---Dirleya’s perspective---

The two tall, slender women step into my herb hut behind me.

The unarmed one sets herself down with her back to the Northeastern wall as I crouch to sit on the rug facing the door, struggling to keep my arthritic pain out of my face.

As Wulra enters, the youngest woman props her strange, foreign looking spear by the door where a weapons rack would be, then unstraps her tall, painted shield and stands it in front of her weapon.

Dropping to the floor with all the speed, force and ease her youth allows, the girl removes her antlered hat and sets it next to her. The fact that it remains rigid (standing up on its own without containing her head) confirms my suspicion about the internal frame.

The roundness of her skull is completely obscured by a burst of now uncontained thick, curly black hair.

In contrast, the barely contained anger on her outlandish face is fully displayed… though… there’s something else there too… something I can’t quite put my finger on.

“You may leave us, Wulra.” I instruct “Please attend to the needs of our guests by the hearth.”

“I… uhm… I w-won’t be able to unders-stand what they ask me, shamaness?” she stutters, clearly not wishing to approach so many so frightful people!

“I’m sure they know how to mime and point, girl.” I answer, pointedly “I would not wish them to think Golden Eagle Clan… inhospitable.”

Taking the cue, my assistant unhappily exits the hut, leaving me alone with the terrifying woman across from me and her translator on my right.

Once I hear her footsteps recede, I ask “I trust you have had safe travels with a party such as that?”

The translator speaks over me to the leader then turns back with the answer “We have indeed. We are grateful to Bison, Wolf and Golden Eagle for so readily accommodating our passage.” neutrally.

The brown eyed, young woman looks at me rather than her translator as she continues.

“Wardeness Bwey wishes to proceed to business… The reason for our expedition here is-”

“That her brother has disappeared while visiting my hearthstead and she thinks my clan or some portion of us may have murdered him?” I finish for her, meeting the girl’s gaze with my one sighted eye.

The pair both sit, staring at me, stunned.

The translator remains silent.

---Bwey’s perspective---

I’m completely thrown by what I think the one eyed old woman just said!

Zgrizeh’s reaction makes me think I didn’t misunderstand!

Before she translates, I give a single, humourless puff to say “*Huh*! You clever, woman!” in Basinspeak.

“Kva kor.”

“Not clever.” Zgrizeh recovers in time to resume translating.

“Ensotra, ya kirn navaat ot, kvalt kor(!)”

“Unfortunately, age only brings with it canniness, not cleverness.” she says, missing the old woman’s humorous lilt.

“Kir kal nurt gvadass, iley!”

“She is canny enough for candour in this circumstance.”

I take a deep breath while I think about how to adapt to this unpredicted development.

All my strategies revolved around the shamaness being an evasive doubletalker… I wasn’t prepared for her to meet me head on like this!

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Finally, I just ask “Did she do it?” in my language.

The question goes through Zgrizeh to the old woman and back “She says no, she didn’t, and nor does she believe any of her clan did… but she does observe that that is definitely also what she would say if she did have knowledge of your brother’s murder.”

While I’m mulling over my next move, the one eyed woman starts speaking again.

“She asks what you think she or her clan might have had to gain from murdering Ksem. He is the man who avenged the death of her grandson and her granddaughter’s intended, afterall. This was a great service to her birth clan.”

Scowling, I answer “Ksem is our leader!… I think they might’ve thought we would be weaker without him to unite us.”

The old woman’s eyebrows dance beneath her headdress on her thick brow as she listens to my words’ translation, clearly considering them carefully.

“She observes that, under your brother’s leadership, only one of our people ever entered her clan’s lands, Ksem himself. There was no need for him to arrive here with an escort under arms, no need for shows of force. Under your leadership, her clan is currently occupied by double its own number, all but one of us dressed and armed as if we expect to need to fight… She says that it seems to her that his leadership was the more evenhanded of the two of you and that killing Ksem would have been a bad bet! Like…erm…” she breaks off to clarify with the old woman “…Kivka waln?”

“Ag kivka kivka! Ird iwen wal! *bzzzzz*!” the one eyed local says before miming stabbing her finger into her arm and being in pain from it.

Returning her gaze to me, Zgrizeh finishes “Like trying to avoid hornet stings by throwing rocks at their nest!”

“Yes! So you would have been wrong to think we’d be weak and directionless without Ksem around! It would have been a catastrophic misjudgement on your part to believe that we wouldn’t have been furiously angry about the death of the last male descendent of our clan’s founder… but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s not what you thought though, does it?” I growl back at the calm old woman “If you wrongly thought that killing my brother would be to your people’s advantage, only to find out you’d thrown a rock at a hornets’ nest, pretending now that you’d’ve been far too ‘canny’ for such a misstep would be exactly what you would do, wouldn’t it!”

I watch as the elder puffs out her lips and turns her wrinkled palm to the low ceiling, answering “Ilak… Ka lak… Nokor daj walaku ‘Irn kor ensordak’.”

“Granted… You’re right… All she can say is ‘that is not what happened’.”

“Porvok na gruha na nolot garaam… Ikalad.” adds the green eye.

“Trust or violence is up to you… They are innocent.” translates Zgrizeh.

I scrutinise the aged woman for a few heartbeats, then announce “I want to question every one of your clan individually… I also want to go and investigate this cave collapse… I assume neither of those will be an issue?”

The old woman answers.

“She asks if she may be present for this questioning.”

“Tell her she may but that she’s not to try signalling any of her people to the answers she wants them to give us.”

My words go through Zgrizeh and back “She says that that is acceptable… She regrets-erm-” turning to clarify “Waarta va uurn?”

“Aga waarta…” she answers, gesturing her wrist, then elbows, then knees “…Ird ga.”

Briefly nodding her understanding, Zgrizeh continues “She regrets that she will not be able to show us to the Cave of Bones herself, her arthritis preventing the climb at her age… She will happily have her assistant take us there though… She also must require that, while in there, we restrain any reaction we might have to the smell.”

---Wulra’s perspective---

My stomach roils against the impulse to gag as the stink of decay violates my nostrils.

I watch the terrifying woman, bent down to scrutinise the footprint mark beside the entrance to the now blocked Eastern Passage, her narrowed eyes as close as they can get without obstructing the light of the two torches being held for her.

“Leh e’utz… e’utz ke!” she says.

The slightly less terrifying older one turns to me to ask “Do you know when this footprint was last retouched?”

Looking back at her nervously, I stammer “I…erm… I d-don’t know exactly?… B-before my time, I think?… Cave p-paintings don’t n-need to be retouched very often… Th-the weather c-can’t get to them?” confused as to why they’re concerned with the age of the path marker?

“E’utz nu. E’utzen bwae na tseneret… tere nei vuret.” relays the woman I’d guess to be ten Winters my senior.

“Wetzet bein… Itzel leh nuut!” responds the woman I’d guess more than ten Winters my junior, standing back up (to a height as much taller than me as I’m taller than Dirleya!) and striding forward.

The other torchbearer follows without hesitation.

After a tiny bit of hesitation, I follow too.

We walk for a few tens of breaths before we reach the blockage.

The torchless woman turns to me to interrogate “Leh nu?”

“This is it?” relays the older woman.

“This is the c-collapse… y-yes.” I answer “If your b-brother and the sh-shamaness’s granddaughter are alive, they’re beyond that…” leaving unstated the possibility that they’re beneath it.

Looking up at the towering woman as she reaches out to lay her palm on the rock, I see the ferocious mask drop… replaced with the face of a frightened sister.