Remember the battle

Leviathan

By JeanTre16

Remember the battle. Grandmother’s words rang in my thoughts as I rechecked my gear for the third time. I closed my eyes, recalling the terror. How could I forget it? A stiff chill ran up and down my spine. The diver that had accidentally roused the fearsome beast had cost our settlement over half of its people’s lives, including my mother’s. All lay in the shoals of Anothar, brutally and methodically slaughtered, due to the foolish pearl diver.

“Foolish,” I told myself again, this time out loud. And all the woman did was to lay a hand on the creature while trolling the seabed. I opened my terror-dilated eyes again. “Pushar, I will not dishonor our people. You will see. I will return, and I will return in glory,” I answered, victory in my words that I did not feel. Yes, I was more than afraid, but I would never show it, not to my grandmother or anyone else. I had a job to do.

I stood and stretched out my height before my grandmother. I was no more than the size of a saber-tooth cub, but I had reached the height of maturity. I was the daughter of leaders. I would have to make the journey to Sabean to pursue the prize for our tribe. And if that meant that I’d have to pass over the sea of the great Leviathan … then, so be it.

“You are the fool, Jean,” my sister’s voice broke into my thoughts of duty and responsibility. “We will hold no party, honoring your departure.”

I turned toward the tent flap to see Iyab standing there, looking indignant at overhearing my announcement. “Very well,” I answered her, “then I leave at sunrise, with or without your blessing.”

My older sister looked at me again, this time with more pleading in her gaze. “I once thought as you, Jean,” she said. “I was the best diver on the hunt, thinking I could take any fear the sea had to offer me.” Iyab’s pleading turned to sorrow, the countenance that had become hers since her final dive. “But the people in our settlement were the ones who perished. Our mother paid for my error.” Even in finishing her words, I could tell that she would take that truth back a million times over if she could. My sister hated the fact that she had been that foolish diver, the one that had stirred the untamable Leviathan.

It was rare to hear my sister say much since that day. Curiosity overtook me. “Tell me of it, Iyab,” I requested, disregarding my caution. I had never dared ask her before. I had been young when it had happened and my grandmother had hidden me in the cleft of a rock face, away from the battlefield. I had seen the monster arch its dark body out of the water, but only from my hiding place. My sister never spoke of it and I had never asked until now. “Tell me of the battle,” I repeated.

My sister’s head drooped and she stood for a time, without saying a word, just staring, staring at the ground, unfocused. Then, as if she suddenly returned to the present from that legendary day, her eyes came to life and she looked into mine. “I will tell you,” she said. “I will tell you, because you need to know what you face. And you must not make my same mistake.”

Clearing my gear from my Wooly Mammoth throw, I offered, “Please, have a seat,” and gestured for my sister to make herself comfortable.

“The day began like any other,” Iyab said, taking a place by me on my father’s gift from a hunt. “It was sunny and the coast was alive with fishermen. It was a good day for diving …” Her words tapered off into a dreamlike quality as I eagerly listened to my sister’s retelling of the battle.

************

“Iyab,” mother called to her eldest daughter, “Come, the water is especially nice here. It is a good place to look for our prized pearl.” The older of the two women treaded water, nearly 300 Mammoth tusks from shore.

The younger woman’s face lit up. Still in the boat, she stood. Dressed in a short skirted, one-piece diving outfit, she checked an assortment of tools attached to her twine belt. Ready, she gracefully launched into the salty water and easily swam the distance to her mother. The deep did not bother them. Both women from the Uzian tribe were exceptional swimmers, making their livelihood from the sea. The mother, Onar, had another daughter besides Iyab that was too young, yet, for the long dives. Little Jean spent her time on the shore, picking shells with her grandmother.

“Here,” her mother repeated, lifting a hand to point to the brine beneath their treading feet. “I say we dive here.”