I am in the Blue Land and it feels as if I have wandered into some tale — children touch my skin to see if the color wears off, our gods count for nothing. I am in Karei-boto, a solemn village beyond our maps, to document life here. It is not a wealthy village. The huts are made of clay, the inhabitants are slender and unrefined. They make do by hunting in the forest, trading meats and skins with nearby peoples. The forest is their only lifeblood.
The chieftain, a wise-man of sorts, calls me and my translator Shimra into his presence upon our arrival. We are welcome since they appreciate historians as respectable men. Yet there is an uneasy feeling in my heart. The villagers appear apathetic. It soon turns out that there is devilry in motion. The chieftain tells us that people have been disappearing — five souls have gone missing in a fortnight. They count for more than all the riches in the world in a small village such as this one. The tribe is deep in grief. However, he tells us that our arrival is a good omen — since his hunters have not been able to end the disappearances, he puts faith in us.
“Have you experienced something similar in your land?” he asks.
“Slaves are taken after every war, but in vast numbers, not like this.”
He looks at me with disgust — there are no slaves in Karei-boto. He needs answers. We have none.
The assailants’ marks in the dirt have appeared in the village and always vanish at the eastern tree line. The chieftain suspects that a rival village is guilty of the crimes, one which has plagued them in the past. I tell him that the rival village could have sent a smaller force. The chieftain waves this off. The atmosphere sours. Soon thereafter, Shimra and I do agree to assist in protecting the village on his terms, because the chieftain says something horrifying — all of the missing people are children.
Thus the villagers light fires all over the settlement and set a curfew at sunset. None are to venture anywhere alone. Every man in the village, Shimra and I as well, stand ready with spears in hidden spots at nighttime. One night passes and there are no abductions. Two nights come and go and it is quiet still. After ten nights the fires are put out and the force is recalled — reluctantly. But it is necessary. The men cannot also hunt and do trade, and the women cannot do everything by themselves. People in Karei-boto are precious and few. The children wail in their sleep, they have nightmares. The chieftain needs more men, though there are none.
On the fifteenth night we hear screams and curse ourselves for our naivety. There is a cracked pot of water on the outskirts of the village. Someone is missing. The hunters scour the village and forest until morning but come up empty-handed. Eyes fill up with tears because everyone here knows one another. Darawita, a girl, is missing.
Early the next morning a new catastrophe befalls us — Shimra is assaulted as he sleeps in his hut. His arm is broken and there are cuts in his face.
“I do not know what it was, but it was not human,” he groans, frightened at every sound he cannot see. The chieftain’s guards give each other a look.
That night the chieftain tells a story. One year earlier a commodity-trading outlander set up camp on the outskirts. When he had not been seen in a fortnight, the chieftain’s men paid him a visit. He was not in his tent and no message was found. In one of the tents the chieftain’s men did come upon a cage; in it laid a beast so vile to look upon, that they, hunters, recoiled. It was a tiger with many scars and burns. The pads on the paws were burned into blisters and most of its teeth and claws had been ground down or pulled out. But it breathed and none of the men wished to kill the poor soul. They pitied it and decided to deliver it to the wild. These villagers take a life only when they need to.
What is told thereafter is speculation, though the crowd hangs onto every word of the chieftain. He tells us that the tiger became desperate in search of nourishment and came ever closer to the village, being too slow for wild prey. At last, in a moment of despair, it snatched a child. From thereon the tiger had a taste for humans.
The hunters look shattered as the chieftain speaks. Tears fall to the ground. Their children are dead. Perhaps they are right; perhaps the blame falls not on the rival village, but on the tiger. The chieftain falls silent. A darkness smothers the land. Karei-boto disappears from the world.
At last the chieftain draws breath and we all reappear. But the atmosphere has changed. The chieftain curses the tiger loudly. It is made responsible for the killings. The men now look at their leader with heads held high. But it is not pride in their eyes. There is a blackness over them instead of sorrow from moments ago. There is a foul mood in the air. Before long orders are called out — the men go to prepare their bows and spears.
At dawn, Shimra and I rise to watch the hunters leave the village; we have not been invited to join them. We take a step back as they approach — there is no longer any softness in their eyes, only an unsettling stare. We take our leave from Karei-boto the same day. Shimra needs medicine. No one wishes to talk to us; no one sends us off. The village falls silent after the hunters have gone. Having marched half a day, we look back. Great pillars of smoke cover the sky. They loved their children and so they must kill the tiger. They burn the entire forest down.
Robin Herzog is a Swedish writer whose short stories belong to literary fiction. They are often set in the style of magical realism and his work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Clackamas Literary Review, The Quiet Reader and Roi Fainéant Press. Robin lives in Stockholm, Sweden, he has a BA degree in Journalism and is currently writing a short story collection. He aspires to take readers on journeys far from the everyday.
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