Chapter 91: Female Warrior : Ravina
We had begun our trek, but this was not the forest; only flat and open land, which Mitt was leading us through. Throughout the time, he was going on about how he and the others had taken down a mammoth.
After what felt like an endless hour of a Long and weary walk, I would say, yet I happened to see Ryan and Tusk far away. And indeed: a gigantic mammoth lying on the earth.
There was no way we could carry it, even with all of us. So Tusk and Mitt started lashing the beast with jute ropes, and—of course—we had to pull it. Fuck. Were we really supposed to drag this thing all the way back to the tribe? Fuck this shit.
I was just thinking of an excuse to fool them into pulling the Mammoth by themselves, leaving me alone. When the ground vibrated—a low, thumping sound that wasn’t wind or the sound of a human being, but something faster.
Then the thumping exploded into a storm of hooves.
Dust kicked up in a churning wall as riders emerged from the tall grass, fanning out in a perfect, suffocating circle. My stomach dropped. Horses. Dozens of them, their flanks glistening with sweat, nostrils flaring.
These horses were very distinct from the ones I knew. They were shaggy and hairy, and their size was much bigger than a regular horse. However, what really shocked me wasn’t the animals - it was the riders.
Females.
Unclothed women.
No hides, no woven skirts, not even a leaf to cover themselves. Their skin was a mixture of old scars, their breasts exposed, nipples dark against the sun-browned flesh.
Some of them had spears tied to their backs; They didn’t ride as the hunters would. They rode like conquerors.
Mitt’s breath hissed through his teeth. "Ravina," he growled, voice dripping with something between rage and reluctant respect. "You’ve got nerves showing your face here. This isn’t your territory."
The woman at the center—taller than the rest, her black hair braided with bones—didn’t so much as twitch. Her mare stamped, hooves crushing the dirt as she tilted her head, eyes dragging over us like we were prey.
"Funny," she said, voice smooth as a blade sliding from its sheath. "I was about to say the same." She gestured lazily at the mammoth. "Leave it. Walk away. Or we’ll help you walk."
Ryan’s knuckles whitened around his axe. "Oh, you’ll help us, will you?" His laugh was a broken thing. "We bled for this kill. You think you can just ride in like this—like some kind of—of thieves—and take it?" His gaze flicked over the women, lingering a second too long before he spat on the ground. "This isn’t a negotiation. It’s ours."
A beat of silence. The kind that presses against your ribs, steals your breath. Then Ravina smiled.
It wasn’t the kind of smile that promised mercy. It was the kind that promised teeth.
"Last chance," she said, voice dripping with the weight of a blade unsheathed.
The women moved as one, their horses stepping in slow, deliberate circles around us. Spears never wavered—always pointed at chests, throats, the soft spots between ribs. The mare nearest me snorted, hot breath blasting against my neck. I could see the pulse in its throat, the way its ears twitched, waiting for the command to trample.
My fingers itched for the magical tool hidden in system storage. One flick, and I could turn this around. But Ryan’s hand shot out in surrender.
"Stop," he hissed through his teeth.
"We’ll give you half," he called out, voice straining to sound reasonable. "That’s all we can spare." A beat. His throat bobbed. "But you have to help us move it back to our tribe." His free hand gestured vaguely at the mammoth, at us, at the spears still trained on our chests. "A fair trade."
Ravina did not reply immediately. She allowed the silence to become long, saw the danger of those spears to take root. Then she turned her head, looking over our group, Mitt scowling, Tusk with his white-knuckled hold on his club, the manner in which my breath had about choked when a spear point scraped my shoulder.
Finally, she lifted a hand, palm up. A gesture that might’ve been dismissal. Might’ve been a signal.
"Hmph. Fine," Her lips curled. "But remember no tricks." Her gaze flicked to me, lingered. "And keep that in mind, we got nothing to lose," so many unspoken things hanging in the air like the stink of blood. "But you still have many things to lose, like your people, family."
" We know..."
Ryan replied in an angry voice.What the fuck did that mean?
And why were they all women?
This is not the way it was expected to be in the Stone Age Era.
Men hunted. Men ruled. Men led with fire and spear, and the unshaken certainty that the world bent to their will. That’s what the texts had said.
That’s what history books had drilled into my skull—cave paintings of mammoth hunts with male figures standing triumphant, oral histories of chiefs and warlords, the unspoken law that power had a gender, and it wasn’t this.
But here they were.
Female warriors, on horse, riding naked, like one predatory creature. It was not the light, careless laugh of women in the stories, but was low-pitched, rhythmic, the sort of laugh that crept along your skin.
As Ryan faltered over his words, their grins became stiffer. Their eyes shone when the voice of Eric broke. They were not playing according to any rules I knew.
Unless.
A cold thought coiled in my gut.
Unless this wasn’t the Stone Age I knew. Not the one in textbooks, not the one in documentaries. Maybe history had lied to us.
Or maybe—maybe—I have travelled not back in time to the Stone Age, but this is a completely different and new world.
Ravina dropped off her mare with the grace that caused my muscles to ache. The other women trailed, their naked feet sneaking through the complete soil. No hesitation. No discussion.
They did this as they had done a thousand times before--they tied jute ropes to the legs of the mammoth, and turned the other ends of the same ropes around the saddles of four horses. The beasts didn’t protest. They didn’t dare.
When the final knot was completed, Ravina looked at us, wiping her hands on her thighs. "You guys better be on the horses if you want to move quickly," she said, with authority in her voice, but not a request.
The expression of Eric resembled being told to drink poison.
"You can kill us if you want!" he snarled, spittle flying. His voice did not tremble, although his hands did. "We will not sit. Not with dirty women like you."
I stared at him.
Really?
And there we were outnumbered, out-armed, and a dead mammoth we could not drag, and a tribe of warriors that could gut us before we took two strides--and Eric was setting a line in the sand over them?