Word had been that the tribe would depart today, but the carts they had assembled still waited outside, with no one to bring them to the hill. Without Tunu's hoard, they would go nowhere. So in the meanwhile everyone discussed what to do with the captives.
They joked that it would make for more cattle.
That would have been a good one. More mouths to feed, more heads to track but the kobels had really grown fond of that service. To leave them behind felt like such a waste. To kill them, so pointless.
That would have been a good one if comparing them to cattle had not reminded everyone of the rumor. So the kobels quickly talked of anything else.
Everywhere he went Tunu was followed by a crowd of admirers, especially now that fawns were working in their stead.
Everywhere kobels gave him worried looks.
He could hear them, from afar he could hear too much. Maybe it was his horns. He could hear them discuss the chief's will to have them feed as well. Nobody believed he had really proposed that. Nobody imagined doing it either.
"But if it's the only way..." A kobel wondered aloud.
"It's not!" Another pushed back. "It's the gold! He has scales because of the gold!"
"Watch it. Tunu is there."
The small group, two houses away, looked at him and talked of anything else. Meanwhile, the group around Tunu asked him what had him so distracted. They offered to play, to drink the day away while throwing dice.
All pretending the rumors didn't exist.
Once it had become unbearing, he had made excuses to leave them behind and go by himself through the village, looking for the hut the shaman had claimed for himself.
There he was, the kobel among the oldest, boiling mushrooms and herbs to serve yet an older one. In the same hut, on a pelt slept Mala, the tribe's ancient.
She had lost her fur, so they covered her now with a long drape to hide the ugly skin all scrawny and glued to the bones. When awake, her raspy breathing had everyone on nerves. Asleep, she looked so still as to offer the face of death.
But Lutuk would put the bowl near her regardless, then nudge her a bit and watch her wake.
"What is it?"
He turned to see Tunu at the door.
"Ah! It's you. Don't just stand there! Come in!"
He obeyed, which only irritated the shaman further.
"Now stand on one leg! No, idiot, don't do it! What age are you?! I could poison you and you would be none the wiser!"
"What's wrong with my heart?"
Lutuk sat on the ground, his eyes on the elder who, after a yawn, dragged the bowl closer to hear to drink. Her small eyes had glanced at the two of them before feigning ignorance.
The shaman said nothing for a while, but finally shook himself and looked back at Tunu.
"Ah! Your heart. It's as I said! You have a monster's heart. Not a kobel's, not a wyvern's, something evil and sinister. It will use you to feed on others and eventually it will feed on you!"
"But the chief says..."
"Kreil is blind! Blinded by your scales, you are Tusali in the flesh and he will say anything to keep it going! Anything, you hear?!"
None of it sounded right to the kobel; all just the wild imaginings of an shaman that refused to explain. The stars? Omens? They were a domain privy only to that grumpy one, so he could make up whatever he wanted.
Above all that old kobel was alone with the one he claimed evil and showed no fear. That alone should have been proof of his lies.
"What if you got it wrong, and it was a wyvern heart?"
"Are you questioning the stars?!"
"I've been thinking."
And Tunu got closer, looked back at the hut's entrance to make sure no one was outside to hear them.
"When I lost consciousness I was with a wyvern. When I woke up the wyvern was dead and I had those scales. Now you say my heart is monstrous. But a wyvern is a monster. What if the wyvern... put its heart in me?"
"Ah!" The shaman mocked. "So that's the tale you'll comfort yourself with."
"What else is there?! Maybe the wyvern was old, maybe it took pity, maybe it just found it funny! I don't know, it's the first time I met one!"
"Don't feed it."
The shaman's tone had turned low and threatening. He had completely lost interest for all of this.
"Believe what you want but don't feed that heart anymore. Once it's done using you to devour, it will devour you as well."
"Can't we use a potion to heal me? You have magic, can't you use it?!"
Lutuk shook his head.
That look, that tone, essentially told Tunu that he was doomed. The only way to stop that heart was to kill it, and the kobel only had one. So it was only a matter of time before they all knew who was right.
So he rushed through, stumbled against a fawn that fell on the ground. He was so angry, so furious, that he kicked him there a couple times before running again.
He was fine, he felt fine, it was all a lie.
It all rang so hollow in his mind.
Because to everyone else he looked so scary now that another rumor had piled up. Murmurs of that evil heart had made the rounds, repeated by all the kobels around. His admirers came back to him, eager to pretend none of it was happening and they were so careful with their words.
They could tell he was distressed, or rather, that he was irked.
So one finally said: "Ignore those fools, they are just cowards."
"That's right!" Assured another. "We will feed with you!"
"Liar! You're too scared to do it!"
"You too, shut up! I'll work out the courage!"
It didn't matter if those feelings were sincere. All they had eyes for were his scales. Those horns on his head. The envy, the desire, permeated every word.
He pushed them back with anger.
"Enough! I've had enough of you all!"
And the scaled kobel warned them to leave him alone, his threat barely veiled. They cowered, they let him go and quickly fought each other for who had offended the legend. Who had cost his presence to the whole group.
More admirers waited at his house, ready to greet him, watched him go through and expel them. He pushed the captives out himself.
The door slammed and he set the wooden lock.
Everything was going wrong. When, where, he wasn't sure, blamed the shaman and blamed himself. He had got scales, it should have been that simple.
Now he had to wonder, to consider if he stopped feeding, if he would lose it all. Recede into the miserable sight of a furry lizard, trade fiery scales for a paltry coat. If he fed, what he would become, but a wyvern. What else but a wyvern.
"I have to feed..." He muttered.
And the memories of that raw flesh, that taste, the sight of chests torn open, had him gag.
A stranger to himself.