To this end, Aoz Roon cultivated his comrades with good fellowship and also paid attention to Laintal Ay, encouraging the boy to come by his side on the chase when he officially reached the years of a hunter.
Out on a deer hunt to the southwest of Oldorando, he and Laintal Ay became separated by flooded ground from the rest of the company. They had to detour through difficult country studded with the great cylinders of rajabarals. There they came an a party of ten traders lying round a grass campfire, torpid after drink. Aoz Roon despatched two of the number as they slept, without any of the others rousing. He and Laintal Ay then rushed from cover holding animal skulls before their faces and screaming. The remaining eight traders surrendered in superstitious fear. This story was told in Oldorando as a great joke for many years.
The eight had traded in weapons, grain, furs, and anything else that came to hand. They came from Borlien, where the people were traditionally regarded as cowards, and travelled from the seas of the south to the Quzints in the north. Most of them were known in Oldorando and known as cheats and swindlers. Aoz Roon and Laintal Ay brought them back to serve as slaves, and shared their goods among the people. For his personal slave, Aoz Roon kept a young man called Calary, scarcely older than Laintal Ay.
This episode brought Aoz Roon more prestige. He was soon in a position to challenge Nahkri and Klils. Yet he held back, as was his way, and consorted with his fellow bloods.
Unrest was growing among the makers corps. In particular, a young man by the name of Dathka was attempting to break away from the metal-makers corps, refusing to service his long term as apprentice. He was taken before the brothers. They could get no submission from him. Dathka disappeared from everyone’s ken for two days. One of the women reported that he was lying bound in an infrequently used cell, with bruises on his face.
At this, Aoz Roon went before Nahkri and asked that Dathka might be allowed to join the hunters. He said, “Hunting is no easy life. There is still plenty of game, but the grazing grounds have altered with this freak weather the last few years have sent us. We’re hard pressed, as you know. So let Dathka join us if he wishes. Why not? If he’s no good, then we’ll kick him out and think again. He’s about Laintal Ay’s age, and can team up with him.”
The light was dim where Nahkri stood, supervising slaves who were milking the rathel sows. Dust filled the air. The ceiling was low, so that Nahkri stooped slightly. He appeared to cringe before the challenge of Aoz Roon.
“Dathka should obey the laws,” said Nahkri, offended by Aoz Roon’s unnecessary reference to Laintal Ay.
“Permit him to hunt and he’ll obey the laws. We’ll have him earning his keep before those welts you set on his face can heal.”
Nahkri spat. “He’s not trained as a hunter. He’s a maker. You have to be trained to these things.” Nahkri feared that various secrets belonging to the metal makers might be given away; the crafts of the corps were closely guarded and reinforced the rulers’ power to rule.
“If he won’t work, then let’s subject him to our hard life and see how he survives,” Aoz Roon argued.
“He’s a silent, surly fellow.”
“Silence is an aid on the open plains.”
Finally Nahkri released Dathka. Dathka teamed up with Laintal Ay as Aoz Roon said. He developed into a good hunter, delighting in the chase.
Silent though he was, Dathka was accepted by Laintal Ay as a brother. There was not an inch to choose between them in height and less than a year in age. Whereas Laintal Ay’s face was broad and humorous, Dathka’s was long, and his glance perpetually cast downward. Their expertise as a team became legendary during the chase.
Because they were so much together, old women said of them that they would one day meet the same fate, as had been predicted in an earlier age of Dresyl and Little Yuli. As then, so now: their fates were to differ greatly. In these young days, they merely seemed alike, and Dathka excelled to such an extent that the vain Nahkri grew proud of him, patronising him, and sometimes making reference to his own far-sightedness in releasing the youth from his bondage with the corps. Dathka kept silent and stared at the ground when Nahkri went by, never forgetting who had beaten him. Some men never forgive.