Arlene dug the dead father penguin out of the snow. Holding it up, she looked at the arrow sticking out of it. It was a dark wooden arrow with a deep dark red fletching. Grabbing it by the shaft, she yanked it out of the penguin. It came out easily; it hadn’t been buried deep.
She looked at the dead penguin in her hands. It had no other wounds besides the puncture in its gut from the arrow. She had learned hunting from Grimall, her Itey father, and knew that an animal would not die from a wound inflicted by a small arrow hitting the animal’s stomach. Not instantly.
She walked back up the mountain, following the river upstream. The poor penguin had not died instantly. She was sure of that. It must have died a slow death, trying to hop up to its chicks in pain. Pain. Pain was what must have finally killed the poor animal. Arlene could only hope that the cold had numbed the creature of some of that pain.
The arrow was a concern. She had never seen such an arrow before. The humans she had spied on in the forests before used simple wooden arrows. No one would spend time colouring an arrow unless it was to signify a – group? She decided to take the arrow to father and ask for his opinion.
She took the dead father penguin to where his nest had been and buried him there, deep within the snow. It felt right to do that, to let him rest beside the place where his babies would grow up. She said a short prayer for the creature’s soul as had been taught to her by mother. She made a note to herself to gather food for its chicks until the mother penguin returned. How would she react when she found its chicks alone with her partner nowhere to be found?
After the prayer was over, she started making her way up the mountains to where her parents’ cave was. It was larger than her own cave as they needed space for themselves and their three children, one of whom was Garlow.
Grimall, a big burly Itey, was twice as tall as her and covered in slightly grey fur. Her mother, Kyra, was just as tall but had whiter fur than her husband.
Their eldest child was Katya, slightly shorter than her mother with similar white fur. She had been born a year after Arlene had been brought to her adoptive parents by the man in white. The middle child was Garder. Six years older than Garlow, he stood slightly taller than and had taken after the greyish fur of his father. The youngest was Garlow, whom Arlene had helped Kyra raise when she was mostly busy with Katya’s adolescence and Garder’s childhood.
Jumping on the rocks, she made her way swiftly across the snowy terrain. In less than a minute she had arrived before her parents’ cave. Peering inside, she could see only Kyra who was busily untangling matted fur near her feet.
“I always told you to wash your feet after walking in mud,” Arlene said as she stepped inside.
Kyra gave her a glare and said nothing. At twenty-five she had become moody and rebellious. She would not listen to her own parents, much less so to Arlene who looked almost like a child due to her short stature. Even for humans Arlene was short.
“Where’s father?” Arlene asked.
“He’s out fishing by the lake below,” Kyra said in an irate voice.
“Is something bothering you?” Arlene asked in a soft voice.
“Why do you care? You’re human; at least you look like one. Stop pretending like you would understand,” Kyra said.
Arlene did not understand what had happened to Kyra. Up until a few years ago, Kyra had been a sweet sister. And then, before she knew it, Kyra had started growing distant and cold. At least Garder was still loving and Garlow would perhaps never let go of her.
Stung by Kyra’s words, Arlene exited the cave quietly.
‘Why do you care? You’re human.’
She knew more than anyone else that she did not belong here, in these mountains with the Iteys. But it was home to her. The only home she knew and remembered.
Shaking the thoughts out of her mind, she started walking. She walked slowly and deliberately, feeling the powdery snow brush against her skin as she pushed her legs through it. She focused her thoughts on the arrow she held in her hand. Dark red fletching and a dark, almost blackened, shaft. This was no common arrow. Her previous assessment of it belonging to some particular group must be correct.
But what group?
She thought about Sherman, the heart of this land. If this were a kingdom, Sherman would have most certainly been the capital. As it was, the land was a free land and each village and town governed themselves. Yet Sherman had a certain power over them all. She’d been to Sherman several times. Always under a cloak to avoid revealing her pale blue skin to others, she had observed the bustling town from underneath the hood of her clothes.
She had thought several times of revealing herself to the people of Sherman in hopes that they would accept her as she was. If they could accept the Easterners, the tanned desert dwellers with their strange custom of Orders, the smelly fishermen from the coast, and the hill dwellers from the villages scattered across the land then they would surely accept her?
But she had hesitated every time. Her hand went up to her hood but she could never bring herself to pull it back, to show herself to the people. It was a peaceful town but she had always been afraid of revealing herself to them. What if she was too different? What if they lynched her? No, she was not afraid of that. She was more afraid of being rejected. Of being told that she did not belong.
Arlene trudged on through the snow, pushing what she deemed to be the pessimistic thoughts away. She focused on the arrow. It belonged to a group. An army? Sherman had its guards and police but no militia to speak of. And they never ventured this far out anyway.
Perhaps she was thinking too much of it. Maybe it was a single hunter who liked to decorate his arrow that way. A nomad perhaps, out hunting animals for food.
Still, she figured she should ask father anyway. She could see the frozen lake some distance away. There were a few Itey’s on frozen surface, their hands thrust into the water through holes they had dug into the ice to catch fish. She spotted Grimmal among a group of his friends, laughing as he flung the fish into a little basket Arlene had weaved out of willow for him.
Reaching the shore, she took off the socks on her feet and then slid across the ice to her father.
Grimmal saw his adopted daughter approaching him and smiled. She was frozen when he had found her and he was sure that she was dead. Common sense dictated that no living being could stay alive after being frozen solid for so long. Yet somehow, that man had somehow revived her. In the process of revival, he had changed something in her that allowed her to bear the freezing cold of the mountains. In fact, the cold did not affect her at all. It was somewhat ironic to think that this human who had once been on the brink of death could now survive climates that he, an Itey, could not.
“Morning father,” Arlene said, sliding next to Grimmal. She gave him a hug.
“Morning Arlene. What brings you here so early in the morning?” Grimmal asked. He grunted as he pulled a rather large fish out of the lake and tossed it in the basket.
“Garlow woke me up,” she answered.
“Of course. Were you the one who sent him to me with the amber?”
Arlene grinned sheepishly. “I could not get rid of him otherwise.”
Grimmal roared as he let out a hearty laugh. “You may be adopted but you most certainly take after me. I sent him off to bother Kyra.”
Around him other Iteys laughed. “Don’t come to my cave if she does not let you sleep in yours,” said one Itey. The others roared louder.
“Father, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Arlene said.
“What is it?”
Arlene held the arrow she had found outwards. “The father of the penguin chicks Garlow has been excited about is dead. It was killed by this arrow. I wanted to ask you if you know anything about it.”
Grimmal grabbed the arrow gingerly with his thick fingers. He held it close to his face, staring at the colour of the arrow. “Kremmild!” He shouted.
Another Itey slightly shorter than Grimmal hunkered over with a half-eaten fish in his hands.
“What is it?” he asked in a gruff voice, obviously annoyed at being disturbed with his breakfast.
Grimmal tossed the arrow over to Kremmild who managed to catch it despite his large hands with surprising ease.
“Do you recognise that?” Grimmal asked.
Kremmild looked at the arrow in the same manner Grimmal had. His expression darkened and he looked back at Arlene’s father.
“Where did you find this?” he asked. Arlene noticed that there was a slight quiver in his voice. Strange, thought Arlene. She had never seen the great Kremmild afraid.
“I did not find it. Arlene did.”
Kremmild knelt down over the ice to match Arlene’s height. “Where did you find the arrow child?” he asked in a gentle tone.
“I found it on a dead penguin by the river downstream.”
“How low?”
“Slightly lower and you would have reached the grassland on the hills.”
Kremmild rose up with a nod.
“Well?” asked Grimmal.
“The arrow does look like the ones used by the Rachhas Kingdom,” Kremmild said in a low voice, as if afraid that other Iteys around them would hear.
“Do you think they’ve found us?” Grimmal asked. He sounded worried, noted Arlene.
“What is going on father? What is this Rachh–”
Grimmal immediately placed his hand over Arlene’s mouth. “Do not speak that name here. Not now. Do you understand?”
Arlene nodded. Grimmal slowly removed his hand.
“But why?” Arlene asked.
“That name – the place that name belongs to it feared by all us older Itey,” Kremmild said. “Saying that out loud here could incite a panic and we do not want that. It is a dark part of our history and we do not wish to remember it if possible.”
“But we still need to talk about this,” Grimmal said. He tucked the arrow beneath his belly under his fur. “We cannot ignore this piece of evidence that Arlene has found.”
“What do you propose we do?”
“We should hold a council this noon. We can break the news to others slowly.”
“And then what?”
“We can only hope that they take the news calmly.”
ns 15.158.61.51da2
