Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

glad he didn’t have far to travel; he’d need flame paste soon to fight off rot in those wounds.

But when they climbed out of the ravine and approached the edge of the tribe’s clearing, Kest striding strong and confident to hide his fears, he soon faltered, his heart dropping into his stomach. No one was waiting for him. Not even Binmara, who had let him sit in her family’s fire-circle before he left, who had whispered to him that she would not yell if he slipped into her nighttime furs before the trial. Her eyes never left him when he was in sight, and yet she was not waiting. Not that he intended to make the pretty girl his karda – he had years yet before he intended to pick a woman – but, still, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Empty wooden octagons of the tribe’s shelters greeted him, their tufted grass roofs a dull, faded green in the sunlight. Everyone was supposed to be lined up, anticipating his victorious return. Not even Mother and Father are here. It was… wrong! He’d been dreaming of this for months. This was his moment, and no one was there. Where is everyone?

He heard a low, multi-layered muttering coming from beyond the octagonal summer huts. It sounded as if everyone in the tribe were conferring together quietly, but there were occasional peaks and lulls in the sound that made him think of a contest of strength, but such a thing was ridiculous. The Granaal did not fight amongst themselves; the only reason for a one-on-one fight with everyone watching would be if someone were challenging Puldaergna for the chief’s horns.

Again he heard a sudden hush chased away by a rush of speech and cheering. Was he imagining the slap of flesh on flesh? A loud smack was followed by ooohs from many throats, and he knew he was not. Someone was challenging Pul. No! Kest was supposed to be the next chief; they all knew it! Who would do this? He broke into a run, telling the massive rhino to stay put.

Just as he thought – everyone was circled around the meeting dell, and two men grappled in the center. One of them was Puldaergna. His massive belly gave him away instantly. Ice rimed the inside of Kest’s guts, and he pulled up short behind all the others. No one noticed him –they were all absolutely focused on the fight, and justly so. A change in chieftain was the greatest upheaval the tribe would experience in a decade. The man currently trying to pull the chief’s arm from its socket was a stranger, tall, broad, pale-skinned, with a braided gray beard and long hair held back by a leather braid with a crystal woven into it across his forehead. He was swathed in a high-collared, long-sleeved black robe of curious, torn-thread quilting that split at the hips, revealing black pants and boots held close to the body by straps. Who fights in black at the height of summer? And why is Pul fighting him? No outsider could replace him! Who would follow a foreigner?

The two men were alone in the circle. Where is Kyrak? The chief’s beast mate, a wizened and cranky old rhino missing the tip of its horn, would never leave the man’s side at a moment like this. Has the bearded man killed his beast? Is that what this is about? He could make no sense of it. Outsiders were for trading with, gaining information from, and for killing if they proved untrustworthy – but they were not for fighting. Pul had slipped the robe-clad man’s hold and delivered a punishing blow to his opponent’s ribs. Kest winced in sympathy, but the man barely grunted, falling back and regrouping without any apparent discomfort.

“I had hoped this would be done before you returned,” a quiet voice said in his ear. He turned, and Mama was there, smiling her crinkle-eyed love and patting his shoulder. Kest hugged her, and a bit of the ice inside him melted. If Mama was smiling, things couldn’t be so wrong as they seemed. The shorter woman gave him a tight squeeze, but quickly released him as he squirmed and protested in pain. Her arms had clamped down right over the wounds in his sides. Stepping back, she eyed the puffy claw-marks with a practiced gaze and without a word reached into her hip bag, bringing forth her ever-present pot of flame paste.

“Mother, what’s happening? I don’t understand!” He tried to keep the whine from his voice. He was a man now, and he would handle his disappointments with strength and calm. But never had he expected to be robbed of his just recognition by the tribe at the same moment he was embarking on his grand plan! Did someone find me out? Impossible. I haven’t said a thing to anyone. Did they follow me during the trial? That also seemed unlikely. Who would sneak through the wilderness just to follow someone who was supposed to weather the trial all alone? Besides, he would have seen it. No, it was impossible.

“This man doesn’t think to be chief, does he?” The broad man fought with a ferocity and precision he had never seen, fists lashing out like whips, feet planted solidly, face impassive. The broken-loop threading of his quilted black robe gave him a tattered aspect, almost as if he were a spirit of death. Pul rushed him and wrapped the man in a crushing hug, trying to knock him off his feet. Landing on your back with the fat chief’s weight atop you was a good way to lose a fight, but incredibly, the man did not move. It was as if Pul had rushed a boulder.

“The man came to us this morning wanting to ask a boon of our tribe,” his mother explained in hushed tones, “but refused to say what it was until he had met Puldaergna in combat.” She applied the