Chapter 2

 Fallen River village. 

Boy always thought it was funny how literal clinii were. They would name a village River Town if it was on a river. For example the town the twins grew up in was called Laketon. Who would have guessed? How many River Towns and Laketons were there in the world? How many Greentree towns? Farmton? Who knows.  

This particular village was ramshackle. It was split by a long gone creek. And now the village was as withered as the creek bed. There were a handful of huts, made up of branches and hides and canvas and the random piece of scavenged sheet metal. They sat on dark red dirt with dusty vegetation scattered across the village. There were large fields on the right of the huts. Growing squash and corn, or trying at least. People were toiling there, all wrapped up covering themselves from the sun. Their vision was obscured by big straw hats and sunslit glasses. Some were carrying clay buckets filled with water from a well built near the creek bend where tall green sycamores grew. Off to the sides was even a pen with a dozen goats grazing about.

They made their approach from the fields. Here they would be able to see who wanted them dead instead of being surrounded in the heart of the village. They walked slowly, Biq and Boy stepping over the tilled mounds in silence like they were in a funeral procession. Theirs most likely.

Ahead a shifting animal the size of a horse turned its crocodile looking head. The argo was standing still in the field. Its hide was hairless and its grey-green skin was rough and cracked. Boy thought it looked like what a rhino looked like, not that he ever saw a living one. Its face instead of growing into a horn ended at a pointed maw with teeth jutting out the sides. The jaw muscles were taut and the size of watermelons each as it clapped its jaw shut, the motion shooed flies away that buzzed around the heat of its breath. They settled around its big black eyes that looked like a doll's. The thing’s legs were stumpy but came to the end in bird-like talons. 

Hard to imagine this thing swooping down on you from the sky. Supposedly that’s what they did. Legends say they ruled the air in a place and time far from here. The wingspan alone would blot out the sky if you were under them. Now they were clipped. Boy always grew uneasy around one. Even grounded, the beast had more ways than one to gut you. He saw one trample a clinnii’s head into a paste once for lighting off a firework behind it. 

This Argo seemed peaceful enough. It noted it was being approached by the men and fluttered its bony stumps where its wings should be. They quivered like rattling beetles would. In-between the cut limbs sat a child clinii.

He was a small thing with a large hemp shirt that was obviously hand-me down. He didn’t even have wrappings covering his arms, instead he drew them into his sleeves to protect him from the sun. He was looking up into the sky with much too large tinted sunslit glasses sitting precariously on his face. He looked up, shielding his view with his hand as well. His head was engulfed in a large triangular bark-fiber weaved hat.

Boy had cleaned up the best he could. Washed with a water rag and amole and then rubbed himself in fine dirt and wore fresh clothes to hide his smell. He was also wrapped up head to toe. Hiding what he was in cloth, gloves, and sunslit goggles with linen wrapped around his mask and head. The mask was only an inch or two thick. But it made it look like he had a snout like any other clinii. You would have to look close to realize his mouth didn’t move a lot when he talked. And he only had five stubby fingers instead of six clawed ones. But that could be chalked up to him losing one on each hand in judgment. Hired Hunters did killings after all. They were expected to be Damned. Preferred really.

“Greetings small one.” Boy said. Biq was twenty paces back with Seba and the bodies downwind.

He looked down from the back of the Argo. “You talk funny.” He replied. 

“Ye, well, I lost most of my tongue in a fight.” Boy stated. 

“They bite it off?” The kid asked, now holding onto the stumps of the beast’s wings, scooting himself forward.

“No, they used a hot knife. It was a type of judgment.”

“You say something bad? What was it? What’d you call that person?” He asked excitedly.

Boy walked closer. The Argo shifted now acknowledging his presence. His big black eyes blinked gunk away, it was stained orange around its eyelids. “I called a man I shouldn’t have some names. I called him a clanless, no good, Damned, handless bastard.” Boy smiled.

“Wow, and was he?” He was leaning forward and the hat slumped over his eyes. Knocking his glasses askew. He fixed himself, hands still under his shirt. 

“I never lie.” 

The kid opened his mouth wide, smiling at the strange man. It made Boy smile in return. “Tell me something, what were you looking at, when we came up to you?”

The child fidgeted. “We were looking for Aeryns. Jul here.” He patted the greenish beast he sat on. “Told me we can see them on a Skyhold if we look real hard. He says one flies overhead when the sun is highest.”

Boy looked at the dull blue sky. No clouds in sight. No birds. No Skyholds. Nothing even moving. “Why do you wanna see Aeryns? You should be thankful you don’t see them.”

“I wanna ask them something. I wanna ask them to give back Jul’s wings.”

“You think they would listen to you?” He chuckled. Then leaned closer. “They’d eat you.”

“You... You, Don’t know that, do you?” This obviously concerned him. 

“I do,” Boy nodded, “I killed one once.”

“You did not.” He said in awe. 

“How do you think I got this?” He held up his lasergat, the light reflecting off the metal barrel. “They call me Boy Lasershot because of this thing. It can fell a tree in one blast. Punch right through your chest. No clinii or even them multi-pronged willow’s could make something like this. It ain’t Firstling junk either, mostly because it works and secondly it’s too new.”

“Can I try…” He was reaching out for the rifle but Boy pulled it away.

“Maybe. But you have to get your clan’s Matron to talk with us. And get Hunter Pa too. We have to discuss the Marked.” The child's eyes drifted to Biq and the bodies perched on the spotted mustang behind them.

“You’re the Hunters they hired aren’t you? You got the ones that stole Quick and Kassa? I hear they hurt Brunwin real bad too but the adults won’t let me see him. I. I..”

Boy stopped him before he got going like a rumbling machine woken in its slumber. “They did some bad things. They have been judged for it by the Grey Mother. Now it’s time for you to get your own mother. Can you please get her and Hunter Pa?”

You killed Barde?” The kid asked as he hopped down. “He was always nice to me when he came round…” 

Boy’s patience was wearing thin. “Go! Get them. Now.” He demanded.

The kid skittered off, tripping along the plowed field towards the huts. The Argo’s head tilted towards Boy when he raised his voice. He huffed in a deep gurgling sound, a warning. A big wooden plow that had been unattached from the creature. Boy’s gut curled tight as he backed away slightly, arms up, meaning no harm. He looked at the neutered beast as it pawed at the ground. Now used as a mule. 

Shit, the Aeryns had left them all in the dirt. 

But these suckers got the worse of it.  

They were all used and discarded, dumped like forgotten playthings. Now they all struggled to survive in a world that rocked itself apart every day. Was releasing them an act of mercy or indifference? Boy often wondered.Most likely the latter. After all it was a hassle to murder. Boy knew that, and they were doomed all the same, it’s just gonna take a little longer. 

Boy looked at this particular Argo, at his scars along his hide, at his stumps and how they shaked the flies off of his hide with sporadic jitters. The thing stared back at him. 

“What you looking at?” Boy asked.

“You. Firstling. You brought us dead things. Things they did not want.” His jaw opened and stayed open when it spoke. It’s voice was deep. So deep it was like a thousands brass horns that vibrated through Boy, making his hair stand on end. Boy swallowed and stepped back looking around to see if any clinii were coming yet. They weren't and the Argo didn’t even follow him with his eyes as he went to check.

Is the thing blind like so many old clinii?

He had never heard an Argo speak before. Not in clinii’s langauge. He heard them moan and sometimes thought he heard them cry but he could have mistaken that for thunder. But this one had spoken, and it nearly made him shit his pants.

“I.. don’t know what you mean.” Boy stumbled stupidly. He held his lasergat up.

Did it want to start a fight?

Jul laughed. If that’s what it could be called. It was higher pitched and his mouth was slightly more agape letting the drool drop from his maw in clumps. The sound was like an avalanche around them. Boy looked to Biq whose hand was planted on his bustergat at his hip. Boy stepped back farther. If it made Biq nervous it should make him the same.

“You think that rifle will do anything to me?” He said it with such sincerity that Boy felt foolish even thinking about it. Like he was back in his old schoolroom. His teacher always had a way of making small children feel even smaller. The voice resonated under his skin. Boy felt like the eyes of this creature saw all of him. Even the parts he was hiding. 

Does he know I'm a Firstling?

The lasergat dropped to his side pulling on the shoulder strap as it swung back and forth. He held out his hand to stop Biq encroaching. “I’m sorry.” He paused. “For what happened.”

“Sorry?” It groaned. “The Argolut has no word for sorry.” It shook his head and stamped his foot, clawing at the red dirt. Boy imagined the talons on his chest and for a second couldn’t breath. A little more room between the two of them couldn’t hurt...    

“STAY!” The thing bellowed, sending birds flying from far off trees. It shifted its massive head watching them fly. It's hot breath rippled Boys shirt and he was sure this thing would kill him. He was so small standing next to it. Not just in size but in time. The timbre of his voice gave away that it was ancient. 

Boy froze and they stood in silence. At first it was a silence that one experienced when you held your breath. Blood pumping in your ears. But Boy walked no further and the beast stood like a statue. Next it turned from a stalemate before a fight to just plain uncomfortable. Like Jul was waiting for Boy to speak but Boy didn’t know what to say. Then it formed into a silence of boredom. The shock had subsided and he started to focus on the sweat cooling on his neck. 

The Argo seemed bored too and eventually sat down, its massive back legs curled under it. It took its gaze off of Boy and pawed at the dirt like a child would. Eventually he turned to Boy “Who are you?” it asked confused, his voice coming from deep inside his throat like the other words. But the note of malice was gone.

Boy wanted to chuckle to let out some nerves but stifled it. “Bo-y”. His voice cracked. 

“You bear bad news,” it stated. 

“The worst.” He replied.

“These clinii here have short lives.” It’s black eyes furrowed into a squint at the ground. It’s yellow eyelids blinking frequently. “They toil in the mud to make something. But it ends so quickly. I pity them, so I help them while I wait.” His voice grew more like gravel whenever he spoke.

“Waiting?” Boy asked softly.

“To die. Yes.”

“They say Argos don’t die...” Boy swallowed, his throat dry. He asked the question so quickly it sounded stupid and without thought. He couldn’t take the words back however and more were coming forth uncomfortably. “But I seen one, dead as ever, bottom of a valley. He must have tried to fly, or jumped knowing what was waiting. He was nothing but bones and grey-wrinkled skin, just like yours.” He scrunched up his face waiting for the thing to be offended. But it was not. “Is that what you’ll do?” He didn’t know why he asked that. It might have easily fueled a rage that would claim Boy’s life. But he sensed it wouldn’t. 

The old thing shifted, moving closer. It made a deep crawling noise as it poured over Boy, head to toe with his black eyes. Boy heard the buzzing of the flies close to him too now. The creature fluttered his shoulders, moving the four clipped appendages like you would shake a tree for fruit.

“Hmm, this thing asks a question.” He moved back, a blank expression on his face.

“Argo’s live forever. Isn’t that true?”

“Not forever. No. We end like everything else.” Jul stated.

Boy relaxed a little. “How old are you then? Were you here when the Firstlings were around?” A slight hope flared in Boy but it died slowly when the conversation was again stolen by a long pause.

“Do you ask the stone how old it is?” The creature stomped his foot, sending up dust. His hide seemed to change to a darker shade of green. Boy didn’t trust his eyes. “Do you ask the stars if they die? The Argolut is old as the world. We were proud once. I flew. Yes, I flew. And I fought. That would have been a good death.” With every word his speech grew deeper. It was hard to make out all the words. He sounded like the crashing of water when you were stuck in its churning. Again, Boy’s skin prickled as his palms started sweating in his black leather gloves

“I.. I wait to fly. Or to die. Yes I wait.” The beast paused. Boy was beginning to think Jul forgot where he was, until he spoke once more.

“To wait is to live. We wait, until we are passed. Like all. But yes we die.” He gurgled, laughing once more, shaking like a seizure. “Now, you ask me about my wings!” 

Boy cocked his head confused. Does he think we’ve had this discussion before?

“I’m sorry about them. It must be hard….” He didn’t get to finish. 

“They’ll grow back. Yes, they have before. The world may be gone by then. A shame. No one to see their might!” He stood up on two legs and crashed back down to earth. Boy fell onto his butt.

“Okay. Okay” Boy said, raising his hands. He scooted back further and the Argo did not move to charge at him. “But before all this, when you were with the Aeryns did you meet humans, I mean, Firstlings?”

“There is no… before.” It said distraught while it whipped its head around. “There is a beginning and an end, and I’ve seen both. I wait for it now. The thing that has already happened.” It towered over Boy and eyed him, waiting for a response. 

He was silent, he didn’t understand. This thing could be crazy or it could just be different but they’d never understand each other. It was useless trying. His questions bounced off its thick skull like he was yelling down through a canyon. He didn’t like his own voice enough to appreciate the echo. Boy splayed out his hands to either side of himself. 

It sniffed him and he saw how big each tooth was up close. He imagined it tearing his head clear off but then it turned and lumbered off. Muttering to himself as he left.  “Before… Before! There is no before. I’ve flown, I fly, I die. Yes, I die. I fought… Argolut’s have fought since the beginning! But even we will fade.”  

It roared now, speaking louder. to Boy maybe? To himself? To anything or nothing at all. “I have seen the birth of species! I have ended them with my own gauntlet! I have seen stars be born and stars fade! Everything ends. I will fly before my end. Yes, I fly in this blasted land.”

Boy sat there in the dirt for a while.  

Was I almost killed by that thing? Or are we friends now?

—

A voice spoke out behind him. A female’s voice, scratchy with age and hard use.

“Jul has been here since I was born.” Boy turned around and saw a tall woman wrapped in golden cloth. The hemming of her wrappings along her arms was a burgundy color. She wore no mask, or wrapping on her face, only a large straw hat, wide as her shoulders. Her skin on her face was almost pink and splotched with raised red scars. It showed her age, older than Biq with more wrinkles to tout than even him. Her eyes were purple and both had a sheen of white to them, blind, or close to it. She was taller than Boy by an easy foot and close to Boon’s height. Her posture accompanied by her garb gave her a regal appearance, even from a poor village like this one. 

Boy stood up and saw following her were a handful of people. Amongst them was the small child he sent to fetch her. 

She sighed “I feel he will outlive us all with creek growing dryer and dryer each year.” She knelt down and rubbed the red-brown dirt to her palms. Some of it trailed in the wind. “Tell me Boy, What did Jul say to you? He has great wisdom from his seasons. I have always thought his age rivals Belshuun herself.”

Boy covered his mouth and took a step back. “I. I don’t really know.”

A giggle left her lips, so unexpected Boy was more prepared for a gunshot than laughter. “That sounds like him.” She said, sighing. “He helps us here and there. He does what we ask of him but asks nothing in return. I’m sure he’s told you he is waiting for something. But he’s never told me what.”

To die. Boy thought. To die like this village is dying.

 “I’m sorry my lady, we had difficulties with what you paid us for.” Boy knelt, He couldn’t look into her eyes. He felt like they saw through him, what he was or worse what they had done. Biq had saddled up next to Boy with the horse. He undid the bodies and lowered them carefully to the ground..

“There were complications…” the old gruff man said, looking at her, doing what Boy could not. Boy stood up and went to Seba to help. He would not do anymore talking.

“I see.” she said as she raised her snout in a stalwart way. She peered down on them. 

There was a scream from the approaching people. One collapsed with a wail. A man pulled her up but she fell again, crying. Hunter Pa and some others came running towards the dead bodies. They stopped above them and reeled back as the faces were revealed. Others saw the corpses and warded themselves against the dead and treaded back to the village proper. Panic was starting to spill over. The screams had attracted people and more poked their heads out of tents. They started to walk towards the farming field in response. The village folk were circling.

“We were the ones that killed them.” Biq held his head high while Boy held his breath.

“Dar!” The young man with Hunter Pa spat out before he was throttled back in line. The village Hunter spoke into his ear, reassuring him. He was one of the leaders here, the only one who had a real weapon other than farming tools. He was lazy however and more eager to enforce rules on children than chase down Marked. 

Biq continued, speaking louder so everyone could hear. “We confronted the group. They would not face judgment. Not by mortals. In the fire Kassa was struck. Quick the young one killed our own before dying.” Biq threw Quick’s homemade gat on the ground at the people's feet. They muttered to one another. “His name was Billgi. We will see him again.”

The women who arrived with Pa turned to the Matron. “Mother, Quick would never do that.”

“He did do that.” Biq stated, “Under Belsuun herself he slew my companion.”

The woman held her hands over her snout. “You lie.” She hissed out.

Boy could tell both of them were kin to these kids. The young man was maybe an older brother or cousin. He saw Boy staring at him and leapt forward to challenge him. 

“Stop!” The Clan Matron shouted. Hunter Pa grappled with the charging man and pushed him back, flat onto the dirt, he stood up still reeling and corrected himself. “Leave us. Now!” The Matron ordered. “Pa! Get all of them back and then join me.” The group took a few more shoves but they eventually recoiled. Slinking back to the amassing crowd. 

The short Hunter wearing a dark blue coat and grey wrappings met the crowd and started shooing people away, forcing them back to the village. Some didn’t listen but they were escorted by people that did. The fallen woman, the children's birth mother Boy knew, was still shrieking and thrashing about. Dirt covered her arms up to her elbows. She wormed her way out of someone’s clutch and ran to the bodies. All three let her reach them. The corpses were still on the ground. Boy had slapped Seba on the rump sending him hurrying to the forest to find Boon.  

Them two would be safe at least, hopefully.

At least they don’t have to see this.

The woman draped herself over Quick. Her right hand on Kassa clutching her bloodied burlap shawl. “Why!” she screamed over and over again. “Not my twins!” She pleaded. 

The Matron grabbed her by her shoulder and wrenched her up. “Listen to me. I was the one that nursed these two, I fed them at my breasts. I saw them grow. Now they are with the great Grey Mother. You saw them in your home, it’s true, but their life was not yours. This is a loss for the clan.” She did not let the woman crumple to the ground again, she held her firm. “Ye our clan! So we will mourn. But I am telling you as the Clan of Fallen River, you need to go. The others feed off your distress. More harm will be done here.” The Matron finished, her six clawed fingers digging into the woman’s shoulder.

“They can’t have done what they said. They wouldn’t. They were sweet and kind.” She pointed at Biq and Boy, a growling growing in her voice. She pulled down her face wrappings so that they saw her eyes burning into them as the sun did the same to her bright white skin. “Liars! They are Bury Bees that kill on sight like death riders on the wind!” She spat at them. “That man is a demon and that long-limbed bastard isn’t right. Five-fingers!” She spat again. Hunter Pa and another caught up with her. They dragged her back and she swiped at Biq. He easily leaned out of the way of her claws. “I’ll kill you!” She shouted at him. 

“I accept any judgment your clan sees fit,” and he nodded towards the Matron.

Soon it was just Boy, Biq, the Clan’s Matron, and the village’s Hunter. Biq explained what happened that night in detail. The fight. Fourfinger’s barrel of shot ending Kassa. The click of Bill’s barrel. The knife to Quick’s throat. They asked questions here and there. Making sure his tongue was truthful. Boy tried to say as little as possible. His eyes kept going to Quick’s face. It was so wrong. Like a mask of some creature that could imitate the living. His eyes were black from the congealed blood and the flies that swirled around them both were starting to be thick as a fog. A few maggots crawled from his mouth.

“I told you we should have gone after them ourselves,” Hunter Pa said. His arms were crossed and he was obviously trying to avoid the stink of the bodies that they sat next to. He held his lips tight and waved his hand on occasion.

“I did not want any more Fallen River members gone, or dead.” She replied.

“Now we just have two dead.” He huffed, playing with the gat he holstered on his hip. 

“I will not argue with you.” She replied. “I knew this Barde was only to be judged by Belshuun. I knew the second I saw that vagabond. You. You have never had to kill, never been stained by it. All you have done is remove a finger or two for this Clan. I wanted to keep it that way.” She shook her head. “I thought we could get them back. I should’ve known they left on their own volition. I should have disregarded what Pilla was saying, she is blinded more than I am, in a way. This was my fear.” She looked at Biq and then to Boy. She leaned forward and with an elegant arm tilted up Boy’s chin to lock eyes with him. “I fear you will be the villain in their story. They will never accept what Quick did or that they left on their own accord.”

“That’s what we’re hired to be.” Boy replied. “Even if they wanted to go, you did the right thing trying to get them back.” 

She agreed begrudgingly, dropping her hand away, she knelt next to the bodies. “Take Quick’s corpse to a place south of here. We share a Marked burial ground with another village. I do not want him here.”

Biq nodded “I know the place you speak of.”

Hunter Pa questioned her, “Matron? Pilla and others will not like it. They would want to burn him with Kassa. So that he may rest.” He motioned with a prayer sign to the moon above. Faint amongst the smoky sky. 

“Maybe in his next life. He murdered. He does not get to be burned. He is Damned. Hopefully, in the next life he makes the right choice. Hopefully, it does not take a thousand lives, but as many as it takes. He was just a young fool. But he pays. He pays. So do we all.” She said, clicking her tongue for emphasis. He accepted that, but from the body language one could tell it didn’t sit right with him. 

“We pay you in full.” She said to the Hired Hunters. “And extra for the burial of another that was not in the pact.” 

“You don’t have to, it was not agreed…” Biq stopped as she had stood up and was already walking away.

She turned back over her shoulder. “We agreed that you would bring my children home… And you have.” She left, looking like a sunset across the plains. So out of place in a dusted place like this. 

I wish she wouldn’t pay us. It makes it feel worse. 

When she was out of earshot Pa grabbed Biq by the arm. Pulling him in close to have some words. Biq smiled just a bit. Just the motion made Boy hold his breath waiting for a knife to be under the stupid man’s throat. Instead Biq restrained himself and only glared at him, his destroyed eye squinting in the light.

Pa spoke at him, not towards him, while spitting in places. “We both know what happened out there was a bad deal. I should be taking your hands not filling them with Salt. Sloppy work for Hired Hunters such as yourselves.” 

Biq did not reply and Pa released his arm in a bit of a shove. He continued. “After that mess you left in the West I told her we shouldn’t hire you,” He shook his head. “We expected Hunters. Not killers in rags! The damm stories they tell about you and yours were blasted lies. Look at you now! Your brother should be glad he got speared by the Bu… ” Boy flipped a switch near his thumb, letting his lasergat charge a shot. His jaw clenched so hard he bit his tongue and tasted blood.

Biq stopped him, holding his hand out. He leaned into the other supposed Hunter. If that’s what you could call him. He only kept the peace between the goats and the squash. Nothing more. Deep down he knew it too. Especially as Biq leaned in and said to him “If you ever speak on my brother again, I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth.” and gnashed his maw at the man, giving him a vicious growl as he did so. That was the end of that discussion. Pa turned and walked away so fast he might have walked over water.