After the chief’s wife and son entered the building, the chief asked his wife to provide us with a warm drink and offered us his fire to rest. It felt like a dismissal, but a very polite one. We moved over to the fire, seating ourselves on the furs in front of it. Well, Adra and Sigmir did, why would I want to sit on a fur if there is a perfectly good Sigmir available, with a lap to sit on? Obviously, I sat on Sigmir’s lap, sideways and lying my head on her shoulder, allowing me to peek at the group we had just left if I wanted to. I was rather curious about the chief’s behaviour, it had looked to me as if he was extremely displeased with his son, despite Rai surviving a dangerous ordeal. Or maybe because of that.

The chief’s wife brought us a strange tea, made out of herbs or something, basically warm, flavoured water but it was welcome to us. I regretted the fact that I was missing ways of magically checking for poison. But I believed it improbable. In addition, I was not sure about the physiology of dryads, giant-bloods and firn-elves, wondering if there were poisons that worked on all three of us. Sigmir and me, yes, easily, I suspected that our races were close enough to theoretically produce cross-bred offspring, due to the infusion of giant-bloodlines into the elven-ancestors to create the firn-elves. But while Adra had an almost identical eidonomy, I wasn’t sure she was even in the same phylum as we were or whether she would be classed as a plant or something else entirely.

I was dragged from my musings to watch Rai taking a seat on the bank we had just vacated, looking rather tense and surreptitiously looking at Guto with fear in his eyes.

“Now, Rai, why don’t you tell me what has happened from your point of view?” The chief asked his son, ignoring the tension. I listened to Rai stumbling through his story, more or less keeping with the tale he had told us. During the tale, he kept his eyes fixated on the table in front of him, never looking at either his father or Guto.

“Rai, do you know why Guto was here this afternoon? When he should be at his home, resting? He gave me his full report. Do you know what happens if two tribesman disagree in an report to me?” Giro asked, causing Rai to blanch.

“I… I know, father.” Rai stammered.

“Now, Guto, why don’t you give me your report again?” Giro prompted.

“Yes, chief. Our group went out hunting five days ago. It was young Rai’s first adult hunt and he was assigned to partner with Dero, protecting his flank and learning from him. He was our leader after all. On the first three days, we had little luck but two days ago, during our noon-break, we were attacked by a group of sylvans, a mix of dryads and nymphs. It was a swift attack but we managed to rally around Dero, protecting each other and fighting back. Well, we managed, until Dero was struck in his open flank where his partner had abandoned him to flee in terror.” Guto spoke in a quiet voice and towards the end, I could hear his emotions creep in and saw tears stream down his face.

“With the loss of Dero, we were forced back at first but our attackers couldn't press on, their wounds mounting, forcing them to finally retreat. I don’t think anyone of us was uninjured, so we left our comrades out there, retreating to the town. Nobody knew where Rai went in his flight and now he is in front of us.

Rai, son of Giro. I name you coward.” Guto spoke the last sentence with conviction, as if he was pronouncing a verdict.

I saw Giro flinch a little and close his eyes for a second, before schooling his features into a neutral mask. But that little flinch was nothing compared to Rai’s reaction. He shrank back, looking like a beaten and abused dog.

Carefully whispering so only she could hear it, I asked Sigmir what had just happened.

“Cowards are discarded. If you want to be a hunter, if you want to be a leader, you need to have courage. While out hunting, your partners, your group needs to be able to rely on you. In my tribe, for the son of the chief to be named coward would be the same as banishment. I think this tribe is similar in that regard. The moment Rai turned his back on his comrades to flee, he lost their trust. To regain it will be hard.” she whispered back.

“But why tell him off in front of us? Why not wait until we are gone, or ask us to look at the village. Why deliberately talk in front of us?” I asked her. I had always thought that tribal societies wanted to display an image of unity towards outsiders, no matter the internal conditions. Inter-tribe strife would be a sign of weakness, inviting attack. It was one of the reasons Sigmir had given me when predicting that the hunt for her was not spread outside her tribe as it hinted at internal discord.

“Because Giro is a clever old dog, love. The only way his son can regain his status, maybe even the tribe’s trust, is a display of courage. And that display has to be a fight against those he has fled before. So if Giro wants to keep his son, Rai needs to win in a battle against the dryads, but not a single tribesman would join a coward, unless they have a great debt to him. But the three of us are different. Giro can easily sense that you crossed the first divide and probably sense it on me as well. He hopes that we will feel compassion for his son and help him to regain his status. I believe he will offer us something to take the fight to the dryads in the name of revenge, offering his son as a guide. Like that, he could make a case for his son’s redemption after he paid us off. Or he just hopes that we take Rai with us if he has to banish him, I doubt Rai could survive without help.” Sigmir explained in a whisper.

At the table, Rai had balked at first, trying to explain away what he did but after his father had offered that he would talk to the injured, he folded.

“Rai, you have admitted to cowardice, to deserting your partner in combat, causing him to die. I cast you from the tribe, not to return until you redeemed yourself. You have until the next new-moon to leave, afterwards you will be slain if you return without proof that you have overcome your cowardice by killing those you have fled from before.” Giro spoke with a deep, carrying and heavy voice. His verdict was slightly disrupted by the wailing of his wife, but he ignored it and carried on.

Interestingly, I saw Adra flinch as he spoke, almost as if the verdict was against her.

As Rai stood up and left the room, he made a good impression of a convict, on his way to execution. Giro looked over to us, as if he expected movement from our part, after all we had meddled once already and Adra looked ready to jump up as it were, but she managed to control herself.

Giro invited us once again for dinner and spoke highly of the crafters in his tribe, hinting that we might want to trade with them. Sadly, none of us had anything truly trade-worthy, just the bit of money Sigmir kept and the old shirt we got from the dungeon, a while back. I remembered that I wanted to offer it to Adra, but hadn’t done so, yet.

As we walked outside, Adra glanced at me sadly before softly speaking. “We need to help him.”

I almost stumbled when I realised that Adra had taken the chief’s bait, hook, line and sinker. Before I could even start to answer her, Sigmir did. “No, we don’t need to help him.” she said. “His behaviour does not warrant help. Even on our way here, his behaviour was shameful. Why should we help him?”

I heard quite a bit of emotion in her voice. I guess for someone who believes in a personal code of honour, the spoiled behaviour of Rai was distasteful to the extreme.

“But it’s our fault that the dryads left Tegi and came here.” Adra said, now speaking in an almost whisper, not wanting to be overheard.

“And that means nothing. Not a thing.” I said with conviction in my voice, trying to speak english and let only Sigmir and Adra understand me via Lenore’s companion skill. I had no idea if it worked like I wanted, but it might.

“But…” Adra started.

“No!” Sigmir spoke in a voice broking no argument. “It’s not our fault that he broke in his first real combat. To abandon your comrades in battle is despicable. Ones first battle is an important step in the crucible of life. Either you harden, or you break. He broke. My father sent me into my first battle, and it was victory or death.” I could hear that she meant what she said, from the depth of her heart. Adra, on the other hand, was not happy with either of us, but I had an idea she might like and Sigmir probably could accept.

“What about a compromise. Sigmir, you said that the chief will probably offer us a reward to deal with the dryads. If the reward is good enough, we could take Rai with us to accomplish his task. If Rai can harden himself, he might be redeemable. In the end, he is not our problem, he is his father’s problem.” I proposed. I had no problem to help with something I found distasteful, if I was rewarded well enough.