… in their way…’

   ‘But do you think there is land outside the forest? Will I find it?’

   ‘I have marched for many moons with the aurox herds… I have climbed great mountains with the giant black bear… I have hunted with the wolf in the wildest valleys… I have dug beheath the earth with the fox and seen the vast roots of tree… I have flown with the eagle across the Great Lake… But I have never seen anything outside the forest.’

   ‘Then there is nothing outside the forest?’

   ‘No… I did not say that, only that I have not seen it yet, or dreamed of it… I cannot know. Maybe I will dream it tomorrow… who knows?!’

   ‘Do you think I can find?’ I don’t know why I cared so much for this strange old man’s opinion.

   ‘If you dreamed it, it is real some where, so maybe you can find it.’

   ‘That is good enough for me,’ Tomm said.

   I agreed. Soon after we slept.

   In the morning we could not find the Great Shaman, I guess he was flying with the ducks, or with the Great Bear on the Great mountain by the Great Lake where the great Herds go.. or some thing.

   Its seemed that there were many Great things in this part of the forest. Nothing is big enough to be called Great where I lived. There were very big trees, but I have never heard of any being called a great tree.

   I had been told that I was on a mountain, and it seemed that mountain means ‘land higher than a tree and easy to fall’, so I thought the Great Mountain must be very hard to climb, and very big. I hoped I would not fall off.

   The Great Shaman was not very big. Maybe he got bigger when we was with the giant bear… he must, or they would eat him.

   We went back down the mountain, going slowly because Aurox and I are not good at walking on mountain, and we did not want to fall. When the mountain stopped, I rode the bull and we travelled fast.

   We reached the river before sunset and rode along it. It had grown even stronger. When darkness fell, we stopped to eat and rest.

   ‘Tomorrow’ I asked, ‘are you going to start calling the river, The Great River?’

   ‘You learn fast.’

   For ten days we traveled down the Great River. It became over 300 paces wide, but it flowed more gently, so I could swim in it when I bathed.

   Those days passed peacefully. Looking back, I remember it was being a glad time in my life. Tomm did not annoy me so much in those days.

   I had never loved a man before. I think I was falling in love with him at that time. I liked the way he treated his bull, in some ways they were like family, and the huge beast seemed to respect him. I started to like the strange way he talked, and how he was so often silent. I understood that it was because he was normally alone. His life was not happpy. I liked the way he seemed to always know exactly what he was doing. I really liked the way he believed that my dream of life outside of the forest. Maybe I loved him.

   Now I cannot know.

  

   Then I thought I had reached the end of the forest.

   I saw something that I had never seen before- no trees ahead of me.

   The river joined a huge pool of water. Truly huge, too big to swim, maybe 2,000 paces across. Beyond it, the land rose to the height of 200 trees. The top of the land was pointed and white. It must have been the Great Mountain.

   Above the land and water was the sky. I did not know it was so big. I could see the sun. It hurt my eyes, but it was beautiful.

   For the first time in my life, I saw a lot of blue instead of a lot of green.

   ‘Look!’ I shouted.

   ‘The Great Lake,’ Tomm did not share my excitement.

   I looked closer. There were trees all around the lake, and all over the mountain.

   We still had far to go.