Free The Game of Shepherd and Dawse by William Shepherd Page B

just after the height of winter. When it came to Aman, Teewok’s nose positively went into overdrive, likely due to the great affection he felt for her.
     
    When Teewok was eight, he and his family had undertaken a location swap from a different tribe and he met Aman for the first time. Right from the start, he felt a strong connection with her and the gentle affection between them was mutual. One day, Teewok couldn’t help boasting to Aman that he could smell her coming down from the hills from a mile away, so Aman decided to play a little trick on Teewok, She bet him that if she ran into the wood he wouldn’t be able to discover her hiding place. Aman stopped short of offering him a kiss if he could, as she knew with that kind of prize on offer she would stand no chance of winning at all.
     
    Aman knew exactly where she planned to hide. She would hide herself in the hollow of an ancient oak that was so wide it would have taken 10 people holding hands to circle it, and one had to climb the tree to reach the hollow. Knowing full well that Teewok wasn’t very good at climbing, Aman knew that victory would be hers, and the only thing that nearly gave Aman away was her need to let out a fit of laughter while Teewok sniffled and snorted around the base of the tree. Meanwhile, he wondered how someone could just vanish into thin air! Even more amazed was Teewok when he got back to the village, because Aman managed to creep up behind him without him noticing and to whisper in his ear, “Hey, Teewok. That’ll teach you”!
     
    He probably would have been more annoyed with himself if Aman hadn’t given him a little peck on the cheek, because that alone made it all worthwhile in Teewok’s eyes.
     
    As the hunting party made its way through the forest they also noted the lack of juju berries which was so unusual for that time of year. Makeshaw, the tracker master who led the search was less worried about the over-harvesting situation than he was about the safety of Aman. The berry situation puzzled him somewhat though, for he was the one who had impressed upon Aman not to over-pick the fruit in the first place. One thing seemed certain though – if they intended to find Aman, they needed to search the areas from which the berries had been taken.
     
    Sure enough, it was Teewok who first located Aman but not in the way he had hoped or expected. Teewok had run lots of little scenarios through his head about finding Aman and being the one to come to her rescue. Perhaps she was in a ditch with a twisted ankle or had lost her footing and fallen down a ravine, he'd thought. Now that Teewok had found her, he wished he hadn’t. Any romantic thoughts quickly turned to tears which alerted the other trackers to Aman’s position.
     
    Aman’s beautiful body lay motionless and covered with blood. Her face was barely recognisable due to the number of cuts and its swollen state. Her pretty little face had been ruined. The other strange thing was the fact that Aman’s trousers had been half torn off, as though she had been relieving herself and had fallen down while doing so, but there were no hills or ditches nearby so this wasn’t believable.
     
    Teewok quickly pulled himself together, and before the others arrived on the scene, he managed to pull Aman’s trousers together, in order to save her modesty. Arod the healer among the group went to work straightaway. Aman’s body was completely motionless and Arod focused all his energies upon her. The rest of the group stood nervously by, while trying to come to terms with what had happened. The silence was eventually broken by Teewok as he murmured in a quiet voice, “What animal, what beast could do such a thing”?
     
    Arod knew that this was no animal. He had healed many wounds inflicted by animals on complacent hunters and such wounds were relatively straightforward. Aman’s case was different. Arod used all the powers he had just to keep Aman alive but while working on her, he