Heart Rot

❾ - NINE

He hadn't, really; every time he had come close to it he had imagined again a ring of spears and splintered wood driving through his ribcage, and had shuddered himself awake again. Comalpo poured out a small handful of water into his palm and scrubbed it over his face, trying to convince his eyes to focus. The darkness of the day wasn't helping, the suns Atli and Teyo only bright spots behind an all-concealing blanket of grey clouds.

He had barely stepped back in across the threshold when there came a knock on the front doorjamb. Tliichpil - who still looked rough, bruises turning brown and scrapes darkening to scabs, though he seemed happy as always, laughing with Catli and Talzi over some childlike joke - pulled the screen back across.

It revealed a young man standing there with a spear hanging from his hand; Comalpo recognized him as Pilcui, although they had hardly ever spoken and he could not remember the last time they had even interacted.

"I need two more to fill out the line for hunting," Pilcui said.

"Oh! Sure," said Tliichpil. "We'd be happy to come along."

Comalpo pulled both their spears down from the rafters where they kept them so Catli and Talzi wouldn't get curious and poke their eyes out or cut themselves on the heads and held Tliichpil's out to him. The sharpness of the point sucked at his eyes like a lamprey sucks at a fish.

He forced his thought away and, snatching their game-bag from its hook, followed Pilcui and Tliichpil out into the street. They headed up again, back to the edge of the forest and the crossroads.

"Thanks for asking us to join," Tliichpil said.

"Everyone else has things they consider more important to do," Pilcui replied. Comalpo saw Tliichpil's shoulders tense with the effort not to deflate.

Chiinpe met them at the trailhead, already armed with bow and quiver. She silently held out a small bag of ashes and shredded bay; Pilcui, Tliichpil, and Comalpo scooped up handfuls and scraped the mixture over their arms and faces to disrupt their scent, and they headed out, turning off the trail and into the forest.

One thing Comalpo always appreciated about hunting and trapping - there was very little speaking involved. Tliichpil pointed out one coati, and the drag-marks of a peccary trying to devour a branch too large for it, but both were rejected as too-small prey.

Eventually, though, Pilcui held up his hand and jerked them all to a stop. Peering around his shoulders, Comalpo saw what he had fixated upon - a ground-deer, and a large one at that, barely fifteen paces away. It was nibbling bark off the trunk of a small thorn-tree, and had not caught sight nor smell of them as yet.

With one gesture, Pilcui guided them to spread out. Comalpo slipped as quietly as he could through the undergrowth, setting his soles on bare dirt rather than leaves that would rustle and guiding his spear ahead of him. He glanced back to catch a glimpse of the others between the leaves as well, the blue, amber, and coppery flashes where their clothing and skin showed.

Balanced atop a large dolostone boulder on the deer's other side, Chiinpe rose to her full height, pulled back her bow, and shot. He did not see it strike, but he did hear her curse, so evidently she had not hit a vital spot. But it had been enough; startled, the deer's head lifted and its nostrils flared. It wheeled away from the tree, seeking for them, and took one bound forwards as the four of them stepped closer for the next strike. But there was nowhere it could go, for they made a full curve around her from Chiinpe on the left to Comalpo on the right. It pulled up, stomping and snorting, and Comalpo's hands tightened on the shaft of his spear, but it veered and tried to flee the other way.