05b - Ngarungadurung Hunting
Ngarungadurung creeps, the leaves and dry soil mapping their texture across his soles as he shifts forward, one spear up and ready and the other balancing. He feels quiet, and can surely not be heard over the insect noise, yet as the uncertain movement ahead resolves into glimpses of European clothing - a dirt-streaked shirt, darker breeks, a skinless-pale hand twitching through the leaves and crowded shade - he reads something in the other's pause that suggests perhaps he sees him.
The cicada chant seems to run slow, Time thickening as the instinctive certainty of the hunt tells him this is the moment of action: to launch himself from cover and in two running paces close enough to fling the spear and let its motion carry onwards with that sharp and ending point of will, or to run harder, run true, throw his body behind the strike even as the back of his mind throws up the image of the site of sorcery far below.
(A fire, a cookpot, strange sticks and writing. More than one man's teeth.)