The shouting began just before Arn signaled the hunters to charge on a flock of wide-wings, flightless birds that wandered the east side of Razaad. A few of the animals looked up at the sound, but then they all moved unconcernedly to the north, while the hunters crept back from their hiding perches to see what the fuss was about.
It was Malla, one of the most skilled seamstresses in the village, as well as a claimed seer. Malla came striding down a slope covered in long grass waving her arms and calling, “Arn, are you here?”
Arn looked at his fellow hunters. Torr and Crezik gave him wary eyes, through their striped war paint. Arn’s solid black face remained stoic as he strode through the other dozen hunters and leaned on his spear as he spoke. “Malla, this is no place for you. What is the reason for it?”
“I bring ill news for you,” she said, bobbing her head. Her hair was bound behind her head with a circular clasp made of mathhar root, while a simple scale tunic draped her tanned torso and thighs. “The rain yesterday was too heavy and the roof collapsed… on the home of your sisters.”
The words barely registered for Arn. Malla had no reason to be out here—she could end up dead. It was not a wise strategy for her previously successful rise through their society. This felt more like a step backwards.
“You sister was hurt, I don’t know how bad,” Malla said.
Arn almost shrugged, but then realized showing his true colours to the hunters was the furthest thing from his plans. Instead, he rose from his spear-lean and stepped toward her. “Hurt, how bad? Lead the way, seer, and tell me why you didn’t warn me of this before it fell!” With a brisk stride, he forced Malla to lead the way before Torr and the others could respond.
“It was your hunt, Arn!” Crezik called after him.
“And this is my family,” Arn replied. Let them think he cared for them more than the wide-wings, and they’d believe the lie as easily as he said it.
The damage was bad—Arn spotted the missing roof from the village’s pointed contour as they approached it through the bog. Malla waded through one stream instead of following the long way to the bridge, while Arn took a few steps at a dash and leapt it with ease. Strands of wood and long grass stuck up from the wooden walls. In places, even the outer supports had been damaged, while the majority of the roof had disappeared inside the premises.
Arn jogged down the street toward the collapsed house and saw his siblings sitting in the trail in front of the home. They had gathered around a spot on the ground, so it was impossible for him to see everyone who was there, but he saw Keeya standing with folded arms and Raal kneeling next their aged mother. Home-maker Urtha was a wrinkled old woman who had never been very close with her children. Some of the families of Razaad were tight, but their society valued deceit, merit, and reasoning, not loyalty. Urtha embodied both a woman who had brought into the world many children and a cold veteran of the village war. She regarded the body in their midst with a distanced, glazed visage.
“Who is it?” Arn asked, giving his voice as much concern and fear as he could muster. He pushed through his other sisters to find Bela laying there, her neck twisted and one arm snapped. The older of his two youngest sisters lay there unmoving, her eyes closed and a blue vine wrapped around her left arm, to help her climb into the next world, if the traditions were to be believed.
“The roof collapsed without warning,” Keeya said, cradling a long scratch on her forearm where slivers bristled still.
“There was warning,” Urtha said, quietly. Arn’s mother looked up at him sternly, her lips pulled taut against one another and her voice short of breath. “When my son killed Home-maker Ovath and Ollinar, her son.”
“Mother,” Raal said, “That was a fair fight. And it was Thalla who poisoned Ovath.”
“I did not say otherwise,” Urtha said. “But it was their family that sabotaged Keeya’s home, and it was Arn’s actions that started it.”
“Mother!” Keeya snapped. “I was in there. It was an accident. Arn had nothing to do with it!”
Arn wouldn’t let this stand. Thalla and others had appeared in the crowd around them. He knelt in front of his mother and nodded to her accusations. “If it was Ollinar’s family, I’ll kill the rest of them too. I will avenge Bela, and you know I can. Does this satisfy you?”
Urtha let the smallest smile touch her lips, then she bowed her wrinkled face to him and Arn stood up.
“We know it wasn’t because of you,” Raal muttered.
The sun was still directly overhead and it felt awful to waste the hunt as he had, but he spent the rest of the day helping Keeya clean up the debris while his youngest sister and mother tended to the corpse. From everything that he saw of the damaged roof, the damp mud and snapped supports, it genuinely did look like an accident, but Arn would investigate it further. If only so that the village kept believing he played their game with his family in mind. His family played no role in his strategy.
Thalla visited him as the sun was setting, just to share a drink and kind words. Arn allowed him the smallest smile at her support, and they spoke for a few hours before she returned to her own home.