His voice was dry, without boasting. “The animal is dead. The northern gorge is clear.”
Radmila went pale. The certainty she had carried cracked wide open. She stepped forward and pointed at Max.
“That’s impossible. He could not have killed it in a fair fight. He used some kind of outsider trick.”
Max turned his head slowly toward her. His stare was heavy. “Go to the northern gorge and look for yourself, Radmila.”
“It’s lying there between two boulders. Killed with a stake and a knife. No magic. Just physics and planning.”
“That’s what you’re missing here.” He said it quietly, but it landed like a slap. Dara raised a hand before Radmila could explode.
“Enough.” Her voice was soft, but final. “The forest accepted his offering.”
“The second trial is passed.” The old woman looked at Max again. There was no doubt left in her eyes now.
She saw what she had been looking for. A weapon she could use. “You have proved your cunning and your strength,” she said, each word deliberate.
“Tomorrow night comes the third and final trial. The trial of spirit. If you pass it, you will become what you are meant to be.”
Max nodded. He knew the hardest part was still ahead. The first two trials had been about physics and tactics.
The third would be psychology. In isolated communities ruled by old belief, a “trial of spirit” usually means one of three things: sensory deprivation, hallucinogens, or public humiliation.
Sometimes all three. Dara wanted to turn him into a weapon. Radmila knew she was losing power and would try to destroy him.
Tomorrow night, both women would go all in. To win, Max would have to break the structure of their beliefs. He turned and walked back to the holding hut.
The crowd parted for him now the way people step aside for fire. He was no longer just an outsider. He was a force.
And he had only begun to reshape this place. The door shut behind him, cutting off the murmur outside. Max lowered himself onto the bunk.
At last his muscles loosened, and a heavy exhaustion settled over him. The adrenaline drained away, leaving behind aches in his bruises and the dull throb in his shoulder. He closed his eyes, but sleep did not come.
His mind kept working, building models and running scenarios. Then the bar scraped again. In the doorway stood Zora.
She held the same clay cup as before, but this time steam rose from it carrying a sweet, sharp smell. Behind her stood a shadow.
Vlasta. Her square face was unreadable. One hand rested on the handle of a bone knife.
“Drink,” Zora said, holding out the cup. Her voice shook. She would not meet his eyes.
“Mother ordered it. A cleansing brew. Before tomorrow night your mind has to be open.”
Max did not move. He watched Zora closely, reading the signs. Fast breathing. Tight shoulders. Pale skin.
She was lying. Or at least not telling the whole truth. “What’s in it?” he asked.
“Herbs,” Zora said too quickly. “Dried fly agaric. Bitter root. It helps you see clearly.”
Max shifted his gaze to Vlasta. She stood silent, but her fingers tightened on the knife handle.
“Mother ordered it?” Max asked. “Or Radmila?” Zora flinched and nearly spilled the cup.
Vlasta took half a step forward. “Drink,” she said. “Or I’ll pour it down your throat.”
“You’re on our land. You follow our rules.” Max stood up slowly.
He was unarmed and tired, but his movements still had that dangerous fluidity they had seen in the woods. He walked right up to Zora.
She instinctively drew her head down into her shoulders. “Vlasta,” he said, looking over Zora’s head into the older woman’s eyes. “If you try to force this into me, I’ll break Zora’s neck before your knife clears the sheath.”
“Then we’ll see how fast you move in a confined space.” The silence in the hut turned solid.
Vlasta froze. She had seen what he did to Radmila in the woods. She had seen the bear fang. She knew he was not bluffing.
“It’s Mother’s order,” Vlasta repeated stubbornly. But her hand slipped off the knife.
Max looked down at the cup. The smell was sweet and wrong. Dried fly agaric and bitter root—strong natural hallucinogens. In the right dose, trance. In the wrong one, respiratory failure or permanent damage.
Radmila had decided not to wait for the trial. She meant to break him before it began. Max reached out and took the cup from Zora.
“Tell Radmila,” he said, looking into the dark liquid, “that I appreciate her concern for my mental clarity.” Then, without taking his eyes off Vlasta, he raised the cup.
He took one long swallow. Bitter and sweet at once. Then another.
Then a third. He drained it and handed the empty cup back to Zora. “Go.”
Vlasta gave a dissatisfied grunt, turned, and left. Zora lingered for half a second, looking at him with real fear. Then she slipped out after her.
The bar dropped into place. As soon as their footsteps faded, Max dropped to his knees.
He shoved two fingers down his throat. The gag reflex hit immediately. He emptied his stomach before most of the alkaloids could absorb.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat against the log wall, breathing hard. His throat burned.
Some of the toxins had still gotten into his blood. Ten minutes later his heart rate climbed. The edges of objects in the dim hut began to sharpen and blur at the same time.
His breathing went shallow. Max switched to controlled trance techniques—the same kind taught for resisting chemical interrogation.
He fixed his eyes on a knot in the opposite wall. An anchor point. He stared without blinking.
He forced his brain to ignore the distortions at the edge of his vision. “I am Max Odell, First Lieutenant, 1987.”
“My objective is survival and control of the situation.” He repeated the line for hours until the drug began to wear off, leaving only a pounding headache and a mouth dry as paper.
Radmila had miscalculated. She thought poison would strip away his will. Instead, it confirmed what he already knew.
There was a war inside this clan. And he was the center of it. The next day passed in complete isolation.
No food. No water. Part of the setup. Weaken the body to break the mind. Old method. Effective.
When the sun went down and the hut sank into darkness, the door finally opened. Four hunters with torches stood outside. Without a word they led him out.
The settlement had changed. No ordinary fires burned in the square now. Only torches in the hands of tense women…
