ClanTigr: Burning Bright

A post-apocalyptic story taking place in Russia, written for translation to comic form and submission to Dark Horse and/or Top Cow.

Snow fell lightly on the village, already covered with half a meter of snow. almost completely devoid of the young. The elderly worked or lounged around small fires, sputtering as snowflakes hit them, nearly smokeless due to their being deep in the ground and most often shielded by moss.

A young woman exited the largest of tents--cocking the crossbow she carried and loading a five clawed bolt--and made her way to a private area for the women alone. As she squatted over the bucket for collecting urine, she wondered when he would be back, a giggle escaping her as her stream of urine splattered against the metal, making a singing noise.

As she finished, she heard a rustle and grabbed up her crossbow then smiled when the figure stepped out, holding three live snow hares.

"Why'd you bring them back alive?" She asked as she set the crossbow down and tugged her tight leggings back on.

"If we stay here for the next few months may as well see if we can have some fresh meat for the stews. I'm tired of smoked swine. We have enough hay to breed them. And the younger ones not able to go out can care for them."

She pulled him in for a kiss then bit his cheek, remarking him as her property.

She took the hares from him and he scooped up her crossbow, taking the bolt off and carefully decocking it.

He studied the bolt as they took a long route back, occasionally trading kisses. "Where'd you get this? This isn't Ivan's design."

"Sergei made it for me." She saw the annoyed look on his face. "Don't be like that Mikael."

"He wants you Faina. Of course I'm annoyed."

"I've seen his thoughts," she reminded him. "I wouldn't be with him."

"I've seen your thoughts too," he reminded her, making her blush and kick him. Her abilities created a link between them when they were intimate and their first time making love he had laughed at finding out she had been in love and scared shitless of him since they first started walking.

In the village, they were surrounded as soon as Mikael was seen.

As he told the children who came out of the largest tent his plan, they nodded and took the hares then ran off to make a hutch.

The elders of the village made their way back to their duties as Mikael and Faina walked into the large tent. He settled in his private partition at the rear, occasionally looking up to admire her backside while Faina showed the children how to smoke the jujubes they had spent all week harvesting.

He closed the journal he maintained when he heard the singing and watched the children rush out to their returning elders then crossed the room, pressing Faina up against the central pole. She giggled as his beard tickled and scratched her neck until a soft voice said, "Brother, come on."

"I hate her so much," he murmured into Faina's neck: Faina kicked him for it as she smiled at Amber. He turned and smiled at his sister then picked her up and carried her outside, asking, "You paid attention during lessons?"

"Yes brother."

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to see if he could sense his brother sensers. While his mother and grandmother had been the best sensers of their generations, as a male senser he was only good enough to contact the other sensers born the day he was and occasionally influence prey to not notice his approaches. Only once had he ever influenced a person, someone from another village of rumored cannibals.

"Feel them?" Faina asked.

"No." He shrugged then kissed Amber's cheek, making the girl grin and hug his neck.

A group of hunters arrived, each wearing crowns of evergreen boughs: signifiers of catching prey on their own.

They all clasped their fists above their hearts when they saw him approach and the leader of the hunting party nodded. "Councillor."

"Please don't call me that," Mikael asked and the leader smiled as he dumped his bag in the snow.

"We each shot a tiger Mikael. We brought back all the skins. Should we prep them for the clan meetings next season or--"

"Mikael needs a new jacket," Faina told the group, glaring at him as he started to protest. As the councillor--the leading elder of the tribe--he didn't have time to go on the hunts like he would have preferred and he had taken to patching discarded coats of others since he had no chance to hunt himself.

Even though he was only twenty years old, he was recently voted the head of the tribe--the youngest ever--just a few years after taking a seat on the council at fifteen due to his lineage and his understanding instilled by years of sitting at his grandfather's knee, listening then being asked for his opinion and having his grandfather explain where Mikael's thoughts were right or wrong.

"We'll start on it tonight niece," the party leader told Faina and gave her a quick hug.

"Use what you must for a jacket," he relented, "but try to save as many as possible for trading."

They nodded and got rid of their burdens then made their way back out to where they had left the rest of the kills. If they were undisturbed they might be able to make enough pemmican for a long trek south and trading.

"Can I have a tiger coat too?" Amber whispered.

Faina heard the question and leaned into whisper, "Definitely," then dashed off to tell her uncle.

Mikael put his sister down and told her to run off and help with the hares.

He watched the party trek off and turned to see Faina carrying fresh boughs into their tent. He grinned. Fresh boughs meant she wanted sex until she was unconscious.

Mikael stepped out of the tent and nodded at the night watchman that passed by. He shivered slightly and began stretching to counteract the cold. Going back inside and dressing would have been more effective but at the moment he wanted away from Faina. She was telegraphing her dreams again and her dreaming of herself being mastered by another woman had sent him into multiple bouts of self-pleasure while she lay next to him.

He shifted the flap of the tent and caught a blast of his having joined the dream. He smiled then realized something and went to make sure his sister's area was still closed off properly. He nodded to see the metal thread woven into the tent was closed, a small farday cage inside the larger farday tent he lived and worked in.

As he stepped outside, he thought about the senser program that had been started so many years ago when there were still governments, before the end of technologies. How it had taken the dearth of electronic devices and permanent structures made of ferrous metals to show the program had been successful.

Mikael finished stretching and reached out again, trying to feel those born the same day as he.

He smiled. He could see them. Each one's group was safely en route back.

I wonder why I can feel them now, he thought as he poked his head back into the tent. She was dreaming of making stew now and he walked back in, yawning then rejoined her. She rolled over and burrowed into him as much as she could.

That afternoon, as he split wood to hide away and allow to season, more hunting and gathering parties returned.

When he saw the harvests carried and dragged in he called for a feast.

Mikael was listening to a dispute between two of the villagers and sighed. "The item in question is now communal. You will both maintain it for the good of the community. Go away."

He glared at them until they left and his sister started giggling. "Shush!" he told her.

Amber stuck her tongue out at him then picked up her corn shuck dolls and left to find others to play with.

Mikael took out his council journal, opened it to the bookmark and wrote down who had been in, what had been the issue, and his decision then drew his personal symbol--a modification of the old symbol of the land they lived on--a crossed maul and toothed sickle and closed the journal.

Stepping outside, he pulled on his jacket and had to admit he loved how it fit. Jakob is such a great tanner and leathersmith, he thought as he watched his sister and her friends help some of the women carry refuse to the composting area.

He looked at the tree in the exact center of the village and saw the moss was almost to the full growth point. "Time to move on soon," he told the hares in the hutch. There were currently nineteen of them and he decided it was time to kill and smoke them.

He crossed the center of the village and looked at the stack of rocks they used to show who was in and out of the village. The four stones signifying the other four members of the council were still separate from the main pile.

Mikael turned and nodded at the children approaching. They all looked nervous but his sister's closest friend stepped out in front and asked, "Umm, Councillor Westenchev? Will you play Comrade Says with us?"

He smiled. "I have some free time. Go get Amber and we'll play until Faina returns. Then you all have to go to your lessons."

Faina returned before they could begin and the children followed her into the tent as he turned to look back out the valley. While it was well hidden and the view looking down from the mountains one saw a flooded valley, they were still very careful to keep this area as hidden from others as possible.

He turned and looked at the old stone post where he had been standing sentry one night when an outsider had breached their perimeter. He had come at Mikael with an iron spike. Mikael had used his maul to cave in the man's chest then crush his head. He had been instantly accepted as a hunter when the adults of the village arrived at the scene and his mother had transmitted what had happened to all the villagers. After she had done that, another adult had taken his place and his father had taken him off to speak to him.

He found himself standing at the stone post, rubbing the divot his maul had gouged in it and nodded at the sentry then headed back to the village.

Faina lead the children out of the small clearing where she had been doing their snaring and trail identification final, all of the children proudly carrying their brand new triggers for making snares and half carrying the fish they had caught with them. Faina told them to carry them to the smoking hole then went to her tent.

Inside, she found Mikael looking at old, falling apart books.

"Did they return with new books?" she asked as she undid the button of her top.

"No, trying to decipher more from this one. If we can glean more from it the bratva will trade us a halligan, a splitting wedge, and six claw hammers."

Faina finished changing into her new outfit and asked, "Well?"

Mikael looked up and his eyes went wide. She wore a full body suit made of dark brown, black, and white leather scraps in a pattern that he recognized as an old military camouflage design though her creamy white skin and cleavage was visible between the laces as she pulled them tight then tied it tight, leaving her cleavage visible and her breasts pressed up to her chin. "You've been staring for like four minutes straight!" she said, grinning.

"Wow!" he finally said as she started stretching in it, loosening it up so she could actually move around in it.

Mikael realized he had been watching her stretching for nearly an hour when the dinner call went out.

Faina pulled on a short deerskin skirt and tugged her boots up and wrapped the straps around her lower legs then tied them and pulled on her jacket. "Let's go, I'm so hungry."

Outside, he tried to step into line but one of the women working the line brought them plates of bread, potatoes, and beets and a bowl of borscht, steaming hot with thick slices of venison.

"They need to stop with the special treatment," he murmured as they went over to a log near the firepit.

Faina rolled her eyes as she pulled her knife from her jacket and began cutting her bread in half.

Mikael did the same and made a sandwich of the meat, potatoes and poured a bit of the borscht on the meat then took a bite, still staring at Faina's cleavage.

She grinned at his expression then turned. "Hey sweetie. You want some of my beets?"

Amber nodded and used her fork to take some from both of their plates as she said, "I like your new clothing. Can I have a one-piece?"

"No," Mikael told her. "You're still growing and Faina isn't."

She pouted then asked, "Cut my bread?"

Mikael did as requested then stabbed his knife into the log they sat on.

She started chattering about the days lessons with Faina, Katrina, and Sergei and Mikael turned his attention away from Faina's breasts to his sister's story.

"Amber!"

His sister turned and saw her and Mikael's mother carrying her own plate of food their way.

Faina moved to give the woman room and Mikael winced in annoyance as his mother kissed his cheek. She had returned with other gatherers from a nine week trip that had found sixty kilos of various nails, screws, and bolts and a dozen springs from old trucks they could repurpose into swords and daggers.

The young girl put her plate down and hugged their mother tightly. "Missed you so much."

"I missed you as well dear." She kissed the girl's gnarled black hair and said, "Amber, I know you hate it but you need to brush your hair."

"I tried to brush her hair," Faina told her, "but she wouldn't let me."

"I'll brush it," she sighed as she picked up her plate.

Mikael went to get some more bread to sop up the last of his borscht then moved so he could hear the stories being told to the younger children gathered around the cooking fire but far enough away it looked as if he was around the fires for the adults to discuss their issues.

Faina joined him, leaning against him and smiling as he put his arm around her. She faced the children's fire, leaving no doubt she was actively listening.

Mikael finished placing the firewood reserves then began the process of 'burying' them so they properly seasoned and didn't molder or make the abandoned camp look like an abandoned camp.

With his set chore for the week done a day early, he decided to collect his triggers and go down to the lake and set some snares for fish.

At the mouth of the stream and lake where the best saplings were, he carefully pulled them down, tossed out the worm covered hooks, set the triggers, then walked away. He was only a few meters away when one of the saplings was released from tension and revealed a five kilogram taimen. He took it down and reset the snare then carried the taimen to the camp to clean and smoke it.

With one of the women cleaning and preparing it for smoking, Mikael sighed. If he offered to help someone, they'd beg off. With his new position he had an incredible amount of free time.

He walked to his tent and found Faina and his mother sitting at Faina's desk, filling out the Senser and Teaching journals.

He ignored them and settled into transcribe more from the new books found.

"What's this?" his mother asked as she bent over, picking up a book that was whole with a deerskin cover.

"It's The Master and Margarita and Cocaine Romance. Two novels. They found numerous copies of both and I was able to transcribe both of them. I really, really liked both of them."

She kissed the top of his head and said in a cooing voice, "So proud of my little councillor: just like his father and grandfather!"

He flushed a deep red and pushed her away as she laughed at him. "Off Senser Witch!"

She punched his shoulder. "Ass. Why isn't Faina pregnant? You're both Sensers. We need you two to breed."

Mikael rolled his eyes and went back to work.

"They're back."

Mikael rolled over and yawned. "Who's back? Do I need my maul?"

"The rest of the Council. They're less than a day away. And they're not alone."

"So I do need my maul?"

She straddled him and murmured "Just the maul down there."

She covered his face with kisses until a soft voice interrupted them. "Brother?"

"Worst timing ever," he whispered then sat up as Faina crawled under the covers. "What Amber?"

"I heard something outside. Not human."

He got out of bed and pulled on his trousers then picked up his maul and scythe and walked out of the tent.

He saw what his sister had heard and his scythe spun through the air. A porcine squeal rent the air and he moved forward, bringing his maul down, crushing the skull of the swine.

Candle carrying adults came out of various tents and they found Mikael standing over the swine. He shivered from the cold as some of the women began to drag it away to butcher it.

"How'd it get past the sentries?" Amber asked as she held up a fur from her bedding for her brother to wrap himself with.

Mikael began tracking back and found where it had come into the valley, a cave they had thought unpassable. He headed back to the village and told some of the men to fill it with stones and dirt come daybreak.

"Good job," he told his sister and she beamed at him. "Now off to sleep."

Faina approached and kissed his cheek. "Can we go back to bed now?"

"Yeah."

He told her about the cave as they walked back.

When he awoke the next morning, he learned they had found a sounder on the other side of the cave and had harvested them all.

By the smoking pit he found nine swine of various sizes hanging from the tree. His mother was helping the others and he made an escape before she could begin to tease him.

"Councillor?"

He stopped himself from sighing or correcting them and turned to see who wanted him. "Ahh, Katinka. What do you require?"

"Our tent has had two tears for a while and just developed a new one."

"Do you need some thread or some patches?"

She told him she had material for patches. "But we were told we could get a new one last year."

He nodded. "Okay, well, patch it for now. I'll talk to the leathersmiths."

He walked off to speak with the leathersmiths and was told that all the leathers were currently allocated for trading at the clan meet. He nodded as the older said, "We're also out of metal thread for creating an interference pattern."

Mikael walked off without another word. As he was passing his mother and the others working, he remembered something and called out "Mother, come with me."

She walked towards him, wiping her hands off on the apron she wore and asked, "What?"

He led her toward the leathersmiths and asked, "My mother used to wear a hood kind of thing so she wouldn't Sense stuff when she was younger, before she had the control she has now. Could you make a few of those for Sensers to use if their tent is not shielded?"

He left them to get started in the design and walked over to see the horse wranglers and found his sister and the other children watching the two year old ponies being broken for riding and pulling.

Mikael found a nice sized turnip head and carried it over to his horse. She nosed at his hand until he opened it them she crunched through the turnip and the greens still attached while he scratched her muzzle. "Greedy cow," he teased as she nosed at him for more. He looked around and saw a good sized purple carrot and held it out for her. She chewed up the slightly spongy carrot quickly.

Mikael pulled on his jacket and walked out to find his sister swinging his old training sickle, hacking at a human shaped wooden training dummy.

He corrected her stance, kissed her forehead, then walked on, wondering if there was sweetener left for breakfast. As he took his rice gruel and bacon, then smiled at Faina as she approached him with two mugs of chifir. When he took his mug, she pulled a hunk of sugar out of her pocket. "How much do you want in your tea and gruel?"

"I thought we were out of sugar?"

"We found a sack of it beneath a tea sack. We have enough until the next clan meet."

She broke off a large chunk into his chifir then tried to break the rest up evenly for her chifir and his gruel.

Inside the tent, he ate slowly, watching his sister continue her practice, now using a smaller version of Faina's melee weapon of choice, a tuning fork kindjal.

She struck the dummy wrong and it swiveled, knocking her to the ground, setting off a burst of giggles from the girl and he raised an eyebrow as she got up then hit it exactly the same, this time all most moving out of the way. She kept on repeating the move until she was consistent in her evasions. Then she tried evading it differently.

"She really wants to be a Hunter," Faina said, sitting next to him and opening up the latest set of transcribed works from the various villagers for trading.

"Yeah she does."

"Where's your mother?" Faina asked.

"She went back out with her team to collect moss and other stuff."

Before she could ask why, a cheer went up and they went out to see that the other four Councillors had returned but not alone. There were a dozen children and a teenage girl carrying an infant as well as a tiglon cub held by one of the Councillors.

"We need milk," the Councillor called out. "And come here little Amber."

Mikael's sister pushed past the others gathering and looked up at her 'uncle' Samuil. "Yes uncle?" said Amber then hugged his leg.

Samuil smiled as he rubbed the top of her head. "This is your responsibility now, Niece."

The cub stared up at the girl as she took it. Mikael wanted to argue his sister being responsible for it but couldn't. It was obvious the other four were for the action.

Amber hesitantly scratched the cubs stomach and it began purring and rubbing against her forearm.

"Probably for the best she's got that tiger skin jacket," Samuil said as he walked over to Mikael.

"What happened with all them?" Mikael asked.

Councillor Vanya replied they had been found in the woods, surrounding a burnt out trading caravan. They had found the girls when they had gone over to see if anything could be scavenged from the caravan.

"We found it."

"Found what?" Mikael asked, distracted by his first vision of an Asian person. He had only seen them in a few scraps of pictures. Two of the children were young Asian girls.

"It!" Vanya reiterated.

Mikael's eyes snapped to the other Councillor. "Really?"

He nodded and led Mikael and the other Councillors into main tent while two women helped Amber feed the cub with a leather bag of goat's milk.

They unrolled the elephant skin map and began marking the path to 'It,' using fake paths and markers to hide where they really stayed at various times of the year.

"It was only a few days north of the sturgeon fishing area? That's going to be a six month trip after the clan meetings," Mikael mused. "So eight months from now. . . ."

They all nodded their heads then settled in for an evening of planning out the trips.

Amber awoke and found the tent empty save for Yuri, the cub named after the secondary protagonist of a story about an angry tiger that killed a hunter that wounded it that Amber loved to hear at the fires.

The tiglon saw she had awoken and rolled over on his back, waiting for morning scratches and nuzzling. She giggled as he purred due to her scratches and belly rubbing then she picked up the gruel and milk mix they fed him.

Done feeding him, she used the bowl of tepid water to wash herself off then dressed and brushed her hair, hating every moment as it tugged at her scalp.

Done with her own hair, she brushed Yuri to his purring delight.

Dressed, she led him outside and giggled as he jumped into a snowbank then rolled around.

She saw Faina sitting with the others the same age as herself and she pouted a second then went to join the children her age killing the hares and skinning them.

The cub watched the hare and the children discussed whether or not they should release a hare to see if Yuri would chase it down.

One of the girls was sent off to ask if they could and a few minutes later they were given permission to do so.

They held it out for the cub to smell and it sniffed then licked the frightened hare.

The children held a discussion then Amber suggested, "Maybe if he has the scent of blood and a taste of it?"

They all nodded at that idea and one of the boys took his dagger off his belt and jabbed the hare in the shoulder. They held up the now screaming hare to the tiglon to sniff and lick and it seemed to perk up.

"I think that'll work," one of the boys said and the one holding the hare tossed it towards the cub.

The cub tried to pounce on the hare but it eluded it and took off. The cub took off in pursuit.

The children cheered Yuri on and the adults nearby stopped what they were doing to watch.

The cub took down the hare and the children watched with rapt fascination as the cub messily ate its prey.

Amber hesitantly walked over to the cub and smiled as he rolled over on his back, waiting for her to scratch him. She and the other children took turns giving him belly rubs, cooing over his hunting instincts.

Mikael walked out of the forest, holding three turkeys slung over his shoulder, his bow was dragging behind him, broken in half due to a fall.

He dropped the birds down for the cooks to prepare for preserving then stretched and headed over to the woodworkers to see if there was a good piece of ash to make a new bow out of.

When he was walking back to his tent, he found Amber and Yuri sitting out front, his sister eating some dried jujubes with honey on them. She held up one for him and he thanked her as he took it with his teeth then walked inside.

They followed him in and both watched him as he used his dagger to carve the wood down into a new bow.

Faina walked in, holding two mugs of chifir and set them down. "You broke another bow?" she asked, surprised.

"Shut up."

Amber giggled. Her brother had a terrible habit of breaking the bow but was still using only his fourth bowstring.

"Guess what Yuri did?" she demanded of her brother.

He shrugged and asked, "What Zolotko?"

Amber grinned, blushing at the nickname and said, "He caught a hare and devoured him. He's ready for solid food?"

"Probably."

His thoughts turned from his work and to how much meat the cat was going to need a day, at least twenty kilos.

He took some of Faina's useless bits of leather straps then carefully sewed them together and wrapped them around the middle of the bow then sanded down the notches and attached his bowstring. He took an all wood arrow from his quiver and stepped outside to shoot one of the deciduous trees.

He nodded as the arrow shivered in place, a few centimeters lower than where he aimed. Good enough, he decided.

The members of ClanTigr began gravitating from their current pursuits to the center of the village where Mikael, the other Councillors, and Yuri were waiting.

Amber was annoyed by her brother pushing her out of the area.

"Councillors only!"

"Yuri isn't a Councillor!" she complained.

"He's honorary. Now out little Senser witch!"

"You're a Senser too," she reminded him.

"That's why I get to call you that. Out!"

The other Councillors were chuckling at the interaction between the two then stopped at the glare from Mikael.

When all seven hundred plus members of the clan were assembled, Mikael began to speak.

"We're gathered here this evening to officially announce what the majority of you knew or suspected. We will all be going to the clan trade meeting for the opening ceremonies. When that's over, we will be continuing on to our new camp site. A permanent one."

There was hushed conversations and the Councillors let it go on for a bit then called for silence.

"Where?" his sister called out, then clasped her hands over her mouth, mortified for speaking out.

Their mother picked the girl up as she chuckled.

"We are the descendants of the Senser program of the old Russian state security system. Six hundred years ago the program was run out of a null bunker, where they believed our abilities could be nurtured."

He smiled sadly. "We all know that what was really needed was no ferromagnetic sources or electromagnetic interference. Which is a shame since magnets are fun to pla--" He blinked, realizing he was going off on a tangent about something pointless as the Councillors grinned at him.

"Anyway, we've found the null bunker. We're going to go back there. We're going to find the information we need. We're going to see if we can strengthen the ability somehow. We'll see about the other abilities the State tried to develop as well. Find out if other clans evolved from those programs."

The information had once been known but only by one person in the clan and that information had been lost after that Councillor had been assassinated during a clan meeting.

Mikael made sure each group of children were as evenly matched as possible then called out "Pull!"

They began tugging and soon the third group had fully pulled out their cart.

They received a bigger handful of dried fruits than the other children while the adults began reassembling the carts for the trip north.

By the end of the week, one hundred carts were loaded down with tents and the personal items and another fifty carts filled with raw materials for trading.

Mikael and the other Councillors made their way through the village, making sure it was as pristine as possible.

Children were raking the snow with pine boughs, making it look smooth and clean while some adults were finishing up removing saplings and other plants and preparing them for the trip.

Mikael tried to help but was reminded he was too 'busy' overseeing all the activity.

He found Faina overseeing the distribution of weapons from the caches and smiled at the image of Faina with a pair of rifles on her back, his personal rifle, a Tigr sniper rifle, and one of the various Mosin-Kalashnikov surplus rifles.

She handed him his rifle and his rucksack of ammo and cleaning kit and grinned as he pulled the bolt back to check the weapon then shouldered it and gave Faina a kiss, murmuring he loved her. She stopped what she was doing and turned to kiss him as hard as she could, knocking him backwards.

When she pulled away, he asked, "What was that for‽"

"You said you loved me! You've never said that before."

"I've said it hundreds of times."

"During sex doesn't count," she told him then turned back to work, flushing as the others running the cache handout started to tease her as Mikael walked away.

Mikael pulled himself up on his horse then leaned down to pick up his sister. She wrapped her arms around his waist and looked down at Yuri as he paced in his cage on the cart next to her.

"How come he has to be in a cage?"

"He makes the animals nervous. The cage is necessary."

Faina came up on her strawberry roan and reached over to scratch Amber's head. "Ready to see your first clan meeting?"

"Uh-huh!"

One of the other Councillors called for the train to move out and Mikael waited for nearly an hour until the final wagon was heading out. He and Faina fell into the train.

Hours later, Faina murmured, "She's asleep."

He used a length of leather to tie her hands around his waist then whipped the reins to speed up his horse so he could see more of the train.

Faina helped Amber feed Yuri then turned to watch Mikael and the Councillors sitting around a private fire, occasionally laughing. She wanted to walk over and join them but knew didn't.

She let Amber take Yuri out of the cage on a lead and the girl walked the tiglon around the circled wagons, occasionally stopping to talk to her friends and let Yuri get scratches from various children.

Faina was watering down the last of the chifir when Mikael's mother sat down beside her. "I heard Mikael said he loved you." Faina blushed and nodded. "So why aren't you pregnant‽" She teased her son's lover.

"You want some chifir?" Faina asked, blushing harder, trying to change the subject.

"Gods no, I see enough just by people not guarding their thoughts."

"I find chifir actually more blocks my Sensing."

The conversation turned to how they blocked out unwanted imagery.

Mikael came back over and turned bright red as he heard his mother telling Faina about his infantile self gratification issues.

"Mother!"

"Shush!" she told him then whispered in Faina's ear, making the young woman giggle harder.

Amber came back before he could start yelling and she hugged her brother tightly as Yuri sidled up to the fire, curling up so the fire kept him toasty warm.

"Why're you hugging me?" he asked.

"I love you," she replied, annoyed.

He kissed the top of her head then rolled his eyes as Faina snuggled up on his other side and his mother smirked at him.

As the wagon train crested the hill, Faina and Mikael galloped ahead, heading towards the clan's camping spot, the northernmost camp of the spiraling inwards campsites.

They found it to be abandoned and they slid off their horses to await the clan.

As they did so, Faina took out their clan markings--a tiger's hide cut out in the shape of a stalking tiger on a black band--and wrapped them around their thighs.

"While you're down there," he teased.

She punched his thigh as she smiled up at him through her hair.

The wagon train arrived a few hours later and she kicked snow on the fire.

Mikael and the Councillors took their horses down to the clan meeting zone. Dozens of bonfires were ready to be lit while a handful of clan leaders were already sitting around a fire. They greeted Mikael and the other Councillors and heaped some good natured teasing on Mikael. It was his second visit to the clan meet as a Councillor and they still teased him about being too young to have more than a pubicesque beard.

They sat down, accepting the mugs of chifir held out to them as Samuil spoke the ritual words of greeting. "While we come armed, our arms are empty. We come to trade, not to war."

"Thrice welcomed."

Mikael took a sip of the chifir and listened as the others spoke.

The first night of the clan meet, the bonfires burnt high into the air, the more impatient of the clans trading as quickly as possible while Mikael, Faina, the Councillors, and a few of the older generation walked among the flesh traders, the Sensers among them looking for slaves with the talent. When they found youngsters with the skill, they tried to make a deal to trade furs for the slaves if they were safe to integrate into the clan. While they were at peace at the clan meet the slavers were at war with every other clan.

"Do you trade guns‽" A voice asked Mikael.

He turned and saw a young boy and smiled. "No. We only trade bows and swords."

He looked disappointed and wandered off.

Mikael shifted his rifle and maul then continued on, stopping to see the games going on between the youths of the clans. He smiled as he saw his sister and her team preparing for the tug of war.

He leaned against the fencing as they stepped up to the rope and picked it up.

The judge for the match took his place and told them to set their grips.

As the children prepared for the first tug, the anchors wrapped the rope around their waists.

A firework exploded in the air and the teams began to pull, jerking back and forth.

Slowly the orange cloth in the center made its way inexorably towards the line on the side of ClanTigr.

A cheer went up and his sister and her teammates received their awards, five kilograms of dried, shredded coconut and a twist of chocolate and coconut for them to eat right there.

It went into their war chest and he saw the next ClanTigr team readying for a snowball fight.

Mikael headed for the trading zone and checked his pocket. Three dozen shells signifying various amounts of furs for him to trade with as well as markers for ammunition and melee weapons. He wanted to find something to surprise Faina with, perhaps a cotton dress, he thought, or a mink skirt from that fur working clan.

As he walked along the zone for traders, he stopped occasionally to look over items.

He admired the atlatls crafted by a young woman with her mate demonstrating their usage then moved on. He was competent with a dart but preferred a bow, sword, or a sickle.

Mikael continued on then stopped at a blanket covered with hand blown jars filled with leaves wrapped with a different leaf in a clear liquid.

"What's this?"

The older man sitting on the blanket smiled. "They're coca leaves, here try one." He handed a leaf to Mikael from a half-empty jar.  "They'll give you energy as you chew one. These are the leaves from which cocaine was made. The leaf wrapped around them is lemongrass. You can chew them both together for a better flavor. The liquid on them will activate it, just chew then hold it in your cheek. If you like, come back, we'll make a deal."

Mikael did as instructed and continued walking.

After a while he began to feel more energetic and his mouth tingled and became numb but decided not to go back and make a deal. The old man seemed to be doing well enough. When he saw him again half his stock was gone.

He spit out the wad of leaf as lunch approached and went back to the camp instead of eating the pemmican and dried fruits in his pack.

As he sat down with his meal of baked potatoes with butter, asparagus, and bacon, Faina appeared with two mugs of something. She handed him one and said, “I bought some chocolate nibs. Added it to some coffee and goat’s milk with some sugar. It’s really good.”

He took a drink and nodded at her summation then told her about what he had seen.

“What did the coca leaves taste like?”

“Not good but it was kind of a nice boost of energy.”

She leaned against him and murmured, “We found three people with the talent and Samuil told me to tell you he’s marked two clans for extermination evaluation.”

That surprised Mikael. An extermination order hadn’t gone out in over a decade. His father had died leading the raiding party that had destroyed a clan of Supremacists that had been hunting down various clans with Talents.

With his meal down, he went to get a mug of Chifir and headed back to the trading areas, this time with Faina.

“So if we’re going to be near the fishing grounds, will we be sinking furs?” she asked him softly as they looked at the various fetishes for sale.

“We won’t be that near them,” he replied. “But we’ll probably sink a few since it may be the same source.”

He looked at one fetish and told her, “I’ll meet you by the knowledge sellers in a second. I want to get Amber something. She’ll be six in a few weeks.”

Faina nodded her assent and kissed his cheek then headed off as he moved over to the fetish seller and picked up two: one was a gold and red painted tiger fetish for strength and the other was a stone carved torso with large breasts and a pregnant stomach. While he didn’t believe, it seemed a good gift for both.

“How much for both?”

The woman appraised his look. “Got enough of that tiger skin left over for making a hat like this?” she asked, pointing to the one she wore.

“Yeah.” He took out a shell marked with stylized tiger stripes and scratched in the size underneath. “Give this to my clan trader and he’ll do the deal.”

She nodded, took the shell then wrapped the fetishes in a bit of cloth and handed it over. She had done trades with ClanTigr before and trusted them enough to get her payment at the end of the day.

He walked off, stuffing the fetishes in his rucksack then stopped and traded two rounds of surplus 7.62x54R mm ammunition for three double-fist sized bags of candied fruits.

He held it open when he caught up to Faina and she smiled as she took a piece of candied apricots and plums sliced into strips and twisted together. “Ooh, yay. What did you get your sister?”

“An enamel and gold tiger.”

“She’ll love that.”

Faina wrapped her fingers in his as they walked, occasionally stopping. She traded a page sized sheet of thin leather for  some ribbons then braided them into her hair as they walked while he kept his eye out for the various things she seemed to like best.

When the sky was dark enough stars could be seen the various traders began to pack up for the night and they went back to the camp.

Faina headed off to speak to others around the camp while Mikael found the other Councillors and was informed they had bought six slaves, traded the many translations and transcriptions they had promised to other clans for ten thousand primers, enough material to make three hundred kilos of black powder, a hundred kilos of scrap brass, two hundred meters of uncorroded piping in lengths between fifteen centimeters to one meter, and enough hardwood to make shotgun loads.

“Has my mother or Faina seen the slaves?”

“Your mother has. She’s going over the genealogy and asking them questions about their families.” While ClanTigr wouldn’t rape them the slaves would eventually be freed once fifty percent of their cost had been worked off then they would be gently pushed towards the best choices of Senser talented to have at least one child with. After that first child they’d be free to choose their own lovers though most stayed with the first person they were pushed to.

Mikael walked into his mother’s tent and saw her charting the best choices.

“Mikael, go get Faina for me?”

“Uhh, all right.”

He was nervous for a moment then remembered all the slaves were females. While he understood the breeding program, Faina was his mate and he hers.

When he returned with her, his mother shooed him out and he rolled his eyes then went to find his sister and see how the other matches had gone.

He found her and the other children of the clan sitting around the bonfire, listening to a morality tale about the harvest taking many hands to do it well.

He sat down beside her and the woman telling the story winked at him, making him blush.

Amber snuggled against her brother and whispered, “We won every match we were in except the dart throwing and the snowball fight. The Tsars won those.”

He tried to keep the expression of annoyance off his face. The Tsars were slavers, started by the remnants of the clan his father had died destroying.

The final ceremony was beginning and every member of the clans were assembled in a massive ring, awaiting the final weighing of the won supplies.

When the final announcement went up, Amber and four other children of ClanTigr made their way up and the organizers of the matches placed brilliantly red and yellow ribbons with seven pointed red stars hanging off them, yellow enamel stating which Clan Meet the ribbons were awarded for.

The children also received thick slabs of pure chocolate, enough for each child in the clan to receive their own 500 gram bar. Which would normally cost at least four flawless wolf skins.

Mikael felt a moment of pure envy. When he had won, the gifts had been pistol crossbows. Faina whispered, “I am so jealous.”

“After this, wanna see if someone’s selling chocolate? I have just enough skins left over we could get a bar to split.”

She pouted as she shook her head. “Better to get something useful. Just a waste of resources.”

His sister sat down next to him and hugged him. “Thank you!”

“For?” he asked.

“You taught me how to do all the stuff we did here,” she reminded him.

Amber unwrapped the chocolate and broke off two large chunks then handed them to her brother and Faina.

“That’s yours.”

She glared at her brother and his eyes went wide. She had their mother’s crazy eyes.

“All right, all right, I’ll take a piece.”

Amber smiled happily and nibbled on the bar and Faina did the same to the thumb sized piece given to her.

Mikael nibbled on the piece as well then wrapped it and put it in his rucksack to save for after dinner.

When the ceremonies had concluded, Amber took Faina’s and her brother’s hands and they walked through the trading zone so she could spend her shells.

She ended up getting a dozen new ribbons, enough dark red yarn to knit herself a hooded shawl, a waterproofed royal rouge travel cloak trimmed with hareskin, and enough of a dark pink dyed fur for making her next set of boots.

“So, you like purple now, yes?” he asked his sister.

She glared at him as Faina laughed. “That’s red!”

“He was being sarcastic,” Faina told the girl then tried to explain it to her as Mikael wandered off.

He found the perfect ribbons for his sister’s and Faina’s fetishes and handed over some old silk ribbons from his own awards in trade.

He threaded the tiger on to the orange ribbon and came up behind his sister, scaring her as he whipped the fetish over her head then pretended to choke her.

Amber stomped down on his foot and tried to drive her elbow into his groin.

Mikael shifted out of the way and caught her up, hugging her as she realized it was her brother.

“I HATE YOU!” she squealed.

“It’s okay, it’s her brother,” Faina told two men walking up.

When she finally calmed down, she realized he had given her a gift and she hugged him tightly.

She dashed off to show their mother and Faina wrapped her hand in his.

“Seems she likes it.”

Mikael carefully put the fetish around Faina’s neck then kissed her temple and headed for the tent’s exit.

Outside, he pulled himself up on his horse then joined the rest of the Councillors.

“It’s a shame it took so long to remake that rifle,” Samuil said as Mikael put the weapon in its holster on his saddle.

“The double barrels will be an easier craft job,” Mikael admitted. “But as father said, it’s much easier to reach out and tap someone with a sniping rifle.”

They set out on the long ride to the null bunker, acting as outriders, a few hours ahead of the main wagon train. Every ten minutes or so one of the Councillors removed a handful of colored grains and tossing them out alongside of the road.

“Samuil,” Mikael said an hour into the ride.

He slowed his horse and fell into step with Mikael’s.

“How many guns do you think you’ll be able to make. Are they going be like father’s and fire sequentially or like yours and go off at the same time.”

“Mine was a mistake. They’ll be two shot weapons. Wasteful if they all fired two rounds at the same time.”

Mikael nodded thoughtfully as Samuil did the math in his head.

“With them all having fifteen centimeter barrels, enough to outfit every member of the clan with one and some for gifts to other clans. Our woodsmiths have been carving the stocks for some time now.”

Mikael nodded.

One of the other Councillors chuckled and they kicked their horses to catch up.

“What’s so funny?” Samuil asked.

“I just remembered the first time I met the Allfather of Clan Gogol.”

“Clan Gogol?” Mikael asked.

“They were absorbed by the Tolstoys which were absorbed by the Kulaks. They’re the ones that grow all the fruit down south. You probably won’t ever meet them though you might meet their representatives.”

Mikael pulled some dried peach out of his pack and sucked on it as they continued riding, watching for possible dangers.

Faina sat up, stretching, then felt something shift and hit her breast. She looked down and lifted up the thumb sized fetish and her cheeks flushed. She recognized the ribbon, it had been in Mikael’s rucksack when they had been packing up.

She pulled her top on and laced it up just as Mikael’s mother walked into the small tent. “Good, you’re up. Breakfast is be--what’s that?”

“It’s a pregnancy fetish,” she said, shifting so the older woman could see it.

“You are pregnant!”

“Not yet. Mikael put it on me while I was sleeping!”

She smiled then began picking up Amber’s sleeping roll and rolling it up.

With her items packed and put on the wagon, she joined Amber and the girl’s mother around one of the cooking fires and ate the breakfast, a few pieces of smoked taimen, wheat gruel, and a drink made from dried oranges, cinnamon, and chifir.

Amber noticed the fetish and her eyes went wide. “Are you pr--”

Faina stopped her by putting her finger over the girl’s mouth. “Not yet. I think your brother is trying to tell me he’s ready.”

She grinned in excitement and said, “Have a girl!”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Amber’s mother told her.

Months had passed of twelve hour days in the saddle until finally they were at the entrance of a valley.

“This is it,” Samuil breathed.

“How did you find it?” Mikael asked as they moved aside to let the train continue into the valley, slowly parking carts where they could.

Children were jumping down, carrying various tools and rushing off to mark trees for cutting down or hacking away at the smaller trees and bushes on their own.

“A sign. Literally. We found an unscavenged road sign, followed the roads branching from it until we actually found the bunker. We met back up, chopped down a bunch of trees, then hid the entrance to the bunker as best we could. It looked as if all attempts to break in had failed.”

Adults of the clan began cutting down interior trees, carefully spacing them so that there were no massive holes in the tree cover of the valley.

Others began marking out the latrine zones, planting areas, and planting orange flags for where the water from the river would be diverted for irrigation, water storage, and outdoor cooking fires.

the youngest children of the clan were sitting by a small fire, warming their hands as they were told a story by one of the men too old to work.

“I wish they’d let us help,” Mikael sighed.

“We’re old men,” Samuil teased. Most of the Councillors were appointed after ten years of being an adult member of the clan. All four of Mikael’s compatriots were in their forties. Middle age centuries before but now they were closer to the grave than to the cradle. Those living past sixty were a rarity.

Amber walked with Yuri around the village, the tiglon occasionally bounding ahead to investigate something. They had been in the new camp for nearly six months now and it was now properly fortified. Dozens of trees had been carefully dug up and replanted then razor thorn bushes strung between them all carefully, made to look as if they were grown there naturally.

Classes were done for the day and she had no chores. She looked around carefully then took a knife out of her jacket and began carving a symbol on to a tree. Yuri began scratching his claws on the tree as she finished. She admired her work then called out to Yuri and dashed off.

The cat fell into step next to her and they were soon joined by more children, running through the village, laughing as older children working stopped to toss snowballs at them.

Mikael walked out of his tent and smiled when he saw his sister dashing madly through the village, Yuri and other children along with her.

He turned away and smiled wider when he saw Faina helping make lunch. He wandered that way and narrowly evaded a slap from a wooden spoon while investigating the pot. When they looked away, he stole a hunk of bread and dipped it in the stew then dashed away, chuckling as Faina scooped up a handful of snow and tried to hit him.

“Theft of food, eh?” Samuil teased.

Mikael rolled his eyes as he took another bite. “You really think any of them would say they had seen me doing that?”

Samuil laughed and asked, “How is it?”

“Delicious. Lots of mushroom in it.” They had found a cave so full of them they were planning on drying at least fifteen kilos of them for the next clan meet to trade. “We ready enough?” he asked after he finished swallowing.

“Tomorrow.”

Every Senser in the clan made their way to the hidden Null Bunker, many carrying various tools, the rest leading the work horses.

The better climbers went up the cliff face and began dislodging the highest stones.

Samuil sighed. “This took us two months to hide.”

“Would you prefer we leave it up?” Faina and Mikael’s mother asked at the same time.

When the climbers took a break, others began moving the displaced stones with the help of the horses.

With the first set of stones out of the way, the next set were dislodged.

By the end of the day the stones were finally dislodged and the climbers used the ropes to connect to the top of the lattice of logs then began descending. When they were safely out of the way, Samuil gave the order. The horses stepped forward, their legs cutting through the deep snow,  snorting as they pulled the trees down.

Mikael and those who had not seen the doors of a Null Bunker looked at them with something akin to shock. Six hundred years of searching were finally complete.

The Councillors approached the doors. Mikael was shocked to see that electric powered lights were still on.

As they closed in on it, he began to feel a strange buzzing inside his head. The closer they came, the stronger it became, as if a hive of bees were swarming inside his skull.

Mikael touched the door and the lights on it shifted from a dozen red to amber then green. When the doors split open, he and every other Senser dropped to the ground, clutching their skulls, some screaming in pain while others just moaned.

Samuil rushed forward and slammed them closed as the Councillors realized that power was still on inside the bunker.