Excited villagers hurtled down the hill to meet the homecoming men and women, clustering around them and taking their heavy bags to aid them as they struggled upwards. Mothers planted kisses and hugs on embarrassed sons and daughters, and took the hands of their returning spouses. The bright light of the moon, hanging huge overhead, guided them on their way towards the feast in the square.

Rial hung back even as Trian marched down to meet them, no doubt to receive Tamarla, a cousin in the Family. She had been allowed to go and she barely came up to his shoulders! Rial forced his bitterness down.

It took him a while to notice the murmurs as the climbers drew closer. The laughter around the square died slowly away, and concerned expressions flashed across the faces of those gathered around the fire. Rial’s gaze followed theirs, down to the returning group.

What was wrong? Certainly, the home-comers looked tired, skin pallid and dirty, but no more so than the return of any such group. Rial couldn’t see…

Their numbers were too small.

Over thirty of the village had left, where now Rial could only count into the low twenties. The villagers who mixed and mingled with them made it hard to see, but yes, some were clearly missing. A few shouts and cries echoed up the slope.

Rial watched as Trian spoke with the group leader, Brin, the man everybody referred to as “the blaze” due to his penchant for making the largest possible fires he could at any opportunity during journeys outside of the village, fires so large that villagers could use the smoke to keep track of their progress for days at a time.

Brin was shaking his head, speaking in a quiet, subdued tone. His sword, normally so prominently displayed in its sheath at his side, was nowhere to be seen. Rial didn’t know what to make of that; swords were precious to the village, more precious even than gems. Jewels could be made to shine regardless of their true value, but good swords were few and far between.

Trian strode away from the group and paced swiftly back up the hill, disappearing through the main entrance of the Family compound. A glimpse of the lantern-lit rooms beyond showed the Kotaku[1] rising from evening prayer to greet him, and was cut off as servants slid the doors closed behind their visitor.

Rial wandered if he should attempt to eavesdrop. Technically he could not enter the courtyard where the Kotaku held meetings without the express permission of a house senior, but the Kotaku had always been fond of Rial, in a restrained way, and tended to smile knowingly to himself when he spotted the boy trying to hide behind the statues of the khiladri that adorned the lower eaves surrounding it. Rial hadn’t tried to do such a thing for a long time, however, and he worried that even the largest of the statues would no longer be of sufficient size to hide him now.

His hesitation decided for him. The door parted once more and the Kotaku emerged, long blood-red robes billowing behind him, gold embroidery of great winged beasts and entwined serpents flashing in the firelight. Trian stepped out smartly behind him and they both headed to Brin, whose party had almost finished its ascent. The Kotaku and the blaze stood close together, voices low as villagers gathered around, the space between the two men and the crowd continually shifting as the deference afforded to the head of a Family fought with the desire for information.

The speculations and murmurings of the crowd faded away when the Kotaku raised his arms in their wide sleeves, and a hush fell across the gathering. Only the crackling of the fire and the hissing of cooking meats defied the silence.

“As you have seen, some have not returned,” spoke the Kotaku in a clear, definite voice. “They will not return this night.”

A surprised susurration rippled over the crowd, quelled swiftly by the stern stares of the retainers who had followed their patron.

“It is for you to welcome those who have returned, and for those who still await their loved ones; know that all will be made clear at first light. We shall see them again soon.”

With that he abruptly began walking back towards the doors from which he had emerged, causing the startled villagers who stood in his way to fall backwards against their fellows to avoid him. Brin followed on his heels while Trian remained behind, along with several of the higher ranking servants, urging people to return to the feast and shaking their heads non-responsively at any questions addressed to them.

The assembled mass broke up slowly, groups and individuals spreading out to uncertainly resume the party. Conversation gradually returned, but subdued and muted, with many fearful glances towards the now closed doors of the compound. Rial saw a few small clusters making quietly for their homes, no doubt shaken relatives of those who were not there. He was unsure what to do himself.

A sudden heavy hand hitting his upper back brought him out of his reverie, almost sending him sprawling. In shock he span around, to be greeted by the windswept, smiling face of Gryrne.

“The adults are back!” laughed Gryrne, making the small head-bobbing bow of greeting the villagers used. Rial returned the greeting with one of his own, deliberately matching the shallow depth of his friends.

Gryrne must have circled around the fire and practically stepped across the embers to sneak up on Rial, a very Gryrne-like action. Rial smiled, but it was a smile edged with questions.

Gryrne picked up on Rial’s uncertainty immediately, and his own smile faded as he sat down onto the bench.

“Things… happened,” said Gryrne, as Rial sat down beside him. “Brin said this was the toughest trip he’s been on. The world outside the village is changing, he said.”

“You made it to the outpost?” asked Rial.

“We did!” A trace of excitement appeared in Gryrne’s voice at the memory. “It’s huge! They have buildings of stone that stand four, five stories high!”

“The pagoda stands seven,” replied Rial, bemused by Gryrne’s excitement.

“Yes, but not like these! Each floor has rooms larger than all the rooms in the pagoda combined. Tens of people live and work in each one!”

The village’s pagoda stood several hundred metres from the village proper, further up the slopes that became mountains. It overlooked the village and the pass below, and it was a rite of passage[2] amongst the younger generations to climb out of the highest floor and clamber up to stand beside the spire that topped it. With only one room per floor, each of which was crammed with the symbols of the local gami[3] or the remains of now-unused tools, barely two or three people could fit at any one time on each level. Rial didn’t know what a larger such structure would look like.

“And the people…” Gryrne’s voice dropped low despite the crackling of the fire already swallowing their words, “They don’t respect the Families…”

This was new to Rial. He knew, from the stories Trian had told him and the few books about the outside world they had within the Family dwellings, that there were places that operated without Families, without Kotaku and the ordered hierarchy that stratified their society, but these had always been distant lands, far over the horizon and known only through rumour.

“Oh, they have Families..,” continued Gryrne on seeing Rial’s expression, “…but they remain behind high walls whilst the town carries on around them. There are travellers and traders there who speak of them as if they are an annoyance or a bunch of dullards to be fleeced of their metal. Not to their faces, mind you, but I heard things when we were in the markets.”

“You saw the markets?” asked Rial eagerly.

The markets were the reason the journey to the outpost was made at this time of the year. It was where the excess of the village harvest was brought, and where the trekkers would exchange their heavy burdens for the tools and items the village could not produce itself. The work of the village craftsmen could not compare with the things occasionally brought back from these trips.

“I did. I walked around them! Brin chooses people to help him barter and trade, and he chose me.”

Rial told himself Gryrne was probably blustering. It was far more likely that Brin brought people to carry the things he bought, rather than do any actual trading. Still, to actually see the market…

“Everything was fine until the journey back…”

Gryrne’s eyes dropped to the floor, hands bunching together unconsciously.

“We think they must have spotted Tamarla when she came with us through the market, but we don’t know for sure.”

Rial started at the sound of his cousin’s name. It was only now he realised he hadn’t seen her in the returning group.

“Tamarla..? Is she…”

“We were attacked as we left the outpost,” interrupted Gryrne, gaze still cast down as the memory flew across his inner eye. “Right outside. Brin says that would have never been allowed to happen even a sun ago! The guards on the walls just watched!”

“What happened?” asked Rial, hoping to calm his increasingly distressed friend.

Gryrne took a deep breath and continued his story, voice once more under control.

[1] It was disrespectful to even think the name of the head of the Family. Once appointed, the head of a family was known only as the Kotaku, even to his or her own offspring.

[2] Albeit a rite of passage frowned upon by the older generations, though they too had done so in their time.

[3] The gami were the local spirits, believed to inhabit and watch over the forests and mountains surrounding the village. Their ways were strange and capricious, causing the swells that fed the fields and the floods that drowned the livestock.