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For the Good of the Clan
    By Miles Archer
    Ulat crept slowly, so the undergrowth trembled no more than if a cold breeze had touched the leaves. The doe did not sense him. He was downwind, of course.
    He drew to within twenty paces, then froze. The doe raised her head for a moment, vaguely sensing her fate, but returned to grazing the fragile spring grass, her last mistake. Ulat softly fitted his spear into the throwing-stick notch, drew his arm back and with a sudden snap launched the spear across the space. It struck hard into the doe’s neck. She leaped and ran a dozen steps, stopped, wobbled her head as though wondering why she was dying, then collapsed.
    Ulat was on her almost before she fell. His flint knife plunged into the carotid artery, draining her blood before the heart stopped beating, necessary to preserve the meat. He licked the blood from his hand and sang softly to the doe.
    “Thank you, little sister, for your life. Thank you, little sister, for providing food for my family and my clan. We will become you as you will become us.”
    He slung the animal across his shoulders and started toward the clan’s home, a collection of rough huts made of tree limbs and woven grasses five miles away, across the river. The breeze spoke to him of winter passing. All around him he could hear the sounds of his world—small creatures scattering invisibly in the grass, the birds warning each other of their territories, the song of the melting snow giggling in the stony brook.
    Like the deer, he sensed something a moment before it struck. A sharp pain in his back, a sudden weakness in his legs, the weight of the carcass carrying him down to the muddy grass. He tried to turn over. There was a crashing blow to his skull and Ulat was no more.
    * * *
    I, Ledeth, am medicine man to my clan. My name, given to me by my chief many years ago, means “One who knows secrets,” and that is true, I know many secrets. It is my gift and my curse. Because of this, the clan fears me, while at the same time they need me. They resent needing me and thus envy me as well. There is nothing I can do about this. It is my fate, just as each man and each animal has a fate. None can escape it. One might as well run from the sky.
    Evening cloaked the mountains purple and gold, the brilliant face of the sun god lighting the heavens at the end of day. Smoke the color of stone rose all about from the cooking fires. The children gathered about their mothers, ready to be sent on their evening chores. I sat in front of my hut as I usually do at this time, watching the never-changing routine of life as it saunters its way from morning to night. Balog, chief of the clan, nodded to me as he passed, then called to one of the boys to stop fighting with a smaller child.
    “Nikko, you know better than that,” he admonished the boy. Nikko stood, head down, not daring to look the chief in the face. “Go gather some wood, boy, make yourself useful.” Balog knows boys who fight need harder work.
    Matha brought me a bowl of stew. She is my sister’s eldest daughter and thus responsible for my needs, now that Mari, my wife, has passed beyond. Matha does a good job, even though she is now busy with two young ones. I make few demands, for I am feeling my age; the time is coming for me to go to the long sleep. There is no point in making extra work for her. I eat my meals, tend to the sick, show my apprentice Donathan my secrets, such as he can understand. He is a willing young man, but I fear I will die before he learns all he needs to know.
    When it was full dark and the fires of the sky gods were burning brightly, I made my way to the central fire to listen to the day’s news. Mokim had found a great patch of sweet berries. There was no fruit this early in the year, of course, but they promised much delight this summer—wine and pomma . I admit to a great weakness for the wine now. It eases the aches in my back and knee, especially when mixed with nalla