As he emerged into the open and began to approach the camp, Oram asked himself why he was doing this. Was this not foolhardy? Wasn’t this exactly the sort of macho stunt that had gotten his father killed.
It isn’t a stunt, Amoach told him, unseen and unasked. You’re taking a risk to save lives and bring murderers to justice.
The diri had a point, yet that did not make the traveler feel better about what he was doing. He did not have long to mull the issue, however, as the sentry finally saw him and loudly challenged with: ”Hey! I see you, stranger! Stop right there.” Nearby, the old dog’s ears twitched and its eyes, somewhat clouded with cataracts, opened to regard the intruder. It rose slowly to its feet and then began to growl and bark, though it did not approach.
About four other people, all male, and mostly pretty tough-looking, stepped into view, glaring at Oram suspiciously. None except the sentry were armored, nor indeed even that well-clothed. The sentry himself wore a ratty, rusty iron hauberk with a couple black-stained rents in it, suggesting it had failed its last owner. He had a spear not unlike Oram’s own, and a knife. The others did not carry proper weapons, yet the hunter could guess that there were several knives, shovels, sticks, hatchets and axes to hand, though in what condition he could not say.
The men had muscles and scars suggesting they were not strangers to hardship and strife, yet Oram could tell they were underfed. A couple of them started to step forward, yet they paused when Oram stared them down.
The sentry himself was more resolute. ”We’ve got you outnumbered and surrounded, stranger,” he called out, advancing out front of the others. ”Put down your weapons and step forward.”
Oram looked at him appraisingly, while keeping an eye out for motion at the edge of his vision. ”Outnumbered, yes, but not surrounded,” he responded. ”You’re the only sentry, and you just noticed me now. And I’ll keep my weapons, thank you.” He could feel the tension rise as the sentry bristled at this. Before the man could speak again, Oram turned his spear point-down and then held one hand palm out towards him.
”I’m a hunter,” Oram stated simply, ”and I’m not here to start a fight. I saw your fire and thought maybe you were hunters too, and that maybe we could trade information, about game and such. Folks call me Or.” Which was true, albeit he could count the ‘folks’ who had ever called him that since adolescence on one hand.
”And now why would you think you’d be welcome in our camp, Hunter Or?” drawled the sentry. From his attitude, he was obviously confident he had the upper hand. The others, although they still made no move to approach Oram, began to settle into similar attitudes of self-assurance. The old dog, still all snarls and suspicion and grumpiness at being awakened, stalked forward to take the sentry’s side. Oram could also see movement inside the mouths of the nearby tents, although nothing issued out of them.
”Because it looks like you need help,” he pointed out. ”Your camp is unsanitary, you aren’t keeping yourselves clean, and you look hungry.”
The sentry sneered; however, Oram noticed that he cast a questioning glance towards both the other men and towards the largest tent before he offered his next counter. ”We don’t want your help, Or. We got plenty of meat now, and we don’t need strangers poking around our campsite.”
Oram looked at the man. ”By ‘plenty of meat’, you mean that horse, right? Do you know how to keep all that meat from spoiling until you can eat it? Do you have the means to salt or smoke it? Because if you don’t, you’ll only have edible meat for a couple, maybe three trials, no matter how big the horse is. It’s Ymiden.”
The sentry bristled. ”What do you know about the horse? You been spying on us?”
”Of course,” said the hunter, as blandly as he could manage. ”I’m a hunter; I stalk before I approach.”
Just then, something stirred in the largest tent, and a man emerged, followed by a middle-aged woman in what Oram guessed to be a healer's cloak. Neither of them immediately said a thing, yet the group confronting Oram clearly noticed them, and started eyeing them expectantly.
Oram noted them but did not turn to address them at first. Instead, he swept a meaningful gaze all around the woods. ”You’re probably right about one thing: there should be enough food around here. Fish and fowl and forage for the taking, if you know where to look.”
”We find plenty of sorel and rubrum berries, but it’s meat we’re after,” the man said. His partner gave him a sharp look, and he stopped talking, realizing too late that he had said too much.
”Don’t forget the mushrooms and cattails.” That met with a scoff for some reason.
”’Mushrooms and cattails!” the sentry snorted. ”Most of the mushrooms around here are poisonous, hunter, and eating cattails is a prank kids play on each other.”
It was Oram’s turn to scoff. ”Plenty of the mushrooms around here are edible; I eat them myself, and eating cattail *seedpods* is a prank kids play on each other. You can eat the lower stalks just fine. Roots, too, as long as you boil ‘em first.”
”You said there was fish and fowl, too? How we supposed to catch those? We don’t have nets or tackle.”
Oram swept his eyes conspicuously over the camp and its environs again. ”Then make them. Nets, poles, lines, hooks… I reckon everything you need for those is around here. You just need to know how to use it. I do.”
Suddenly the man from the big tent spoke, his voice deep and authoritative, if somewhat hoarse as if from a cold: ”I’ve heard enough. Stranger, why don’t you tell us who you really are? There’s no game around here to hunt.”
If Oram was disturbed by this new challenge, he did not let it show. Even if he had not recently surveyed the game in this area, he felt certain that, when it came to hunting and field craft, there was no one in *this* camp who had anything to tell him. He turned to regard the new man steadily.
”I say there is, and I already told you that I’m a hunter. And I can see that none of you are. Where have you looked for game, anyway? Have you scouted farther from this site than you do for gathering firewood? Of course you aren’t going to feed all your mouths with just the quarry that walks right up to this unsanitary, overcrowded camp!”
The man from the tent crossed his arms, looking Oram up and down appraisingly. ”Why would you help us, stranger?” he demanded after a few tense trills of silence. ”What’s in it for you?”
”What’s in it for me?” Oram repeated, now fixing most of his attention on Tent Man, who was probably what passed for the boss in this camp. ”Not having to live with myself after walking away from people who are maybe five, six trials from starting to die off.”
Tent Man now offered his own dismissive scoff, but Oram could tell it was not entirely sincere. ”We’ll be fine a lot longer than that, with or without any help from rude hunters,” he bluffed.
Oram held his gaze. ”No, you won’t,” he said. ”You won’t be the first poor outdoorsmen I had to rescue from their own bad choices. I know the signs. You’re hungry. You’re talking about killing and eating horses even though you’ve got nothing in place for harvesting and preserving the meat. Your camp is filthy and unsanitary. Your people are dirty, tired and hungry, and they’re starting to get sick. Aren’t they?”
He directed the last bit to the healer, a middle-aged woman in a yellow, hoodless cloak with a green trim. ”Tell them,” he urged, still talking to her. ”Tell them how much time they have before they start losing folks to fever and dysentery.”
The woman, to Oram’s surprise, and concern, did not speak; instead, she regarded him with the same hostile suspicion as the men; she went to stand, arms crossed on her chest, next to Tent Man. For a trill, Oram started to wonder if he might have misread the situation badly, to his peril.
