The Tundra Shall Burn!

by Ken Altabef

  The cubs knew the story. When Alaana was a child, two of the Anatatook shamans had a similar disagreement, though fueled by ego instead of love. And their conflict brought trouble to the village in the form of a fever demon. This demon had claimed many among Alaana’s people, including her sister Avalaaqiaq and both of the rival shamans. “Rivalry? Jealousy? What’s come over you two? You should be serving your people, not bickering over who is perceived to be the greater. Distrust between shamans is an ugly thing, and certain to anger the spirits. You know this!”

  “We know,” said Orfik.

  “We wouldn’t want to endanger…” added Oktolik.

  “Anyone,” finished Orfik.

  “Good,” said Alaana. “Now you’re talking sense. You are brothers, friends, shamans.”

  The two bears thought for a moment, exchanging a meaningful glance, then both signaled, “We’ll fight!”

  With that, they turned their backs on their teacher. Ignoring Alaana utterly, an intense concentration suddenly focused in each bear’s attitude toward the other. Each squatted on his haunches and glared at his rival, long, strong neck jutting forward, muzzle trembling. Orfik rose and started to circle. Oktolik did the same.

  They had already begun the bears’ prefight ritual, evaluating one another’s size and strength, although in this case the motions seemed totally unnecessary as the two bears were identical in every way. A series of deep rumbling threats followed, low growls and hisses which assured the many observers that this was not play.

  With a throaty rumble, Oktolik charged. Orfik met him shoulder to shoulder and the two grappled, pushing and lunging wildly at each other. Orfik slammed into his brother’s shoulder, nipped at his ear. Oktolik batted him away.

  The pair fell back into an aggressive stance, heads lowered, eyes glaring, ignoring Alaana’s demands for them to stop.

  Orfik charged with the peculiar, powerful, sideways gallop of the white bear. His mouth opened wide to release a frightful gnarling sound. Instead of meeting his lunge, Oktolik leapt high in the air, seeming more bird than bear, slashing downward. Orfik rolled below the aerial assault, slapping at the floor of the cavern with powerful claws which threw jagged chunks of ice up at his brother.

  The combatants turned again, rose up on their hind legs and began fighting in earnest. Grappling and slashing, they traded a pair of fearsome slaps, then fell to the ground and rolled together. Disengaging quickly, they rushed back to their feet for more. Oktolik made a sudden rush; his bite on his brother’s shoulder brought bright red blood against white fur. Orfik’s temper flared higher.

  Alaana had never seen two bears go at it like this before, and she feared the worst. She noticed Mellora, watching from the sidelines, appearing strangely unconcerned.

  Orfik clapped his brother on the muzzle, stunning him momentarily. In a blink he seized the moment, his teeth around the back of his brother’s neck in a deadly gambit. Just when it seemed his neck was sure to be broken, Oktolik shook him off with a hiss and growl and a mighty swipe of his paw that sent the other sliding across the icy floor.

  The fighters glanced up at each other, panting hard, Orfik with bloodied shoulder and Oktolik trailing blood down his spine. They snarled again, then began laughing with the distinctive head-swaying motions of the polar bear. Orfik rolled over onto his back.

  “So this is funny?” said Alaana. “Is this what we do for laughs in the Ice Mountain now?”

  Oktolik snarled at her. They laughed again.

  “There is only one way to decide this,” said Orfik. “You are our teacher…”

  “Our mother in the Way. Tell us…” added Oktolik.

  “Which one should have her?”

  “Fine,” said Alaana. “I will decide, but we have important work first. Shaman work. Okay? It’s the first moon of summer, and the Two Placed Far Apart underlie the Never Moves. I haven’t come here to look at your sorry faces, you know. I need to see the Heart.”

  CHAPTER 22

  AN ANGRY BEAR

  With a deep breath, Aquppak stepped silently into the cave. He moved slowly, hugging the wall, listening intently. A few steps in, he could hear the little noises the bear made in sleep — an occasional clack of its claws and its heavy, ragged breathing.

  Even after his eyes adjusted to the darkness he couldn’t see the animal. His worst fear was that he might step on it. Wake a bear that way and you’ll lose a leg with the first swipe.

  The smell of rotten fish trailed him into the cave. But it was not enough to rouse the beast. Aquppak flattened himself against the rock wall, forcing slow, easy breaths, his heart pounding.

  “Wake up!” he yelled, once and once only. He held the hilt of his meteor blade in a tight fist, every sense on full alert, for death stalked that cave and he could not see where it would come from. But he knew where it was going — to the dimly lighted cave entrance and the aroma of dead fish. Its path should not take it against the cavern wall. Unless, of course, the bear smelled him first. He made no sound; he moved not one tensed muscle.

  The bear grunted and let out a short, low growl. Aquppak could hear it shuffling to its feet. The bear sounded full grown, he thought, but no giant. He had killed bigger.

  The bear began moving around the cave, sniffing and belching loudly. The stupid beast didn’t know where the scent of fish was coming from. Aquppak could not move, praying the bear didn’t come poking its nose into every crook and crevasse of the cave. He held his blade point upward, eyes straining in the dark. If the bear came sniffing at him and he timed his strike just right, there was a chance for a quick thrust upward through the jaw. The timing would have to be perfect.

  The shaggy outline of the grizzly cut off the light from the entrance and Aquppak saw it shamble outside and bend to sniff at the fish. Now there was no time for hesitation or fear. Head down, distracted by the heady scent, the bear made a perfect target.

  Aquppak moved swiftly and silently, launching himself at the bulky animal, dagger raised, heart throbbing in his chest and life bursting in his lungs. He flew through the air and brought the knife down with two hands, burying it to the hilt in the back of the bear’s neck.

  The brown bear’s bellow of rage and pain was deafening. Aquppak’s stroke missed its mark, the spinal nerve at the base of the skull, which would have killed the bear instantly. With a violent jerk of its shoulders the bear shook him off and Aquppak flew away to the side. He twisted in midair, guiding his path exactly to the spot where he had placed the spear, and used it to break his roll.

  With a frightful gnarling, the wounded beast moved crazily, making a little circle until it sighted Aquppak. The bear pivoted sharply and came at him with incredible speed. Aquppak hoped Niak wouldn’t panic and take a shot. He would most likely miss and the gun’s report might frighten the bear away.

  The enraged bear came full on, charging with a characteristic sideways gallop, its head tipped to one side. It moved remarkably fast once it had set its course.

  Aquppak rose to a crouch and timed his thrust perfectly, jabbing the spear into the bear’s mouth. The weight of its charge knocked him back, driving the spear deeper until its tip came full out the other side. The spinal nerve. The bear fell to the ground, dead.

  Aquppak let out a long steadying breath. Not bad for a day’s work. He could taste roasted bearflesh already.

  Another angry roar cut across the mountain pass; a second bear, this one female, had emerged from the cave. The grizzly came out of the cavern at a full charge. Aquppak was not ready for it.

  He stared death calmly in its face, glancing at the knife sticking up out of the dead bear’s humped back. He must try for it, even though he’d never get his hand on it in time. He rolled across the carcass and under the far side of the downed bear, hoping to block the second aklaq’s charge with the massive body of the first. If he could somehow get to his knife…

  The charging bear drew a massive paw back, ready to strike as soon as it reached him.

  The i
mpact never came. A rifle shot rang out, a grunt of animal pain, an angry roar and then another shot. Aquppak peered over the shaggy bulk of his bear to see that Niak had downed the second bear two paces away. He was a good shot with that rifle. And smart too. What did it matter? They didn’t need two perfect bear skins.

  Tracking down the Yupikut was no easy matter, even for such an experienced tracker as Aquppak. The band of raiders was constantly on the move and made camp only in secluded areas, using travel routes known only to their leadership. The only way to track them was to follow the trail of their victims, but the authorities were looking for Aquppak and he had to keep his appearances few and far between. Niak went into the various Inuit settlements, using an assumed name to make inquiries. The trail led them north, circling around Big Basin, keeping them constantly on the move.

  It was dangerous to ask too many questions. It was said the Yupikut had spies in some of the other settlements and certainly the trading posts. Aquppak would have much preferred a return to the Anatatook but that would involve asking forgiveness from them all and Alaana in particular, and that he could not bring himself to do. He would return to them some day and make his sons proud, but he would never return in disgrace. He would return triumphant, perhaps as an emissary of the powerful and fearsome Yupikut.

  They found a summer camp on the banks of the Silver Tongue which had recently suffered the raiders’ bite. Many men had been killed, food stores raided, and women taken. As he witnessed the devastation first hand, Niak recalled what the raiders had done to his own village. His parents had been butchered while he slept; indeed the Yupikut had killed everyone in his community with wanton cruelty. He alone had been spared, amid the echoes of their parting laughter, so that he might spread the word of their prowess. He had been below their notice, not even worthy of a good beating.

  This latest attack had been delivered with less fury and more considered efficiency, perhaps a by-product of Guolna’s leadership. The raiders had contented themselves mostly with food items, killing only those men who had directly opposed them or tried to defend their wives. The tracks of the departing sleds were relatively fresh.

  Aquppak and Niak followed the trail south for half a day but the tracks abruptly vanished, wiped away by some trick of the raiders.

  “Now we don’t know which way to go,” observed Niak.

  “Not south,” said Aquppak. “This trail was meant to lead south. It’s a trick.”

  He dismounted from the sled. The dogs settled contentedly in the snow, too well-fed on bear meat to consider bickering. Aquppak circled around the sled, bending low to the ground, scrutinizing the patchy snow cover, paying particular attention to places the summer thaw had exposed the red mud and brown dirt. “They can make the snow tell lies,” he said to Niak, “but not the red clay.” Where the clay had been disturbed, it could never be put entirely back. Half-buried traces of red in the dirt pointed the way. They had gone east.

  “I know where they are,” he said. The trail led back around Big Basin, not far from the fjord they had visited earlier, where Aquppak had killed the brown bear. The valley between cliffs near the fjord made a perfect hiding place, but they wouldn’t be in the valley. The Yupikut favored the high ground where their dogs could be kept in a straight line, ready to thrust out at a moment’s notice. He knew a place, sheltered on three sides by towering bergs of crystalline ice, which made a perfect launching point for an armed camp. Secure in that location the Yupikut could both keep hidden and be ready to launch a raid.

  The two men raised the bear skin in canopy fashion atop the sled, using a pair of broken spear handles as posts. It was an official sled after all, painted bright red, and though Aquppak had scratched the markings off, it was still readily identifiable as a NWMP sled. There was only one approach to the suspected camp site, and no practical way to hide from the sentries in any case.

  Niak felt a rush of doubt as they approached. It seemed to him they were heading straight down the throat of an angry bear. Perhaps he should have settled for life at the trading post in the shadow of the white men. Aquppak seemed to have no such reservations. Unconcerned with fate, he scanned the crevasses and rocky outcroppings with a sharp eye.

  Niak relaxed as best he could. He had chosen well. Aquppak would see them through.

  The Yupikut scouts did indeed spot them first. The sentries were so well hidden Aquppak couldn’t make them out among the craggy rocks.

  A rifle shot grazed the stanchion barely a hand’s breadth from where Niak sat.

  “Hooo!” called Niak, calling the sled dogs to a halt.

  Two men came out of the rocks. Dressed mostly with furs of the brown bear as in typical Yupikut fashion, they paused at twenty paces, rifles raised.

  “Come out.”

  Niak stepped out from under the bearskin tarp on one side, Aquppak the other. Aquppak held a long, sharp spike in one hand.

  “Drop that!” the scout said.

  He paid them no mind. Going around to the front of the team, Aquppak planted the spike. He kicked it furiously into the muddy ground with his boot, then tied the lead traces on. Surprisingly, he did not receive a bullet to the back of the head.

  One of the scouts asked, “What do you want here? I give you one chance to answer before you die.”

  “I want to see Guolna,” said Aquppak. “I’ve brought tribute.” He indicated the bear skin.

  “Guolna thanks you for your tribute, but will take your lives as well.” The sentry clicked back the catch on the rifle.

  “Don’t you know who this is?” asked Niak.

  “Food for the dogs,” said the man, “or some such.”

  “This is Aquppak of the Anatatook. Headman of the Anatatook.”

  The two conversed in low tones for a moment. “He’s not the headman. Their man is Maguan.”

  “He used to be.”

  Aquppak said nothing through all this talk. He stood calmly before the rifles, absently brushing a lock of wayward hair from his face, a face which held not the slightest trace of fear.

  “Used to be?” said the sentry.

  “It’s true,” said the other. “I remember him.”

  “Former headman,” said the first man, unimpressed. “All right then. Guolna will want to kill you himself.”

  CHAPTER 23

  MOONLIGHT IN SUMMER’S DAY

  The twins shifted uncomfortably.

  “What has happened here?” asked Alaana.

  She was furious. Housed within the enormous central chamber of the lair, the vast ice sculpture lay in a sad state of disrepair. “Why is this great treasure of the North sullied by time and carelessness?”

  “We’ve done our best,” said Orfik.

  “There was so much Balikqi didn’t show us,” added his brother.

  And I couldn’t help, thought Alaana. Balikqi had been the grand caretaker of the Heart. His sharp claws had detailed its surface with loving strokes and gentle touches, maintaining its pristine beauty over the years, adding his own jubilant outlook to shape its sentiment. But the great bear had died too soon, having spent his last few years obsessed with weaving his web in the sky to shift the mountain. Leaving the cubs too young to appreciate his advice. Alaana had trained them in what she knew, but the Heart was a mystery to her. She and the twins had spent ten winters studying its glory and still didn’t know half of its secrets.

  “Balikqi used to do it,” said Orfik.

  “He was the master. We are only pale reflections of his light.”

  Alaana had felt that way too. “The great bear has joined the others in the sky,” she said. “If he looks down upon the Heart and sees this? It would break his heart.”

  Orfik growled softly. Oktolik shook his head.

  “What is it?” asked Alaana.

  “What if…” said Orfik.

  Alaana turned to Oktolik for the continuation, but his brother continued gazing absently downward.

  “Well?” said Alaana.

  “We’ve heard
strange sounds in the night,” said Orfik. “Bad sounds, on the wind.”

  Trouble and more trouble, thought Alaana. “And what’s this to do with Balikqi?”

  “Sounds of torment,” said Oktolik. “Not often, not often. But we are both sure.”

  “It was Balikqi,” said Orfik.

  “What? Where?” asked Alaana.

  “We don’t know. His screams are so infrequent now…”

  Alaana couldn’t face the sadness in the small black orbs of their eyes. “The stars are so far away,” she said. “When the shamans retire there, they never come back. We can’t know for sure it was him.”

  The twins, heads hanging low, were clearly not reassured.

  “We’ve no way to know,” repeated Alaana, “unless the Heart shows us.”

  “We’ve looked,” said Orfik.

  Oktolik shook his head sadly.

  “We’ll look again,” said Alaana. “Now. The stars are right. In midsummer, we should see the full breadth of Nunatsiaq.”

  Even in its current state the Heart was a wonder. Spreading out below them, far across the great cavern, the cut surfaces of the Heart gleamed in diamond-faceted brilliance. It was a wonderful cathedral of ice, a tableau as large across as the entire winter settlement of her people.

  The bright sunlight lent a sharp, blue-silver luminescence to the Heart. Alaana’s eye traced the lines of Nunatsiaq from the barren wastes at the top of the world, across Big Basin, to the craggy outlines of the ocean. The ice floes were visible in rich detail as they circled in a giant clockwise spiral, slowly circling the Never Moves. All of creation seemed to be represented in the vast sculpture, including the current positions of every band of nomads and their settlements. Alaana spotted the Anatatook camp and the Tanaina to the south, as well as the raiding Yupikut warriors, and even the trading post at Old Bea.

  But there was so much more. Every animal that graced the tundra could be seen, if one gazed deeply enough. Alaana noted a large herd of caribou, travelling north around the lip of Red River, and she was glad. If she could return this information to her brother Maguan in time, there was still a good chance for the hunt. Of course she would still need to beg Tekkeitsertok’s blessing for such a hunt, but at least she now had the location.