They prepared themselves for the coming dance.
Storm stared blindly at the spectacle in front of her. Dozens of young girls, future Amazon warriors, danced wildly around a circle made by the tables on which the meal was served. All the different members of the tribe sat eating and watching the mad frenzy.
Droplets of sweat flung off the bodies; lit from behind by the dancing flames of the giant bonfire they seemed to become momentary bursts of liquid fire flinging out over the watchers before disappearing into the cavern beyond. Over and over the dancers swept, twirled and jumped around the flames until even their shadows seemed to materialize and dance with them. The sweaty pounding of the drums beat almost randomly but their rampant flailing coalesced together seemingly in some bizarre pattern set into the thrumming of a thousand different drums.
Storm sat next to her faithful friend Mei Ling, the pair continued moving a strangely familiar set of twigs and stones around in the space between them and gesturing wildly. Their words were drowned by the ever-present drums. Numerous eyes flickered between them and the dancing some just stared outright. They all knew the stakes of the women’s “game”.
Drums pounded louder and louder, until their cacophony filled the cavern with sound. The conjoined beats were coming more frequently, filling the cavern with their paralyzing thunder. Even the shadows seemed more real as the dancers appeared to be fighting them off. Now all eyes were turned to the dancers, focused on the strange ballet being performed just feet from them.
A moment occurred then, just a single, amazing thing that happened to the world in the blink of an eye. For one single moment carved out of the purest crystal imagine-able the dancers and their shadows seemed to switch places. One moment the young girls were fending off shadow attacks and then only the shadows remained.
The goddess had arrived.
In that one moment the entire tribe was unified in mind and soul and that was the point at which they joined with their divinity. A strange calm made of the deadliest steel a human had in them took over. There was a vibration to the world, as though a string ran through everything and it had been plucked.
The world made a strange and terrible kind of sense. They all knew that some of them would surely die but it didn’t matter, they would all die in the cause of their life. Ultimately they would prevail, their children would live on, carry on the Amazon way. They would surely triumph in the end.
Storm got up and joined the dancers. Mei Ling joined her followed by Sarah and then several others. The cavern was suddenly filled with trilling music as though an orchestra of flutes was awakening.
That was the last thing anyone remembered.
Red Daemon 