Crushed herb pastes and soaked leaves have been spread over the worst of his injuries, and as he drifts in and out of consciousness a little water has been passed through his lips at least. Ida and my mum, amongst others, are doing their best to slowly revive him and it seems as though his breathing is perhaps evening out a little. Ida has stopped babbling and is now in a state of complete focus, putting her many years of knowledge to good use.
The cheerful laughter is already a distant memory, even the tavern has silenced now as word of the event has reached its ears and the occupants have come to see for themselves.
In such a quiet community where little ever manages to puncture the monotony of each day, everyone will be keen to witness the action. All noise in Avlym has been replaced by nervous whispers and the occasional pain-fuelled groans, neither of which die out all evening.
The boy hasn’t been awake enough to tell them anything and nobody has any idea where he could have possibly come from. He isn’t one of our own and is far too underdressed to be from the colony, having only an odd necklace on a bare chest and an old battered looking pair of roughly cut shorts. He of course could be from one of the neighbouring villages, but that wouldn’t explain the state the hunters had found him in and not a single trader had admitted to knowing him.
Perhaps he has been banished? Either way, despite his state, I am thankful for the hunters keeping a constant eye over him. The commotion had awakened Manuel, how could it not, and although he still dozed, he is never too far from the frail boy. It is possible that he’s acting under Randall’s instructions, just in case.
I can’t remember ever hearing as many rumours as I do that night. Tales of the boy being a forest god sent to test us, if not an exiled babe who has survived nature’s worst, or perhaps a spy from the colony sent to gain our trust and infiltrate. I’m not sure I could say which theory was more far-fetched. I should hardly be surprised, in a village whose only notable news was how long Bennie had lasted the night before, a bloodied stranger clinging to life certainly deserves some talk.
Curiously, it is decreed that the boy will spend the night at ours so that my mother can continue to care for him. He is to be guarded at all times by an insistent Randall and Arthur has promised to check in on him come first light.
I lay still for a long time that night before sleep presents itself to me, the struggling boy fighting for his life barely a foot away. Ida and my mother have given him a chance, but his rasping breaths are still worryingly quick and unsteady.
As it turns out, I was right to question the marks by the boy’s temple. I took the opportunity to sneak a look as soon as it presented itself and what I found certainly raised some more questions. The marks are in fact green and form several long swirling tendrils that emerge from his unkempt hair to flick against his brow. A similar slash of green curves underneath his ear, giving the impression that the hidden part of the design outlines it.
I have only met one other individual who has decorated his skin in a similar way. A trader who had bragged about discovering a shaman capable of the art in some distant lands during his travels. His had been black, not green, and a crudely drawn spiral on his shoulder. He had used it to attract customers, strutting around in a shirt with torn off sleeves, eagerly displaying the mark in hope for his next deal. When they asked what it was, he would launch into some wild story about an old hag in a cave many moons away, a tale that was quickly passed around before being ridiculed later that night in the tavern. A tattoo he had called it, as far as I know nobody in the village had seen anything like it. Even Ida looked perplexed, forcing the traveller to remain seated as she traced the swirl repeatedly.
The more I look at the boy, the more questions come to the tip of my tongue. Nothing this big has happened in the village since that night many years ago, that night that the young me could only faintly remember but which had been retold to me countless times, the night that had claimed my father.
He was attacked, they had all told me, but when I asked by whom no one seemed to have a response. Devin swore that it had been the forest spirits, at first the other hunters seemed to agree with his story, but as time continued and the story of that hunt was retold, the details grew hazier until no one could remember what really happened. All anyone knew was that he had been hit by a spear covered in odd runes and been brought back bloody by his team. Randall was fretting and Mum had broken down. I had been old enough to understand the seriousness of my father’s condition, but too young to be told what was going on. As a result, I had simply sat by his side in tears, unable to comprehend why or how anything was able to harm my father.
The spear had been removed, the wound dressed, and yet my father had gotten worse and worse, appearing feverish, it was only until later that they had discovered the poison coating the execution weapon. He hadn’t stood a chance, and that evening he had left us. I ponder for the millionth time how differently life would have been if my father had never gone out that day. I could only remember
