Da Bao had made Xu Hao a new quiver.
It was a narrow leather tube with a shoulder strap and room for ten arrows. The stitching was crooked in two places, which made it more reassuring than anything the giant had produced with effortless confidence.
"Try it," Da Bao said.
Xu Hao put the strap over his shoulder. The quiver slid around to his stomach.
"Other way."
He adjusted it. Now the arrows struck his elbow whenever he moved.
Da Bao stood behind him, shortened the strap by two finger widths and turned the quiver until the fletching sat just above Xu Hao's shoulder.
"Better?"
Xu Hao reached back, drew an arrow and fitted it to the bowstring.
"Considerably. Did you learn to make these from your father?"
"He made mine when I was small. Mine was twice that size."
"Of course it was."
"And I could hit a bird from thirty paces."
Er Bao looked up from the fire. "You hit a nest. The branch broke. The birds flew away."
"A successful outcome," Da Bao said.
Xu Hao lowered the bow before he laughed hard enough to release the arrow by accident.
They were going hunting again, but Er Bao had set conditions. No deep forest. No pursuing anything they couldn't identify. No leaving the brothers' sight. Xu Hao would shoot only after they agreed he had a clear line behind the target.
"You make it sound like an examination," he told Er Bao.
"It is. Except failing this one may hurt somebody."
"I preferred the written variety."
* * *
The clearing lay beyond the lower stream, where young birches grew among patches of grass. Xu Hao had walked past it twice while learning to follow tracks. Today he was expected to look for prey rather than admire evidence that it had once been there.
He found hoofprints first. They led towards a patch of shade where the grass had been bitten short. Farther on, a thin line of droppings marked the route taken by a small herd.
Da Bao gestured for him to crouch.
Three deer grazed near the far side of the clearing. The largest lifted its head now and again to listen. One was little more than a fawn, thin-legged and awkward.
Xu Hao eased an arrow from the quiver.
He hadn't raised the bow when he noticed a dark mark around the hind leg of the smallest deer.
A narrow ring where the fur had been rubbed away.
He leaned towards Er Bao. "The young one. Its leg."
Er Bao studied it for a moment. "Could be from a snare."
Xu Hao remembered the frightened animal they'd found beside the stream. The one whose leg he'd washed while it struggled to stand. He could not be certain this was the same deer; there were hundreds in the forest, and injured legs weren't exclusive to one creature.
But he lowered his bow.
Da Bao glanced back. "What is it?"
"Nothing. I don't want that one."
"A young deer is easier to carry."
"I know."
The giant followed his gaze. After a moment he nodded, though he said nothing more.
Xu Hao watched the herd move into the birches. He was not a vegetarian. He had eaten meat all his life, and the brothers couldn't live on the few roots growing near their camp. Yet knowing he needed food was different from choosing the animal that would die for it.
He discovered that he would like those to remain two separate activities for as long as possible.
* * *
They waited beneath the birches until the deer disappeared.
Da Bao suggested following them to a lower meadow. Er Bao pointed out that the wind had turned and the animals were already alert. Xu Hao expected his older brother to argue.
Instead Da Bao leaned against a tree and took out a strip of dried meat.
"Another day, then."
Xu Hao eyed the meat. "I thought you were hungry."
"I am. That's why I'm eating."
There was nothing to be done with that answer.
A little later, Grey lifted her head towards a cluster of rocks. Sia followed the movement with her eyes but remained beside Xu Hao when he asked. Little One stood so eagerly that Da Bao caught her collar before she could leap into the brush.
A horned rabbit stepped out between the stones.
It had six legs and a single short horn, just like the animals Da Bao had brought to the fire on Xu Hao's first evening as a prisoner. This one was smaller, hardly the size of a large house cat. It paused, sniffing, then began feeding on the tender shoots beneath the rocks.
Da Bao leaned close. "Ten paces. Clear ground behind it. Can you hit it?"
Xu Hao studied the animal. It was turning slowly as it fed, offering him a better target than any of the moving deer. His hands were steady enough, but he knew how often he'd missed bark from this distance.
"I can try."
"Only if you're ready," Er Bao said.
Xu Hao took one breath and fitted his arrow.
He drew, felt the familiar resistance in the muscles along his back, and settled his hand near his jaw. The rabbit raised its head. He didn't release. When it lowered the head again, he followed the movement carefully, trying not to chase it with the bow.
For a moment his father was in his memory, showing him the chambers of a heart on a dinner napkin, explaining how blood moved through something alive. His mother, teaching him to put a needle through orange peel without tearing it, told him to pay attention to what his hands were doing.
He breathed out.
The arrow flew.
It missed the rabbit entirely.
The shaft struck a stone behind it and broke.
The animal bolted, six legs blurring among the ferns.
Xu Hao held the bow where it was, staring at the broken arrow.
Da Bao began to say something, stopped, and settled for scratching his cheek.
"Well," Xu Hao said eventually. "The stone is dead."
Er Bao nodded solemnly. "A clean kill."
Da Bao laughed so suddenly that Little One barked.
* * *
They went to recover the arrow.
The stone had shattered the point and split the wood for half its length. Xu Hao looked at it unhappily. Da Bao had spent an evening straightening those shafts. One careless shot had wasted a small piece of that work.
"Don't worry about the arrow," Da Bao said.
"It was a good arrow."
"Then it died honourably against an excellent rock."
"You two are never going to let me forget this, are you?"
"Not until you hit something better."
Er Bao examined the ground beyond the stone. "You were lucky nobody was standing there. You checked the space behind your target, which was good. But you hurried because you wanted it over."
Xu Hao considered the difference. He hadn't been frightened of the rabbit. He'd been frightened of choosing to kill it. Once he'd committed to the shot, he'd tried to finish before he could change his mind.
"I rushed," he admitted.
"Yes."
"How do you stop doing that?"
Er Bao looked across the clearing. "By accepting that sometimes the correct choice is not to release."
Xu Hao rested the bow across his knees. "But then we don't eat."
"Then we hunt another day. Or we let one of us who can make the shot do it. A missed arrow isn't proof that you owe the forest another."
That was not advice designed to make a boy feel brave. Xu Hao liked it precisely for that reason.
They practised once more before turning back. This time Er Bao placed a small bit of pale bark against a fallen stump. Xu Hao drew and held the bow for several breaths. His shoulder trembled. Rather than release badly, he lowered it.
Da Bao nodded. "Good. Again."
On the second attempt he struck the bark.
No animal had died. Yet he felt rather more proud of that shot than he would have expected.
* * *
They were nearly home when the opportunity came again.
A small ground bird emerged from the ferns ahead, pecking at the soil. It had broad brown wings and a heavy body, large enough to provide a modest meal. No young followed it. The open ground behind it sloped into a bank, thick enough to catch an arrow.
Xu Hao looked at Er Bao.
The giant studied the line, then nodded.
Xu Hao drew.
This time he waited until he had the position he wanted. He could feel the string against his fingers, the bow's grip settling into his palm. The bird turned, exposing a narrow side.
He released.
The arrow struck.
The bird rolled over once, fluttered, and fell still.
Xu Hao lowered the bow slowly.
Da Bao let out an enormous shout, then caught himself as Sia's ears pricked towards the noise.
"You did it!"
Xu Hao didn't answer immediately. He walked to the bird and knelt beside it. The arrow had gone through the upper body. The animal was dead; he checked carefully before touching it.
He'd been aiming a little lower.
It was a good result, but there had been luck in it. He knew that. If he told himself he'd mastered hunting because one bird had fallen, he would be lying to the very person who most needed to understand his limits.
He retrieved the arrow and carried the bird back with both hands.
Da Bao thumped his shoulder lightly. "Your first proper catch."
"Yes."
"You don't look pleased."
"I am. A little. It's just different when you're the one who does it."
Da Bao's grin faded. "It is."
Xu Hao glanced up. He hadn't expected him to understand so readily.
"Did you feel that the first time?"
Da Bao looked at the bird. "Father made me clean what I shot. He said that if I wanted to eat, I shouldn't make somebody else remember what it cost."
Xu Hao looked down at the small body in his hands.
He'd spent years reading about the lives of people who hunted for their food. He'd discussed their tools, their economies, even their beliefs about animals and sacrifice.
Today, for the first time, he understood one small part of what those accounts had been trying to tell him.
He carried the bird all the way home.
At supper, he helped Da Bao prepare it. The meat was not enough for three men and three large dogs, so they added roots and what remained of the dried tiger meat. Xu Hao made certain the bird was shared rather than served to him alone as a prize.
Later he wrote two lines onto his bark chart.
First kill: one ground bird. Shot lower than intended. Do not mistake luck for accuracy.
Then, after some thought, he added a third.
Must learn to cook it better.
He could already hear Da Bao complaining about the seasoning.