86. Clear picture?

The wildest creatures in the world are not animals, but humans themselves. You never know when a best friend will become an enemy, when a lover will become a murderer, or a child will become a traitor. A person's life is constantly balancing on a thread, one push and it's all over. In the lands of Madüjawr, the hegins were fully aware of this law of life.

Yet of all the tribes, the Zovárds were the ones who understood it best. This may be why the current tribal chief Zovárd Urias knew well from his childhood that the number one law of life is the ancient rule of 'kill or you will be killed'. Of course, this doesn't mean that he didn't have good connections or friends, just that he wasn't surprised if someone accidentally attacked him in the middle of his lunch.

For the Zovárds, attempted murder was always the clearest and noblest form of expression of love and belonging, whether the subject survived the attack or not. The family was bound by blood, but it was held together by attempted murders. Of course, there were those in the tribe who did not take the custom seriously, but the fact did not change. If someone tries to kill a Zovárd, or a Zovárd tries to kill them and they survive, they gain respect and esteem in the eyes of the Zovárd.

The exception to this is if the person who is currently trying to kill someone goes to the nerves of said victim. This happened to Zovárd Urias, who was resting in the camp next to the Valley of Floating Rocks after this year's Karrabata shooting, before going home. Due to the change of territory that happened shortly before the shooting, it was safer to wait until the new maps came from Holdvár to attempt to find their homes.

However, the sudden and completely unjustified change of territory had nothing to do with Zovárd Urias' bad mood. The reason for his bad mood at the moment was Koál Kilian, who, after inconspicuously trying to put poison in his food, which the man ate afterwards as single-mindedly as if there was nothing wrong in the world, was now whining about how much trouble they had with the Athamanas and that it is not enough that that bandit's are Master Chá's disciple, they are hegins too.

Normally, the Zovárd chieftain would not have been bothered by such whining, he would have even enjoyed and chuckled to himself at the situation, but since in the past months he could hear nothing but Athamanas this and Athamanas that, it is no wonder that he started to get out of his groove . Of course, this did not show on his face, he nodded as enthusiastically to Kilian's words as always, but his head was wondering why he didn't decide like Zaukán Gusick and leave the other chieftains to do as they wanted. Sometimes it would have been much easier to just ignore what happened to the others.

"So yes! It's not enough that these damn Athamanas are here, even one of my hegins disappears. I knew that I shouldn't have left the Tele family so free, but since the founding of the tribe, they are the strongest family after the Koáls. However, there are limits to my kindness!" The Koál tribal chief said and this was what attracted Zovárd Urias' attention, which had wandered off a long time ago.

He saw the current head of the Tele family that very morning, so Kilian must not have talked about him, so the cause of the Koál chieftain's anger is none other than Teveli. The young hegin, who is his nephew's best friend. In any other case, he would have left the matter at that, even in thought, but now it stuck in his head. Tele Teveli left his tribe and Kilian did not know where he was. Before the shooting, Urias received a letter from Suk saying he was going to visit Master Chá. The two events were suspiciously close to each other.

The Zovárd chieftain himself didn't know how it happened, but at that moment the colorful stones that had been lying on the floor of his jumbled mind came together into a clear image. He had known that his nephew had been friends with children from other tribes since Suk had first started making friends, but it had never crossed his mind how close those friendships could be. However, if they are so close that they span tribes and years, then...

Eight Athamana appeared at the Heginjülin, two of which did not compete. Master Chá said because they have already proven themeselves. That left six contestants from the Athamana. Apart from the boy, Suk's group of friends consisted of six children, with the exception of one of the stars of last year's Heginjülin, Chüvigh Rahul, who seemed to be very close to the strange group of friends. If he kept the idea going and appointed Rahul as one of the eight-members of the Athamana, then it is clear that the other member who did not compete is Zaukán Razvan, who also won last year. And that meant that his nephew's friend group was the Athamana.

If he wanted to be honest with himself, he had to admit that his theory was quite shaky, since he had also seen Suk on the Heginjülin, but something told him that he shouldn't believe his eyes. After all, the Athamanas are disciples of Master Chá, and no one knew how great the chán man's abilities were. It is not inconceivable that he only thought he saw his nephew on the Heginjülin.

"Hey, Zovárd! Do you hear me?" Kilian snapped his fingers in front of his face, and he blinked a few times.

"Forgive me, I wandered off. What did you say?" He asked.

"Only that I hope to be able to count on you if a war breaks out between the tribes. The Koál and Zovárd tribes have always had good relations. If you are in trouble, I will immediately come to your aid." The Koál man grinned, and even though it was hard for him, Urias also returned the grin.

"Naturally." He nodded, even if he had no intention of helping. Everyone might have thought that if a war broke out between the tribes, the Zovárds would be the first to jump at the chance to kill, but Urias had no intention of getting involved in a potential war. He was perfectly content with the current peace, and anyway he found it unnecessary to eradicate the hegins for good. If they want to go to war, then they should join forces and attack someone beyond the Karrabata, not each other.

Unfortunately for him, Kilian didn't leave him alone for some time, so it wasn't until many hours later that he returned to his tent to collect his thoughts. The Athamanas, whether he wanted to deal with them or not, were a big threat. He had to find out if his hunch was true. He had only one solution to this, he had to talk to his nephew.

As a consequence of his decision, on the day of his return to the Cemetery, he immediately wrote a letter to Suk asking him to come home as soon as he could because he had something very important to discuss with him. As it stands, he didn't lie to the boy, he just didn't tell him what the thought was that he wanted to prove. He tried not to think about the matter after the messenger hawk left, and when the wheel of time came to deal with the problem, it was unnecessary for him to think about what ifs, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere anyway. It was smarter to wait for now.