Words for Wednesday -- The Tale of Embla and Bo

  These Words for Wednesday are as last week's Mark Koopmans words, but they appear at Elephant's Child's blog. We're given:

    Annihilate          and / or       Business
     Zinfandel                              Panniers
     Lozenge                                Wooden
     Pacemaker                           Thunderstruck  
     Spokes                                  Podcast
    Invoice                                  Zesty

  Thaks to both - to Mark Koopmans for producing words and to Elephant's Child for hosting amid the fires. But ... I'm so sorry, these words do not speak to me at all. They are ... too modern, too grown-up ... I don't really know. I'm sorry. 
  Anyhow. I have already written a story. Even if Wednesday is still around 5 hours away. This is a dream I have had several times now. It has been haunting me, and I had to put it into writing. I had counted on incorporating some of the words. They just do not fit. Read and see.

    Embla woke early. She could hear the young hunters whispering together and one of them suppressed a laugh. Just like they had been whispering and laughing around the fire the night before. She had to leave! She carefully braided her hair and tied it up in a net. It was not going to fly into her eyes or get stuck in branches along the way. Quickly she put on her lightest clothes, the linen bodice and the shortest skirt, and tied the light belt of horsehair; the clothes were too cold for the early spring day, but she would get warm while she ran. She hung her purse around her neck and stuffed her treasures in it. The white stone with the imprint of a leaf she had received when she became a woman. The little cap, Urd, Audunn's infant daughter had been wearing when she died in Embla's arms. And finally, the most important thing, her amulets, an amber bead and a discs of sun metal. She tied the strap around her neck and thrust the bag through her belt so that it would not hamper her while she was running.
  Embla knew the way through the marsh. She was lighter than the young hunters, she would probably get away from them. Quietly, without disturbing Ash or the other women who slept in the same tent, she slipped out. The sun was not up yet, the sky was only just reddening in the east. The nigth demons were all gone now.
Embla went to the kitchen tent. She found the bag of running-food, the odd mix of seeds, grains, herbs and fat that Barki, Bo's father was good at making. She filled her mouth, chewed and sank the spicy-greasy mass. It did not weigh the stomach, like meat and porridge, but still you could run for a long, long time before getting hungry again. She took a mouthful more, chewing thoroughly, as Barki had taught her. Then she wrapped a handful in a fresh leaf and stopped it into her purse on top of her treasures. She remembered to close the bag securely  after her.
  Embla silently sneaked down to the creek. She was shaking with cold in the crisp morning air. She could smell the smoke from the fires, the dogs sleeping just outside the settlement, and the ripe, mushy air from the marsh at the other side of the creek. The river also smelled fresh today. She waded across the creek in order to have this ordeal behind her before drinking. While her feet became hot and dry again, she rinsed her mouth with water and then drank; another of the young hunters' tricks Barki had taught her. It made the thirst subside faster and did not make the stomach cold with too much water. All her senses were awake now. She stood still and listened. The young hunters were getting up now. She could hear their soft voices. Embla listened for one of them. Oh Bo ... how she had longed for the big, silent boy, wanting  to hold  him tight. But he probably wasn't interested in her. *Such an ill-fated girl,' she heard one of them whisper to the others. The settlement had had nothing but bad luck since her arriving. Audunn's infant had died, the elk had escaped in the fall, they barely had any more food left, the Old father's eyesight had failed during the winter, and now what had happened yesterday. No she wouldn't think about it.
  Embla stiffened. More of the young hunters came out of their tent. She heard a voice over the water. "We have to take her now before she wakes up." She heard the other young hunters' affirmative sounds and morning cough. She had to leave now, before it was too late, yet she remained standing. Yes. Bo came. As usual he was the last man out of the tent. He was so slow. She loved him for it and she was annoyed by it. He never got himself pulled together. The young hunters also filled their mouths at the kitchen tent and went down to the creek to drink. Some of them went over to the women's tent. She had been waiting too long!
  Embla turned her back to the settlement and began walking along the path leading to the marsh. Faster and faster she went, the path was almost invisible in the early morning light, but Embla had walked here so many times during Urd's illness, that her feet almost knew their way by themselves. And now she could hear the hunters behind her. She started running. Behind her she heard the young hunters. They cried softly, and then began to come after her. She could hear the muted splashes of their feet as they waded through the icy waters. She could hear their quick feet on the path. She ran like she had never run before. She had to reach the marsh before them. The blood was roaring in her ears, her heart thumping, as if it were going to jump out of her chest, but the terror gave her wings, and now she was at the edge of the marsh. They had not caught up with her. She heard them shouting, not loudly, but urgently. She couldn't hear what they were saying, with the blood roaring in her ears, and she was concentrated on finding the tufts of dry grass that could could carry her weight.The young hunters couldn't catch her now and have their will with her. What did that mean by the way, Embla wondered.
  Embla jumped from one tussock to the next as swiftly as a fleeting deer. Suddenly arrows swished past over her head. She heard Bo shout, a terrible cry, Her name! He called for her!
   Embla stopped and looked up. There, in front of her, on the very island in the swamp she had counted on as her safe refuge, stood the largest female bear she had ever seen. That was the her, the young hunters had been talking about!

That realization, the bear's breath that smelled of rotten flesh, Bo's despairing cry and the unbearable pain as the bear's jaws closed around her head and its claws ripped the flesh off her ribs, melted into a twinkling darkness that engulfed her.

The young hunters' walk home from the marsh was the heaviest trip ever to have been wandered in the history of Spinewood. The 6 biggest and strongest of the young hunters went in front with the bear's giant carcass on a primitive stretcher of spruce branches and birch twigs. There 4 others carried Embla's corpse on a similar, but smaller stretcher. And in the rear Bo came stumbling along. He was of no use. He cried, groaned and pulled at his hair and clothes. Tears ran down his cheeks, wetting the front of his tunic. The tears also blinded  Bo's eyes. Already several times he had fallen, and had stayed there prostrate in the swamp, had not Sten repeatedly pulled him to his feet.
  By the time they reached the settlement, only the old people had yet awakened. Their restless bladders and stiff joints did not allow them to sleep long on a cold spring morning; they alone witnessed the return of the young hunters. At first they cried out in delight as they saw the bear. Now they had a reason to celebrate. The settlement had been liberated from a major threat and there was food for many days. But then their tired, morning-heavy eyes fell on the smaller stretcher. They saw the deject young hunters and heard Bo's wailing cries.
  "Embla" Ask cried, "is it Embla you have found? Did you kill her?"
"No, Old Mother, it's not us who killed her. It was the bear. We tried to save her, but she ran straight at the bear's den. We shouted. We ran. We tried to shoot the bear, but she was between us and the bear."
"What was she doing out there in the marsh," the Old Father asked. "Ask, it was your job to look after her."
"She went to bed early last night," Ask said belligerently. "Something or someone was bothering her. She has not been herself since Urd died from her this summer. She took the loss of that infant far too personal. She had disappeared when I woke. She must have been very quiet not to have disturbed any of us. "
"What about Bo?" the Old Father asked. As the settlement's oldest man and medical expert, he had a certain freedom of speech, and he used it now. "Had he not in mind to declare his love to her. I expected it would help."
"Yes, but you do know Bo," Sten replied, "He is always taking his time. Last night, as he had finally gotten up his courage, she had slipped from the tent just a short while earlier."

The next day, they buried Embla in the marsh next to Urd. Close to the island where they had found her not so long ago, and close to where the bear had ended her young life. Ask and Barki had washed her body, wrapped her in a worn, but perfectly respectable cloak and shawl, just as they would have done for one of their own. Bo and Barki carried the stretcher into the marsh, Ask covered her corpse with beautiful white birch branches and all the members of the tribe threw a handful of soil, a rock or an armful of leaves over the branches before they singing and lamenting walked back home through the marsh. In the evening, the entire settlement feasted on the deliciously, tender bear meat.
  Bo disappeared one night that summer, and was never seen again by human eyes.