A stock slashed the tall bush with a machete, scattering wide leaves onto the ferns he had trampled. The warrior wore a skirt of long, rectangular beads over his loincloth, while the patterns of artwork on his shoulders, like holes in the forest canopy, were splattered by water droplets. The stock took another step forward and hacked at the wall of foliage again.
Neeko let their guides advance a few paces more and glanced back at Pais’ca. Soaked with sweat and water, she had done as Neeko had and tied her shirt around her waist. Many of the stocks had done the same. Pais lifted a leather canteen to her mouth and took a sip of watered down ale. She tossed it underhand to him and said, “Stay hydrated. Nowhere else is as brutal as the Elder Coast. Not even the rainforests in Numa’nakres.”
The drink tasted piss-poor, but the faint alcohol kept it from causing illness. Neeko moistened his throat and then handed it back to her. He’d spent nearly three years in various remote sites in the western Empire, but his latest assistant’s words rung true. Though there seemed to be a prevalence of water in the trees, moss, soil, and very air, there was also an insufferable heat. It must have been visible on his face.
Esh, the head stock, showed a bright white smile as he looked at Neeko. “You have scars, old timer, but out here the things that give you the scars are not always the most dangerous.” Neeko tilted his head until Pais defined the last word for him in the common tongue. He gave Esh a nod.
Neeko scratched the most recent of his scars, a thin brown line that connected his collarbone to his armpit, through a layer of greying curls. He’d earned that one when a tavern brawl spilled into the street and a meat knife had spilled some blood from his shoulder. A sudden cry from a blue macaw in a nearby tree made Neeko jump and his grimy fingernails nearly dug more gouts into his shoulder.
They went onward in such a slow, sufferable way for another hour or two before finding another gathering of kibroot. The thin ferns that marked the bulbs occurrence under the moist soil were usually gathered in groups of five or six. None showed the tampering of fauna, which struck Neeko as odd. Perhaps they included some form of natural repellant, undetectable to the human nasal.
“Why do you always leave two?” Neeko asked, as Esh and a few of the other Cani began to dig up the roots. He got down on one knee, putting his trousers onto a mossy rock and pulling one of the kibroots out by its reed-like vegetation.
Pais stood over them, flailing her arms to fend off bugs, and translated Neeko’s words. Esh rubbed soil off one of the brown bulbs and looked at Neeko solemnly. “It is our way. To ensure they regrow.”
Neeko didn’t argue the point, though he suspected one would be sufficient to regrow others in proper conditions. He held up the one he had taken and scraped the root free of its branches with his knife. “Can I keep one, to study?” he asked. “Or some seeds?”
Esh listened to Pais and touched his forehead. “Our gift, friend,” he replied in his language. Neeko broke the thin branch in a few spots to fold it delicately into a pouch. The leaves still bore several seeds that would be useful for further study.
As they set out again, Neeko followed closely behind the head stock and asked him a few other questions. “How many years do your brothers and sisters live?” he asked.
“Most rest of illness. Some rest out here. When To’cani was six, she remembers a woman who had lived seventy-three years,” Esh explained. He patted the back of another stock as the man took a step back from the toil of searching the river headlands.
Neeko’s spirits fell a little. The kibroot was an intriguing discover but it was not the key to long life. Any man who cared for his health and hide could live that long. Though, even in Numa’nakres and Radregar, seventy-year-olds were rare. He rubbed the kibroot he had taken; it was a rounded rectangle in shape, with the trail of a worm etched near its bottom. It might have been one of the most unusual things he had discovered. He was getting closer—his great discovery hid in the jungles of the Elder Coast. He was certain of it.
As Pais and he followed Esh and his men, Neeko scratched the grey grizzle on his chin. The Cani had been an important step, but after studying the kibroot closer, it would be time to set out once again.