that why she'd rather send me out alone?
"So you'll leave in the morning?" asked Volemak.
"No," said Nafai. "Today. I hope to make a bow today, so I can have tomorrow for the hunt. After all, my first few targets may get away."
"This is stupid," said Meb. "What does Nafai think he is, one of the Heroes of Pyiretsiss?"
"I'm not going to let this expedition fail!" shouted Nafai. "That's who I am. And if I won't let a broken pulse stop us, you can bet all the snot in your nose that I won't let you get in the way."
Meb looked at him and laughed. "You've got a bet, Nyef, my sweet little brother. All the snot in my nose says you'll fail."
"Done."
"Except we haven't specified what you give me when you fail."
"It doesn't matter," said Nafai. "I won't fail."
"But if you do ... then you're my personal servant."
Meb's words were greeted with derision by many around the circle. "Snot against servitude," said Eiadh contemptuously. "Just what I'd expect of you, Meb."
"He doesn't have to take the bet," said Meb.
"Set a time limit on it," said Nafai. "Say - a month."
"A year. A year in which you do whatever I command."
"This is sickening," said Volemak. "I forbid it."
"You already agreed to it, Nafai," said Mebbekew. "If you back out of it now, you'll stand before us all as an oathbreaker."
"When I lay the meat down at your feet, Meb, you'll decide then what I am, and it won't be on oathbreaker, that's certain."
And so it was agreed. They'd wait until sundown tomorrow for Nafai to return.
He left them, hurried to the kitchen tent, and gathered what he'd need - biscuit and dried melon and jerky. Then he headed for the spring to refill his flagon. With his knife at his side, he'd need no more.
Luet met him there, as he knelt beside the pool, immersing the flagon to fill it.
"Where's Chveya?" he asked.
"With Shuya," she answered. "I needed to talk to you. Instead we had that... meeting."
"And I needed to talk to you, too," he said. "But things got out of hand, and now there's no time."
"I hope there's time for you to take this," she said.
In her hand was a spool of twine.
"I hear that bows don't work without a string," she said. "And the Oversoul said that this kind would be best."
"You asked?"
"She seemed to think you were about to rush off without it, and that you'd regret the lack of it by and by."
"I would have, yes." He took it, put it in his pouch. Then he bent to her and kissed her. "You always look out for me."
"When I can," she said. "Nafai, while you were gone, the Oversoul spoke to me. Very clearly."
"Yes?"
"Was Vas near you when you fell?" "He was."
"Near enough that he could have caused it? By, for instance, pushing your foot?"
Nafai instantly recalled that terrible moment on the face of the rock, when his right foot first slipped. It had slid inward, toward his left foot. If it had just been friction giving way, wouldn't the foot have slid straight down?
"Yes," said Nafai. "The Oversoul tried to warn me, but..."
"But you thought it was your own fear and ignored it."
Nafai nodded. She knew how the Oversoul's voice felt - like your own thoughts, like your own fears.
"You men," she said. "Always afraid of being afraid. Don't you know that fear is the most fundamental tool that evolution uses to keep a species alive? Yet you ignore it as if you hoped to die."
"Yes, well, I can't help what testosterone does to me. You'd enjoy being married to me a lot less if I didn't have any."
She smiled. But the smile didn't last long. "Something else the Oversoul told me," said Luet. "Vas is planning..."
But at that moment Obring and Kokor sauntered over. "Having second thoughts, little brother?" asked Kokor.
"My thoughts often come in threes and fours," said Nafai. "Not one at a time, like yours."
"I just wanted to wish you well," said Kokor. "I really hope you bring home some scruffy little hare for us to eat. Because if you don't then we'll have to go to a city and eat cooked food, and that would be just awful, don't you think?"
"Somehow I think your heart isn't in your kind words," said Nafai.
"If I thought you had a chance of succeeding," said Obring, "I'd break your arm."
"If a man like you could break my arm," said Nafai, "I really wouldn't have a chance."
"Please,"