The boy tugged tighter the coat of boar pelt draped loosely across his narrow shoulders, shielding himself what little he could from the chill that seemed to shake his very bones. His gaze had begun to waver under the stress of the endless hike now interrupted by a snow storm, his drooping eyelids reflecting the pelt that seemed to slip from his increasingly numb fingers. With another breath and another step, he pulled at the garment once more, as if to protect a flickering fire from the wind — as if to remind his limbs that he was still in control. The sun had begun to set.

The fur coat was all he had left, a gift from the greatest hunter his village had ever known. He was the man that tracked and killed the very boar that maimed his father, who eventually passed from the injuries. The hunter gave the prize pelt to the boy as an offering of condolence, returning to his mountain home a four day journey away. This must have already been a year ago, never returning to the village since.

He was an enormous man. That was all the boy could remember. He had a beard with strands like pine needles, straight and thick, bristling with the same hardness that defined his trunk-like legs and log-like arms. It seemed to him that the hunter could wrestle a bear and win, and there were tales that he did just that. His skill with a club was honed to precision, but it was his spear throwing that seemed almost supernatural, able to strike a target from one edge of the village boundaries to the other. However, he didn’t make for much of a teacher, never able to explain to the other men how to hunt as he did. And so, without his presence, the people suffered.

And it was this task that lead the boy to venture out in search of him in the thick of winter. Even to the point of exhaustion. Even at the risk of dying.

However, finally, in the distance, his tired eyes could start to make out a sign of smoke. Reinvigorated by a glimmer of hope, he pushed forward, the last of his strength pouring into his legs. He gripped the fur coat around him tighter, exhaling sharply through his nostrils with each step, inhaling the sharp, cold air with each pause. Slowly, diligently, deliberately. This was a method to endure long tasks that his mother had taught him. Focus on the rhythm of your breath and clear your mind of every other sensation but the task before you. She could spend the entire night weaving in this meditative state, without even feeling the need for sleep. The hunter once said he would track animals in much the same way. The boy harnessed but a fraction of this meditation in order to numb himself to the agony of his hypothermic legs.

As he neared, the source of the smoke coming into clear focus, at last, his legs seemed to slip out from beneath him, his arms instinctively reaching out before he hit the ground. He couldn’t help but let out a sharp cry of pain, even if it didn’t hurt. He looked back up at the strange, leather-wrapped tent. circular and spacious. He had never seen a structure quite like it. The tents of his village were much smaller and used primarily as workshops. Most of them preferred to stay in caves along the mountain. However, from it, emerged a small, shadowy figure, wrapped heavily in furs, long strands of hair whipping in the wind like an unfinished curtain. The figure started to run towards him, casting off the fur coat in order to reach him faster. Two more small figures appeared at the entrance. His eyes closed.

The next thing he knew, he felt an incredible warmth. Something heavy and comforting pressed all around his body. His eyelids parted only for him to be staring at the head of a boar. With a slight startle, he jolted back, only then realizing that it was the hood of his own boar fur coat. He pulled off two more furs from his body, finding himself next to a fire as three children stared at him. One of them held a makeshift spear, yelling in a language he didn’t understand. A smaller child tugged at her ragged clothes, saying nothing. Finally, the tallest of the three, asked more quietly in a language he did understand.

“Can you hear us?” she asked. It became apparent it was a girl from her voice.

“Yes,” replied weakly, still grappling to understand the situation. His eyes couldn’t help but meet the point of the spear directed at him.

The elder girl touched the spear girl’s hand to lower her weapon, shaking her head. Turning back to her guest, she asked, “Where do you come from?”

“The village at the base of the mountain…” He sat up as the youngest girl handed him an earthenware bowl of hot water. She shuffled off afterwards. “I’m looking for a man,” the boy said.

The girl gulped, her expression darkening, “So far away? You must be looking for our father. There’s no one else that hunts on these mountains.”

“The hunter has children…?”

“These two are my younger sisters. We three were adopted by him. Taught to hunt like him.”

“Will he return here soon?”

“He returns when the goddess rests. He hunts with her.”

“Who is this goddess?” His village had no familiarity with the concept. Did the hunter have a wife?

The girl sat by the fire and started to recall as she stared into it, “She is the light in the heavens that illuminates the night. She has sovereignty over the wild beasts and first taught our father how to hunt when he was a child. She is queen of the forests, the night, and master of the spear.”

“Like a spirit…” In his village, there were shamans who could hear spirits of the world and spirits of the dead, but he had never before heard of any spirit who could boast such power and such personality. But if the hunter works together with this spirit, it would explain his uncanny abilities. Surely no normal man could be so skilled and powerful.

The boy asked, “Does that mean when there is no moon in the sky, he will return?”

“That is when it is most difficult to catch prey, so he rests on those days.” the girl smirked as if she was stating the obvious. “You braved this weather just to look for him. Stay as long as you like. We still have plenty of preserved meat.” She stopped, interrupting herself, “What are you called?”

“I am Boe,” he said shakily.

“My father named us Taka,” pointing to herself, “Nilam,” pointing to the spear girl who spoke a different language,  “And Nitah,” she finished by pointing to the shy, little one. “Once these cloudy days are over, it’ll become easier to see the moon. Although… with clouds like these I’m not sure how he can hunt in the night anyway.”

“He has not come to our village in over a year either. Lately, another monster has been killing men in the village who go off to hunt, so we need his help. I can’t wait much longer. Moon or no moon, I’ll go off looking for him tomorrow if that’s what it takes.”

“That’s stupid,” the spear girl named Nilam said confidently in a language the boy named Boe understood, “And don’t pretend. You got lucky finding us when you did. You clearly don’t know how to navigate the night like we do. Any further and you would have ended up food for a pack of wolves.”

“She’s right, that is very stupid. Did you hit your head when you fell?” Taka grinned ear-to-ear as if she couldn’t help herself. Both Nilam and Nitah giggled. Boe might have felt a twinge of offense, but seeing the three sisters interact with each other like that seemed a welcome relief from the stagnant quiet of his home. Caring for his ailing mother without knowing how. Praying to every spirit he knew the name of and finding no answers or hearing anything. He closed his eyes but for a moment as these thoughts overwhelmed him.

He woke up the next morning. The sound of howling winds had ceased. The tent was still warm with the remaining cinders of a nightly fire. A quick scan of the interior met nobody; he was entirely alone.

Equipping his boar fur coat around his shoulders, he poked his head out to find the landscape was painted in thick white. The tops of trees sagged beneath the weight of snow. The peerless blue of the sky had returned. His three day journey lead him to this point. All of his resources exhausted, he had actually found the mountain that the hunter lived on. Suddenly, the tree he had been looking at shook violently, the snow on its branches flying from their perches. He glanced down and saw the spear girl Nilam with a strange implement. She had hit the tree with a small spear.

He hurried over to her. “What is that tool?”

She did not bother looking at him, plucking another small spear with a blackened point from the ground and pulling it back onto a string attached to a curved cane. “It’s a bow and arrow. We were taught how to make it as the goddess taught the hunter.” She loosed her arrow as it went spiraling away into the forest, missing the trunk of the tree she had hit earlier. With a slight frown, she picked up the next arrow and nocked it back. “Use the yew, sacred tree of the moon, carved like a staff that can bend to become the crescent of the moon.”

The boy’s eyes seemed to light up. How come the hunter had never used this before? Or taught them to make it? Then he realized something… it’s possible that the hunter that was raising these sisters was not the same hunter he was searching for. Perhaps he had not found the correct mountain after all. If only he could remember the hunter’s name, but the only thing he could recall was his appearance, and that was barely anything to go by.

“What is your father like?” he probed incautiously.

She shushed him for silence, taking a deep breath. She exhaled. Her fingers released their tension as the string shuddered back into place, the arrow whistling through the air as it broke sideways against the trunk of the tree. The girl let out an audible groan and sat down against an exposed rock. Turning to the boy while unstringing her bow, she said, “He’s wise, strong, and persistent. And he loves to tell stories. He once told us a story of how his father pursued and caught the moon itself.”

“The moon?” He thought about the burly hunter in his head. That man caught a spirit of the heavens? “How did he do that?”

“He chased the moon for seven days as if chasing an animal, and the moon outran him for six. On the seventh day of the chase, without ceasing, he caught it and it even turned red out of embarrassment and anger. The goddess revealed herself and demanded that he marry her for touching her as he did, and he agreed. That’s just the kind of person he was apparently.”

“Who could chase something for so long without resting?”

“Our father is the offspring of the hunter and the goddess. The goddess taught him how to make bows by beholding the shape of the moon. Or something like that.”

“That’s amazing,” the boy said with bulging eyes. “The man I’m looking for must be… your father’s father.”

“Hm,” she grunted, completing her tidying up. “If you want to be of use, collect some dry branches on your way back to the tent. We need to stock more firewood. I need to go find Nitah.”

He did as he was told as Nilam slung her pack across her back and left. As he began his way back to the tent with an armful of twigs, he spotted the elder one, Taka, through the front entrance to the back entrance, working with her hands by an outdoor fire.

She looked up as he dropped the firewood with a clatter, wincing at the sound. Then she noticed what he brought in, quickly snatching two of the straightest branches and placing it in her pile. She seemed to be filing down some wooden sticks to a fine point by burning the stick at one end and rubbing it repeatedly against a now ashy and blackened stone.

“What is it that you’re doing?” he asked.

“Making more arrows. There’s no food unless we hunt, and we can’t hunt without arrows.” She twirled an unfinished one in her fingers deftly. “Do you want to help?”

“Um, Nilam told me to get more firewood.”

“We have plenty of that,” she dismissed, heaving a loosely woven basket of plucked feathers in front of him with one hand. “Cut these in half down the middle, and then cut them in half across. Each feather should give you four pieces. Attaching these with tree sap and bark string will help each arrow fly straighter.”

“I understand.”

The two worked in silence for a little bit. “Boe,” Taka said with some hesitation, her focus still fixed on her arrow filing, “Why did you leave your home? Why are you looking for a hunter?”

He also answered absent-mindedly, his focus consumed by the task of splitting feathers, “The men in our village are all too scared to hunt now, and the women and children can’t gather. The forest is stalked by a monster that kills and eats people. I am convinced that the hunter could save us, but no one else believed me.”

“That’s what you said last night. But why you? What made you want to risk your life alone? Won’t your mother and father think that you also have died in the forest like the others?”

His mind wandered to his sickly mother. The villagers have been kind enough to continue caring for him and his mother even after his father died, but how much longer would that continue? “My mother is waiting for me to return. As soon as I meet the hunter, I shall go back.”

“You may not survive the trip back, stupid boy. There’s nothing more important than your own survival. If you die, so does your mother. Do you understand? Similarly, if I die, then my sisters will eventually die without me.”

“But if a time came where you had to sacrifice yourself to save them, what would you do?” he muttered defiantly.

Taka sighed, “We will all die together. Or we will all live together. I can’t stomach the idea of living without my sisters,” she said, holding up a finished arrow. This one looked far deadlier than the ones Nilam was using to practice with. “Snapping this in half is easy. Snapping ten of these in half at once is not.” She picked up ten more arrow shafts and tried to bend it to no avail.

“I understand,” he said, “But how could I get all of the men in my village to work together? They are far too scared, and I am just a child.”

Taka shrugged. “I do not know. Usually I can make Nitah do the work you’re doing, and she’s off gathering today in the forest. She knows that she has a sense for good mushrooms, and so she is obedient. Nilam is also a gentle child, and so she listens to me. I told her to practice her archery since she’s not very good at much else. I do not know how to make any others listen to me, but at least you seem to be doing so.”

Boe glumly split another feather apart. “How good are these arrows? I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. Can they really kill an animal?”

“They can kill a person, too. Nilam almost killed you yesterday. She thought you were a dying boar approaching the tent. Lucky for you she didn’t want to waste any arrows, and so she picked up her spear. Lucky for us, too. Our father warned us that if we use an arrow to kill a person, we’ll forever be cursed by the goddess who taught us how to make them.” Taka continued to work, “Allow me to tell you a story. This is one my father loves to tell. There was a man that the goddess favored in a distant land. He too was taught archery and given her blessings, but he was prideful. With his power, he killed many who opposed him and eventually became the ruler of a large mountain. Every village on that mountain bowed to him. The people begged the goddess for help, and she turned and saw what had happened in the short time that she had been away. She was very displeased. The next day, when the prideful man was hunting, the bow transformed into a giant scorpion in his very hand, stinging him repeatedly to death, one sting for each person that he killed with that bow. The moon goddess then placed his body up in the sky so that he may learn to bless people instead of terrorize people as he watched over them from above. I’ll spell it out. The lesson is never to abuse your talents for selfish gain, and never ever kill people with a gift from the moon goddess.”

“Wow… this goddess sounds powerful… are there others like her?”

“Of course, the goddess’s brother is the sun, the one who provides light for us right now. Our father does not speak much of him, though, just not to let him catch you staring at him or he’ll shoot your eyes out with his arrows,” Taka laughed, “So now you know.”

“The shaman told us something very similar…” Boe whispered excitedly, “She said the spirit of the sun demands respect. She must have been talking about the same thing.”

“Must be,” Taka smiled, picking up ten finished arrows and placing them in a long, leather satchel. “You’re surprisingly diligent, Boe. You seem to have finished. Leave those cut feathers in the basket. I’ll attach them tonight. Deliver these to Nilam,” she thrust out the satchel, “And bring back some more firewood if she tells you to.”

Boe did as he was told. As he left the tent carrying the leather satchel, he saw Nilam speaking with the smaller Nitah at a distance. He plodded over, carefully navigating what remained of the snow on the ground.

Nilam swiveled her head to the source of the footstep sounds with an animal instinct. She sighed,  “Good, I was just about to head back in to the forest… Stay here, Nitah. And bring back more firewood to Taka.” Nitah nodded, her own basket overflowing with all manners of green and brown vegetation. “Hand me those arrows, and help Nitah carry these things back.”

Boe did as he was told yet again. Nitah chirped shyly, “Thank you,” handing him the basket as he handed the satchel to Nilam. She swung it around onto her hip and dashed into the woods with one motion, disappearing from sight almost instantly. She somehow reminded him of a galloping deer.

As his mind wandered back to the basket he held in his hand, he turned to Nitah, with whom he had not yet spoken. “Let’s collect some wood.” She nodded, replying with a practiced twirl, crouching to the ground to brush away the snow. He placed the basket down and began picking up what branches he could. What Taka had said flitted to and fro in his mind like a buzzing, meandering firefly. Impossible to ignore. He decided to try asking the little Nitah something, “Nitah, if one day you had to leave to find food for your sisters because they were both ill, would you?”

Nitah stopped to ponder the question, swiftly replying with a startling firmness, “Yes.”

“What if Taka demanded that you not risk your life for their sake. Would you stay behind and starve with them?”

“My sister would never say that.”

“So you would risk your life to save theirs, right?”

“Yes. I would do anything for my sisters. Unless they told me not to.

“When I spoke with your sister, she said that it’s better to live together or die together, and I don’t know about that. Isn’t it better for even some to live rather than everyone die?”

Nitah paused for a while, “That reminds me of a song my father sings.”

“A song?”

She took a deep breath of the crisp winter air and began to sing with a shaky voice.

“The moon did cry \\ As life did fade \\ From eyes that once \\ Saw all the land”

Boe listened transfixed as she continued.

“The hunter’s bow \\ That she had gave \\ Returned to her \\ With barren hands.

For once the two \\ Became as one \\ And swore an oath \\ With every breath.

And so she hides \\ Her saddened gaze \\ To mourn each month \\ Her lover’s death.”

When she finished, Boe did not speak. He thought only of the meaning behind the words, understanding fully now. Somehow. Everything that Taka had said seemed to make sense. The melody haunted his ears and Nitah’s voice resonated inside his head.

The air seemed to freeze with the icy tension that hung low between them. Finally, Boe broke the silence, “I think I understand.” Nitah didn’t respond, choosing to return to the tent ahead of him alone. He picked up what he could, including the basket, and started to head back as well, when at once he heard the sound of a high pitched cry. From the corner of his vision he saw Nitah return, sprinting towards the direction of the scream. Moments later, Taka appeared from over the hill, bow and arrow in hand.

“Come on!” she yelled at the boy, whose arms and legs began moving before his mind could catch on.

The three leaped into the forest guided by Nitah’s agile motions. Taka crushed every branch in the way with either stomps or strikes from her bow to make it easier for Boe to keep up, as if she had done this many times before with her sisters.

Just then, a terrible squeal. Loud and guttural. Boe could never forget the war cry of an angry boar. He began to tremble even as he ran, unsure if it was wise to keep charging forward. When they came to a clearing, Nilam was on the ground, writhing, clutching her chest, her bow a distance away. The beast was readying another charge, its tusks long and sharp, its jet black fur bristled, adorning the frame of a creature larger than any of them. An arrow pierced the flank of the boar, the feathers like a flag planted on a hill. Taka drew back her bow and aimed at the boar’s skull.

Her fingers let loose. Her arrow struck its target, but the arrow could not piece the bone. With another horrible roar, it turned its attention to the three of them and began to charge forward. Nitah grabbed Boe’s wrist and jerked the stunned boy towards her while Taka dodged in the other direction, narrowly missing death itself. It slammed into a tree with a mighty crack of splintering bark.

“Nilam! Get up!” Taka growled, out of breath, “Quickly!”

“I can’t! It hurts!” she replied in bitter anguish.

Boe ran over to the bow and arrow that once had been Nilam’s, separating himself from the others. He nocked it back awkwardly as he saw the two of them had done, aiming it at the boar who had begun to turn around. He breathed in.

Every doubt in his mind flitted through in an instant. Every impulse to abandon everything and run. Every nerve in his body filled with the fear of death. The image of his ailing mother. His father’s corpse.

“Boe, don’t!” Taka bellowed.

He breathed out. At the final instance when his entire body seemed to stop every movement, he let go. The arrow whistled through the air and landed with no power against the hide of the boar. Somehow, he had hit the boar, but failed to do anything to dissuade it from its next charge.

The boar charged only him.

As it did, Boe knew he had no place to go. This might have been it. His journey was over.

He reflexively closed his eyes when the sound of the boar’s squeal filled his ears. Then the tremendous thud of a mass hitting the ground. He opened his eyes once more to find the boar’s eye pierced by an arrow. He looked to Taka who was not holding her bow; she was holding Nitah instead. He traced the arrow shaft back to someone else.

“Father, wait!”

“Oho! This is no boar!” came a different, gleeful, enormous, booming voice. Boe did not recognize it, nor did he recognize him. The hunter had returned, but it was not the man he knew. This one appeared to be much younger than that hunter, and not nearly as physically large. “Why do you wear such a confusing pelt, child?”

“He is a boy,” Taka said through tired pants, “We almost made the same mistake when we first met him too.”

“Nilam, my child!” he called out, seemingly unworried, “Can you walk?”

“No…” she groaned.

“That is no good… Taka, Nitah, carry her back. I and the boy shall retrieve our kill. No more hunting until you improve your archery, Nilam! I have warned you many times before!” He unstrung his bow with the skill of a master, still speaking, “The Sun God retreats to his home early. We should do the same.”

The sisters left ahead of the man and the boy as he began carving choice parts of the meat on the spot.

“Mr. Hunter! I have a request of you,” Boe interrupted breathlessly, still panting, heart still racing in his ears, “Please, come with me back to my village and help us slay a monster that has been terrorizing us!”

“A monster?” the hunter grimaced, “I am no monster slayer. I hunt in the domain of the goddess as she wills. You ask the wrong thing of me.”

“I heard from Taka that you’re the son of the moon goddess… There’s no one else that can do it but you.”

“It is as you say. My mother is the moon itself. She taught me how to create the arc in her image. But that does not make me a hero. Then, as I finish, allow me to tell you a story.”

“A story?”

“There once was a lonely god who lived on this very mountain and ruled over its land. He was lonely because he could not trust others. But this is natural, of course. To trust anyone foolishly is opening up yourself to hurt and exploitation. To doubt and remain at distance is to protect yourself. And so this god, who could not trust anyone, lived a very solitary life. The god of the mountain and the people who lived at the base of the mountain began to come into conflict over territory. Individually, these people were far weaker than he was. He could best any of them in single combat, and so this alone kept them from ever taking this mountain from him. Still, he began to attack their new settlements and the people grew resentful of him. However, over time, they began to grow more and more numerous despite these attacks, while he remained as one. This should have scared him, but he had a realization. The god of the mountain thought to himself, ‘Ah, but surely they are like me. I have seen it. They also cannot trust one another for they cannot see what is in each other’s heart.'”

Boe listened with rapt attention, “Then what happened?”

The hunter seemed pleased to have a new listener. He continued, “The god decided to wait, for he knew that it would not be long before the growing number of people would come into conflict among themselves. There was nothing he needed to do. And so time passed and as he predicted, the people at the base of the mountain began to struggle with one another. But then, a miracle. They stopped fighting. They had discovered a way to trust one another. It was something that frightened the god of the mountain so badly that he fled on his own to another mountain altogether. Do you know what it is?”

“What is it?” Boe asked.

The hunter obliged, “A goddess. You see, organizing any amount of people requires the presence of something that they all believe in. This gives them a reason to work together. Without it, you’ll be limited to families fighting families, and even then among family members, there can be distrust. My father has told me of more than enough such incidences he has witnessed himself. Villages that are not united in the blessings of a god or goddess will not survive long and will never grow past the size of a few family groups. But once they do, they will attain power to frighten even the spirits of the sun and moon.”

Boe seemed to understand, “You’re saying that it’s not about finding a hero, it’s about us? Just people?”

“Heroes are great. They are role models to follow. Teachers to learn from. But relying on individuals is to deny the power that we can all participate in. What I’m saying is that you need to return to your village and find a way for the men to work together to defend your village. Don’t come seeking my help.” He handed Boe the pelt of the jet black boar. “Come, I shall continue this story back at our home.”

As they returned in the light of the setting sun, Boe asked countless more questions, but the hunter told him to save his breath for carrying the weighty amount of meat back to the tent. As they arrived, drenched in sweat, they found Nilam resting by the fire under mounds of furs with Nitah tending to her and Taka tending the fire. She took some meat from Boe and began roasting it over the fire.

As the hunter settled himself, he continued his story, “Now then… let’s wrap this up. The lonely god of the mountain tried to ask help from the god of another mountain, to no avail. The other mountain gods pushed him out until he returned to his mountain, battered and bruised. The people of the villages banded together and with the power of the goddess of the moon who took their side, slew the god of that mountain. They dedicated the mountain to her as tribute, and lived in peace ever since.”

“They banded together…” Boe slumped his shoulders, exhausted, “But I don’t know how to make our village band together like that.”

The hunter thought for a moment, “How about I give you something to help then?” He handed his bow to the boy. “Call it a gift from the goddess. I shall show you how to maintain this bow, how to craft arrows, and how to shoot tomorrow morning. It will not be enough to slay a beast by yourself, but teach the men of your village this very same thing and you will have power to slay even a god of the mountain.”

Taka’s eyes widened, “Your bow? The ram horn bow you spent weeks carving?” She clearly had eyes on the weapon for herself.

The hunter motioned for the two of them to stand, “Come, one more thing.” He lead them outside where the stars had already begun to appear in the dimming night sky. “Do you see that line of stars? Those three bright ones there all in a row? I’m going to trace a figure with my finger. That is the sign of the hunter, and those three stars make up his belt. Further up is his bow. Remember the names Taka, Nilam, and Nitah. That is what I have named those stars. Point to it as a sign that the celestial hunter watches over you and the men of your village. Pray to that hunter and let him give you the courage to go. The hunter shall always stay in the southwest. Pray to that hunter and he will guide your way even on the moonless nights.”

The boy thought for a while, gazing up at the sparkling night sky when a strange realization dawned on him. “Are you telling me to make up a story?” Boe asked hesitantly, “So I can trick people into fighting together?”

The hunter placed a heavy hand on his head, “These stories are not lies meant to deceive. They inspire. They explain. They teach. They give life to an otherwise miserable, difficult existence. Most importantly, they give hope. Perhaps one day we’ll discover the truth of everything, but until then, these stories are all we have. Without them, we’ll all just be lonely gods of our own mountain. The goddess comes alive this way.”

Boe stayed with the hunter an additional seven days. Upon returning to his village with gifts of meat, the men began to question where he had gone. He seemed a different person altogether from the little Boe that they knew. He answered them with a story.

“I journeyed to the mountains and met three spirits of the sky, Taka, Nilam, and Nitah. They were daughters of the celestial hunter, who is the son of the moon spirit. The moon taught me the nature of this holy tool,” he held up the bow and arrows, “Which is far stronger than any man’s thrown spear. When the sign of the hunter and the full moon is out, we will be given the strength of the celestial hunter himself. With this, we can all come together to slay that monster.”

The men murmured among themselves, doubtful. Skeptical. Untrusting. And yet still, they had listened enraptured by the story he had just told. Boe did not waver.

“Will you slay it then?” one man asked, his eyes betraying an utter inability to grasp what the child was saying.

“No, I cannot do it alone. We all need to work together and build more bows in order to win. We will all survive together, or we will all die together. That is what the spirits have taught me.”

The shaman of the village now was even listening. “You? Channeling the spirits? A boy who knows nothing?” she scoffed, dripping with derision.

Boe took a deep breath of the crisp, winter air. He breathed out. His thoughts clear, he spoke, “Allow me to tell you a story of how I communicated with the moon goddess.”