This is set in a fictional world where humans and dinosaurs coexist. The humans aren't based on any particular real-world culture, but they are black people with golden yellow eyes.

Also, "fleshslicers" are meat-eating dinosaurs similar to Allosaurus whereas "honkers" are plant-eating duck-billed dinosaurs similar to Edmontosaurus.

The Mountain of the Ancestors

Part I

Sweat soaked Bereb's sable body and kinky black hair, and it wasn't only from the humidity. To hunt in the forest's shadowy depths was always risky even if one brought a friend like Kajito. With golden yellow eyes, Bereb surveyed the understory around him for signs of both prey and predator. Every one of his footsteps was carefully and gently placed on the spongy jungle floor to make the least amount of nose possible. He tightly gripped a spear with a jagged point carved from bone.

Kajito raised a palm as a signal to stop. "I've found dung," he whispered to Bereb.

The two hunters crouched to study a large tube of feces that sat on the ground. Mixed into the dung's brown mass were green leaf fragments and white urine. Bereb knew this meant that a large plant-eating animal had laid it. Tilting his head up from the dung, he saw trails of large three-toed footprints and trampled undergrowth.

"Honkers passed through here," he said.

"The dung's still warm," Kajito said after touching it. "They must be close."

Bereb smiled and sighed in relief. They'd been out in this forest since sunrise, and he could tell from the angle of the sunlight beams poking through the canopy that noon was coming. Finally, after the passage of so much time, they had found something.

The hunters followed the footprint trail. As they went further down it, they could make out loud bellowing over the usual jungle chorus of birds and insects. Then they could smell the overpowering stench of large animal flatulence. Bereb's nose wrinkled from the odor but he quivered with excitement inside. They were nearing the herd.

The rainforest gave way to a marshy river, and it was here that Bereb and Kajito finally saw the honkers. Most of the huge four-legged reptiles grazed on abundant horsetails with their broad bills, but a couple of young males were roaring at each other, red sacs inflating behind their nostrils. They were awesome creatures to see despite their stink and the bulls’ cacophony.

But awe was not all Bereb felt now. His anxiety quaked the spear he held. Although honkers lacked horns or spikes, they could be dangerous in certain circumstances; indeed, Bereb recalled losing an uncle to a sweep of one of these animals’ broad tails. These were not creatures for only two hunters to tackle fully grown and healthy, so he searched the herd for vulnerable juveniles.

He heard something rustle through the underbrush.

One of the honkers jerked its head out from its lunch, threw it upward, and bellowed loud enough to pierce Bereb’s eardrums. Then it and the rest of its herd turned and stampeded away into the jungle beyond the river’s opposite bank, sending waves through the water and crashing through vegetation.

“What in the ancestors’ name is going on?” Kajito asked.

Bereb was about to say he didn’t know when he felt hot air blowing against his back. His skin crawled over his muscles and his heart throbbed faster. Slowly twisting his neck to see what was behind him, he saw a large reptilian head glare down with fiery yellow eyes. Saliva dripped from its fetid mouth, which was lined with jagged ivory knives.

It was a fleshslicer. The totem of Bereb’s clan. And it was clearly hungry.

The creature lunged its gaping jaws towards Bereb, but terror sent enough energy rushing through him so he could dodge the beast’s attack. He and Kajito then burst into a sprint through the forest. The plants’ fronds scratched Bereb’s legs as he ran and the whole jungle blurred into dark green. Little time had passed by the time he could hear the fleshslicer’s two bird-like feet pounding against the dirt behind him. This stomping grew louder with each second.

Kajito hollered and then there was a thud. Looking behind him, Bereb saw that his friend had tripped on a log. This sharpened his terror even more. He spun around and raced towards Kajito but the fleshslicer beat him there. The predator pinned Kajito down against the jungle floor, its toe claws piercing his skin. Horrified, Bereb raised his spear, ready to thrust it at the monster---but then froze.

No, he couldn’t do this. The fleshslicer was his totem. To harm it in any way or deny it food would violate the law of totems and bring the ancestors’ wrath down upon him. Tears filled his eyes when he considered what this meant.

“Help me!” Kajito screamed.

Bereb just stood there. Hearing his friend’s ribs snap under the fleshslicer’s foot. Watching the beast lower its head and tear off bloody chunks from his body. Tears welled up in Bereb’s eyes as he remembered everything he had done with Kajito. But he had no choice but to let him die.

He ran away towards his village.

“Where is my son?” a gray-haired woman asked Bereb after he returned to his village of thatched huts.

Bereb recognized the woman as Kajito’s mother. Sorrow choked him too hard for him to answer her immediately.

“Something terrible happened to him, didn’t it?” she said with widening eyes.

Bereb hung his head low and finally said, “He is with the ancestors now.”

Kajito’s mother gasped. “What sent him there?”

 “Fleshslicer. I wish I could have saved him, but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

He paused again. This was going to be difficult for him to explain. “Because the fleshslicer is my clan’s totem.”

The woman’s facial muscles bunched up together into a snarl. The next thing Bereb sensed was a stick crashing against his skull.

“You fool! The law of totems does not apply in times of peril. If you had remembered that, I would still have my son!” Kajito’s mother continued assaulting him with the stick.

“Stop it, Jirupi!” It was Taro, the village’s bearded medicine man. “What on earth is going on here?”

Bereb explained what had happened to Kajito to Taro. Taro sighed and frowned. “I know your feeling, Bereb, but Jirupi is right. If a totem animal is threatening one’s life, then the law of totems doesn’t matter; one must fight back. The ancestors will understand and forgive the transgression.”

Bereb’s tears cascaded down his face. Taro embraced him.

“Do not feel too terrible about it,” the medicine man said. “You didn’t remember. But you are obligated to make up for what you’ve done.”

“I will do anything.” Bereb said.

“Then you must bring Kajito back. Go climb the Mountain of the Ancestors and summon his spirit down so that he may be brought back to life.”

Bereb gulped. He knew of the Mountain of the Ancestors, the mountain with a peak that was almost always shrouded by clouds. To get there, he would have to cross many days’ worth of jungle and climb up steep, rocky slopes. It would be arduous and dangerous. But as he gazed at Jirupi’s angry, tear-stained face, he knew he had no way out.

“I will go,” he said.

“Then may the ancestors watch over you, Bereb,” Taro replied.