Placing a fur-clad foot against the ribs of the vile-cat I grasped my spear sticking out of its side. I pulled back sharply and the shaft came free with a wet sucking sound. The tip must have glanced off a rib on the way in or struck one on the other side The formerly arrowhead shaped stone tip was broken and useless. I tossed it into the woods thoughtlessly as I stared down at the beast.

The body was long, probably six feet from the nose to the base of its spine. A tail stretched another three or four feet out from it's back end. It was hard to tell as it had curled up in death. The fur was a mottled grey with deep green stripes like those of a tiger running down its length.

I was trying to avoid the eyes of the others. They’d seen what I was and I wasn’t sure how they’d react. Should I snatch up Kril and flee into the woods? I didn’t want to lose the wisdom of the old man for certain but… If I was honest with myself the rest had somewhat penetrated the barriers I kept around myself as well. Somehow Hermune’s constant jokes at his cousin's expense and Jandak’s snarky attitude to everything had slipped past my defences. Even Hatrikilo, stern and judgemental as the old bastard was, had earned a weird kind of affection from me.

“Here,” said Hermand, offering me his spear. “Take it.”

“What about you?” I asked in confusion.

“The Kendyn should have a spear. I’ll find another,” he replied with a shrug. Kendyn… It meant “Man of the Hunt”. The translation in my head suggested it was a significant honorific. I took his spear and looked it over. Much better made than the not-so-cheap one I’d bought from the Shop. I spun it in my hands to feel the weight and find the balance. It was a fine piece of work. I nodded in gratitude.

“Where are the other bodies?” I asked.

“They fled. This was the only kill,” Hermand shrugged. “Killing vile-beasts isn’t so easy for us. Not when we're caught in an ambush like this, anyway”

“So they’re still out there?” I asked in alarm.

“They won’t be back. Losing one of the pride will have spooked them,” said Hatrikilo, coming up behind me. “We need to find a place to camp. Jandak, scout ahead and find us somewhere to set up properly. We can’t stay on this fucking goat path overnight.” Jandak nodded and began trotting along the way we'd been headed, spear held ready at his side.

“You did well, Mond,” Hatrikilo said simply before turning away and going to check on Kril who was ministering to Falaya.

I stared down at the giant cat. These things were tough, without the bonus to my strength I would have struggled to pierce the thing’s hide with a throw.

“Boy!” yelled Kril. I glanced over and he waved me to join him. “What’s her condition?” he asked as I arrived. I bent down and tried to examine the wound. She had been covered in furs as well. I moved them aside and checked her over. I pulled aside the bandages, Kril had loosened them after my panicked application, and saw fresh, pale skin covering the wound. A jagged pink line remained on her front. I hastily pushed the furs back to conceal her stomach and the base of her breasts. I hadn’t realised I’d exposed quite so much of her skin when I tried to help her.

“The skin has largely regrown. It will be a day or two before we know if there’s an infection. A day or two more after that before we know if her intestines were mangled. If they were… she won’t last much longer than that,” I muttered.

“You mean her guts? Everything feels like it’s whole and where it should be,” said Kril. “Go find my idiot apprentice and set some traps boy.” He fixed me with a sharp look. “What did you get for the cat?” he asked quietly.

“Eight,” I said. Hatrikilo gave me a confused look but chose not to push for further details.

“How much for a human?” Kril asked.

“That isn’t an issue,” I said flatly. I’d not be mercy killing the women for Souls, if that was the old goat meant. I had a code and while it was starting to feel frayed and out of date, it had been my guiding light for years.

“Go set traps,” he replied, turning back to Fayala and peeling open one of her eyes to peer at it closely. I picked up some twine for snares from a pack hanging from one of the still skittish aurox and made my down our backtrail. The woods had seemed gloomy and dull before the attack but now there was an air of menace. I felt like bestial eyes were staring at me every step that I took and I flinched slightly as the quiet sound of my footsteps.

I began noting animal runs and set up a series of snares. I’d wandered off the main track slightly to set one deeper in the scrub when I found him. Gedrik had been forgotten in the excitement of the attack but the vile-cats hadn’t missed him. The boy had always been trailing behind, lagging to the rear as he looked for herbs or edibles to forage.

His body was badly mauled, his guts were spilled out across his legs by what must have been a vicious swipe of the beast claws. It had eaten its fill from the soft tissues it had exposed and left the rest for the birds and other scavengers.

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He’d been a good kid, I supposed. His sense of duty to Kril, despite the harsh seeming treatment, had been impressive. Very professional, which I couldn't help but respect. Now the aspiring Dreamer would never become the wise man of the tribe. My empty hand clenched into a fist.

I wrapped the body as best I could in the remains of his furs and gathered him up. The walk back to the others seemed to drag on but could only have taken a quarter of an hour. Kril looked up and noticed me first. He jumped up and ran over, his face falling as he saw Gedrik’s dead eyes. He reached out a gentle hand and brushed the lids closed

“Why? Why have we brought them with us?” I asked, glancing from Gedriks still form to the women laid out on the muck to hopefully recover from their own wounds.

“Didn’t have a choice,” muttered Kril in a tight voice. His eyes had blurred at the edges with tears which I had not expected. “Put him down over there. I’m going to gather wood for a pyre. No, I’ll go alone,” he waved a hand as Hatrikilo began to suggest an escort. “They’ll have fled back to their den for now.”

The wizened old man set off into the trees to hunt for deadwood looking far older than he usually did. He had held up incredibly well under the punishing pace of our journey so far. Despite his advanced age he was strong and spry, full of energy far beyond what I’d expect of a septuagenarian back home. Now his shoulders slumped and he looked lost as he moved out into the trees.

“Why didn’t we have a choice?” I asked Hatrikilo. “Why bring women and a child into such dangerous lands?”

“The boy had to come. He was Kril’s apprentice,” Hatrikilo said sadly as he looked down at the small body. “The women… that was a family matter.”

“A family matter? Hatrikilo we’ve brought them out among the beasts! They can’t fight, they’re little more than bait!”

“Those girls are harder than you’d think. None of my family's women are coddled,” he snapped back at me. “Are your women pampered and protected where you’re from? You spoil them and stop them blossoming. Some of the other families have grown soft in that fashion. But the Hatrik still follow the old ways. We couldn’t leave Fayala behind. One of the reasons we agreed to support Kril on this Kend was it allowed us to get her away from Areskit for a while. Hopefully for long enough.”

“What is she escaping from?” I asked in confusion.

“None of your business, Shikrakyn. You’ve shown you aren’t a madman like your kind are in the old stories but I’m a long way from sharing family secrets with you.” He sighed and shot me a look that was almost apologetic. “Forgive me... I’m worried for their wellbeing. We can talk some other time when my blood is cooler.” He strode off to shout at the warriors and keep them on their guard. He also stopped next to Gradel and bent down to run a thumb gently across her cheek before striding off along the trail ahead of us.

Kril came back and forth, bundles of wood held in his arms that he dumped into a pile to the rear of our temporary camp. I sat and did nothing for over an hour. Haylin came and went, splitting her time between Fayala and Gradel. She wouldn’t meet my eyes and flinched whenever she thought I was looking at her.

As the pile of dry wood grew Kril eventually stopped and began laying out a pyre for his apprentice in the middle of the trail. He built up carefully spaced layers until the branches were up to his waist and he no longer had to bend down to lay them out. His eyes were puffy and swollen, his hands shook slightly as he laid out his apprentice’s final resting place.

“Lift him up and lay him on the pile,” he ordered me. I did as I was asked, laying the body down gently to avoid disrupting the fragile construction of dead wood.

The nearby warriors came over first, followed by Haylin and we all stood in silence for a few minutes. Funerals had always made me uncomfortable when I was young. As an adult I’d caused far more of them than I’d ever attended, although usually the casket was empty on those occasions. The last I’d been to in person had been my mother’s, some eleven years ago. Her friends and the rest of my family had shunned me. I sat at the back while my aunt gave a eulogy and I wasn’t invited to the wake. I’d slipped out while the rest went up to pay their last respects and not looked back.

There was no escape this time. The warriors gathered round, followed by Haylin. By some subconscious impulse we formed a circle around the pyre. Once everyone was in position Kril began to speak.

“He’ll never guard the herds again,” he intoned in a deep voice filled with sadness.

“Not on Urth,” the rest replied.

“He’ll never feel the sun on his skin,” Kril said.

“Not on Urth,” rumbled out in response.

“His strength is gone from the tribe,” Kril almost whispered.

“He rides the plains in the Great Blue,” came back in unison.

I didn’t join in with the words, I didn’t know their ritual. The weight of feeling they all shared still managed to wash over me and sweep me up in the simple ceremony. Kril stepped forward and laid a leather pouch upon Gedriks body. I saw him mouth the words “goodbye my son” as he laid it on the boy's chest.

He looked up at me. Through the Brownian motion of the formation of the funeral party I’d ended up directly across from the old man. His eyes were glazed and dead, something had gone out of him with the death of his apprentice.

“Light the fire,” he ordered me. I nodded.

Three balls of flame blossomed into life, evenly spaced along the length of the pyre. Kril had laid down plenty of dry tinder in the lower layers and the flames caught quickly. They roared up as the others gasped at the fire seeming to have come from nowhere. "Shikrakyn" was whispered by several of the warriors but I ignored them.

Had Kril had just ordered me to light his son’s pyre? Hakubin had called Kril “son-less” but perhaps that had been a jab at Gedrik being illegitimate, much like Graben had been before his raiding party had tried to ambush me. I thought back to my mothers funeral. I’d felt no wash of emotion during that eulogy. I’d been dead inside, feeling nothing as aunts, uncles and cousins, as well as her friends had openly wept.

I looked up to see Hatrikilo and Jandak staring at me from across the flames. Their expressions were flat and controlled, I couldn’t get any sense of what they were thinking. Hatrikilo nodded at me and turned to Jandak to whisper something. The shorter man snorted softly without looking away from me then he grinned slightly before nodding his head at me as well.