Once again, Arn was training in the swamplands of Razaad. Since his return to the island after Scoa, he had grown his muscle mass substantially and each blow of his training staff smashed off an aged mathhar trunk with a thud. His metal sword lay nearby, wrapped in a scaly animal hide to protect from the elements—he trained with it sometimes, but it used control, not muscle strength, and he wanted both. He rotated around the tree as he trained, practicing his footwork in the moss and soft mud, scaring away any critters that ventured close enough.
He saw them coming early, thanks to his movement around the tree. Two men were walking down the slope with spears; they approached quiet-like, through the damp woodland. Arn continued training, paying them notice. He turned his back to them in his next rotation, but made certain he was facing them when they got closer.
Abin was a hunter, Arn remembered, but he could only recognize the other as a familiar face from the fishing band. They moved slowly, but paused as they got close. Arn paused, sucking in his breath and wiping sweat away from his forehead with a scrap of cloth. He glanced at the fur-wrapped sword, but then reached for a water bladder a few paces away. After a quick drink, he asked them, “Did you two need my advice on something?”
“Nothing,” Abin said. “Just out for a hunt.”
Arn shrugged. “Don’t let me get in the way, then.”
“Oh, but you are,” said the other, sneering. The man had a few marks on his forearms, likely from fishing hooks or shock stinger burns. The spear looked like it was right at home in his scarred hands.
Arn scooped up the pack with his supplies and muttered, “You want this? Then we return to the village first.” He reached for his sword next, pretending to still collect his things. Sweat from his intense training still dripped down his brow and his muscles ached angrily.
“Ah-ah-ah,” Abin said, placing his spear butt in the dirt, blocking the weapon.
Arn stared at the two of them, Scar Hands and Abin, and let out a long sigh. “Oh, you damned cowards,” he muttered, and put a knuckle in Abin’s eye socket while using his left hand to shove the spear out of the way. His wooden training staff shook Scar Hands’ predictable jab a-kilter.
As Abin stumbled back, grasping his eye, Arn leapt back from the arching retaliation swing. Scar Hands moved quickly to step back a pace and adjust the momentum of his spear. The next thrust forced Arn to block more solidly, giving Scar Hands even more time to ready his next stab. This time, Arn deftly sidestepped and lashed out with his blunt staff to put Scar Hands on the defensive.
Then Abin came roaring in, one eye swollen shut, and his spear grazed Arn’s forward stumbling dodge, drawing blood from the top of his shoulder. Arn just kept moving forward, leaving Abin behind. Swing after swing toward Scar Hands’ arms and face pushed the stranger back toward the foliage.
When Scar Hands bellowed with frustration and thrust furiously toward Arn’s chest, Arn released his pole. He swung easily out of the way and put his shoulder into the fisherman’s ribs. When Scar Hands tumbled away, through a thorny bush and into a sinking puddle, he didn’t bring his spear with him. Arn changed his direction as swiftly as the shoulder impact was done. His hands clasped the fumbled spear from midair and rammed it into Abin’s approaching thigh. The man screeched, falling crookedly to one knee. The weapon went with him. Arn struck him with a backhand fist, his knuckles dislocating the man’s gaping jaw and sending him facedown into the mud.
Scar Hands came barrelling out of the brush slashing the air with a pair of stone knives. Arn stepped back, pace after pace. Each time Scar Hands managed to get close, Arn would pivot aside, spinning on his heel. Abin kept screaming, trying to get the spear out of his hip.
Scar Hands’ swift assault would finally lag, and when it did, Arn was ready. Scar Hands stepped on the discarded water-skin, and his next swing went too far left. Arn grabbed the man’s forearm and swung him bodily to the side. With all his might, the tribe’s leader smashed Scar Hands off the old mathhar tree, riddling his back with twigs and bark. The big fisherman rolled in the mud and came up to one knee. But Arn was already approaching again, metal sword in hand. As though to protect his face, Scar Hands swung up his right knife—the left hung limply in his fractured arm—and Arn slashed his fingers off. The man fell to his face, clutching his hand and hollering in pain. Arn drove his sword through the back of the man’s neck, drowning the moss with red.
“Please.” Abin grovelled in the dirt nearby, bloodied hands wrapped around the spear head. He had already lost too much of his life force; it surrounded him like a horrid marsh. He reached toward Arn, a weak, final effort. “Please.”
“Who put you two together?” Arn asked, crouching onto the balls of his feet. “Who planned this?”
“I… swore…” Abin muttered. In a rush of forced syllables: “I swore I wouldn’t.”
Arn pursed his lips and stared at the man’s eyes until they fluttered. Abin’s panting breath was fading, and he sank lower into the red mud. “Please… the Blood Well.”
“The worms,” Arn replied, quietly, and watched the top of Abin’s head drift lower still. He would not give either of them a proper rest. And he wouldn’t even tell anyone they were out here. He wiped blood splatter away from his hands and shins and stained blade. It troubled him little that not all of the tribe shared the agreement of their goals—they had all agreed in public, and that was enough.
Arn dismissed his training ground as he strode toward the settlement again. He would just need to find another. There were only a few weeks, before their crossing to Scoa, and a fight in the forest meant nothing right now.