“You asked for me,” Arn said, leaning against the shaky wooden wall and staring at a round clay pot. A vine of teba smoke rose along the opposite wall of Jorik’s hut and lost itself among the herbs tied along the rafter.
Though he hadn’t asked a question, Thalla gave him an answer. “I did,” said she.
For a moment, they filled the healer’s hut with uncomfortable silence. It was commendable teamwork, Arn thought. He must have smirked, because he heard a sigh from her.
“Tell me about the plan for Scoa.” Her voice was a little hoarse.
“Why?” Arn asked. He glanced at her; Thalla sat on the corner of a cot, her knees crossed to support her stiffly straight back. Her face had yellow and purple shades over the side of it and her eyes, her eyes were looking at his—he looked away quickly.
“Because I want to know. It concerns the tribe and I believe in your leadership,” she said, quietly.
Arn rubbed his forehead, scratching away grains of salty sweat. She might have been the only one to believe in that, he thought, recalling the two killers who had come for him in the forest. He had told no one of it. “There will be three rafts—I will be in charge of one, Taran in charge of another, and Logern the third.”
“How many warriors? How many people?”
“One quarter of the hunters, one quarters of the fishers, a dozen builders.” Arn couldn’t smell the teba anymore. He knew what it was only by the violet grey of the smoke. He inhaled deeply, wondering if the teba could still affect him even without the scent.
“That’s a lot,” she said.
“Might need more,” Arn said, quietly. He looked down at his sandals. His toes, stained with mud and sometimes bruised, clenched against the leather soles. “Might send a raft back to bring others.”
“Why?” asked Thalla.
“To bring more.”
“No,” she clarified. “Why are you going? Really?”
“Really?” he repeated. He looked at her again. Her bruised cheek made it hard to even see the shape of her face, and he jerkily looked away once more. “We’re going—”
“Arn,” she said, interrupting him. She stirred. Animal cloth crinkled and floorboards creaked and Arn felt fingers touch his forearm. His skin tightened, lifting hairs, and he shivered. “Look at me,” she said, sternly.
He forced himself to face her.
Thalla lowered her face and looked at him pointedly from under her eyebrows. A small scar obstructed one. “I told you to do this,” she told him. “I can go back to doing what I want with my life and you maintain your position of strength.”
“I went too far. I lost control.”
“I told you too,” she whispered and shook him urgently. “If it helps, I can say I forgive you.”
Despite himself, Arn asked, “Do you?”
“Arn,” she said, “I forgive you.”
The rest of the conversation felt as wispy as the teba smoke. Arn told her, “We’re going for the food, for the knowledge, and for triumph over the Deep that has kept us at bay for all past generations,” and when she asked who he would leave in charge, he said, “Joroth.” Arn felt a lightness after a few moments of conversation, and asked if he could get her anything before he left. She asked only that he gently itch a spot in her back. Touching the bumps of her ribs again made him think of their joining in the woodland.
When Arn left, the clouds had finally let some sunshine slip through. It had been a grey morning, and judging from the western horizon, would be an equally dim evening. He started down the slope into the rest of the town and passed Jorik, sitting on a rock and grinding green plant petals in a mortar. He paused and stared at Jorik. “You get an apprentice yet?” he asked.
The Embalmer shrugged. “I have not.”
“You’re coming to Scoa,” Arn declared.
“I know,” Jorik said, quietly. He didn’t look up. “The craftswomen know a lot of my healing tricks.”
Arn kept walking. An old, wrinkled man was working on a length of rope, wrapping sinew together. He spotted Arn and gave him a nod. Joroth and a group of four others were making crates in the center of town to bring along to Scoa—it seemed everyone was doing something to help prepare for the crossing. “Good work, Joroth,” Arn said, with a wave, and he continued up the next slope toward his own hut.
The vines on the side of his hut were growing stronger now than he had ever seen them. Jorik and he had buried Stone Spear’s remains in the soil of the cave beneath the hut, after giving his heart to the Blood Well of course. Maybe it was Stone Spear’s strength that grew the vegetation more lushly. Arn pulled aside the entry flap and stepped inside.
Someone stepped up behind him. With a lurching sidestep, Arn moved aside for the prick of a knifepoint against the back of his shoulder. He grabbed the weapon and yanked it out of his assailant’s hands with an aggressive twist. It was a woman’s voice that called out, and the attacker went down on one knee as Arn towered over her.
With panting breath, Arn stared at his sister, Ratha. He glanced at the knife, its point dripping with a tiny line of blood, and he checked his shoulder. “Little Rat? I—I don’t…”
She started to stand up, hanging her head and not looking at him.
Arn grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back from him. She trembled in fear. “What are you thinking?” he demanded, peering at her face closely. “You’re not a fighter! You will get yourself killed doing something like this!”
Ratha said nothing in defence.
“I nearly killed you!” Arn released the young woman. She was one of the smallest twenty-year old girls he had ever seen, but right now she seemed even smaller. She finally glanced at him with her soft brown eyes and then quickly flinched away again.
Arn sucked in his breath and counted to five. When he let out his breath, he felt a renewed clarity. Or he tried to. “Why?” he asked. “Why, Little Rat?”
“Because of who you have become,” she breathed. “I hate it.”
And you think I don’t? he wanted to ask. He wanted to shake her, his little sister, he wanted to seize her and lift her in the air and shout at her. Who are you to say who I am? But he didn’t hate himself; he didn’t have time to stop and hate himself. He had too much to do, and what he had to do was more necessary than any opinions or self-analysis he might have had.
“Say something, you uncaring beast,” Little Rat said, and it stung far worse than her knife had.
Arn inhaled. “Get out,” he said. She opened her mouth but Arn shoved her toward the door and blurted, “Get out!” The dirt she kicked up in her stumble was dispensed by the brush of the door flap.