The night was cool, with an easy breeze that danced on the skin, rusted the tops of the
trees. I had watched Orsan’s movements for a moon; I knew when he would be alone. When I
attacked him, he was not alone. I stood before his companions, his new hunting party, and I
called him out for his sin. I demanded satisfaction. His companions, younger men who admired
Orsan’s skill with a horn-mace, laughed at my presumption. Orsan did not. Nor did he tell me to
run along. He stood, with his great mace at his feet, and he asked all in earshot to give witness
that the challenge was made correctly, and that he would honor it.
Orsan was a strong man, and he had faced many a fight. He should have slain me easily.
But I was big for my age, and fast. And I had two things, rage, and Orsan’s guilt. I danced
around his hammer-blows and cut him to ribbons with the ketho. Well before I slit his throat, his
companions had stopped laughing. I walked out into the hills around my souka and I never
looked back.
The challenge had been correctly made, and correctly received, but law was law. I had
not passed the Trial, therefore everything I had done was a desecration. Kano and the elders
would feed me to the mountain, and I would die by fire and smoke. There could be no appeal.
So I trekked the long journey through the night forest amid the lonely cry of vultures. I
hid amid snakes and bloodsucking flies in the daylight, as the translucent leaves let most of the
sunlight through. I waited in the low hum of the daytime forest, feeling like everything was being
lost. When the sun went down I resumed my journey and through another night and day I
walked, meeting no man. In the deep of midnight on the third day I arrived at Carnaq, the capitol.
The Militia colonel, Harna, was of the Emuta clan that presently occupied Carnaq. Our
Feday clan thought little of his and vice versa. But Orsan used to speak ill of him where men