When the warriors outside saw them come back, they got no answer from their chief nor from their champions. At most the word was to wait until further notice.
And so the group retreated, all the way past the wall where Tuorka, seeing them pass, saw their faces and decided to follow.
Only at the abandoned hut did they finally answer his questions.
"A shaman, killing his own." The old champion surmised.
And the chief, finally: "We must stop him. We'll find another way, any other way."
"What other way?!"
Tunu had burst in anger, but his heart wondered what it was even for. The threat to his friend, the denial, his lack of care for those who were his brothers. He could not tell.
He had touched a dream with his own hands.
"There is no other way! There never was!"
And the scaled kobel walked to the small table in that hut where a rough black sphere had remained, taking dust.
"Once he succeeds, I'll be able to cast that evil heart away! The tribe will be saved, the whole tribe will grow scales! Kreil, we can't! ... We can't say no."
"Is that advice, or an order?" The chief slowly asked.
And the scaled legend, suddenly wavering:
"... An advice."
"I'll do it." Savae talked in turn.
They all looked at her. They already knew what she meant.
"He needs kobels? He can have me."
"He will kill you." Tuorka noted.
"The weak should not live." And she clenched her fist, clenched until it hurt, until it dripped. "I will survive. I will grow. And you, Tunu, if you don't want that heart I'll take it!"
Foolish words, but that was now both champions siding with Etelet.
So the chief buried his muzzle in his hands.
"That's one way to present it. Those who want scales can risk it..."
He would not face Tuorka's gaze.
"But how do I explain those who already died? They certainly didn't agree to it!"
"They were weak."
"They were our blood!"
"Maybe they did agree." Tunu offered.
Even he wasn't that deluded, after seeing those butchered bodies, to think something so stupid. But it was such a convenient idea. Maybe they did. Maybe the ritual was just that brutal and as the warrior said, they proved too weak.
That, to a kobel, made perfect sense. It praised the fallen's courage.
"You are asking me to send more of my brothers to the slaughter. I can't. I won't."
"It's risky, sure, but..."
"It's not! Risky!" The chief erupted. "He will kill them! He will, that's a certainty! He takes pleasure in it! And you want me..."
Tuorka cleared his throat.
That was all. The old warrior did not add a word, nor even a gesture. Once he was done, he just stood there with the chief suddenly silent.
For Tuorka it was easy. He didn't feel anything anymore, not for the tribe that had captured his friend. But by making himself noticeable he had reminded his even older friend of why he had left the tribe in the first place.
Something Tunu could not pick on.
The scaled kobel was still holding that black sphere in his hands.
"I need to see Uokror." He suddenly said. "I need to speak to him. Tuorka, you said he could help me replace my heart?"
"Sure. If you free him."
"Free him." The chief chimed in.
"No!" It was Savae. "We kill it, we use it but don't let a prey escape!"
"All of you stop!"
And once he could think again, Tunu saw he was holding his chest.
That evil heart, that foreign heart was screaming, craving Etelet's blood. More than hate it was a deep, cold betrayal that had it beating hard.
So hard it hurt.
"Tonight." He breathed. "Tonight we climb the keep, slip in and dispose of the sentries. Me and Tuorka. I talk to Uokror, I hear what he has to say and then, then we decide."
They all agreed.
As for the warriors, the chief told them how the other kobels had volunteered, the promise of scales and the risks. It took him all he had to get them to calm.
Then the day went on, with the fighters relieved to see both champions foregoing any duel. Surprised at the sight of Tuorka, who they had heard was suspicious, freely walking at the legend's side.
But there was so much the kobels ignored.
Near the hill the tribes had built an arena, paved it with stone and surrounded it with barracks where the suppletives prepared. And if a champion would not come they would bring their own, to fight, to die, to rise.
There was around that hill they all called a mountain several lifetimes of events unfolding in a plain that ever grew in wealth.
They had started to erect, where the roads met, new statues.
Of wyverns.
They were simple. They still lacked the art to make actual wings. But those massive stones still depicted the mighty beasts and with them the kobel domination over all that crossed their shadow. And not a single kobel had told them to build that.
That peace the shaman boasted was filled with constant fights.
From the hilltop it looked so serene, but in the hamlets and villages the savages were at each other's throat. Killing, but for reasons only they knew, as more and more of their youth filled the streets.
To them the mighty keep rising at the top of the cliff, above clouds of steam that unraveled against that stone, to them it was just a silent warden.
When night fell and the plain went dark, both kobels ran to it.
Their red coats, one soft and the other jagged, were absorbed by the darkness.
They reached the tower's wall. A patrol outside missed them completely. Here Tunu thought he would have to help the old kobel but saw him find his catch with ease to start climbing.
So he followed suit, the two of them exposed while savages walked under them, torches in hand, iron spears slipping over the grass.
Not halfway up Tunu could perceive the winged kobel, still chained, starting to wake up. Or rather, Uokror had not been able to fall asleep yet.
Around him stood some dozen fighters, heavily armed and armored, most with spears and a few with longswords. Braziers helped them see clearly but they still carried torches when approaching the roof's edge.
In Tunu's head, it had been simple: to kill them all and then talk.
But now he could tell that the clamors would only attract more, and above all attract Etelet.
His heart answered.
His heart calmed him and assured, by some blind conviction, that he would be able to kill all of thos guards in silence. A mute promise that filled him with confidence.
Tuorka had stopped nearby, saw him cross the last meter and sought he had gone mad.
He had. Mad with bloodthirst.
The scaled kobel jumped more than he climbed, surged up and fell on the nearest fawn. It had been so fast that the throat was already open, cut by that beast's very sword.
And then, not even Tunu was able to follow his own motions. He watched the roof fly by and around, swing madly in trails of blood. Air whistled, air burned against him. Air solid as sand was slowing him down, falling like grain in his lungs.
When he stopped, heaving hard, his whole body ached. But the last of the savages had died. The last of them, still standing up, had expired.
Their bodies fell a couple seconds later.
And Uokror, in silence, had watched him all along.
"Tunu." The winged kobel greated him, his voice kept low. "Welcome."