Kaye twisted the cloth and dirty red water dripped through her fingers and into the bucket.

  When they dragged Loho away from the temple, a figure broke free from the crowd. Kaye recognized her uncle immediately. Hogog had his bow with him, and the words “Of course I was following you,” were everything he said. Hogog and Aien then carried Loho all the way back to the house, leaving Kaye with the blood-soaked sword.

  It was the first time Kaye saw Gima seriously worried. She had dragged a chair to sit by a window and was running to meet them before they were halfway down the street.

  As the three brought Loho to their room, Kaye left the sword atop the table and searched the house for things to do, to clean, but ended up finding nothing than taking the chair back inside.

  The others had barely finished dragging Loho when Aien appeared by the door.

  “Gima is calling for you.”

  Kaye helped wipe all the blood off Loho, and together they cleaned and bandaged his wounds. She had staunched the blood when he still y down by the temple’s staircase, and though none of the cuts were particurly deep and the fight had been long, looking back now, she thought that stress had been just as important in depleting Loho’s strength. Perhaps even fear.

  Cloth as clean as it would get, Kaye hanged it to dry. Aien was in the back of the house, sword — Loho’s sword, that had been Aien’s before — sitting on his p. He had wiped the blood off the bde and was dragging a noisy whetstone across its edges.

  When Kaye entered the house again, Hogog and Uruoro were preparing food. Gima was standing by the window in the front, and as Kaye approached her, she remembered Loho’s plea.

  Please, allow me to kill that man.

  Not as unwavering as I thought. Kaye was sure there were plenty of Headhunter rules she didn’t know, trappings of their own making, all of them, and there, watching as Gima stared through the window as if there was anything to see, Kaye thought that those rules hurt the unmasked just as much. Perhaps even more. The Headhunters thrive on it, after all, even if only on the outside.

  She was two steps behind Gima when the woman turned. Her face was controlled, calm. The whipsh gave Kaye pause; she had been expecting a crying woman.

  Ah, this is not the first time this has happened.

  “Thank you once again, Kaye.”

  “It was nothing. I brought him back in one piece,” she risked.

  Gima offered a joyless half-smile. “This is not the agreement we made. You have to do it at least once more yet.”

  Whether it was their nursing or if Loho was just that tough, Kaye didn’t know, but by the second day the only thing that hinted at him being hurt were the bandages. Gima, however, reminded him that the wound would take long to settle, even with her poultices that promoted scarring. Loho listened to her.

  Their departure from the city was deyed, and days went by, turned into weeks. Days in which Kaye caught up to her notes in the diary, passing them from the wax tablet to the paper. She drew her parents, filled their pages with words, and though her heart sunk, it did not falter.

  That morning, Kaye had left Neru-Aran through the north, found a spot with a good view and filled two pages with a sketch of the city as seem from above, wishing she had the time and resources to measure every direction of it to draw the city’s outline and see how much of a square it actually was.

  On her way back to the house she approached it from a different direction than usual, seeing the back before the front. Aien was there, as she expected, but he was standing awkwardly, back to the house, sword in hand.

  He lowered the bde, let go of it for an instant, and pushed it down at the pommel, leveraging the sword-tip up. It did not have the same effect as Hisha’s, mostly because his sword’s hilt was far longer, but Aien had also been much slower. Not a stab that would kill, but one that could surprise, perhaps even take out an eye. Though Kaye hadn’t seem any of it, she figured that was not the only move he was copying.

  She thought she understood how he felt. Seeing Loho in action had to shake any swordsman’s resolve. The other two, Udar and Cozo, did not bother them any longer, and Gima had told her that word of their grievances and how it was solved must be common knowledge among the Headhunters of Neru-Aran by now.

  Unnoticed, Kaye approached the house.

  An hour ter, they were fully equipped and leaving through the front door. Gima followed them, holding Loho’s hand all the way to the north exit. They turned by the base of the ascent, hugged each other, and then Gima hugged everyone else. She had to lower herself to embrace Uruoro, and both of them let out an easy ugh.

  When it was Kaye’s turn, Gima whispered at her ear. “Thank you for everything. I hope to one day hear about your travels.”

  Another gnce at Loho, their hands brushed together as she passed by him, and Gima was walking back into the city, the long braid of her hair swinging this way and that, until she was obscured by the passers-by.

  Turning, they strode out of Neru-Aran. Wagons and carts pulled into the city, and soon they were walking by the roadside.

  Picking her pace up, Kaye approached Loho.

  “Give me your pack,” she said.

  He turned and stared.

  “You’re not fully healed yet.”

  “If my wounds open, they will be superficial,” Loho said.

  “I’d rather avoid it. We’ll be counting on you if there is any trouble on the road.”

  Loho looked forward. A few moments passed by before he handed her the bag.

  “If it eases your mind, I don’t expect any trouble on this road. Most of the Headhunters south of Neru-Aran are invading Saldassa, but the keshin won’t leave the north border undefended. We still remember the morrish invasion.”

  “Did you fight in the war?”

  “Briefly. I was still unmasked then, but the shameful defeat the cn I followed faced is what turned me into who I am.”

  “I’ve met a man who cimed to be there. Brun, a sailor, though he might not have been a sailor back then. He said that the morrish had three times the numbers of Sarak, but Mor was still defeated.”

  “He told you the truth. It was the first time that the Headhunters assembled into an army, truly assembled. The morrish had an advantage in the open fields, but the unmasked fought battles of retreat, luring the Morrish in, and the Headhunter cns drove into their fnks. We will pass by some of those pces.”

  “Why were you fighting, back then? Not you, but your people.”

  “Will you write about that in your book?” Loho asked, the hint of a smile on his face.

  “I might.”

  “The same as every war. The same as this war.”

  “Jade,” Kaye said. “Riches. Roads. Cities.”

  “There was a time,” Loho continued, “when we fought for water. There are not that many rivers, as you might have noticed, and each one can only feed so many. Through those wars, we established great cities like Neru-Aran, where thousands can live without that worry. But the keshin seem to have learned with the morrish. If our Headhunters are this unstoppable, why have we kept them within Sarak for so long?”

  Kaye gazed into the road ahead, watched the people coming from the opposite direction.

  “When you go back, will you leave for the war?”

  “I will be summoned.”

  That is not what I asked.

  From what Kaye had heard, Loho and his cn had been raiding before the invasion of Saldassa begun. He was ensved, met them on the caravan and ended up back in Neru-Aran. His stay in the city would have been far briefer if it weren’t for his wounds, and Kaye was dragging him away again.

  For how many days will you see Gima, before war calls? And for how many months or years will you be away? That house felt rge for only two people, rge and empty.

  Kaye thought about asking what would happen with a Headhunter that refused the call, but she knew the answer already. Others would step forward, asking for the chance to dispose of the dishonorable one. If nerves were too tense and someone drew blood, a right of bloodshed would be called and the fools would kill each other. Irina would watch, doing nothing — was Uruoro correct? Did the Goddess of Death loathe the blood spilled in her name, or did she anticipate the moment it would flow, licking her lips?

  Instead, Kaye changed the subject. “Tell me about this road we walk.”

  “It will be a calm journey. Two days from now, the path will split into two, one heading east for Tohohon, but we will continue north through the canyon.”

  “A canyon? Will there be bridges?”

  “Scared of heights?” this time, Loho showed a full smile.

  “I used to be.”

  “Yes, Kaye, there will be bridges. Long, wavering ones buffeted by the wind. There are shorter, sturdier ones, but that would require us to move west for at least four days, or continue on the road east for ten more.”

  “You do know Sarak like the palm of your hand, then.”

  “Every Headhunter does. We spend our lives on the road, going wherever our services are needed.”

  Inside her mind, Kaye saw a bone dagger plunging into a chest, an iron one splitting a neck open, arrows cutting through men. How different are we, at the end of the day?