Chapter 12
Kof
A half-empty basket sat on the counter of the shaman’s cookroom. I checked the stores to see if Archie might have started putting things away, but the shelves were just as picked over as they’d been yesterday.
“Where’s the rest?” I asked the guard by the door.
“That’s all they brought, Captain.”
I shoved through the basket’s contents, thinking there must be more to it. But, no. Our allotment was nearly half its usual size. I’d need to take it up with Trawg.
I showed myself into the clan’s larders. The musty scent of cured meats and stored grains filled the air, but something else caught my attention - a sharp, acidic tang that set my nostrils flaring.
Vinegar.
In the far corner, Trawg stood hunched over a large barrel, splashing something around in the stinking, murky liquid. He glanced up, his eyes narrowing when he spotted me. “Kof,” he grunted, straightening up. “What now?”
“Either someone mixed up the rations, or you’ve shorted us.”
“I don’t make mistakes,” he snarled. “And you’re not short. Aye, there’ve been a few complications with the supplies lately, what with the Lost Clan at the table and our best net slipping down the river—not to mention all that perfectly good meat thrown on the archer’s pyre.”
He acted angry, yet his explanation sounded somewhat…rehearsed. And the way he avoided my gaze only heightened my suspicion. I stepped closer, and the stink of vinegar coated the roof of my mouth.
“If there’s no catch, then what are you pickling?”
Trawg’s eyes widened, and he quickly moved to block my view. “Nothing, nothing! Just…cleaning out a barrel—”
A fleshy mass floated to the surface and I made a grab for it. Trawg tried to block me, but he was past his prime, not strong and fit like me. I scooped out the sodden thing and found it was a wad of boar’s hide he’d been trying to soften into something passing for meat.
“Cleaning a barrel?” I said. “Or trying to pass off pebbles as pearls?”
Trawg huffed. “You feed all those extra mouths and see how you like it! Those outsiders are eating us out of house and home—”
“Those outsiders are us,” boomed a familiar voice.
We turned and found the chieftain standing in the doorway. I took a knee immediately and pounded my chest. “Praise Ul-Rott. My spear is yours.” Trawg did the same. But it took him a few tries to regain his feet.
He was definitely losing his edge.
Ul-Rott stomped into the larder with such force the wooden plank floor shook.
He was just as old as Trawg, but he still radiated power.
And though he was no bigger than me, he somehow took up far more space.
He planted his hands on his hips and surveyed the room with a broad, sweeping glance.
“Just how low have you let the supplies drop, Trawg?”
The quartermaster blustered, “The stores always rise and fall—it’s the nature of keeping a clan fed. If those lazy humans would stop dawdling and finish the new net—”
As Trawg spoke, Ul-Rott paced a slow, deliberate circuit of the room. The chieftain paused at a random basket on a shelf and made a grab for it.
“Wait!” Trawg lunged toward him, but too late.
Ul-Rott turned over the basket. A wadded-up burlap sack fell out. Nothing more.
The chieftain’s eyes narrowed. “If I thought anyone here could replace you, Trawg, I’d have your head for daring to lie to me.
The hunters are feeling the loss of Ulka.
There’s no fresh catch from the river. On what we have right now, exactly how long could the clan—including the new faces—survive? ”
“At least a month.”
Trawg spoke as if that was plenty. But while it was true that the Lost Clan would leave by then, winter would follow.
And all the dried, smoked, pickled provisions that would normally see us through would be long gone.
I knew this because I oversaw the supplies for the shaman and all his men.
But even though Ul-Rott the Spinecrusher likely had little to do with his own kitchen, he seemed to understand the danger this shortage meant for us all.
He strode over to a barrel of salted pork a caravan had recently traded for axes and spear tips, and said, “A month? This will hardly get us through the full of the moon.”
At least by then we’d be rid of the Lost Clan. Even if they did leave with a good bit of our food in their insatiable bellies.
“And this—” Ul-Rott kicked over a sack. Sawdust spilled out. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Trawg’s mouth worked. “I had nothing to do with that. It must have been the witch—”
“Lies!” I blurted out. Both men turned to me as though they hadn’t even realized I’d been standing there. “Even if the human could turn food to dust, what reason would he have? He would only starve too.”
“Who kens what witches eat?” Trawg replied.
“You just admitted this witch business was nonsense!” I shouted. “And now it’s the human’s fault you’ve let our food dwindle?”
“Enough,” Ul-Rott said calmly. “Kof, do you vouch for this human?”
Every instinct was pleading for me to be cautious. Stick to the straight and narrow. And not make any rash decisions.
But there was the smart choice…and then there was the right one. “I stand behind what I say, Spinecrusher. Eli is no witch.”
“Then he’s your responsibility. I’m calling for a grand hunt to fill up the larder, and it had better not be touched by any ill luck.
Starting now, the human is with you. And if he gets into any trouble, you’ll be the one to answer for it.
My guard will drop him off at the caves where you can keep an eye on him.
” Ul-Rott glanced at the scar of my empty socket with a grim smirk. “I hope, for your sake, you’re right.”