Talen shook his head and sighed.

“Of course, there was that one hatchling swinging about on a vine. But he wasn’t bothering anybody.”

Da’s joking in the face of danger had worked when Talen was younger, but this wasn’t just humor. He was mocking Talen’s concern and that was annoying.

“That’s nothing,” said Ke. He pointed at Talen. “Mighty hunter here saw one in the yard.”

“Really?” asked Da.

“Yes,” said Ke. “A fine view of its leg and bum.”

His brother made it sound as if he were making it up. “And a spoon,” said Talen, “wet with fresh porridge.” Talen folded his arms.

“I wondered where that had fallen,” said Da. “I got to the barn this morning with my bowl, but no spoon. And I know I’d put one in.”

So much for the spoon. “I saw somebody,” said Talen.

“I’m sure you did,” said Da.

But Talen could see he was going to give him the same lecture River had. And so he decided not to push it. Maybe they were right. What he needed was more evidence. “Come on, Nettle,” he said, “let’s go get some fish.”

Nettle handed his hay fork to Ke with a smile, then followed Talen down to the river. The river ran so low this time of year that the gravel bars stood high and dry. Frogs croaked back and forth to one another from the edges of the slower pools. Talen fetched eight pan-sized trout out of the weirs, then he and Nettle took the fish back to the house. They filleted them, throwing the bones and guts into a bucket for the garden.

Talen looked over the meadow where they kept their mule. That thing he’d seen today, if it was a hatchling, could be out there in the shadows of the forest line right now looking at him and he’d never know it. One thing was for sure, his dogs were not going to be any help.

If it was a hatchling, he couldn’t cower. He’d have to be ready. Have to have his bow at hand and shoot first. There could be no hesitation.

He went in the house and laid the fish fillets on the table.

Ke sat in his chair mending a tear in his tunic. He looked up at the fish. “You’ve got to make it hard for me, don’t you?”

Ke was beginning yet another fast to purify his heart. He’d started fasting after the battles last year where one of his best friends had fallen and been taken by the Bone Faces. The Bone Faces hadn’t removed his finger and enthralled him. Nor had they fed him to their gods. Instead, they put out his eyes, shredded his ears, broke his feet so he’d be lame the rest of his life, and cut off his manhood. Then they left him by the side of the road to die or tell his tale.

Ke changed. You could see it in his eyes, a frightening purpose. He killed with a ferocious rage after that. Talen was so proud, and jealous, of him and the respect he won. And then Ke began to fast and ruined it. At first, his fasts consisted of passing up red meat. Now he would go without food or water for a day, sometimes two.

Talen didn’t understand all the fuss. It was right and good to defend home and hearth. It was right to take pleasure in the death of an enemy.

When he’d brought this obvious fact up to Ke, his brother had said, “Yes, but what happens when you begin to relish it like a roasted apple? What happens when you cannot slake the hate?” And so Ke fasted.

But the fasting didn’t appear to give Ke any new insight. The only thing it produced, as far as Talen could see, was a loud stomach and a short temper. Besides, Da had killed, and he didn’t fast.

Talen jiggled the basket of fish a bit. “They’re going to be tasty,” he said. “Are you sure you can’t wait? Given what’s happened, I would feel more comfortable with you at full strength.”

“You’ve got to get the weeds when they’re small,” said Ke.

Talen grunted. There were things about Ke he just couldn’t understand. He went back out to the well to wash up. Da had picked up this Mokaddian washing habit from Mother. Talen wondered if Da demanded they clean themselves because he truly believed in cleanliness or because it was his way of remembering her. Either way, Talen wouldn’t eat until he’d scrubbed with soap.

A large basin sat on a table next to the well. Da had lined the ground around the well with bricks. He’d also laid a brick path from the well to the house. Another was half built from the house to the privy, all to keep the boarded floor of their house clean.

Talen took his shirt off and scrubbed his arms, neck, and chest. He dumped a bucket of cold water over his head, and that’s when he saw the footprint in the soft dirt at the edge of the bricks.

He walked to the edge of of the bricks and looked down. There were three prints heading away from the well toward the old sod house. The toes looked a little long. The prints weren’t deep. In fact, you had to be standing just right to see them. But they were there.

“Nettle,” he said.

Nettle was slick with soap.

Talen pointed at the footprint. “What do you make of these?”

Nettle walked over. He took a wet cloth, wiped his chest, and looked down.

“Hatchling or woodikin?” asked Talen. Either way it was trouble. When the first settlers arrived in these lands, they found a number of small, hairy creatures sitting in a wild apple tree eating fruit. The first settlers had considered the creatures pests. But over time things had turned deadly, for the woodikin were not simple and dumb brutes. There had been much bloodshed between the first people and the tribes of the woodikin.

After a moment, Nettle said, “It’s not woodikin. This foot is too fat. And the toes aren’t nearly long enough. They’re human.”

“The prints are too small for any of us,” said Talen.

“So it could be the Sleth children or someone else. If it is Sleth, you know we’re bound by law to report it to the authorities.”

“And have them take all the glory and the reward?”

“I’m just saying we need to think this through.”

“What’s there to think? We get my da out here, we execute our plan. We’re not talking about some ancient Sleth. We’re talking about children.”

“I know,” said Nettle. “But I also know you don’t give some things enough time. You jump to conclusions. Look at your father’s spoon.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to help?”

“No,” said Nettle. “I’m in. But we need to have a solid plan. Not some half-baked thing. This one-legged hatchling snare scheme of yours is about as good as your running up the tree to escape Ke and River. This is one print. One hatchling. How many others might there be? We have to take that into account.”

Nettle had a point, but sometimes you didn’t have time to reconnoiter and strategize. “If you’d been in my shoes this morning,” said Talen, “River and Ke would have had you before the chase began because you’d still be deciding which way to run. Sometimes what’s required is immediate action.”

“Yes, just do the first thing that comes to mind. That will win wars and conquer nations.”

Nettle heard a lot from his father and his men about battle. But just because his father was a man of battle tactics didn’t elevate Nettle to the same level. “You only get a perfect plan after the fact, Nettle. A good plan, boldly executed now, is far better than a perfect one next week.”

“If they’re Sleth,” said Nettle, “then a hasty plan will get us both killed. I just want to make sure we do this thing in a way that will show everyone what we’re capable of. Not a way that backfires on us.”

Nettle was right, but that didn’t make his resistance any less annoying. “Fine. Then let’s look for more spoor, or are you just going to stand there dripping on the bricks?”

Talen and Nettle found two other sets of prints: one by the privy and the second in the mud by the pigpen. Nettle had just measured the one by the pigpen with his hand and concluded they had found prints that belonged to two different people, not one, when a man spoke from behind them.