Jandak had found a suitable place to set up a camp half an hour's walk along the trail. The warriors built a pair of simple stretchers to carry the injured women, accepting Haylin’s worried commands with surprisingly gentle good humour as they carried our wounded up the pass. I stayed back with Kril who had been standing vigil over the slowly crumbling pyre. His eyes had dried and hardened while he stared unflinchingly into the flames.
“I don’t know if I was his father,” he said softly once the rest were out of earshot. “I’d been with his mother at about the right time but I doubt I was the only one. The boy was bright. Maybe too bright for his own good. Did you have children?”
“No. My life didn’t take me down that path. I fell into a dangerous life after the army and could never trust anyone enough to allow myself that kind of vulnerability,” I replied.
“You were celibate?” he asked, looking up and raising an eyebrow. I snorted.
“Hardly. But my women were always here today, gone tomorrow. It suited me.”
“I never expected to have children. I probably gave some whores in the Crathan cities fat bellies and there was a girl in Helipokyn that I… but that isn’t the same. It’s hard to know with whores, you understand?” He looked up at me again and I had no idea how to respond. Was he calling Gedrik’s mother a whore? I shrugged, hoping it would be enough and nodded but chose to remain silent. “Gedrik was a good boy,” he said softly.
“In my world they say a man lives two lives and dies two deaths,” I offered uncertainly as I scrabbled to find something to say.
“Explain.” The instruction was crisp and sharp. More like the Kril I’d come to know.
“A man has two lives and the second begins when he realises he has only one. A man has two deaths, the first when he dies and the second when his name is spoken for a final time.” I was out of my depth in this conversation.
“Huh. Wise. Perhaps this is why you haven’t gone insane like the previous Shikrakyn.”
“What do you know of them? My predecessors,” I asked, hoping to snap him out of his misery.
“The common theory is that their power drove them mad. You are already much stronger than you should be. Can you imagine how you’ll behave when you can snap a man in half without straining or boil his eyes out of his skull a spears throw away from him? Mortal men are not meant to have such powers,” he said sadly.
“You think I’ll go insane?” I asked.
“Perhaps. But I’m not so sure in your case. You were a killer but you had some kind of honour. What was it?” he asked, staring down into the fire.
“I wouldn't kill innocents. They had to deserve to die,” I replied slowly.
“And who are you to decide? That would have left very few safe from my wrath,” he almost-chuckled.
“My world was different. More people than you can imagine and most of them were simple people doing simple things. Working a day job to provide for their family. I only accepted jobs against people with blood on their hands.”
“And this salved your conscience? Such delicate webs we weave about ourselves so we can pretend we are righteous.” I bristled slightly at his words. He didn’t know me and my code had kept me sane in a cutthroat world.
“It worked for me,” I answered stiffly.
“Don’t think for a minute there are any innocents in this world, my friend. All of us have done terrible deeds to survive,” he whispered.
“Gedrik as well?” I asked harshly.
“He came to my care after he was caught stealing. Normally that's a death sentence in the tribes. It weakens the very fabric that binds us together and cannot be tolerated. Hakubin knew I was fond of the boy. His mother had died not long after he’d been born and life as an orphan is hard among us. Would stealing cross the threshold of your honour?” he asked pointedly.
“No. It would not.”
“It would have for us. I convinced my aurox-brained nephew to commute his sentence to slavery under my care.” Kril stared into the pyre for a few moments before continuing. “Hakubin had his suspicions that I might have sired the boy so he agreed. It gave him something to hold over me and keep me in line. Not so subtle hints were dropped, should I cause him any trouble the boy would be cast out.”
“Hakubin is already on my list of acceptable targets,” I responded without thinking.
“Is he now? Good. But that isn’t enough, boy! You cannot kill a king and simply walk away. Not among us. All the warriors would be dishonoured and you would never rest easy again as they sought to take revenge. Wherever you went, someday a stranger would walk past you and slip a blade between your ribs. Perhaps that wouldn’t kill you though?” He raised an eyebrow at me.
“It probably would. I can heal myself and I’m tougher than I should be but I barely survived the bullet from Jytik. I’m hardly a god.”
“Hardly a god? Hah I like it.” He blew out his moustache causing the thin hair to stream in front of his face for a moment. “Come on boy. Let’s catch up to the others.”
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We walked in silence through the woods. I was alert for any sign of danger and twitched several times at the sounds of branches breaking nearby. Kril just snorted and walked on quietly. At one point he pulled a stone knife from his belt and handed it to me. I recognised it as having belonged to Gedrik. It was three inches of carefully refined flint. I slipped it into the sheath on my belt.
“Thank you. Where do you get the stone from?” I asked.
“The ground, idiot,” he muttered.
“I’ve only seen basalt and granite in the plains where I’ve been.” I ignored the insult.
“We winter the herds to the south. Where the plains meet the Riverlands the flint is plentiful. We craft what we need over winter and bring it back north with us on the wagons each spring,” he said curtly. We lapsed into silence again.
When we caught up with the others we found the camp was already set up. The tents circled a large fire in the centre of a wide, mostly flat opening in the trees. The aurox had been tied up nearby by their halters and were cropping at the low vegetation around them.
Jandak approached me and led me a short distance away from the camp.
“How much of your fighting style is being a Shikrakyn?” he asked me bluntly.
“Not much. The techniques are all trained and anyone can learn them. Well, anyone who’s reasonably strong and coordinated.”
“I’ve been trying them out with the others and the unarmed and knife fighting style you use is beyond anything in our experience. Will you teach us the greater secrets?” He stared me in the eyes unflinchingly.
“I am not a master, Jandak. I was proficient at best but any real professional would have kicked my ass back home. If I'd been stupid enough to give them the opportunity!”
“I’d like to see this world where fighting is elevated to a form of dance,” he replied with a smile.
“It’s hardly that. Do you have writing in the tribe? Kril has some books but from what I gathered most of you are illiterate.”
“Kril is the only one among us who can read. It's not manly but he’s the Dreamer.” Being the Dreamer was apparently a license to break the rules. I imagined Kril had abused that privilege often and with cackling glee.
“Almost everyone where I come from can read and we’ve been writing things down for thousands of years. How do you remember the history of the Areskyn?”
“Through song and story of course. Hakubin kicked you out of the feast before the tales were told so you missed it but when we feast each family tells their tale. The greatest heroes have songs that we all sing,” he said with a shrug as though this was the only way to transmit knowledge across the generations.
“An oral tradition. Those are surprisingly effective but written words cannot be forgotten. If the only man who knows a story dies it doesn’t matter if it’s been written down. My fighting styles have benefited from generations of accumulated knowledge.”
“Can you teach me to read?” he asked hopefully. The brash man was always joking and had a confidence that made everyone around him seem slightly smaller than they were but at this moment he sounded like a small boy asking for a treat.
“I’m not really an educator and I can’t read the languages of your world yet. Kril might be willing to help you though. Once he comes out of his grief.”
“Gedrik was a good kid. A right little shit half the time, for sure. But the rest? Not so bad. Will you continue to train us?” he asked. I nodded and we made our way back to the fire.
A bowl of stew was placed in my hands and I lifted the spoon to slurp down the overcooked vegetable and meat. Having the ladies out of action was certainly affecting the quality of the food. Haylin had withdrawn into the women’s tent to tend to Grabel and Fayala.
I sat in amicable solitude as the others left me in peace. Whether they were scared of my powers or not I couldn’t tell but the usual teasing and ribald banter was absent this evening. Kril’s miserable presence to one side of the fire might have been dampening the mood of the rest or it might have been shared grief at Gedrik’s death.
As the moons began to rise I set out to lay some more traps. I probably wouldn’t bother to harvest the kills from most of them but I had spent a lot of Souls and wanted to start rebuilding my reserves. However strong these people thought I was, I knew only too well that at least some of my competitors would be making the most out of every day to advance in power. The soldier wouldn’t be missing any chances but I was most concerned about the fighter. Gallagher had been impressive in the octagon, I’d seen all his fights. He had been a true champion.
He was trained in a way that I had never been, whatever the warriors thought, and with the advantages of the system giving him superhuman strength, speed and durability I suspected he would be my most dangerous foe. Then again anyone can die from poison or a bullet - arrow, I corrected myself - from out of the blue and I was hardly going to challenge him to a fair fight when the time came.
Gedrik’s death had brought the mood of the whole expedition down. Before we had been happily wandering north on a hunting trip, now we were faced with our own mortality and it showed among the others. Voices were lower and occasionally people snapped where they might have laughed previously. The feeling around the fire was sombre and two of the warriors were always on guard. They circled through the nearby woods, diligently offering themselves up as the first morsel and warning should another pack of vile-cats decide to attack. Rather them than me.
I had set aside my bowl and was looking up at the second moon as it rose into the sky when the scream split the night. I reacted without thinking and shot across the intervening space to thrust aside the flap sealing the women's tent. Gedrik’s knife was in my hand without me even thinking to draw it. I stood for a moment with my mouth opening and closing. Fayala had woken up and it had been her voice that split the night. She was sitting on a pile of furs with her front exposed and looking at the jagged scar in wonder.
Her stomach was smoothly muscled and lean, only spoiled by the pink mark of her injury. Her leggings concealed everything below her hips but above that her flat stomach and small, high breasts were on full display where she had pulled her clothing aside to examine herself.
I must have made some noise, despite my goldfish impression, as her eye’s suddenly flashed upwards and the furs sealed away the sight of her body. An angry, incoherent squawk came out of her mouth. Haylin slammed into me from the front, knocking me back out of the tent and the flap fell down between us.
A fist slammed into my head and threw me sideways. I rolled across the ground and rose to my feet in a fighting stance as I glanced around in confusion. Hatrikilo stood by the tent flap glaring at me and shaking his right hand back and forth in the air.
“There are rules to courtship in our world,” he boomed as the warriors around him began to snicker.
“I’m not being fucking courted uncle! That’s why you brought me along, remember?” snarled Fayala from within the tent.