"Kirs!" I shouted.
"Yes, Teacher Cas?" he said.
"Come on, you're young like Kelser. You should call me Cas, too," I said. "Anyways, I could use your help."
"Of course, Teacher Cas," he said. "How may I help you?"
"I wanted to measure the distance to the southern marker again. I think I may have misplaced it the first time around, and it's really messing with my inner perfectionist. Like, look at this thing." I gestured to the sprawling map on the floor in front of me. "It would suck if the first map, the one in the very middle of this huge thing, wasn't accurate. Right?"
"Er, sure teacher, whatever you say," he said.
"Good. The compass is with your wife right now, right?" I said.
"Yes, Kann just came back from the sea," he said.
"Good, how about you go grab that for me. Your wife's probably too tired to join us, and it isn't like the southern marker is that far from here, so just the two of us should be fine. I'll be waiting for you at the central marker."
Kirs left for his own hut, while I made my way over to the central marker. The central marker was a stone, just like the four I'd left in the four cardinal directions, and it had the same subtle engravings and signs that the tribesmen had given all of the markers over the past few weeks. The children had been especially fond of this one, which had made it into a sort of beautiful mess, but I wasn't complaining as long as it fulfilled its purpose of serving as a marker for my map.
When Kirs returned, I began walking due South. I waved to various people as we walked through the camp, but made sure to keep a mental count of the steps I was taking. Kirs was also making note of his steps, so we could compare when we arrived at the southern marker. After all, steps were hardly as good as actual scientific measurements, so getting multiple counts was essential to maintaining a degree of accuracy. We left the encampment around noon, and soon, it was just me and Kirs, walking over the empty land, counting our steps in our head. I used the lodestone compass to make sure we were walking in a relatively straight line, and even used magic to walk over obstacles whenever I could.
While keeping a count in our heads, I asked Kirs some questions. I hadn't spent a lot of time with the young man, and although my impression of him had changed over the course of the previous months, I still felt like I didn't know the guy all that well.
"So you're saying the reason you're so close to your mother isn't because you lost your father at such a young age?" I said.
He nodded. "My father was a famous hunter, but I can barely remember him. I was raised by my mother and the rest of my tribe, although I never felt all that close to the rest of my tribe."
"Oh, so your tribesmen treated you poorly?" I asked.
"No," he said, "in fact, they treated me really well, growing up. My dad had been a great hunter, right, so a lot of people looked up to him. He'd mentored all of the best hunters in our tribe. He'd saved lives, come back with the biggest kills, he even hunted some monsters that nobody had hunted outside of the stories. After he died, the hunters that I grew up with all held him up like a legend. A mythical figure plucked straight from the elders' tales."
I frowned. "That doesn't sound all that bad."
"It wasn't," he said. "Except, it meant everybody was looking forward to my future. The great hunter's son, what was he going to be like when he grew up? Would he measure up to his father? Could he kill a Carica Serpent? Could he rescue a whole party of hunters from a stampeding herd of Yuca Bovine?"
I nodded, slowly. "It would suck to grow up with that kind of pressure. It probably didn't help with making friends your age, either."
"Oh no," he said. "I made friends. Friends who were taught by their fathers to respect me, to honor me, because my father had saved their lives, or brought great honor to the tribe, or whatever. I had friends, just not very close ones. There was always a barrier. Something I couldn't reach across. But it wasn't all that bad. Things were going alright until I joined my first hunting party."
We were getting close to the southern marker. I knew we'd see it in a few. I asked Kirs how high his count had gotten, and it was pretty close to mine. Good. "Did something bad happen on your first hunt?"
He shook his head. "Not really, no. It was actually really boring. We didn't find anything all day, and spent most of our time setting up traps or following useless game trails. But I couldn't stand it. I don't know what it was. Maybe it wasn't any one thing. It was so long ago all I remember are some of the emotions that flooded my head.
"Fear. Panic. Endless anxiety. I was jumping at shadows in the forest. A bird taking flight would make me trip on my own feet. Critters dashing along the floor made me jump into another person's arms. I even screamed when I saw something move in the bushes, only for the other hunters to wield their spears, slowly inch towards the bush, and stab at nothing.
"Thinking back on it, maybe the reason we never found anything was because of all the noise I was making. Nobody said anything at the time. Although I remember a few gazes. The younger hunters, the ones who were coming along for their first few experiences like I was, gave me accusatory looks. The older ones, especially the ones who remembered my father, all looked at me with pity. I couldn't meet any of their gazes. Not a single one.
"I came back home that night, empty handed, and cried into my mother's arm until I fell asleep. Mother wasn't the elder yet, so she couldn't do much, but she was still well respected in the tribe, both because of her own abilities and because she was my father's wife. She convinced me to go out on a few more hunts. To get used to the foreboding darkness of the forest, the vulnerable openness of the plains, and the unsettling nervousness that flooded through your body as you tried to hunt terrifying monsters.
"I never got used to hunting. Never. Not even after I'd been on dozens and dozens of hunts. Even today, my heart thumps so loudly I can barely hear anything else. My nose and eyes get clogged up with sweat and snot, and my hands are always shaking, my feet always trembling. I'm never the first one to spot a monster. Nor am I ever the first one to attack. I have never been able to hunt like my father, and I am sure that I will never want to."
I let the silence settle in. I saw the southern marker and we approached it without a word. I asked Kirs how many steps he had counted, compared it to mine, and confirmed that my previous count had been very wrong. The marker should actually be quite a distance further South. So, I grabbed the large, decorated rock, and began counting some more steps.
I left the southern marker at its new location, and asked Kirs to start his count again when we began making our way back to the encampment. But first, I decided to take a quick rest. We were at a beautiful field, one where the winter hadn't been quite as harsh. Some of the trees around here still had leaves, and the days did not seem as short. The grass wasn't as dry, and I could even see a few birds and insects in the surroundings. A creek full of clear water flowed past us. I made a note of it so I could mark it on my map, and settled down beside it for some rest.
"You know, there's only one part of your story that I don't understand," I said to Kirs as he settled down beside me. "When you and your wife joined the advanced magic group, none of your tribesmen had seemed surprised. When I asked them why, they said it was because you were one of the best hunters in your tribe."
Kirs scratched his chin and gave an awkward smile. "Just because I hate hunting doesn't mean I'm bad at it."
"But you say you're a coward?" I asked.
"I am," he said. "But I'm a coward who knows how to set aside his own feelings for the benefit of my tribe; my family. My heart thumps and cold sweat pours over my back, but as long as I am with a whole party of hunters, I can take down any monster. I am my father's son, after all."
Huh. I chuckled. A coward who'd already learned how to overcome his fear. I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised. He was mature enough to get married, after all, and to a headstrong woman like Kann, of all people.
Kirs told me we needed to head back soon. He was due to head out with the next hunting party and didn't want to be late. We restarted our count and walked back to the encampment. I double checked my own count against Kirs', and went back to my hut with a smile on my face. The map was now accurate and I even felt like I'd gotten made a new friend. I made a mental note to hang out with Kirs more often.
The next night, as I was about to head in for some sleep, I heard some voices outside of my shelter. I saw the blue haired elder Sommi, her eyes wide and full of frenzy. With her were many people from the Imm and Nare tribes, including Kirs' wife, Kann Imm.
"Teacher Cas!" cried elder Sommi. "The hunting party has not returned. Kirs, he… he hasn't come back!"