10th Episode
The seer shook the cowries in her hand, her voice a low hum, thick with incantations.
Smoke curled around her wrinkled face, rising from the smoldering herbs in the fire pit. Outside the hut, young hunters watched, shifting uneasily.
Goro was growing impatient.
“Hurry up, old crone. It’s almost sundown.”
“SILENCE,” she snapped, eyes flashing. The tribe hushed. It was a man’s world, but matriarchs still held their sway. Even years after the Chief died, the old rites persisted, choreographed remnants of a forgotten era.
Goro knew it was all a ruse—old-world religion dressed in bones and firelight. The Chief himself had hinted as much before his passing.
“The old world forgot a lot of things. Ritual keeps us together. Don’t forget that, boy. Don’t you ever forget that. Remember—I raised all of you up from the ashes.”
Goro had challenged him then. “Why do you want us to hunt people? Is that part of the ‘ritual’ too? What’s the point?”
The Chief had only coughed, wheezing, before he died that night, leaving Goro with no answers.
Now, the seer shook her rattles, muttering nonsense. The crowd hovered as she reached for the deck of omen cards. This was the show—the old-world relics that could foretell fate.
She spread the cards across the bone-carved table, eyes rolling back, drawing out the silence. Then she held up the first card.
El Diablito.
“There is a devil among us.”
A murmur rippled through the tribe.
The next card: The Cello.
“The music of the old world; we don’t dance to it.”
The crowd nodded solemnly.
El Borracho.
“This man was once wise in the old world,” she intoned.
Goro chuckled. So, the drunk still had a place in prophecy.
La Rana.
“There is pestilence among us. We must hunt, restore our health.”
Gasps.
She lifted the next card. El Alacrán.
“The Scorpion.”
Goro folded his arms. “Yeah? And? We know we have to fight the Scorpion people. Is that what you mean?”
“They have old-world machines now,” someone in the crowd muttered. “Bikes. Cars. Our horses can’t outrun them.”
“Do you want us to go to war?” Goro pressed.
The seer hesitated.
Goro stepped forward, casting a long shadow over the fire. “I am Chief. Not a ‘youngblood’ anymore. Or do I need to prove it again?”
The tribe knew what that meant. Goro had earned his place through blood. There were no elections in this orld.
A voice rose from the crowd. “Tell us how to beat them, witch!”
Others joined in. “Yeah! Our friends are getting slaughtered out there!”
Gripped by fear, the witch stepped back. Goro raised his hands for calm.
“Look,” he said, “we can’t turn our backs on tradition. But the seer can only see as far as she can.” He smiled at the old woman, a quiet warning. She knew who truly held power.
Trembling, she pulled the next card. El Árbol.
“The Tree—the forest that shelters us.”
Goro plucked the card from her hands and turned it toward the warriors. “And?”
The next card: El Corazón.
Goro smirked. “We all know what this is. Warriors?”
The hunters nodded. Heart. Strength. Blood.
He tossed the card onto the pile and turned to leave. The others followed, gathering their bows and blades.
Behind them, the seer flipped the next two cards.
El Sol.
El Mundo.
“The world that was scorched in fire.”
The final card. El Apache.
She exhaled. “The tribal warrior.”
Outside, Goro and his hunters walked single file into the dusk, where war awaited them.
