Feeble Struggles and Desperate Choices

Compared with the Bison, White Pig, Green Sheep, and Deer tribes, which could still barely maintain their tribal structures and make plans for the winter, the dozen or so tiny tribes scattered across a much wider area could only be described as being in "misery," or even "despair."

Tiny tribes like the Black Stone Tribe, with populations between fifty and a hundred, still had a sliver of strength left to struggle. They usually occupied a small, relatively fixed hunting ground or gathering area and had a basic tribal structure.

At a settlement called the Hard Stone Tribe, with roughly eighty people, Chief Wanshi was leading his tribespeople in sorting through their last remaining food stores-mostly shriveled wild fruits and ground grass-seed flour. The atmosphere was as oppressive as the sky before a torrential storm.

"Chief, even counting everything we can eat, we won't make it through this winter, unless... unless we do what we did last year..." A haggard middle-aged man left his words unfinished, but everyone understood-unless, as they had last year, they let the elderly quietly walk into the wind and snow at winter's cruelest and never return, and let the frail children slip away soundlessly in their sleep.

The deep wrinkles on Wanshi's face looked carved by a blade. In silence, he rubbed an unfinished bone dagger in his hand. Its body was made from a thick, solid piece of material with a faint, jade-like quality. It was the last labor of love of an old craftsman in their tribe.

"Take these," Wanshi said hoarsely, pointing to a small pile in the corner of carefully selected bone-tool blanks made from fine materials but not yet worked in detail, along with several oddly colored "pretty stones" that reflected sunlight. "Take them all. Go to the little market and see if we can trade for some food. Even if we only get another ten or twenty jin of dried meat, perhaps one more person can survive."

They dared not hope to trade for salt; that was a luxury from the distant Fish Tribe. They only hoped to use these "good things," which they normally could not bear to use, to pry a little life-saving food from the hands of the larger tribes. Enduring it head-on was their only choice, and its price was already understood by all without a word.

Tribes with populations between thirty and fifty were like guttering candles in the wind, liable to go out at any moment. One such group, called the Stream Tribe, had only around forty people. They had originally lived off a small stream with fish and gathering nearby, but this year the stream had dwindled, and their catches were meager.

Their chief was a middle-aged woman named Shuihua. She looked at the sallow, emaciated tribespeople around her, more than half of whom were women and children. The tribe's few men had been injured during earlier hunts and had yet to recover.

"What... what do we have left to offer?" Shuihua's voice held despair. Weapons? Those kept them alive. Though they might have no use for them in winter, what would they do when spring came if they handed them over? Aside from weapons, all they had left were some worn animal hides and the roughly made grass mats the women had woven. They would trade for some food first and survive the immediate crisis before worrying about anything else.

It was the helplessness of cutting away flesh to patch a sore. Giving up their weapons meant giving up their chance to recover their strength the following spring, but if they did not, they might never see the end of this winter.

And those tiny settlements with fewer than thirty people, or even just a dozen or so, had already slid to the brink of extinction.

At the temporary campsite of the Low Woods Tribe, which numbered fewer than twenty, the air of despair had almost become tangible. They no longer had a fixed settlement and moved like wanderers between a few familiar gathering sites, trying to find anything that could fill their stomachs.

Their chief-if he could still be called a chief-was a graying man named Kumu, who was not actually all that old. He looked at his tribespeople huddled beside the fire, their eyes numb. Among them were two children under five.

"There's no food left... there really is no food left..." a woman sobbed quietly.

Kumu's gaze swept over his tribespeople before finally settling on the few badly worn stone axes and stone spears. These were the tribe's last possessions, and symbols of its dignity.

"Bring... bring the weapons." Kumu's voice was hoarse, almost inaudible. "Go to the little market... if... if the Fire Tribe or some other tribe is willing to give us a mouthful of food and let us live... we... we'll follow them... we'll do anything..."

"We'll do anything." Behind those few weightless words lay the crushing price of surrendering their freedom and becoming dependents, or even slaves. But in the face of their tribe's extinction, dignity seemed so pale. Carrying the tribe's last "possessions"-those battered weapons, and themselves-they headed for the little market, not to trade, but to... seek someone to take them in, or rather, to sell themselves into slavery.

For a time, the many tribes within a radius of several sunsets' journey, large and small alike, were restless with unease over the approaching bitter winter. The little market, a place where in past years they had bartered and exchanged what they had for what they lacked, took on heavier, crueler shades this year-it was a gathering of hope and a market of despair; a trial of survival and a crossroads of fate. Countless eyes filled with worry, longing, and even despair turned toward that agreed-upon valley, waiting for the moment that would decide whether their tribes lived or died.