It was high noon when they began their return to the tribe. Despite the hunt being ended, the men never broke formation. Always alert with each step, unlike their arrival, they walked with a caution, weapons drawn and arrows notched. It was an almost trained disposition, and Ezril might have been impressed if more troubling things did not plague his mind.
It bore it too, he thought, eyes fixed on the carcass of the animal they’d hunted. He had taken aim, and in those moments he had caught sight of the darkness of wisps clinging to its features; delineating its form, black as those on the children. But even worse than that, the darkness formed ahead of its steps, a ghost of the actions it would precede. All so vividly. Like the winter test… but worse.
Their arrival was heralded without ceremony as was always the way. And after greetings and exchanges and a few praises directed at him in their unhidden dialect, Ezril handed in the quiver that had rested against his thigh, hanging from his waist through the journey, and embarked for his tent.
There he met Lenaria sewing.
Standing unnoticed at the entrance he watched with a reverence as her brows creased with unerring focus on her task. She seemed to have rejected the blade the church had given her, a weapon she had been born a master of, and taken to the needle and thread. This was her definition of a peaceful life, he realized. One in which he would return home from the task of the hunt to find her sewing or knitting with an easy smile on her face.
“Can you not look at me like that,” she said, without losing her focus. “It makes me queasy and puts things in my head.”
“Like what?”
She paused and look up. “The look or the things?”
“Both.”
She laughed, gave him no answer, and returned to her handiwork. Ezril walked into the tent grinning. Maybe it won’t be so bad.
At dusk they attended the nightly gathering, sitting around the flames and listening to stories of the tribe’s past, enamored at how they’d created an organized structure, one that they would teach their children to follow. From what they learned some of the members of the tribe had moved to live within the realm, gaining citizenry by trade or by marriage. Avowedly, there was no rule that demanded anyone remain within the tribe after their coming of age. Even the women were allowed a freedom of choice. Ezril and Lenaria, all the while, sat hand in hand as he sipped his drink on the log he sat upon. Lenaria, however, swallowed hers in gulps from her place on his lap.
There had been glances at first when they’d arrived with Lenaria holding his arm. Glances that had turned to murmurs when she’d discarded herself on his lap despite the various places to sit, including the space right beside him. Even so, they had been offered drinks and the little pieces of roast meat leftover from whatever had become of the wildebeest, and slowly the attention they attracted dissipated.
The gathering ran into the dark hours of the morning before the final occupants made their way to their tents. Ezril and Lenaria waited till the gathering’s death before joining the exodus, making one to their tent where they took satisfaction in their new found pleasure.
On the third day, Ezril hunted with the men without invite. Upon his arrival a quiver had been sent for, and unaccompanied by the women, they’d departed. He knew, however it may not seem, that his previous invitation had been made in favor of Nurulla. He knew no one would admit it and he deemed a question of it irrelevant. His return again was to a Lenaria focused in troubled knitting. A sight which threatened to undo him. Their time in the tribe had made him relaxed and at ease. And he knew that the peace he experienced with Lenaria, however it may come, was something he would take over anything else. But peace wasn’t for all men. This he knew.
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“It is in the interest of men that peace should exist. Even so, for peace to reign wars will be fought. It is the right of men in Truth to have peace. A right defended by the sacrifices of Truth; priests who have ceded that right to ensure others can keep it. For peace is more often than not a gift of war.” The Scriptures of Truth Chapter 14:1-3.
On the fourth day, they came for them.
Ezril laid in bed, residue of the night’s sleep still clinging to his eyes. Aldorna had said today they would hunt a Titan spotted not too far from the tribe, and despite his reluctance to rise for the morning, he was looking forward to the hunt. Lenaria stirred where she was pressed up against his side, naked under the covers, a habit of hers he decided he would have to stop enabling.
The tent’s entrance flapped open just when Ezril decided to leave the bed and he held down the covers as Lenaria moved in response, keeping her out of sight.
Helva stood at the entrance unperturbed and unamused at the sight. Despite her easy demeanor, Ezril could tell she carried with her a weight. So when she spoke, he wasn’t surprised at the weight and implications of her words.
“I fear the time has come.”
Ezril tossed back the covers so he could see Lenaria face. “Stay here,” he told her, and he saw the understanding cross her face. She, too, had understood the weight of the old woman’s words. She nodded in response as her expression dulled into something he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Ezril shrugged his shirt on and turned to Helva. She pointed at his Sunders. “You will be needing them.”
With a sigh, Ezril retrieved them from where they rested, sheathed in their scabbards and, picking his bow, followed her out.
“They came not too long ago,” she told him as they hurried through the village while he worked his hair back, tied into a knot. “They trespassed and my men did what was expected of them.”
Ezril turned to her, alarmed. “They did what?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “What they did, or are doing, is not relevant. What is relevant is that you stop them before blood is shed.” She quickened her pace, muttering under her breath: “How they got through the mist is puzzling enough.”
Mist? Ezril thought, coming to a halt.
“Just beyond there,” Helva told him. “They are not far. Follow the sound and you will find them.”
All the while, his gaze remained fixed on the whisper of mist swallowing his feet. When he looked up, a cloud of it stood before him, giving sight to nothing. How had they gotten through the mist? The answer was more than obvious.
We were forged with it.
Plunging into the cloud, he fell into a sprint, avoiding trees as he moved forward never deterring from his path. It wasn’t long before he heard the sounds of metals clashing. The mist thinned the closer the sound grew. His eyes taking sight of the trees, he took to it. Within moments, he was traveling along branches, edging his way into a portion where, though the mist remained, it thinned too considerably.
His arrival was without event. Bow drawn and arrow nocked, he took aim. Who am I marking? he asked himself. Whose blood do I think I’m willing to spill? It was a question without answer.
However, he kept the bowstring drawn back till it grazed his cheek.
Before him, all four of his brothers were held in combat. The mist might have thinned, but it remained more than enough to impair sight. His eyes picked out Darvi first where he moved in combat with two men. Ezril recognized Aldorna with ease but his companion was a face and form he had no recollection of ever meeting. Darvi weaved beneath bladed strikes, evading and countering. Watching him Ezril saw what Helva had meant when she’d referred to his method of combat as textbook.
While Salem fought of his opponent with poleaxe and Takan mastered his in combat, Olufemi engaged the cousins in combat near ten feet removed from Salem’s left. The cousins fought with almost perfect synergy. One Ezril wasn’t surprised to see.
When Ormanu struck, Nidas was always quick to follow, intending to keep Olufemi too occupied to attack. But his brother would not be denuded his chance. Without warning he would back away, keeping from them while they followed, and each time he would throw an attack, nose wrinkling in disgust as if he smelled something foul. Olufemi stepped away from the cousins, parrying Ormanu’s strike as the man followed. Rather than deflect the blade, Olufemi let it slide of the flat of his, tilting it to the side and rounded Ormanu in three steps. He kicked him, shoving him against his cousin. Then he closed on them immediately.
But the cousins were quick to get to their feet.