Shiver was sitting close to a woman. Palm, barely out of her adolescence. She in turn was resting against her mother’s stolid back. Shiver was eating an apple, slowly, his eyes fixed on Palm. His erection was obvious. Shiver started flicking bits of the apple at Palm; the half-chewed fragments landed at her feet, or on her lap.

Without looking at Shiver, Palm picked up the morsels and popped them in her mouth. Gradually, in silence, all but imperceptibly, Shiver moved closer to the girl, his erection dangling before him.

With a sigh, Palm folded back from her mother and lay on the ground, legs separated, her arms stretched above her head. Shiver slid over her and entered her, all in one liquid, silent movement. With a few thrusts he reached orgasm, and withdrew smoothly. Seconds later he and Palm were sitting side by side as if nothing had happened.

Stripe, the boss man, absently grooming Silverneck, had noticed none of this challenge to his status.

Shadow had watched it all. But she cared nothing for such reproductive play. Shadow’s dominance had nothing to do with the community’s traditional bonds, sex and children.

After the death of One-eye she had soon become the strongest of the women. And the men — even mighty Stripe — had learned to submit to her power. Though many of them outsized her, her naked, unbridled aggression gave her an edge in most contests. Many of the men and boys cradled hands and feet missing fingers or toes, nipped away by Shadow as an indelible mark of their defeat.

And now she had led them all far from home, far from the trees and shrubs and streams and clearings they knew, across this crimson plain — for a purpose only Shadow, in the deepest recesses of her mind, understood.

A small boy approached Shadow. He had his eyes fixed on the pile of fruit before her. His mother, Hairless, growled warningly, but he feigned not to hear. The boy grabbed his infant sister, and, pulling a twisted, funny face, began to wrestle with her. She joined in, chortling. Soon he was on top of her, making playful pelvic thrusts, and then she rolled on top of him. But every roll took them closer to Shadow’s food pile.

As soon as the boy was close enough, his hand whipped out to grab a fig. He tucked it in his mouth, immediately abandoning his play, and walked back towards his mother.

One of the women laughed at his clever deceit.

A sharpened cobble hissed through the air. It caught the boy at the top of his spine, laying open the flesh. He howled and went down. Hairless hurried forward and grabbed him. He curled up in her lap, screaming with pain, as she tended the wound.

Stripe picked up the bloody cobble, wiped it on the grass, and passed it back to Shadow.

The group sat in silence, save for the screams of the boy, which took a long time to subside.

The sun slid beneath the horizon. Light bled from the sky.

The people huddled in a close circle. The adults had their backs to the dark, with the children and infants at the centre of the circle. Without fire, without weapons that could strike at a distance save a handful of stones, these hominids were defenceless against the creatures that prowled the savannah night.

Nobody but the infants would sleep tonight. But they feared Shadow more than they feared the dark.

When the dawn came, they found that the boy who had stolen Shadow’s fig had gone. As the group moved on. Hairless, his mother, was inconsolable. She had to be half-carried by her sisters and mother, until the memory had started to fade.

At last they reached the cover of trees. This was a forest that lapped at the foot of a tall mountain range; bare rock shone high above. With relief, they slipped into the trees” shadows. Some submitted to ancient green impulses and clambered high into the trees to make nests, even though the day was not yet half over.

But Shiver, clambering high, found a nest already made. He broke it apart, hooting loudly, his fur standing on end.

Then others joined in the noise, for they began to find discarded fruit peel, and even an abandoned termite-fishing stick. They sniffed and licked these remnants; they were fresh. Others had been here, and recently.

And then, as they spread deeper through the new forest, seeking shoots and fruit-bearing shrubs and trees, a child yelled. The adults came crashing through the undergrowth to see, their hair bristling.

A small girl was standing at the edge of a clearing where a great tree had fallen; its carcass lay on the ground, surrounded by crushed bushes. The girl was facing a child a little older than she was. It was another girl, standing unsteadily, gazing back nervously.

It was in fact Tumble, Shadow’s small sister. But Shadow did not recognize her. And Tumble, even if she had remembered Shadow, would not have known this scarred creature with her grotesque fungal mask.

Shadow had come home: transformed, unrecognizable, infused with a new and deadly purpose.

It was no coincidence that the encounter had taken place so quickly. As the forest remnants had continued to shrink back, the Nutcracker-men, living in the green heart of the forest, had managed to hold their territory against the incursions of hungry Elf-folk. So the Elves had been restricted to the shrinking forest fringe, patrolling ever closer to its border with the mountains or the plain.

The little girl stepped forward, and tentatively touched Tumble’s face. Tumble nipped her finger playfully. In a moment they were rolling in the dry leaves, wrestling. When the little girl reached for Tumble’s genitals. Tumble shrank back, but then she submitted, curiously, to the gentle touch. Then they chased each other over the fallen tree trunk, and started to play together with the fallen leaves. They pushed them into great piles, and rolled in the leaves, throwing handfuls over their heads and rubbing them against their faces.

Now, on the far side of the little clearing, silent shadows flitted through the trees. They were adults, some carrying infants. Led by Stripe and Silverneck, the people stepped forward into the clearing. A loose circle of watchful adults surrounded the playing children.

Only Shadow stayed in the dark green shade.

Silverneck walked forward. She was met by a large, calm woman. She was Termite, Shadow’s mother. Cautiously, eyes locked, the women began to groom, plucking at each other’s hair. More children joined in the play on the forest floor.

The men were more tentative. They eyed each other warily and made subdued displays, showing bristling hair and waving erections.

Suddenly Shiver ran forward towards the other men. He yelled, stamped and slapped at the ground and drummed with his flat hands on a tree trunk, uttering loud, fierce calls. Then he retreated quickly to the safety of his own group.

He was imitated by a burly man from the other group. This was Little Boss. His display of strength was vivid. He hurled rocks on the ground, making them shatter, and pulled branches this way and that. Never as dominant since the death of his mentor, Big Boss, he was still a massive, powerful presence. The invading men retreated subtly, raising their fists and hooting. But Little Boss too drew back to his friends.

So it went on, with the children playing, the women grooming or making tentative sexual contact, and a display of noisy aggression by the men. But not a single punch or kick was landed, or stone thrown in earnest.

Now one small, muscular man broke out of the group and approached the woman Hairless. He was Squat, another of Shadow’s original group. He seemed fascinated by Hairless’s baldness, and he stroked her bare blue-black skin. She responded, cupping his scrotum in her hand.

Within a few minutes they had coupled, belly to belly.