Wak’wakgoro frowned. “Polished stone, I see. Similar to what we use.”
“This has been worked by a blacksmith.” Nishka picked the stone arrowhead up and held it out to Wak’wakgoro.
This just got worse and worse.
I once read that polished stone was obtained by striking a core stone to break off an unfinished piece, then polishing the stone flake to sharpen it. In the village, we used two kinds of stone arrowheads: a more glass-like obsidian, and polished stone like this one. Where the obsidian heads were extremely sharp, they fractured easily, so the polished stone heads were prized for their reusability.
That said, it took a fair amount of time to make a significant number of any kind of stone arrowheads, especially compared to iron ones, which were easily mass-produced. There was a limit to how many arrowheads a small tribe could manufacture, so they would more likely rely on the more reusable stone.
When Nishka handed me the stone arrowhead, I discovered something very interesting.
“Is that asphalt?”
“Huh? What’s an ass-fault?”
“This material here. It’s used to bind stones together. People get it from some components of oil that bubble up through the ground. Is there anywhere you might find crude oil around here?”
“Crewed oil? Like, with people in it?”
Nishka and Wak’wakgoro were completely thrown by my question. They cocked their heads at me curiously. More things the people in this world didn’t know about.
The people who used stone tools back in the olden days would heat up natural asphalt and use it as an adhesive to manufacture tools or repair broken pots. I first went to college because I wanted to study archaeology, and I read that tidbit in a ton of different publications.
“Is this ass-fault stuff going to be a problem for us, Shooter?” Camulla asked dubiously.
“If none of you know what crude oil or asphalt are, then these bull-kin probably didn’t originally come from anywhere around Apegut Forest,” I replied.
Incidentally, when I started talking about this stuff, Elpaco just stared at me, wide-eyed and vacant. Even Cassandra was staring, but she worked hard to keep her face serious. Were they in awe?
“Well, never mind. Let’s look around here a little more, then move closer to the cave.”
Nishka took the arrowhead back and slipped it into the field bag slung at the back of her waist. Figuring out where the bull-kin came from was secondary to worrying about their fighting power, their condition, and all that other, more obviously deadly stuff.
We investigated the lakeshore until nightfall, gathering what information we could, and we made damn sure to be cautious about it. In the worst-case scenario, we might’ve run into some of the bull-kin, who could then call for reinforcements from their thirty or maybe fifty friends, in which case we’d be promptly trounced.
Every hunter and adventurer I knew thought these guys would be trickier to deal with than ogres, so we did not want to get caught unaware. We didn’t want to get caught in combat at all, actually—this was recon, nothing more.
Thankfully, everything went well, and we made it to nightfall without any bull.
“Are you nervous?” I asked Cassandra over our meal of jerky and steamed potatoes.
“I…yes, I am. I’ve never been this deep in the forest before.”
“This is my third time, and I promise it gets easier. The first time’s gonna be scary, though. It’s like that for everybody.”
“I’m sure.”
The entrance to the cave was a short distance away, yawning open on a bluff atop the hill—but I couldn’t let myself see it as a cave. No, we were looking at a dungeon now. If this were an anthill, there’d be lookouts posted at the entrance, but I didn’t see any here. I supposed it was still easy to mistake it for a mere cave, if you didn’t know any better.
We were taking breaks in shifts, waiting for night to fall and our exploration of the cave interior to begin.
“But honestly, I’m glad you’re here with me, Cassandra.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“You know how useful a good meal is when you’re out adventuring? None of these dorks know how to cook like you.”
And even if Nishka, Wak’wakgoro, or Elpaco could whip up a meal like my wifey, they needed to focus on resting up for fighting.
We all had our specialties, come to think of it. If it did come to violence, I had my smattering of karate, but I had been completely useless at the most hunterly skill of tracking.
Prince Camulla-ing was probably more of a hunter than I was, though no one would mistake him for a particularly stealthy type. The moment he put on his chainmail, he became too noisy to do any sneaking.
On the topic of covert operations, I asked Nishka whether it would be okay to light a fire while we were in the middle of our recon mission, since that would make it hard to keep our presence hidden.
“Should be fine. I get the sense they pretty much live in the caves and don’t ever really come out.” Nice as it was to warm myself by a fire and get some hot food in my belly, I still wasn’t so sure about the idea. Nishka just shrugged. “Hey, even if they do come out to see what’s up, that’s just more info for us. We’ll get a better sense of how many of them there are.”
Hearing Nishka say as much did a lot to reassure me. “I just hope we don’t raise suspicion. In fact,” I joked, “if we can be real stealthy and keep this on the DL, we could have some fun together. I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“The Dee Ell? What? Cassandra! Shooter’s being weird again. Get your man under control.”
I guess my very twenty-first century response didn’t translate to Nishka, so now I had my wife worrying about my sanity.
Eventually, moonlight spilled across the night sky. Wak’wakgoro had been resting with his eyes shut, but now he sat back up and locked eyes with each of us.
“It’s about time we head inside the cave, I think. Me, Shooter, Miss Elpaco, and Nishka will go in. Cassandra, Camulla, will you two stay out here to cover us?”
“You sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Cassandra asked.
“Think of it as being our backup in case something bad happens. Having strong defenders stay back is a big help.”
Camulla agreed.
“And as for you, Miss Elpaco.”
“I told you, I’m not a ‘Miss’…”
“Very sorry, young lady. If something goes wrong while we’re in there, I want you to leave us behind and run back out to let Camulla and Cassandra know. From there, you three make sure to warn the village.”
From the way Wak’wakgoro’s nose twitched, I could tell he was skeptical that anything so dire would be necessary.
“Okay, let’s get goin’,” Nishka said. “Me and Shooter will take point.”
We heard a tiny peep of protest from behind us. It was Elpaco. “I’d feel braver if I could walk next to you, Nishka… I mean, even if I am a boy…”