The beginnings

They were times when humans lived in clans and nomadic life was still common. They were times when hunting and agriculture went hand in hand, when the land belonged to everyone and no one, when possession was as changeable as the wind. They were times when instinct was the first and most important of the senses, when knowing how to listen to it or not was the second thing that separated life from death. They were times when the wild merged with the monstrous and the beautiful, when the gaze of the other barely existed. They were times when individual worth was based on one's social contribution. Times when rules did exist, but we do not know them.

It was in that world that the protagonists of this story lived, a story that was never recorded because cave paintings are misinterpreted and papyri did not yet exist. In that prehistoric Hispania, inhabited by human beings who had arrived from the great Africa, the cradle of humanity, skins were mostly dark, but the different migrations and genetic adaptation to environmental changes had created a diversity that, even today, would seem dreamlike to us: dark skins with light eyes, eye colors that no longer exist, families that do not resemble one another, hair snow-white from birth.

An individual's worth depended on their capacity for survival and adaptability. In essence, this has not changed much. Today it may be more macabre and sugar-coated.

The ability to generate resources and defend them was essential for survival. Thus hunters, farmers, builders and healers were those who attained greater favor within the clans.

Each clan, tribe or small society had its own unwritten rules, and its prosperity was based on them.

Our main character, the great hunter, arrived in that world. Capriciously, and with the sole purpose of referring to him from now on, we will call him Gal-Al-Jant, or Gal in abbreviated form, which in the peninsular languages of the time meant the hunter of the north. Obviously, and as we have already explained, this is an invented name, since no written record of his existence has remained.

Gal, who came from the windy lands of the north, had olive skin covered with hair almost as amber as the color of his eyes and his curly mane, which he usually wore in a large Suebian knot at the crown of his head. His face, more angular and feline, resembled that of a wolf more than the rounder, more generous features that were considered attractive at that time. His body was strong, elastic, powerful, of a height considerably above average. His smell was intoxicating. At times, it became unbearable even to himself.

Gal arrived in the southern lands fleeing the disputes that had devastated the northern tribes. His plan was to live alone for as long as he could. He lived apart in the mountains, surrounded by wolves, hunting and eating from the trees, dwelling in caves, taking by force what he believed to be his.

That is how his li...