Death Seeker - Horizon: Zero Dawn

Chapter 8

"So how did you kill him, boy?" Grahlan asked, chewing on a meaty bone cut from a turkey.

"He stabbed him with a fork," Ehris answered, warming his hands by the flames. "Remember!"

His younger brother Fahris laughed. "Nah, he was eating boar, he said. Stabbed him with a bone."

Ahvis glanced up into the old oak, to where Mika was perched on a split trunk. An arrow nocked and ready to use on any coconut thief. She fascinated him. Everything about the Tenakth was alien but incredible to him. She was dark skinned, but painted herself blue, and her hair was wound into a tight braid dangling down to her lower back. Over the week he'd been in camp, Ahvis had noticed her lips were large, full, and beautifully shaped like a heart. But this was all concealed, underneath her brown, leather robes and long hood. Only her wide, black eyes could be seen through her bandit clothing, her lower face wrapped in a red scarf.

"He watched his father stick a carving knife into his mother's belly." Mika answered impatiently from above. "He used that same carving knife, pulled it from her dead body and hacked at his father's neck until his head was almost severed." She slid down a branch, and pushed off the tree, landing elegantly on the grass like a dancer.

Ahvis watched as she sauntered away through the camp gate, built into spiked walls made of palms and birch, tied together with leather cord. He sighed. "I wish I'd never told you."

"Don't be like that, Rat."

"My name is Ahvis!"

"Boy, you've got a lot of growing up to do." Grahlan growled. "You're soft, and weak, and that tongue'll get you killed."

"I'm not weak! And I'm not soft!" Ahvis replied, angrily.

The camp fell silent, bar the crackling of wood in the fire pit, not a sound could be heard. Grahlan stood from his tree stool, and glared at Ahvis. "Raise your voice at me again boy."

"You think I'm scared of you, and your gang?" The boy asked. "You're just a big, ugly lump that beats anyone smaller."

Grahlan bounded over, grasped Ahvis by the throat and lifted him from his stool. He slammed him roughly against the oak in one quick thrust, his feet dangling in the air. He squeezed harder, suffocating the boy as he scrabbled in vain to release the tight fingers around his windpipe. "Your life is mine, boy. I could crush you like the rat you are." He dropped Ahvis, who curled into a ball coughing profusely amongst the dirt.

"The last person who tried to beat me..." Ahvis whimpered, clutching his crushed throat. "Ended up dead."

"I'm not your father, boy. And if it's death you seek, maybe tomorrow you'll find it." Grahlan retired to his tent.

Fahris approached the boy, and knelt beside him. "By the Sun, why do you press his buttons?"

Ahvis sat up smiling, his swollen eyes glistening. "It's fun."

"You're crazy." Ehris noted, joining the conversation with his brother. He looked like the most experienced bandit of the two, and his dark attire resembled that of an assassin. His long dark cloak, surrounded his long-sleeved jerkin and padded leggings. He was tall and slender, preferring to kill his prey stealthily with short blades.

"Grahlan will kill you, Ahvis. He's done much worse in his past." Fahris added. The younger brother wore simple rags, similar to that of Ahvis, with a hide neck wrap he often pulled over his lower face. He had gentle, feminine features, and carried a hand axe made from a machine's grinding disc. Ahvis doubted the clumsy bandit had it in him to take down a rabbit, let alone a machine.