Hangman lowered himself to the ground and put his weight on his legs. Sleeping in the trees for the second night didn’t do them any favors, but he didn’t complain. Complaining was the coward’s way.

  He switched the incident on its head in his mind. He told himself he was happy about these injuries. He did his band a huge favor by finding out that information.

  His legs would heal. He could still run and fight when he had to. He could afford to limp along and do the bare minimum for as long as it lasted. It was worth it to find out what the Renegades didn’t know.

  The party set off heading farther east. Walking worked out the stiffness in his legs and helped ease the pain even if walking didn’t take it away completely.

  That didn’t matter. He would have to walk either way, so he did.

  He kept just as close a watch on the surroundings. He didn’t leave that to his cousins.

  Cross stayed close to him all day. Cross’s concern touched Hangman, but Hangman refused to accept anyone’s help or attention. He continually deflected it if anyone mentioned it.

  They camped one more time before they left that part of the jungle and entered a steep valley between two different mountain ranges.

  Jungle clung to towering granite cliffs on both sides. The jungle covered the valley floor and then opened out into a wide plateau stretching to flatlands farther east.

  Hangman couldn’t even be happy about the sight of his home country—not knowing what he would face there.

  The party entered the cliff valley and met up on second morning with a group of women from their own band. The men found the women camping next to a larger stream with a few sturdier shelters constructed along the banks.

  The women all got to their feet when they saw the men coming. No one said anything for a minute until Cross stepped out from behind the other men.

  His mother rushed him, threw her arms around him, and burst into tears exactly the way mothers of newly initiated men always did.

  Hangman stood back and watched. His mother, Katha, did the same thing to him when he came home scarred beyond recognition.

  When he left for his initiation, when he came back, when Cross left for his initiation, and when Cross came back were the only times Hangman had ever seen his mother cry. She was the toughest woman he’d ever met. She was as tough as any Godless woman could be.

  She pushed her son back, held him at arm’s length, gripped him by both shoulders, and cried when she saw his face.

  Cross looked a lot better now than he did after it happened. The swelling was already going down.

  The slash marks looked wicked and ferocious. They didn’t disfigure Cross’s good looks at all.

  Shadow shoved between them and pushed her away. “Don’t baby him. He’s a man now.” Shadow raised his voice and called to all the women within earshot. “He’s a man now and his name is Cross. He’ll go out with us from now on—so treat him as a man.”

  That was the last word on the subject. Katha dragged her wrist across her face, but she kept crying for a long time afterward.

  She went down to the stream to wash her face. Cross entered the camp with the other men. His female relatives hugged him, congratulated him, and made a big deal about his face.

  “Be grateful it’s only the two cuts,” Alien’s sister Neia remarked. “You still look as handsome as ever.”

  “It’s true, Cross,” Boxer’s wife Zyria added. “You don’t look as bad as Hangman does.”

  Cross shot a glance at Hangman, but Cross was the only one who did. The others treated Hangman’s looks as normal now. No one remarked on his scars much at all anymore.

  The party sat down together. The men shared out the Gorlock meat from Cross’s kill.

  All the women asked about his initiation fight, but he couldn’t tell them much. The rest of the men had to fill in the details that he didn’t remember.

  Hangman stayed out of it. The other men offered enough detail. He didn’t need to get involved or correct anything.

  He remembered every single second of his own initiation. He would never forget that fight. It was the day that changed his life—for the better.

  If he had known going into it that he would be left hideously ugly and irrevocably changed on the inside, too, he would have done everything exactly the same. His initiation fight was the best thing that ever happened to him. It made him the man he was now.

  Everyone in their band respected him because of what he became that day. He wouldn’t give that up for anything.

  The women all exclaimed over Cross’s exploits. Then the men chimed in with tales from their own initiations. No one asked Hangman to add his own story to the mix. Everyone already knew it.

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  He could afford to stay silent and let others take the recognition for a change. He didn’t want to talk about his initiation or how it affected him. That was only for him to know and cherish in his heart as his finest hour.

  The party camped there that night. The women disassembled their shelters the next morning and scattered all the materials back into the jungle where they came from.

  The women fell in line with the men. The women wore exactly the same combination of clothing except that they also wore short, sleeveless tops around their chests to cover them up. That was their only garment besides the loincloth, shoes, and leggings laced up to his knees.

  The women carried multiple shoulder bags each just like the men as well as plenty of weapons. No one went anywhere in this jungle without fighting.

  The women wore their hair long like the men, too. The women used the same combination of braids, ties, knots, or any other arrangement they felt like according to their tastes.

  Hangman caught Katha watching him limp, but she knew better than to ask what happened or if he was okay.

  The group turned south and continued farther east before they entered the flatlands. The mood relaxed as the party approached their home territory, but Hangman didn’t. He was actually starting to dread it.

  He paused at the head of the gorge and looked out over the flat country. Butcher’s band kept their long camp over there—their permanent camping place they used as their central location and ventured out from.

  Hangman really didn’t want to go back there. He didn’t want to face what he knew was waiting for him out there, but he had to.

  In that moment when he stopped at the head of the gorge, he spotted movement in the jungle above him. He looked up.

  He recognized all the movements of creatures in the canopy. He recognized this movement, too, but it didn’t come from any creature.

  Alien came up behind him. “What is it, little brother?”

  “There’s someone up there.” Hangman turned away heading back up the gorge. “There are people up there.”

  “Hey!” Alien called after him and then squinted up the cliffs.

  Katha’s eyes widened when Hangman limped past her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Someone is up on the ridge. Come on. We have to find out who it is.”

  Everyone looked up and saw exactly the same movement. The whole party turned back.

  It didn’t take them long to overtake Hangman. “Did you see them?” Butcher asked.

  “I only saw the trees moving.”

  Hangman couldn’t climb uphill as well as he could walk downhill. Every step hurt, but he pushed through it.

  The group traveled much faster now. They scaled back to the top of the gorge and clambered onto the cliffs.

  Shadow and Butcher led the way down the ridge. The party slowed as they drew nearer to the place where Hangman saw the trees moving.

  He pulled his kukris as they got nearer. He wasn’t even surprised when he spotted another fifteen Renegades.

  They stood at the very edge of the cliff looking over the side. It couldn’t be more obvious that they’d been watching the Godless approach their own territory.

  Hangman would normally have waited for some signal from Butcher or at least Shadow before striking. Hangman didn’t wait for any signal.

  He also didn’t wait for the Renegades to turn around and see the Godless approaching.

  He deliberately missed his step, snapped a twig underfoot to alert them, and then charged them.

  They glanced behind them and saw him running straight at them with his kukris raised. His actions triggered the rest of the Godless to attack just as fast.

  The Renegades started to turn around. Hangman had to act now.

  He bellowed out loud, but instead of striking with his kukris the way the Renegades probably expected him to, he changed his strategy at the last second.

  He threw both his arms out to the sides, concentrated his attack on the five Renegades standing at the center of their group, and collided with them.

  They raised their weapons to cut him down. They didn’t expect it when he threw all his weight against them and made them stagger backward.

  They tumbled off the edge of the cliff and fell screaming to their deaths on the rocky valley floor far below.

  His one act cut their numbers by a third. That left ten against a greater number of Godless.

  Another three saw him and came at him from his left. They rushed him to hack him to pieces with their blades, but he only dodged them.

  Two missed their footing and went wheeling off into open space. That left one.

  The guy checked himself when he saw his friends vanish completely off the map. Hangman struck out with his kukri and hit the guy across the side of the head, but Hangman didn’t hit him hard enough to kill him.

  The man staggered, lost his footing, and he went down, too.

  The other Godless didn’t think about using the cliff to their advantage. They fought the Renegades in the old-fashioned way—weapon against weapon. The women fought alongside the men.

  Hangman went through the group one after the other, yanked the Renegades away from his relatives, and threw each man off the cliff. They cartwheeled into oblivion and vanished.

  Viking and Magnet ran over to Butcher to help him against the last remaining Renegade. The man backed away from the three Godless warriors—and wound up backing straight into Hangman’s clutches. He pulled the man away and shoved him over the side.

  Butcher frowned first at Hangman and then at the cliff edge. None of the Renegades remained. “That isn’t the Godless way, little brother,” he growled.

  “I’m injured and they’re just as dead, aren’t they? We should go check the long camp. There may be other Renegades in the area. They may already be scouting the long camp while we’ve been away.”

  He walked off into the jungle. No one could accuse Hangman of cowardice. Not even Butcher would dare.

  The group fell in line again on their way back down the gorge. The party stopped when they found the Renegades’ bodies squashed and bloody on the rocks below the cliff.

  “Rifle their pockets for anything we can use,” Butcher ordered.

  Hangman helped his relatives roll the dead Renegades, go through their pockets, and check their weapons. The Renegades didn’t have anything useful except more weapons.

  Butcher ordered the party to take the weapons with them. He wouldn’t have done that if the party hadn’t been this close to their long camp.

  The rest of the trip passed without incident. Hangman got increasingly tense and silent as he and his relatives approached their destination.

  Butcher’s hunting party entered a cluster of shelters with a bunch of women and children working in and out of the structures.

  Most of the shelters followed the same loose design as the makeshift shelters the warriors used on their journey.

  The shelters in the long camp had been built larger and with a slightly sturdier construction, fewer gaps between the branches that made up the walls, and with a fourth wall across the front to give each family more privacy.

  The women came forward to greet their husbands and male relatives. Couples split off to their homes.

  Cross went off with his younger brothers to tell them how his initiation went. Shadow and Katha returned to their own shelter. Hangman didn’t go with them.

  He hung back during all the greetings. As soon as everyone split up to go their own way, he went off alone into the jungle.

  He didn’t come back until the next morning.

  End of Chapter 16.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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