The elder left the priest’s tent and went for a walk alone. He thought of the villagers left at home. Most of them were either too old to make the trip or unmarried. Every child had been brought to the presence of the Mother Tree. He turned and walked toward the group of tents from his own village. As he approached, he heard the sound of children laughing. He changed his direction to go see.
He found a large group of children playing the game of Hunt and Prey. Some ran low, others ran and leaped about. Others remained in place, reaching out to grab someone as they went by. It was a game that built strength and encouraged group thinking.
He saw that all the children bore the mark of their village. Did the priest’s dream meant they were to lose all the children? His heart skipped a beat at the thought of any village without the sound of children playing. He continued to watch, trying to understand what the dream meant. He watched a boy run fast and leap over a log. He was the grandson of another elder. He not only wore the mark of the village, but the mark of his family. Both were embroidered bands of cloth around the thigh. When the child reached the age of consent, the cloth would be exchanged for a tattoo, his first of many.
He watched the boy who was the hunter after the other. He didn’t leap over the log but ran around it. He cut across the circle, always staying close to his prey. The elder watched the boys’ legs as they ran. Then he saw it. The hunter wore only one mark: the one of his village. He didn’t wear one for his family. The elder stood straight and looked at everyone’s legs. Most wore two, but there were some that wore only the mark of their village.
Scions, the orphans of the villages. Lacking any family, not even a distant cousin claim them, they were children who had no family tree. The village was the rootstock to which they would be grafted.
Scions were taken care of by their village and lived in a communal hut or lodge. Each family was obligated to donate food from their own supply; the more scions a village had, the harder it was for the village as a whole.
Food had been scarce in the past several years. It was why there had been only seven children for the ritual. If the priest took some of the orphans, the burden would be less for each village and there would be more food for each family and more to put into storage for the harsh winters.
But the secret of the sacrifice—the fact that no child was actually killed—needed to remain a secret. So how to explain the scions’ departure with the priest?