Although Arn wasn’t wearing his face paint, he moved quietly and with the calculation required to track the water scales. This time he wasn’t hunting animals, he was navigating the foliage behind the village. But the hunt was most definitely on. Arn had only armed himself with his dagger for it was not a fearsome animal he hunted today. No, today was the day he had planned.
The foliage gave way to a mud and wood wall, the back wall of one of the village’s huts. It’s looming steeple blocked out the sun with thatching and partially muted the clunk of rocks striking each other. On the front of the structure, its inhabitant would be beating scale leather to smooth it. The house itself would be empty, Arn assumed, as he knelt below its rear window. He peaked inside. The wooden planks that kept the mud and bugs from infesting the space were empty save a wooden bench, a pair of hammocks, and a few other furnishings. On the bench, a makeshift table, rested a pot of cooling stew. Steam was still rising from it filling Arn’s nostrils with the smell of fish and galangal root.
Arn slid over the window sill. Though he wore a dark mantle, his tanned, bare arms and sides caught a ray of sunlight that made it through the tall grass outside, and he worried for a moment he might be spotted from the open curtain at the front entrance of the hut. In the shadows below the window sill, Arn waited until he knew all was quiet. He snatched a small vial from his belt, unhooking the bone piece that held it there.
It was not all of his ashroot venom, but it was enough. He poured the contents into the stew and returned through the open window, as smoothly as wind through the reeds. As he passed through, he removed another item from his belt, a small wooden pin with a stone shard at its head. The hair pin landed on the corner of a wooden floorboard.
Fifteen minutes later, Arn finished his return journey through the foliage. He picked up the rabbit he had killed the day before, slung it over his shoulder with a fur strand, and marched back into town nonchalantly.
It was midday. The hazy clouds over Razaad blocked out the sun, save its yellowish aura, but it had not rained yet. Arn hadn’t eaten yet, so he carried the rabbit to one of the village’s central campfires and proceeded to skin it. A few others were there preparing similar meals, while many of the higher ranking tribes-people had their own cook-fires in or near their homes. If Arn was in charge of these people, he would use a rock furnace—like the one devised by Jorik the Embalmer—to keep communal fires burning perpetually. There was no sense wasting animal oil to get a good heat every day.
“Did you hear?” asked Thalla, walking up. Good, she’s here, Arn thought.
“What?”
Thalla sat down next to him, and poked the rabbit fur. He had already skewered the critter and set it against the fire. The pink flesh was starting to darken. “Stone Spear and hunting chief Torr were hunting this morning and spotted another moon spirit near the sky, crossing the Deep.” She was wearing a pair of leather trousers and a curtain of beads dangled from a wooden ring around her neck—despite the lack of the sun, it was a hot day, and Arn envied her breathing garb.
Arn frowned at her words. Though they had no other words for such things, he had never accepted the beliefs of Stone Spear, Jorik, and their ilk. Those were not moon spirits, with their big white crescents, out on the distant ocean. They were something else. Arn suspected they were people, as real as he and Thalla. He poked his cooking rabbit, but grease still dripped out and steamed in the ashes. Jorik and Logern—the tribe’s chief fisherman—had never been able to devise a type of raft to survive the high waves of the Deep, so they remained coastal fishers.
“I suppose they think it’s omen,” Arn said, dryly, after a few moments of thought.
Thalla nodded. “Stone Spear is speaking with Jorik now, to divine its meaning.” She pulled a folded leather pouch from her scale leather pants, and proceeded to eat a few berries from within it.
Arn stood up. He knew it wouldn’t be long the result of his earlier actions came to light, and he didn’t want to be caught next to Thalla when it did. He snatched his crisped rabbit from the fire’s edge, and said, “I’m splitting this with Keeya.” His older sister.
“Oh,” Thalla said. “Will you be here this evening?”
“Maybe,” Arn said. Most of the tribe gathered on a nightly basis in the wide square in the midst of all their huts. Rabbit in hand, he left the town centre and followed the adjacent trail toward his hut. But he didn’t go there. For the second time that day, he doubled back on his own tracks. He kept himself from view of the square, but listened carefully for the inevitable shouting.
And it began just as he predicted.
“Thalla!” shouted Ollinar. Arn briskly walked toward the square, knowing he would no longer catch any attention. All of it would be elsewhere. “Is this your hair pin?” the hunter demanded loudly. He was Torr’s right hand, a man of physical stature and social status.
“Calm down. I couldn’t find that this—” Thalla’s words were interrupted, as Arn came into sight of the scenario. Ollinar had grabbed her by the throat, and hauled her closer to one of the fires, his face as red as hers was growing.
Arn drew his dagger, though there were still ten villagers between him and their struggle. One or two hunters were there, with no intent of intervening. This was a private struggle, until shown otherwise. A handful of the village women were talking, some asking what Ollinar was doing and why.
“She killed my mother!” he shrieked and lowered her toward the fire. Thalla was a rare woman in the tribe though. Her knee rose sharply into Ollinar’s gut. He lost his balance, and the two crashed into the cook-fire. Ashes and sparks scattered as the two rolled out, across the mud. Singed, Ollinar reached his feet first, while Thalla gasped for breath and patted a flame out of her hair. Her bead covering had been torn, scattering beads and revealing muddied skin. “Why would you do this?” Ollinar panted.
Arn stepped through the crowd of onlookers quietly. Almost time. He could only act when it seemed like saving his friend, not a political play. The hunt was almost done.
“I didn’t do that,” Thalla gasped, rolling onto all fours. She was unarmed, but was visibly searching her surroundings for a weapon. It would have been too late though—Ollinar pulled out the machete from a belt scabbard at his hip and strode in for vengeance.
Arn slashed at the hunter’s wrist first, charging into the open space of their struggle with a roar. His knife caught the base of Ollinar’s palm instead. Blood flashed before Arn’s eyes as he passed in front of the ambushed warrior. The machete landed in the mud with a soft thud and Arn spun to face his adversary.
Ollinar had enough time to curse, but not enough time to reach for his weapon. Arn strode in, and lashed out with his knife. His adversary stepped back, and the thrust fell short. The larger man’s offhand fist swung over Arn’s head, opening another opportunity for attack. This time, his thrust dagger had enough length to reach flesh, but its speed was stopped suddenly. Ollinar’s cut hand had grabbed his forearm, with the speed of the renowned hunter he was.
Before Arn could use his weight or his own free hand to pry himself free, Ollinar spun him across the mud. The smaller hunter flailed as he skidded across the dirt. Gripping his dagger, he rose to one knee… and found Ollinar’s charging mass right there. No matter how he angled his blade, he was only rewarded with a slash on the man’s thigh before the other hunter slammed a fist across Arn’s face and sent him reeling into the mud once again.
This time, he could taste blood in his mouth and dribbling down from his nose. He scrambled up onto his hands and knees, but was instantly pressed into the dirt again by a sharp pointed knee. Ollinar descended on Arn, and wrapped his neck in the crook of his left arm. With screaming muscles, Arn’s head was pulled back, arching his spine and suffocating him. He gasped for air but could only taste blood.
His knife lay on the ground in front of him, but his fingers dug the dirt loosely. Distantly, he could hear shouting. “Get off him!” shrieked Thalla, and then, in Arn’s fading peripherals, he saw her tumble through the mud from a blow from Ollinar.
Then, Arn’s groping fingers found purchase on the handle of his dagger and he arched it back over his head with all his might. Ollinar leapt off of him with a shout of agony and Arn rolled away as fast as he could. On his knees, Arn saw Ollinar wiping blood from his scalp. On his feet, Arn looked down at the injured man.
Blood was running freely over the other hunter’s nose and left eye, from a deep gouge in his forehead. The big hunter’s dark hair was thrown back, and his teeth clenched. Despite the flow of red, Ollinar climbed to his feet once more.
Arn spat blood to the side. Thalla was propped up by her elbow, looking dazed and gasping for breath from whatever blow the hunter had given her. The onlookers were as silent as the exhausted fighters; the crowd had grown, but everyone was waiting to see the result.
Arn lifted his dagger to the side and readied himself for Ollinar’s inevitable charge. The big man roared incoherently and dashed forward, while Arn kept his knife back, out of the way. The other warrior grabbed his torso, bodily, and drove him back into the wall of a nearby hut. The wooden boards cracked and Arn’s back was rewarded with splinters and pain. His dagger was still free though, as he had planned. He lifted it over his head and drove it down into Ollinar’s shoulder. Once, twice—they were falling to the dirt now—three times, four. Blood spurted all over them both, and the hunt was at last over.
After he had caught his breath, Arn climbed off of the hunter, and pulled his tunic off over his head. The back of it was torn, but not bloodied, so he used it to clean himself off. Thalla had climbed up to her knees, he saw. Half-naked and covered with mud, she was also spitting out blood, but she nodded to him gratefully. He looked down as he continued cleaning himself up. There was blood on his forearm and he hurriedly checked to see if he had been injured there too, but it was just Ollinar’s blood from the first time he had grabbed Arn.
“What was that about?” Torr asked, striding into the opening. “My right-hand hunter is dead.”
“He attacked Thalla,” Arn said. “I defended her.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Thalla called, her voice hoarse. “You almost died, and it wasn’t your fight.”
“Well, did you poison Ollinar’s mother?” Arn asked.
She shook her head. “I swear it.”
Torr was frowning. “Well, that was a good fight, at any rate. You earned a couple more planning turns on our hunts, I’d say.”
Arn nodded. “Great,” he said, still panting for breath. He grabbed Ollinar’s machete out of the dirt and gave it a loose swing. It was a good weapon, and his now.
Thalla walked with him as they left the town square a few moments later. “Thanks,” she said, quietly. “Probably saved my life. I’ll see you tomorrow, make certain you’re not hurting too much.”
Arn shrugged. “I’m well enough,” he said. He felt a few droplets of water on his bare back. The rain would be good, it would wash him clean easier than going up to the water spring would. He had succeeded, despite the difficulty of the fight. Thalla would follow his advice now, and Torr had recognized Arn’s skill as an added bonus. He smiled a little, as he walked through the village.