Close Kin by Clare Dunkle

as neat parts. Irina took a large metal butcher knife and began to
gut the deer into a tub. She was soon bloody to the elbows.
    Thorn grinned.
"You know the rule, puppy," he told her.
    "Yeah," Willow chimed in,
patting her cheek, "the ugly people have
to butcher. That means you." She swatted his hand away from her
face -- since she was holding the knife, a dangerous move for them both. Seylin
expected someone to laugh at Willow's joke, but no one did. He had, in fact,
been stating their butchering rule, just the way Thorn had made it up.
    "Well, come
on," Thorn told the men, heading for the door of the
hovel, but Seylin shook his head.
    "I'll stay
and help," he answered, pulling his elf knife from his belt.
The men were puzzled at the offer. Irina was puzzled, too.
    "Why is he helping, Thorn?"
she demanded, peeling back the bloody deer hide. "He's not ugly. He looks
better than any of you."
    Thorn paused,
staring thoughtfully at Irina, and then shot Seylin a
suspicious glance. Why, indeed, should he stay out in the cold? The blond elf
drew the obvious conclusion.
    "It doesn't matter why," he
growled, "because I think he's smart enough to keep that good looking face
of his out of trouble. It wouldn't look nearly so nice with two or three teeth
missing."
    Seylin's stomach
was beginning to tie itself into knots. He couldn't
believe he'd been searching for this. The pages may have teased him when he was
a boy, but no one had ever made such a crude threat.
    "I've been
after that one," said Rowan thoughtfully, studying the carcass.
"He was a smart old beast."
    Seylin felt ashamed. "I'm not a
very good hunter," he admitted. "I had to use a calling spell."
    "I
know," said Rowan. "I watched you. You're an awful hunter,"
he added matter-of-factly.
    "I don't care what he is,"
remarked Thorn to the group. "He's brought home food, and that's more than
some people around here have done lately.
Seylin, stop stabbing at it. Butchering's not for men. You don't know
what you're doing, and Irina has enough help."
    Another woman had stepped up silently
to join them, carving off strips of the haunch.
Seylin didn't notice her arrival until she was kneeling almost at his
feet. The busy woman had her back to him and didn't seem
interested in introductions. Her long hair was black, so it didn't show dirt as
badly as her companion's.
    "Come on," said Thorn
impatiently, and the men went into the warmth of the cave while the women
worked in the cold.
    Beyond the
plank door was a big, messy room floored with dirt, half
house and half cave. Along the back wall were four low tents, the only thing in
the room that made sense. Elves always slept in tents, inside or outside.
    There was a
fireplace at the boarded front of the cave, with thick logs
blazing in it. Seylin could look at the flames because his eyes weren't normal elf eyes, but he didn't understand
how the other elves could bear it. Everything he had ever read about
elves men tioned their hatred of fire and
metal; they associated both things with goblins. Yet here, in a real elf camp, he saw a fire crackling merrily on
a normal human hearth with a metal pot heating above it.
    Seylin braced
himself for the expected barrage of questions, but no
one even bothered to speak to him. Thorn and Willow began scraping the bits of flesh off a deer hide, and
Rowan sat down with a hunk of fat to grease his ancient boots. The
perplexed newcomer occupied himself with pitching his own tent at the end of
the row and settling his belongings into their places.
    When he turned around, the women were
back inside, preparing the morning meal. Irina was patting out dough with still
bloody hands and frying it up on a griddle.
The black haired woman had her back to him again, stirring the stewpot.
    "Who is
she?" he asked, joining the men. Thorn glanced up from
his deer hide.
    "That's the ugly woman," he
replied. "Ugly woman! Show the nice man why we call you that."
    The
black haired woman turned around, and Seylin had trouble