The cage opened before Nussudle was ready.
Not that being ready meant much.
Two Ash Na'vi came for him without a word. One struck the stone lock aside with a heavy piece of blackened wood while the other pulled the cage door open hard enough for the wooden hinges to creak. Both were broad-shouldered, ash-painted, and marked with burns that seemed less like injuries and acts of pleasure.
Nussudle stayed still.
For a moment, they looked disappointed.
Then one reached in and grabbed him by the arm, fingers digging into bruised flesh. Pain shot through his shoulder, but Nussudle forced his face to remain blank. The other took his opposite arm, and together they hauled him out of the cage and onto his feet.
His legs felt like they were getting flayed, causing him to not so steadily stoop.
He caught himself just enough to avoid collapsing, though the effort made his ribs flare with pain. The guards did not care. They dragged him forward through the camp, past bone totems, fire pits, and rows of watching faces.
Hundreds of eyes followed him.
Some stared with hatred. Others with hunger. A few watched with the blank interest of children looking at something already half-dead. Nussudle had been looked at with curiosity before, by the Metkayina, by hunters, by elders who did not know what to make of him.
This was different.
They looked at him like meat.
Or worse, like entertainment.
The blind prisoner's warning echoed in his head.
They like fear. They like a fight.
So Nussudle gave them neither.
He let the guards pull him forward, his bare feet dragging through layers of ash. Heat pressed against his skin as they neared the central bonfire. It was larger than he had first realised, built inside a ring of stone and bone, flames climbing high into the air as if fed by more than wood. Around it, the Ash Na'vi gathered in a wide circle.
The guards stopped only when they reached the edge of the firelight.
Then they threw him.
Nussudle hit the ground hard, shoulder first, breath leaving him in a sharp grunt. Ash kicked up around him in a dry cloud, coating his face and chest. He rolled onto one side and pushed himself up slowly, coughing once before lifting his head.
A male Na'vi stood before the fire.
He was older, but not weak. His body was lean, scarred, and tightly held, like something stretched across bone and hatred. His hair was bound back with blackened rings, and around his neck hung multiple severed queues, dried and preserved, twisted together like trophies. Some were old and greyed. Others looked newer.
In one hand, he held a Na'vi skull.
It had been hollowed and smoothed into a bowl.
It was filled with blood.
Nussudle stared despite himself.
The man noticed.
A slow smile spread across his face, showing teeth stained dark at the edges.
"So," the leader said, voice low and rough, carrying easily over the fire. "This is what falls from the sky and kills our sons."
The crowd murmured.
Nussudle did not answer.
The leader stepped closer, lifting the skull cup slightly as though making an offering to the gathered camp rather than to Eywa. His eyes were bright, not with kindness or wisdom, but with old rage sharpened into purpose.
"A forest child," he continued. "Far from his wet leaves. Far from soft songs. Far from mothers who whisper to trees and ask the world to forgive them for breathing."
Laughter moved through the crowd.
Nussudle's jaw tightened.
The leader's expression shifted. Not amused now. Interested.
"You killed one of mine," he said. "You were wounded, hunted, falling, and still your arrow found his head." He tilted the skull cup toward him. "That is not nothing."
The tattooed young woman from earlier screamed.
Nussudle turned sharply.
Near the other side of the bonfire, two Ash Na'vi males were fighting over her. Not arguing. Fighting. Both had hold of her, one gripping her arm, the other her shoulder and braid, pulling her between them with enough force to make her cry out in pain. She twisted, snarling, but they were stronger and too focused on each other to care.
The crowd barely reacted.
To them, it was another piece of the night.
The leader's face hardened with irritation.
He raised one hand.
That was all.
A male guard near his side moved instantly. He was taller than the others, with ash rubbed deep into the lines of his face and a heavy spear tipped with black stone. He crossed the space in a few quick strides.
One of the fighting males saw him too late.
The guard drove the spear through his chest.
The sound was wet and final.
The Na'vi froze, hands still half-raised, mouth open in shock. Blood poured down the spear shaft and struck the ash-covered ground in thick drops. The tattooed girl stumbled back, breathing hard, eyes wide for only a second before a strange grin returned to her face.
The guard ripped the spear free.
The body fell like a string cut.
No one moved to help him.
The second male backed away, suddenly very interested in not being noticed.
The guard crouched beside the corpse and took a knife from his belt. With brutal efficiency, he cut away the dead Na'vi's queue. The crowd watched in silence, not grieving, not shocked. The severed queue was lifted like tribute.
The guard returned to the leader and presented it with both hands.
The leader accepted it gratefully.
"Waste," he said, looking at the dead male. "But useful waste."
He draped the fresh queue across his wrist for the moment, then turned back to Nussudle.
Nussudle felt cold despite the fire.
This was not simply cruelty. It was an order. Their order. Broken, vicious, but understood by everyone here.
The leader took a drink from the skull cup.
Blood touched his lips.
He swallowed and lowered it, eyes fixed on Nussudle.
"Release him."
The words struck the camp like a dropped stone.
Even Nussudle looked up, confused.
One of the guards hesitated. The leader's gaze snapped to him, and the hesitation vanished. The guard stepped forward and cut the binding around Nussudle's wrists with a short blade.
Nussudle flexed his fingers slowly.
They expected him to run.
He knew it immediately.
The leader smiled again, as if he could see the thought forming.
"You look surprised, forest killer."
Nussudle rose carefully to his feet, keeping his body guarded. "You dragged me here to let me go?"
The crowd laughed at that.
The leader's smile widened.
"No," he said softly. "We dragged you here so you would understand before you died."
The eclipse had begun overhead.
Light faded from the sky, replaced by deeper reds and long shadows cast by the fires. The bonfire brightened as the world darkened, throwing wild shapes across bone poles and ash-marked faces. The camp seemed to lean inward.
The leader lifted his skull cup high.
"You," he said, voice rising now, "foreign one. Killer. Sky thief. Forest blood."
The crowd began to stir, energy building.
"You will be given until the rise of the new sun," the leader continued. "You will run. You will hide. You will crawl through ash and stone and beg your sleeping mother Eywa to open the ground beneath you."
Nussudle did not move.
The leader stepped closer.
His voice dropped, but somehow carried further.
"And when the sun rises, we will come."
The tattooed girl laughed again, breathless and eager.
The leader spread both arms, the severed queues around his neck shifting against his chest.
"This is a hunt."
The camp erupted.
The gathered Ash Na'vi screamed, cheered, stamped their feet, and beat weapons against bone and wood. Some hurled burning sticks into the air. Others threw carved bones, skull fragments, and handfuls of ash that scattered through the firelight. Sparks rose around them like a swarm of angry insects.
Nussudle stood at the centre of it all, bruised, bloodied, and unarmed except for the rage slowly beginning to harden inside him.
The leader leaned close enough for Nussudle to smell blood on his breath.
"Run well," he whispered. "Bad prey dies quickly."
The guards shoved Nussudle toward the outer edge of the circle.
No one stopped him.
No one gave him directions.
The cheering followed as he staggered away from the bonfire, past the cages, past the blind prisoner who sat silently behind his bars with his head tilted toward the noise.
As Nussudle passed, the blind man spoke quietly.
"Don't run straight."
Nussudle slowed for half a heartbeat.
"Run, Sky Man, RUN!"
A guard shouted, causing a roar of laughter to explode from the village, and Nussudle kept moving.
The camp opened before him, firelight fading into ash and broken shadow. Somewhere beyond it lay the burned forest, the ruined kelutral, the volcano, and perhaps Nova.
Alive.
That was the only thought that mattered.
Nussudle stepped beyond the outer ring of bone poles.
Behind him, the Ash Na'vi howled his death into the dark.
Ahead, the eclipse swallowed the world.
And Nussudle ran.