Chapter 123: Dramatic Entrance

“Hannah used to come in hunts with us,” Gnegor answered. “I’m guessing he had a stronger connection with her than we thought? Perhaps he fancied older women? We’re not sure, but uh, Hannah is missing, so we don’t know why he’s obsessing over her.”

“Missing?” Jimmy repeated, “Did she lose anyone to the giants?”

“Yes,” Gnegor nodded, “Her man, and her son too. We figured she fled the tribe, or worse, but then we saw that our path had crumbled.”

“What?” He asked, as he struggled to multitask. “Is that a metaphor?”

“No,” Gnegor sighed, frustrated, “The path, the one we use to walk down to the grasslands, has crumbled, destroyed, what’s the right word?”

“Collapsed,” Anna spoke from the depths of the small crowd. “He means collapsed.”

“That sounds right,” Gnegor said, “We think she had been outside when the path ’collapsed’ and fell along with it. We saw some blood from up here, so maybe she had been fighting off some of those ankle bitters? We don’t know for sure.”

All of a sudden, they heard a feminine, albeit angry voice behind them. The small crowd barely registered her voice, but she didn’t care.

“Maybe you should’ve had a better look?” The woman said.

Afterwards, she walked in front of the crowd, bathed in dried blood, and said, “I was not fighting ankle bitters, I was fighting people. We could’ve been invaded today.”

“What?!” Jimmy exclaimed, as soon as he registered those words, “Already!?”

Jimmy stopped the healing process, and so, Gaark stood up along with him. He heard a voice that he very much recognized!

“Hannah!” Gaark shouted out in joy, and then went over to hug her. “I missed you!”

The blood bathed woman in front of them, appeared to be Hannah, the same woman that they assumed dead. She threw a large curve ball at them, gave them a lot of things for them to try and comprehend, and yet, Hannah was the most confused person here.

At first she was defensive, but then she looked at Gaark’s face, and a lot of memories came back to her. She remembered who he was.

“Gaark?” She asked, confused, and happy. “You’re alive?!”

“Yes!” He grunted, and lifted her in the air as he hugged her. “I missed you, Hannah!”

Gnegor looked at his son in pride. He was proud that Gaark had landed an older woman, much older, at least that was what he suspected. Hannah must have been thirty-eight years old when Gaark had disappeared.

Hannah hadn’t been a regular hunter back then, but she did come along whenever Gaark asked him to, back in the day. This was where most of the suspicion of a secret romance stemmed from.

“I missed you too, big boy,” She said, “Can you let go of me now? I have something important to share.”

“Yes,” Gaark said, and then he dropped her on the ground as gently as he could.

Hannah then briefed everyone of what had happened this afternoon. Everyone was shocked as they heard her story, Zik especially, because apparently he hadn’t heard a whole army of enemies walking up the path, even though he had been a hundred meters away from the path at the time, or over three hundred feet away. He felt ashamed.

“Bastards!” He shouted. “They wanted to storm our home? We have kids here, damn it! Did you recognize what tribe it was? Any symbols? I’ll head there tomorrow and destroy everything they’ve fucking built!”

“No symbols,” Hannah shook her head, “There were at least a hundred of them, men mostly, so I don’t think they’ll be bothering us again. The drop killed all of them, so whatever tribe attacked us, they lost all of their capable hunters.”

“How did you survive the drop, Hannah?” Jimmy asked, perhaps the most important question of all. “I doubt their bodies cushioned your fall.”

“My magic… it, uh, how do you say?” She looked up, trying to think of the best word. “Improved, got better?”

“We say evolved,” He added. “Us young ones, at least.”

“Whatever you say,” She nodded, “I was sure that I was going to die, but before I hit the ground, I heard these loud cracks, like a hundred branches breaking at once. Then I bounced up from the bodies of our enemies, and landed on my feet.”

“Explains all the blood,” He sighed, though he was irritated that he couldn’t figure out the rest of the puzzle. “I have half a mind that you’re indestructible, but those cracks don’t make much sense to me. Did you hear or see anything else?”

Hannah thought about it for a while, and her face lit up as if she had discovered electricity. It was apparent that at that moment, even she figured out what went on.

“I saw my reflection!” She exclaimed. “Do you think that’s it? I have an extra pair of skin, or something? Skin that breaks like branches, that stops me from getting hurt?”

“Kind of,” He said, and as he thought about it for a moment, he said, “I think you have a forcefield or something. What kind of magic do you have, if I can ask you that?”

“Dinosaur Strength,” She answered immediately. “But now it doesn’t make sense again.”

“Oh, no, it does.” Jimmy smiled, as he finally figured it out. “You can punch hard, hard enough to break your hand, for example. It only sounds natural that you evolve your magic into something that prevents you from breaking your bones.”

Afterwards, he got close to her, grabbed her wrist, and then ran the tip of a spear across her hand. She did not bleed.

Instead, they heard this horrible screeching sound, much like a knife being run through glass. Seconds later, these bits of glass exploded, and shot upwards, reflecting the light of the multiple torches around them, and then the glass disappeared before it could even hit the ground.

“You were almost right, Hannah,” He said, “You have a skin tight forcefield now. Congratulations, you can beat a dinosaur to death with your bare hands, and live long enough to tell us about it.”

“Hehe,” Hannah smiled, “Well, I’m just happy my skin came in handy today. I saved our tribe.”

“You did,” He nodded, “But this is the first battle of many. The cowards who abandoned our tribe are running their mouths. Other tribes are going to try and take the grasslands from our hands. I just didn’t think they’d start trying this early.”

“Let them come,” Zik added, and he was steaming with rage. “Kids, I cannot kill, but men? I can piss on their dead bodies all day! I’ll take Rampage to the grasslands tomorrow morning, and wait for any other tribe that’s feeling lucky. I will never let any other bastard get close to our tribe again!”

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