Echoes of wooden impacts and dull, metal clangs rose over the swamplands of Razaad. Arn had found a secluded spot to do his training, and he spent hours each day sparring with hands, spear, and sword. His opponents were rigged up trees with scale hide sacks crammed with reeds and leaves.
A drop of sweat slid into his eye, and Arn let his spear thrust veer off point. He jabbed it into the dirt and rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead. He panted. Taran had spoken bold words, even if they had not been threats. Arn would train himself to the bone to be ready.
Wind whistled through his nose-less nostrils. He was trying to get better at breathing that way, but it took more strength for less air and he soon continued to pant through his mouth.
He grabbed his spear again, but froze when a twig broke nearby.
It was Thalla, walking through the puddles and ponds. She used her own spear to part a line of tall grass and begin the slope towards Arn. “How’d you find me?” he asked, still panting.
“I followed you,” she said. That meant she had been out there for nearly an hour, resting or thinking or just watching him training. She strode up the hill without further comment. She had bound her raggedy brown hair behind her head with a strand of cloth, but her loose fur shirt pranced as she jaunted over a large rock.
“Did you see anyone else?” Arn asked, jabbing his spear into the dirt again. He glanced quickly at his other supplies, to make certain his metal sword was safe.
Thalla shrugged and tossed aside her spear. “I made certain there was no one else.” Without another word, she pulled the shirt over her head, blind for a moment to Arn’s wandering eyes until the small collar squeezed over her bound hair. She tossed the garment aside and stepped closer to him.
He stammered, “What are you doing?” He’d seen her shirtless before, but not coming toward him in such a way.
“What you wanted,” she murmured. She pressed her cheek against his, though he could feel her grimacing at the rough texture of scar tissue. She took his hand and started to guide it up the bumps of her ribs, but Arn drew away from her.
“If you don’t want to, then don’t…” Arn whispered.
Thalla looked at his eyes once, but then looked down again. She grabbed the hem of his short and pulled it over his head. He had scars a-plenty on his torso, but she didn’t seem to mind those as much. She touched his angular abdomen and then shoved him back toward the tree he’d been beating. A bird broke through the leaves a dozen feet away and fled away into the sky.
When Thalla stepped closer again, Arn grabbed her hands and twisted them out of the way to press his head against hers once more. She fumbled with the sinew string that held his pants cinched around his waist. When she tried to pull him toward the mossy earth, he shoved her roundabout and against the tree. He knew she didn’t want him, she loathed his monstrous face. Their union wouldn’t be a loving embrace, but a fight.
When they was done and pressed together, sticky with sweat, against the pulp of a bark-less mathhar tree, Arn panted through his mouth. Little bumps rose along her calloused skin as his breath brushed down the front of her torso. He stepped back and grabbed his shirt from where it hung in a brambly bush and pulled it over his head.
Thalla still leaned against the tree, white and naked against the dark swamp surroundings. It had likely been more rough than she expected, but she hadn’t wept or fought against him. At moments, he had caught her smiling. But she never looked him in the face, not until now. “Now you’ll let me step down from the hunting band,” she said, eyes locked on his.
Arn inhaled sharply. “I—”
“You will, Arn,” she said. She had given him what he wanted, and now expected the same. Some thought such manipulated morality could corrupt the tribe, but then dismissed it as ‘wit’ if the deed was murder instead.
Arn shrugged. “That’s permanent; this was a moment.” He smirked and added, “Or several.”
Her blank expression broke into a quick smile, but it was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. She eyed him as she pulled her leather pants back up from where they had bunched below her knees.
“So we will do this again?” Arn asked. It had not been his first time, but it had been his first as an adult.
Thalla looked at his face again. He still couldn’t read her expression. She looked away, looked down, and sighed. Then she grabbed her fur shirt and her spear out of the mud and marched away through the forest. Arn took another deep breath through his nostrils and let it out in a whistle.