The taste of blood filled Arn’s mouth as he bit his lip. He cursed, loudly, and pressed his tongue to the spot. Joroth looked at him cautiously, pausing with a slice of roasted wing hovering near his mouth. Arn’s temper had been more severe than the morning’s rainstorm all day. Everyone around him knew it.
A drop of grease sizzled in the cookfire between him and the other members of the tribe’s leadership, sending a trail of smoke into the air along with a boiling hiss. Arn spat blood-tainted spittle into the embers in its midst, and then continued tearing at the tough meat held in his fingers. He looked to his right, as he chewed. At the next cookfire sat his other brothers and sisters, barring Keeya. He saw Ratha—Little Rat watching him and gave her the smallest smile. She raised a small clay vessel to him and then took a sip from him. Arn’s mother, seeing the interaction, started to scowl and Arn glared into the cookfire near his folded knees again.
Logern cleared his throat. “Work is going well,” he announced.
“That’s something, at least,” Arn muttered. He glanced at Logern just long enough to see that Thalla was looking at him, sitting cross-legged a few seats between them. It had been more than a week since their encounter in the forest, and her demand. “One of you have been doing your job.”
“Joroth and the builders have been a great help,” Logern said.
Arn ran his tongue along the sore spot in his mouth and furrowed his eyebrows. “Good,” he said, through clenched teeth.
Keeya ran loose fingers through her hair. “Despite my worries, the crafting band has not suffered amply from—”
“Enough.”
Arn’s words hung in the air for a moment and the crackling flames filled the silence, along with the hubbub from other cookfires. His band chiefs all stared at him. Arn slid the metal sword off his back and placed it in the dirt in front of him. Then he looked across the fire at Thalla, locking eyes with his old friend. “Enough. Your hunting band is a wreck. And the damned nerve you have to refuse the training I’ve demanded for the band.”
“The training…?” Thalla murmured, as all eyes focused on her. They had never spoken of this.
“Scoa is more dangerous than Razaad,” he explained, making it sound like the hundredth time he’d told her. “I’m done listening to your insubordination and your resistance. Take your sandals and leave my fire.”
While he spoke, Thalla gave him the smallest nod. She understood now—he was doing what she wanted in the only way to save himself face. “Arn?” she asked, her voice dripping with distress. “I can reconsider—I’ll heed your orders.”
Arn grabbed the sword hilt where it shone in the firelight and rose to his feet. A few others tensed and Logern rose to one knee. “You’re done,” he told Thalla, quivering. “Tomorrow I will choose a new hunter chief, one who’s not a fool.”
“No,” Thalla said, climbing to her feet.
Arn blinked. Was she changing her mind? There were two options—either she really wanted to make this change with as little damage to Arn’s status as possible, or she had changed her mind. It was rather late for telling him that. “No?” he asked.
He scuffed a log in the fire and scattered embers across his chiefs as he charged across their circle, slamming into Thalla with his forearm against her collar. She fumbled for a weapon, but he struck it aside with his knee while it was still at her waist. With a slam that shook the wooden wall, he pinned her against the nearby building. While the noisy chaos of the tribe’s reaction drowned out their voices, he whispered, “What are you doing?”
“I’ve watched enough hunters die to you,” she breathed, struggling against him. “Hit me. Make it look good. Crush their resistance. I’ll recover, but you won’t have to.”
Arn held his breath. He had cared for her as his friend. He had wanted her, and then he had had her. He was a man driven by goals, but he had attained his goals, and in their absence was loneliness, anger, betrayal, and all the pain he had endured to get there. And he had thought of her daily when he survived beyond Razaad. The tribe flocked to surround the two of them in a semicircle of attention. Arn held Thalla with an arm while his metal sword dangled at his side, his flat, scarred face whistling as he finally let out his breath into her gasping mouth.
“Fine,” he said, quietly. To her only. He took a step back from her, pulling back his hand to strike her. What has happened to me? he wondered. A year ago, he would have never thought of hurting Thalla but now had he driven her to ask for it?
His backhand sent her sprawling, and he felt the sting on the knuckles. She clambered over a clump of grass, her hands squelching the mud underneath. Arn’s legs stomped toward her, and easily avoided her attempted kick. I’ve never seen this happen, he realized. This was not the village war, as they called it. This was not the game. He kicked her in the side, flipping her onto her back. He denied his tears a place to flow as he stepped after her again. She attempted to punch his gut as she scrambled onto one knee, but ended up clutching his shirt as he sidestepped. A swing of the sword’s blunt end welted her arm out of the way, and he kneed her in the bowed forehead.
The ringing in Arn’s ears wouldn’t let up. He saw the gaping faces of those around him, the horror on many of their faces. Where was Little Rat? Hiding? He saw Keeya, staring at him with raised eyebrows and a damned smirk on her face.
“Raah!” His wordless cry of anger at his sister’s nerve drove him to his knees, straddling Thalla’s heaving abdomen. She had fought back against many a fiercer duel than this. He lifted the sword over head and stabbed it down into the mud a foot from Thalla’s shoulder. She stared, though blood from her nose has spilled upward into her left eyelashes. She pressed her hands against him, trying to push him off. Even her hardest punches rung on the periphery of her assailant’s senses. Arn puffed for breath, but there wasn’t any. She had done this. She had turned him into something that Stone Spear had never dreamed of, that even Arn had never dreamed of.
He struck her in the jaw with one fist, and cried out for her. They could have been lovers. She could have helped him lead the tribe. But to step down from chieftain—she’d never be anything again. And Arn would be secure as the leader, the monstrous leader…
Thalla coughed, blood filling her mouth. “Enough,” she gagged, “I’m done…”
Arn had his hands wrapped around her throat already. He couldn’t let go. How would he look at her again? How could he face her after this? Tomorrow or a year from now? Tears had filled his eyes, somehow, as blood veins had filled hers. He couldn’t look any longer. As she struggled, he looked away from her sight—and saw Ratha near the corner of the crowd.
At the corner of the building, his little sister stood like the rodent she was often endearingly compared to. Tears were running down her cheeks, and her mouth hung open in a daze. She was not looking at him, but at some unimaginable creature from the Deep. Whatever had returned from Scoa.
“No,” Arn whimpered and released Thalla. He shoved off her, slamming his back against the shaky wall again. Thalla twisted away, heaving for breath and coughing hoarsely. Joroth dropped to his knees and put her hands on Thalla’s shoulders, as though he could help her somehow.
Arn stared up at the stars for a moment. His sight was blurry with shimmering water and the glow of firelight. He clenched the muscles in his thighs and his ankles until he was standing against the wall instead of sitting there. This was the monster that would defeat the tribe on Scoa. This was the creature that would conquer the Deep. He strangled the handle of the metal sword, unsheathing it from the surface of Razaad. And he stepped over Thalla’s contorted legs as he walked toward the campfire again.