by Gabi Moore
Laova rolled her eyes; she’d grown accustomed to the teasing already, and they hadn’t even lain together yet.
Hours passed, and Nemlach’s low fever disappeared before long. Laova sat up for a while, watching him. But as the night drew on and the others fell deeply into slumber, she looked out the tent flap, out into the night, thinking, praying, planning.
***
Nemlach stretched awake, feeling cold.
The darkness was everywhere; the fire was low, as there was no one tending to it. That was strange. Laova had been sitting up last, but that had been hours ago. Surely someone had relieved her by now.
The tent flap rustled and Nemlach looked up to see Ghal struggling through with an armful of firewood.
She must be sleeping then, he reasoned. Nemlach felt about beside him. The space was empty and cool. How long had she been gone?
He sat up and looked around the tent, but didn’t see her. “Where’s Laova?”
Ghal looked up from poking at the fire-coals. “She went out with me to find firewood. Should be back any minute now.”
Nemlach relaxed back. His mind, however, was not settled.
“How long ago?”
“Not too long. We went out at the same time. Too soon to be worried, I’d say.”
Nemlach looked around, trying to place why he felt so anxious. Something was wrong. Maybe it was merely the bone-cold place where she was supposed to be laying, next to him. His eyes landed on his pack.
“Where’s Laova’s pack? And her bow?”
Ghal stared at him, confused. Understanding dawned over his gray face, and he and Nemlach came to same conclusion at once.
Laova had left, and taken her gear.
“Rell!” Nemlach shook her awake, still clad in only his trousers. He couldn’t imagine why Laova had left, and it was making him frantic. Rell sat up, clearly annoyed to be awoken in a dither twice in one sleep.
“What?”
“Laova’s gone.”
“What!”
Rell leapt to her feet. Khara and Bamet were awake, now. They all stood around, trying to puzzle out why she might have left; in the end, it was clear that whatever she was doing was ill-advised. There were still several nights to go before sunlight would return, and after one avalanche, another was not hard to imagine. There were mountain wolves, pitfalls, ravines. Nemlach was growing clearly agitated by the time Rell glanced once more around the tent.
“Dammit,” she hissed. “Now where’s Taren gone?”
Ghal swore Taren had been lying by the fire when he and Laova had exited the tent. Rell looked at Nemlach.
“Do you think they might have left together?” she asked.
The question caught Nemlach off-guard. The others looked at him sheepishly, and he glared back.
“They might have,” he admitted. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Whether or not it means anything, two younglings are out in the dark and the snow, and I’ll tell you, it’s picking up,” Ghal interrupted. “When I went to get firewood, the snow was coming down, but not like this.”
They all peered outside. Ghal’s light snowfall had thickened into a blinding flurry.
“I’m going to find her,” Nemlach announced.
As one, the group turned a stare both incredulous and admiring—in varying balances—to Nemlach. Rell was the first to recover.
“You’ll never be able to follow her tracks in this snow. I can’t let you kill yourself out in this storm.” Rell exhaled and shook her head tiredly. “There’s nothing you can accomplish except throw your life away.”
“So we let two young hunters die as we hide in our safe little enclave?” Nemlach asked quietly.
Rell bristled, her red hair almost visibly rising. “Going out alone in the dark in the mountains in the snow is foolish enough,” she snapped. “Going out in a snow storm is something different entirely. I don’t pretend to know what in this world made Laova leave the tent by herself. On the other hand, it’s clear Taren followed her. Or maybe they left together. Maybe they planned to meet out in private.”
Nemlach’s stomach flipped and a wave of flushed dizziness assaulted his senses. He was still a little unsteady, and the picture in his mind of Laova going with Taren, of secretly stealing away with him like hushed lovers, was threatening to bring on a whole different kind of fever. It hadn’t happened that way. Even Ghal confirmed Laova had left on her own. Taren had clearly followed her, because unlike Nemlach, Taren had been healthy and awake enough to notice her leave. Because unlike Ghal, Taren had been wary enough to see her collect her belongings before she departed.
If it had been Nemlach, he would have stopped her, not followed her. A writhing, wiggling doubt wormed through his thoughts, and Nemlach tried to bat it away. Laova had been hesitant to mate with him because she was shy. And also, because Taren was within hearing distance.
“That isn’t what happened,” Nemlach insisted, calm and rational, even as his mind did cartwheels and odd sideways jerks and tried to right itself while all the time, the thought of Laova in Taren’s arms was bringing his usually cool blood to a simmer. “You know how he is. He must have seen her leave and followed her out.”
“Why follow her?” Khara asked, exactly as Nemlach wished she wouldn’t. “He should have stopped her.”
“Maybe he heard what she was saying in her sleep,” Bamet suggested.
They all looked at him. He looked back.
“What?” he shrugged. “I thought all of you heard it, too. But then, she was really just whispering…”
“What did she say?” Nemlach swallowed, his throat muscles working against the dryness. He was a patient man. He’d never had a natural inclination to rush anything. But this… he felt like if Bamet didn’t speed it up, he might just shake the words out of him.
Bamet spread his hands. “She was just whispering things like, ‘I’m coming’ and ‘wait for me’ and I heard a lot of ‘why’s’ and so on, but I thought she was just dreaming.”
Nemlach could almost feel Rell go very still, very tense beside him.
“A wolf,” she muttered wryly. Nemlach glanced at her carefully; her expression was neither happy nor understanding. Her eyes were hard and blazing as she glared around the shrunken group. “It seems we’ve come to Star-Reach for more than hunting a wolf.”
Chapter 9
The wind was deafening, drowning. Laova had to fight just to stay upright, forget making any progress.
She hiked through the trees; they provided some shelter from the snow—a growing storm, surely—but her steps were achingly small and staggering. She thought it might help to rest and wait for the snow to subside, but she feared to stop. She’d revealed herself to the others, and by now they would have discovered her treachery.
Laova’s heart twisted. They wouldn’t know why she was gone, but Rell wouldn’t let any of them go out alone after her. Not after the freezing death of Rell’s husband. She was notoriously cautious of snow storms ever since. Rell would keep them all safe in the shelter, perhaps even long enough for Laova to do what was needed at Star-Reach and return. To try to explain.
A sob slipped out of her, quite surprising Laova, who hadn’t realized she was crying. Nemlach would wake from his fever dreams to discover her gone. What would he think? Would he worry himself back into another fever? Laova hoped and prayed not. It was all she could do now.
Backtracking seemed no less than impossible. As difficult as the path forward was becoming, it was as though the mountain ceased to exist behind her, as if going back… simply didn’t exist.
***
Without looking back, there was no way Laova could have possibly seen Taren follow her.
He’d noticed her strange behavior in the tent, but hadn’t imagined she’d do something as silly as leave alone. It had taken him so much by surprise when he saw her gather her gear, for a moment Taren had assumed he was dreaming.
This wind! Taren clung from tree to tree. At times he had to drag
himself onward. Taren was skinny, but Laova was shorter, and without much more meat on her bones. How was she moving so quickly through this blasting snow? He’d been able to catch up at first—before the snow grew heavy. Now he went terrifying periods without even catching sight of her. He’d been following the deep trough through the forest floor that she’d left behind, but soon that would start to fill with snow.
This was stupid. If he thought she might hear him over the wind, Taren would have called out to Laova. He should have called after her from the beginning. He’d had a moment of delusion, of catching up to her. He’d even dreamed that perhaps it was Nemlach she was running from. He’d been foolish, and he was afraid that this time his foolishness would be the end of him.
Fear was growing closer. Taren’s teeth chattered with it and the cold, and he hated that he wished someone were here to tell him what was right. He could go back and save himself. The wind was fierce, but the shelter was close enough to reach again. But if he left her out alone, Laova would surely die.
What would Nemlach do? There was a time when Taren had liked Nemlach and admired him greatly. That was before he noticed how Laova watched his booted steps, how she anxiously peered out into the forest with ridiculous frequency when the hunters were away. It wasn’t terribly long ago that Taren aspired to be a man like Nemlach.
But Nemlach wouldn’t have been dumb enough to walk out into a snowstorm. He would have found another way. He would have stopped Laova, or woken the others. He was older and wiser, and Taren hated that in himself this piece was missing. It was the piece Laova loved in Nemlach; it was what she couldn’t find in Taren.
It was futile, but Taren tried anyway.
“Laova!” he shouted.
She didn’t hear him. She didn’t slow; he glimpsed her tiny form up ahead, and it was moving, moving, without a lapse in pace.
He shouted after her again, but to try without hope is as useless as shouting against the wind.
***
“We can’t leave them,” Nemlach murmured.
A babble erupted; everyone spoke at once. Rell’s voice boomed above them, indignant and skeptical. Her face was almost as red as her hair; Khara and Bamet both took a step back. Rell was one of the most levelheaded of the village leaders. It was rare and disturbing to see her scream, but scream she did.
“They left this tent freely!” Her voice filled every space like a physical force.
Nemlach didn’t answer—for better or worse.
“I will not give our lives for two fools who don’t value their own!”
Nemlach waited.
“I can’t protect anyone from themselves—I don’t want them to die, but neither do I want to kill anyone else! I won’t ask my hunters to pay their lives for Laova and Taren’s error, no matter how grave.”
Nemlach crossed his arms.
Rell narrowed her eyes and stepped forward until her face was inches from his. “I am the Hunt Leader. And I forbid you from stepping from this tent.”
Calm as ever, Nemlach nodded.
Rell relaxed a little.
“As a hunter, I must defer to my Hunt Leader,” Nemlach agreed.
Her breathing began again; the high color retreated from Rell’s face, and she sighed.
“Nemlach—”
He picked up his pack and his spear and turned to the door. “Consider me rogue, then.”
“Stop!” Rell ordered.
Nemlach shook his head. “No.”
Rell stared. Khara and Ghal and Bamet stared.
“No one will tell me to leave two of our number to die. No one.” Nemlach pulled back the tent flap. Stunned, the others watched him hunker out into the dark, and in a blast of deathly and sinister cold, he was gone.
Chapter 10
Was this a dream?
Laova was walking with ease. Every step took her higher and higher into reaches unknown, to places no mortal had travelled. Her village told stories about the Elder Men and how they would climb mountains for fun, as if to challenge the gods, claim this land as their own. Laova was no Elder Woman, and she knew with thrilling, uneasy certainty that the way should be growing harder.
The trees were falling away, now. This must be real—in her dreams, the wind was always gentle and coy, never harsh and bitter as it was tonight. The moon shone bright on the mountain, in her dreams, and the gods’ lights glimmered above. It was cloudy now, indication enough that it was her living legs that carried her upward.
And to what? The question was becoming more important.
Laova still didn’t know. But it seemed to her that if she looked quickly enough, a tiny figure would slip out of sight just before her eyes landed upon it.
A larger shade prowled the woods beside her: the wolf, of course. He’d appeared to guide her way some time after she’d fled the warm shelter of her fellow hunters. If she strayed, he nudged her back onto the path. If she fell—and she did, more than once—his hulking, bristling nose would burrow under her arm and goad her back to her feet. She would have certainly gotten lost by now without him.
Still, his presence frightened her. He’d been sent, ordered. What called to Laova so imperiously held sway over the beast, as well, and she feared her will might fare no better when the time came.
The snow slipped underfoot again and Laova sprawled out in the snow. It pressed against her face, cold and biting but also claustrophobic, and she fought to separate from the press of white. She was practically smothering on shadows on this moonless mountainside.
As she knew and feared he would, the wolf had dug his snout under her midsection in moments. He snuffed her over with a grunt, and Laova hugged his neck so she could be pulled upright.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. Perhaps thanks were unnecessary. If the wolf could even understand, he did not act according to his own will. Laova turned and began to trudge on.
He was not acting according to his own will.
Was she?
***
There were gods in this world. That was what Nemlach had always held true. He’d prayed to them often; he felt them near when his strength waned, and they had favored him with their help on occasion. He was a spiritual man, and if he’d shown the signs he would have accepted a place in the Grandmother’s house without complaint.
There were gods in this world, and they had not been overly cruel to him. His parents were dead, but such was the way of life; perhaps he’d lost them too early, in his teenage years, but he did not feel a victim. He asked the gods for little, and was not disappointed. After all, nothing is free, and when you ask for too much, Nemlach knew, perhaps you’d find the price is also too much.
There were gods in this world, and Nemlach honored them. But tonight, this meant nothing. Tonight, the gods meant to see him struggle after that which he wanted.
Snow blasted and his thick hair was whipped across his eyes. The wind shrieked and crashed through the waving trees. The sky was black with heavy snow clouds, and the jagged silhouette of Star-Reach towered above.
That was where Laova was going. Nemlach knew in his heart. He just wished he knew why.
Tonight, ‘why’ was not important. Nemlach struggled on carefully, following the near-invisible trail of bent branches and broken underbrush, signs and marks that could have been left by anything. Perhaps by holding Laova close he had asked for too much. But there were gods in this world, and he trusted them, and climbed.
***
“Laova.”
It was more than a voice. The sound rolled and grated like low thunder. It was a rumble in her chest. Laova stopped, stunned, and looked up at the spirit lights cresting Star-Reach, finding herself closer than ever. The trees were far below, and the mountain expanded in spotless silver. Only the ripples of red and green and glorious purple touched here.
But then, there was also Laova. And above her, standing less than a dozen paces up the slope…
“Come to me, Laova.”
She tried, but her feet were still. Was it a man? Sh
e was so close, Laova felt sure she should have seen him clearly. The only feature she knew was his voice. She’d heard it before; it was the sound of wind, high in the clouds. It was the hiss of rain, and the silence of stars.
“I’ve brought you here to join with me, Laova.”
She shivered. Did he mean what she thought he meant?
“Come to me. Meet me here.”
She wanted to ask him to wait, to ask him to explain. But then, she understood enough. In her gut, she understood what it was she was needed for.
***
Warm fur welcomed Laova back into the waking world. Still dark, still night, and still spitting snow. She burrowed into the wolf’s heat just a little longer. Her heart thudded and strained with what she had learned.
He was a god, surely. What else could he be?
And he wanted her, as Nemlach wanted her.
Laova lay there for a time, listening to the wind howl. Should she feel guilt? Was it a betrayal to Nemlach that she went now to lay with a god?
There was no question of refusing, guilt or no guilt. Laova was not afraid, she was not reluctant. It seemed as if, perhaps, she had known for some time that this day would arrive. She was curious and entranced. There was no refusing—she had to know.
With a groan, she shambled to her feet and felt the cold close in all the places where the wolf had curled near. It pierced her skin through her many layers of hides and skins, and Laova began to shiver almost instantly.
The beast that guided her seemed little bothered with the storm. He stretched and yawned and unfolded his body out of the cold rock crevice they’d nestled within. Laova watched him with envy; it might have been a balmy summer afternoon, for all he was affected.
Night stretched on, and the wolf gazed at Laova expectantly with his great green-gold eyes.
“Let’s go,” she breathed.
***
