"No," Ginadura said, her voice filled with the peculiar sort of frustration one only feels when they're having fun. She kept one eye on the deer standing amidst the trees, about 45 yards ahead of her, and helped Bevadar fit his gloved index finger around the trigger of the rifle. "No one ever taught you how to shoot a gun?"
Bevadar laughed nervously. "I'm just not used to this model of rifle," he said, blushing.
"Well, he's gonna get away," she replied, referencing the deer just visible through the fall foilage.
"Is this legal? I think we're on Elmussa's property. And is it deer season?"
"He's gonna get away if you keep yapping."
Bevadar breathed in and put the rifle to his shoulder. He licked his lips and closed one eye, the better to aim at the buck. He pullled the trigger, but the shot went high - over the deer's back, and into a tree behind it. Small pieces of bark were kicked up into the air, and the animal ran.
"I missed." Bevadar said, embarrassed. Ginadura forced a smile, but her face was red - either from anger or the cold autumn air. Ginadura breathed in to begin speaking, but was cut off by a bang coming from behind the pair.
"Another gunshot!" Bevadar said, nearly dropping the rifle in his hands. Ginadura sighed, knowing better.
"It's a door." she whispered. She crouched and motioned for Bevadar to do the same. Leaves and sticks crinkled beneath them as they lowered their bodies. The woods were silent except for the sounds of a few birds - stragglers, sticking around before their migrations to the south of Ozia.
"I told you kids!" came a woman's voice in the distance. "I told you kids not to go playin' around in my backyard!"
"It's Elmussa!" Ginadura said. She was an old woman, but spry, and knew the woods behind her house well. If they got caught, she'd make them scrub the floors in her store until sundown.
"Run!" she continued. Ginadura grabbed the gun from Bevadar's hands, knowing she could run faster with it than he could.
The birds lifted themselves from the trees as the pair ran past them, leaves and sticks breaking underneath their boots. Bevadar, though slow to start, quickly caught up to Ginadura and nearly passed her.
"We've got to get to the river!" she said in hastened breaths. "Elmussa doesn't like the mud!"
Bevadar looked puzzled - that the woman he had been led to believe moments before was on a murderous rampage didn't want to get her shoes stuck in mud. Nonetheless, he took Ginadura's word for it. She stuck around the old lady's store so much she knew more about Elmussa than anyone else in town. "Okay!" he responded, short of breath himself. It was about 70 more yards to the river, and he felt confident he could make it despite the cramping in his abdomen.
Within a few moments, the pair felt their boots sinking slightly with each step. The river had flooded recently, and the waterlogged ground reached nearly to the treeline. They both got to the shore and stood, Ginadura looking around and Bevadar with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Besides some sweat dripping from her brow, Ginadura seemed none the worse for wear after their little sprint. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and tightened the strap.
"Over there," she said to Bevadar, pointing in the distance. It was an ice fishing shack - Odaishaw's, by the looks of it, resting on the ground waiting for winter.
"I thought you said," Bevadar began through deep breaths, "that we were safe once we got to the river."
"We can't risk it," she replied. "Come on!"
Ginadura grabbed his gloved hand and led him through the mud towards the shack. When they got inside, Ginadura took the rifle off her shoulder and leaned it against the wall. It was dark inside, with just a bit of afternoon sun filtering through the cracks in the shack's clapboard siding.
"Do you hear that?" Bevadar whispered. A ray of sunlight was illuminating a small vertical strip on his red face.
Ginadura nodded and held her breath.
"Damn kids," Elmussa's crackly voice said. "I'll never get the mud off my boots."
Bevadar held his breath too. The voice got closer.
"There's probably a line at the store," she muttered. "I'll make them man the register until closing time." Elmussa spit in the river and the trudging footsteps stopped. She was feet from the shack now. A few tense moments passed. This time the forest was silent - not even the sound of a crow could be heard. Elmussa spit again. She lit a match, presumably for her twelvth cigarette today.
"Damn kids," she said, turning and trudging back to the store.
The footsteps receded, and Bevadar let out his breath. Even he wasn't sure how long he had been holding it.
"I think she's gone," he said to Ginadura. Ginadura grabbed his head and kissed him roughly.
Gothren cursed to himself. Ferunen had fixed his car alright, but not before filling it with the pungent smell of cigar smoke. The little vehicle - nearly 20 years old by this point - trudged across town down Route 17 to the Sarerovth house. It was located at the far end of a lumber yard, several acres in size, that nearly the entire clan worked at. He passed Elmussa's store, which Darvam had told him was about halfway between the Girith residence and the Sarerovth lumber stand.
Gothren leaned forward in his seat and looked up at the sky. It was a sheet of gray, which meant that yet more snow was sure to come. Novrith was further north than Resaroth, but had drier air. The snow here was nearly unbearable in its intensity and sheer, unceasing regularity. He sighed and sat back in his seat.
He turned his blinker on and began to make a turn down the long road that would lead him to the lumber yard, but a boy aged about 16 walked out in the street from the adjacent woods. Gothren's city-man instincts kicking in, he slammed on the brakes and laid on the horn. The boy, a clueless-looking type, turned and walked towards the car, oblivious towards Gothren's anger. Gothren rolled down his window as the teenager approached.
"Hey!" he exclaimed. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You can't just - "
As the teenager got closer, Gothren felt reticent to begin a five-minute-long, Novrith-style road rage assault towards him.
"You can't just walk into traffic like that," he said more softly. "You'll get hurt."
"Sorry, sera." the boy said. "But I saw your car coming and had to stop you before you got up this road. You're the Novrith guy, eh? Fa's real mad at you. Wants your head."
"Wants my head?" Gothren said. He lowered his window the rest of the way and put an arm on the frame of the door.
"Iyeh, he saw you with, ah," the boy paused, as if unsure for words. "That Girith girl and decided you're not, ah, impartial."
"I am totally impartial!" Gothren began, exasperated. "Before my work with Her Majesty I had a very profitable business as one of Novrith's lawyers."
"You're a lawyer?" the boy said. "Eesh, Fa' would like you even less."
Gothren gazed at the boy for a minute. The teenager held a gloved hand out. "Bevadar Sarerovth," he said. Gothren hesistated for a moment, then picked his hand up off the doorframe and shook his hand.
"Gothren Quarrith,"
"It's nice to meet you. I think I can get you in with Fa', but we need somewhere we can discuss things."
Gothren reached into the center console of his car for a cigarette. He wasn't used to 'discussing things' with children, but since his arrival in Resaroth it felt like it was all he was doing.
"There's a diner just across the town line, right before where we stop plowing the roads."
"Well," Gothren said. "Get in, I guess."
"I don't have any money."
Gothren frowned.
"I have some cash."
