“Old enough to beat, too young to be a hunter and fight back. Lie there until morning, Harl, until your father wonders where you are and comes to find you. I’ll tell him about murgu!”

Armun went out in the morning and walked among the tents of sammads and listened to what the women were saying. There was concern over the missing boy and hunters were out looking for him. Good, she thought to herself; they only get fat lying around their tents and doing nothing. She waited until the sun was low on the horizon before she went out and stopped the first woman she met.

“Go to the tent of Nivoth, and tell him that the boy Harl has been found and he is in my tent. Hurry.”

As she expected the woman was not in that much of a hurry that she did not have time enough to stop along the way to tell others—which was what Armun had expected. She went back to her tent and stayed there until she heard her name being called. Then she went out and closed the flaps behind her.

Nivoth had a scar from an old wound on his cheek that pulled his mouth into a perpetual scowl; his temper matched his face.

“I have come for the boy,” he said rudely. Behind him the growing crowd listened with interest: it had been a long and boring winter.

“I am Armun and this is the tent of Kerrick. What is your name?”

“Move aside woman—I want that boy.”

“Will you beat him again? And did you say that Kerrick was half murgu?”

“He is all murgu for what I know. I’ll beat the boy rightly enough for carrying tales—and beat you too if you don’t stand aside.”

She did not move and he reached out and pushed her. This was a bad mistake. He should have remembered what happened when she was younger and they called her squirrel-face.

Her closed fist caught him squarely on the nose and he went over backward into the snow. When he struggled up to his knees, blood dripping from his chin, she hit him again in the same place. This was greatly appreciated by the crowd—and by Harl who was peeking through a slitted opening in the tent.

Hunters do not strike women, other than their own women, so Nivoth was not certain what to do. Nor did he have much time to think about it. Armun was as big as he was—and stronger in her wrath. He fled beneath the hail of her blows. The crowd dispersed slowly regretting the end of the fascinating encounter.