As Arn twisted in the mud to catch the muscular forearm before it broke another of his ribs, he tried to think if there had been another way. He had summoned all of his hunting band before him to put a stop to their subordinate behavior, their doubts, their questions. And now he fought.
Arn shoved his attacker away and rose to his feet to face the next charge. A knife nearly buried itself in his side, instead just scraping away a few layer’s Arn’s skin. In front of all of his hunters, he’d explained his desires for a hunting watercraft. When they expressed continued angst, he’d stepped down and buried his knife in the collar of Panatt. The second of the troublemakers, Onolan, had scrambled to get away, but Arn had hamstrung him with a dive and jabbed his ribs a few times while they tumbled.
Shar had rushed forward before Arn got off the ground. The bruise that stiffened his shoulder had been sustained in that first topple, but his finger hadn’t been broken until their knife fight brought them, jarringly, against a tree trunk.
“You’ll ruin this band,” Shar hissed. He turned his head and coughed out blood from Arn’s last fist-blow.
Arn lashed forward, like a mud viper, and Shar withdrew cautiously, like a hunter. They spiralled one another as they nursed their wounds. Thalla waited with the other hunters. She had fought and defeated Shar once, but knew this was the time for Arn to do that. To prove his strength for the band.
This time, Shar jabbed his knife forward. It was a bolder move than his opponent’s, and Arn deftly grabbed his forearm as he was halfway through his side-step. Shar shoved forward to avoid a knife blade to the back. They splashed through a puddle, close enough to smell one another’s reeking breaths. Arn stabbed again, this time grazing Shar’s opposite side. All Shar could do was grimace and keep forcing his own stone knife inches from Arn’s shaven cheek. When Arn withdrew his blade to try again, Shar shoved again.
They collapsed again, tripping over one another’s feet. Shar’s blade cut a chunk of flesh and leather from Arn’s shoulder, while Arn’s blade thudded into the grass somewhere to his right side. Shar rolled away, gasping for wind.
Arn clawed through the dirt in search of his knife, rising to his knees as he moved. When he heard his rival stagger to his feet, he rose to one foot and caught Shar’s slash with both hands. Shar smashed a fist in Arn’s face, once, twice, and Arn retaliated with his kneecap, and then with his foot. Abusing the bones in his toes, he shoved Shar away. He could taste blood and mucus. The pain in his face filled his eyes with black spots. He stumbled back a pace as Shar reclaimed his feet, then raised his bare hands to protect himself. “There’s more than this,” Arn mumbled through the blood in his mouth. “Razaad is our start.”
Shar moved forward with a shuffle. “Your purpose is to hunt. Nothing more,” he replied. Had he held back when he fought Thalla? Or had Arn lost too much of his physique recovering from his fight with Garem?
When Shar came for him again, Arn caught hold of the warrior’s knife hilt. With a plummeting elbow, he fractured something in the other man’s hand and caught hold of the weapon. Shar cried out and Arn managed a quick slash with the blade. He felt a tug on his own finger, for he had not gained a proper hold on it, but Shar reeled away fanning blood through the air. Arn had caught his chest and shoulder.
The hot, humid air of Razaad filled Arn’s eyes with sweat as he tried to examine his bleeding finger. One finger sliced, another broken. The least of his injuries.
Thalla’s voice screeched, “Arn!” Shar shoved him bodily, and Arn was knocked through the air. He hit the ground hard and rolled. His broken rib, sustained earlier, filled his side with agony and he found himself staring at a small grey shrub. He shoved himself off of his chest and rolled aside while Shar stumbled after him.
The other warrior’s tunic was cut in half and a long gash in his chest bled down his torso. “I’ll kill you,” Shar gasped. An attempted kick to Arn’s side was blocked by Arn’s good hand, but the hunting chief cried out and hid his hand wincing. Shar dropped from his staggered stance, driving his knee down into Arn’s torso. Arn shouted in pain, his eyes seeing nothing but blinding white and red.
He lost a few moments, perhaps to the sleep of injury, but then he was back and Shar was wresting the knife out of his fingers, while pinned the hunter to the mud. Arn raised his other hand and punched Shar in the pectoral, coming away red with Shar’s wounded blood. The other hunter grunted and sprawled off of Arn to get away from the pain.
Arn could barely breathe still. He looked around—where was Thalla? It was clear that this fight was not the win it should be. The other hunters held her back. They wanted to see if Arn had the strength to win without his loyalists. But Arn had already killed all of Shar’s loyalists—did that not show his strength?
The chief hunter took just one trembling, troubled breath. He couldn’t stand, and he couldn’t reach either of their discarded knives.
Shar came forward again, mumbling wordless curses and nursing his chest wound. He raised his foot to stomp Arn again, but Arn’s pent up air gave him the strength to grab that sandal before it ended him. With all his strength, he twisted Shar’s foot. It took his weight to, and he fell onto his side as he turned that bastard’s leg into a gnarled, twisted mathhar root. Shar screamed as his limb was twisted, as it broke. He fell backwards, screeching.
Arn’s chest was the collapsed hut over his dead sister. Arn’s breath was the uneven, chaotic lapping of the Deep. Arn’s victory was as distant as Scoa, a rocky vision on the edge of the horizon, begging him to find it. He lay in the mud and went to sleep, for in his dreams he could find such phantom hopes and believe in their reality. At least he was able to defeat the noise of Shar’s moaning and achieve unconsciousness.