Category: Arn

The lagoon below the cliffs where the tribe lived was accessed by a series of ledges and various hanging vine ladders.  To descend, Arn simply dropped from tier to tier, his feet deftly absorbing his weight.  He had chased an animal down a slope this sleep, without losing his footing.  He purposefully slowed himself and used the ropes to descend the last few layers so that others would not see his skill.  Today, like all days, he had a specific purpose.

He found three fishermen at the base of the cliffs, on the rocky beach of the murky water.  Sand deposits were thick with gravel and strewn with seashells, making traversal cautious for fear of the dark rocks jutting upward where the tide had not yet worn them away.  The fishermen looked at Arn in surprise.  What was the Chief Hunter doing here?  The hunters were only beginning to wake, for the sun had not found the horizon yet. Continue reading Arn 13

Razaad felt the edge of Arn’s aggression once more.  The hunters pounded across the hilltop with muddied boot and poisoned spear.  Arn’s knife hilt rubbed against his side—the raw flesh there felt like the line of water scales they chased.  He moved the knife with his free hand, so it didn’t cause his recently healed wound to bruise or bleed again.  At his left, Thalla cawed like a bird as she leapt over a small, dirt crevasse and into the side of a scaly beast.  Her spear poked out its left eye and the two disappeared in the wake of Arn’s charge.  They descended down the beach of Razaad, and Arn claimed his own kill. Continue reading Arn 12

Voices, muffled and distant, slowly lifted Arn out of the dreamworld.  Before he could see or hear clearly, he could smell.  He wished he could not—his bed smelled of sweat, dried blood, and the bitter herbs Jorik had bound his wounds in.  A tendril of the dreamworld, a memory more visceral than a simple recollection, bubbled through his waking mind.  In it, he remembered Jorik’s confused words to him the day after he killed Garem.  “Garem’s blade was poisoned with ashroot—how have you survived?”  Arn had become immune, or partially immune. Continue reading Arn 11

Ashroot poison was a dark liquid, almost devoid of colour whatsoever.  It was thick, like honey or mud—the tribes-people of Razaad added some resin from mathhar roots to thicken it—and adhered to the stone edge of Arn’s small knife.  Usually, he only applied it to his spear point, but today was not a usual day.

Though there was still no rain, salty water from swamp streams dripped from Arn’s shins as he strode through the foliage of the forest tracking his target.  Today was the day Garem had said.  When Arn returned to the village, he would see what had become of their plots.  He only had to worry about the hunt right now. Continue reading Arn 10

Judging by the dull ache in his arms and legs, Arn knew the poison still affected him.  He watched the sun rise through his window, unable to sleep.  He had only been able to slightly increase his dosage since he began this horrid process.  There were many stories of past leaders who had become immune to toxins by this process, but there were no clear instructions.  Arn could have spoken to Jorik the Embalmer, if he trusted another living soul.  But Arn did not. Continue reading Arn 9

Arn woke up groggily and looked at the muddy roof of his hut.  He lay in his hammock and tried to remember when he had gone to sleep.  He had taken more of the poison, and sat up alarmed—had he gone to sleep because of it?  He remembered now, coming out of the fever and deciding, consciously, to sleep off the ache of his body fighting it.  Ever since Garem’s visit and his doubled efforts of stealing poison from the hunters’s stores, Arn had begun dosing himself with minimal traces of ashroot poison.  He was up to two drips now, instead of one, but it kept him feeling worn out and sore. Continue reading Arn 8

The skies over Razaad had slowly rotted into grey and black.  Even some days were as dim as the evening.  It was not rain, or thunder, nor any sort of storm.  Grey flakes fell once, close to the end of the last Moon.  Grey wind dried their rooftops and the tall reeds of the swamps and streams.  Grey blocked the sun and grey reflected the water.  What had happened across the Deep, to smite the heavens and turn them ashen? Continue reading Arn 7

Arn was surprised when his siblings persuaded their mother to still invite him to their cook fire at the big gathering midway through the month.  Home-maker Urtha sat with folded legs on a leaf-stuffed blanket, with Arn’s oldest brother at her right.  Joroth was more than ten years older than Arn, and was the village’s Builder Chief, like Torr was the Hunter Chief.  Next sat all of Arn’s aunts and uncles, and then Keeya and Raal, his other two older siblings.  Now that Bela had perished, the only one sitting on the far ring of the fire, with Arn, was the youngest daughter and his only remaining younger sibling, Ratha, whom Raal and he had called Little Rat for most of her life. Continue reading Arn 6

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. Continue reading Arn 5

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. Continue reading Arn 4