They reached the grand hut of dead Haramop, and all stood aside, eyes wide in horror at what he bore. Grinning, the boy propped his token on its smoothly cut neck at the doorway, facing out into the village. Flies settled and crawled twitchily on the gray skin once more as Kalesh and Mara stepped inside. “See if there is anything we need here,” he told her, “and I will, too." Nodding, she turned away and began to examine everything.
Word had traveled fast. The old man’s wives must have known already, for the children all had been shooed away somewhere, and the remaining women all stood nervous and silent, apparently not sure what to think of the man who had killed the one who had provided for them. No one said a word, however. Probably they had been bound to Haramop less by love than by n
