by Jo Sandhu
‘I have flown with Owl.’ The words slipped out, although Tarin had meant to say nothing. ‘Sometimes when Old Mother was healing my leg, the pain would be so bad, she would give me the herbs to drink and Owl would take me far away. Then when Kaija was sick and the bad Spirits wouldn’t leave her, I asked Owl for help, and he came.’ He stared at Kai, wanting to understand.
Kai nodded slowly. ‘There are some who can call their guides like that.’ He gripped Tarin’s shoulder and studied him thoughtfully. ‘It is nothing to fear. You are blessed. How did Owl help you, when Kaija was ill?’
‘Owl took me above the forest, then Wolf came and showed me the bad spirits fighting in her shoulder.’ Tarin stopped as Kai made an abrupt movement.
‘Wolf ? You also run with Wolf ?’
Slowly, Tarin nodded. ‘And . . . Mammoth. I have walked with Mammoth to the edge of a great chasm and could go no further. That was when Wolf first came to me.’ Tarin thought back. ‘But that may have been a dream.’
Kai picked up a stick and dug at the earth in front of him. ‘Maybe,’ he said. Then his focus sharpened on Tarin. ‘Are you afraid?’
Tarin thought about that for a long time. He jumped up and walked a few paces. With arms crossed over his chest, he stared towards the horizon. The sun had dipped below the mountains now, but her light remained.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I’m not afraid of Owl, or Wolf.’
‘But you are afraid of something?’ Kai persisted.
I am afraid of myself ! Tarin wanted to shout. I am afraid of my weakness!
He gripped his arms tighter and stopped the shout in his throat, so that when he spoke, his voice was low and rough. Kai came closer to hear.
‘I am afraid of failing,’ Tarin said. ‘I am afraid I have shamed myself and my clan, and condemned them to die.’ Hot tears stung his eyes and he forced them away. Now he had admitted his greatest fear, the words tumbled out, one on top of the other, and he couldn’t stop them.
‘I was too late to the Mountain! I failed the Earth Mother and now she will not help Mammoth Clan! And even Owl and Wolf have turned away from me. They no longer come to me because they see how weak and useless I am.’
Utu hissed and dug his claws into Tarin’s shoulder, making him wince.
‘You think you have failed,’ Kai said. ‘Why?’
‘The Spirits told Valo that to show the Earth Mother we had not forgotten her, we were to take an Offering to Her mountain. And She would give me a token in return. That’s what Valo said.’ He tried to release Utu’s claws but the little owl held fast.
Kai was quiet for a moment. He bent and plucked a small grasshopper from a tussock of grass and gave it to Utu. The owl crunched noisily.
‘Perhaps the Earth Mother wasn’t asking for leathers and knives and beads,’ he said. ‘Perhaps She was just asking you to make the journey – a journey full of learning and wonder. It has changed you, Tarin. Maybe She needed you to change so you could be Her Spirit Keeper.’ Then Kai’s voice dropped. ‘And you did that. You made the journey.’
Tarin shook his head. ‘She gave me no token. And now I have to stand before Mammoth Clan and admit they were right when they said I would fail.’ Utu nipped him sharply on the ear and Tarin flinched. ‘Utu! Stop it!’ He tried again to loosen the owl’s grip.
Kai reached for the little owl and scratched him between the eyes. The bird chirruped happily and hopped onto his outstretched finger. Standing side by side with Kai, Tarin realised they were almost the same height. When had he grown so tall?
‘That is what Valo says, but what do the Spirits themselves say to you? Have you asked them? Have you listened to what they say?’ Kai asked.
‘I do listen.’ Tarin knew he sounded sulky. ‘But it is Owl and Wolf who will not listen to me.’
‘You would scold your guides?’
Tarin heard the laughter in Kai’s voice and shrugged. ‘Since Kaamos, they have not come to me when I call.’
Kai sat again and motioned Tarin to sit with him. Behind them, they heard Timo’s deep voice raised in song.
‘Geert is my teacher here. He has been Spirit Keeper for many years, but more than that, he is also a very wise man,’ Kai said, moving his fingers through Utu’s soft fuzz. ‘I will tell you the first lesson he ever taught me: We, who hear the call of the Earth Mother, are blessed, but we must give Her something in return – something that is special to us.’
‘You mean like an Offering?’ Tarin asked. ‘You mean, I have to go back to the Mountain?’
Kai shook his head. ‘It is not flint knives and polished bone, nor strange herbs and special food.’ His voice was serious. ‘It is something of ourselves we must offer.’
Tarin still didn’t understand and went to speak, but Kai silenced him with an upraised hand and continued. ‘The Spirit Keeper of Aurochs Clan? He only has one eye. He said Spirit of Bear took his other eye as a gift for the Earth Mother.’
A shiver went through Tarin and he stared at Kai.
‘Geert? One Winter when he was a young man he lost part of his foot to the frostbite. He still walks, but with a shuffle.’ Kai raised his hand again at Tarin’s horrified cry. ‘You think the physical sacrifices are the hardest? I know of a Spirit Keeper who lives all alone in the mountains. Day after day. Season after season. She says she protects all the clans from the bad Spirits, the gobmi, who live beneath the earth, and solitude is her burden.
‘I am living far away from my family. Will I ever see them again? Maybe not. We give to the Mother something of ourselves that is special, and in return, She speaks to us. If you do not give what She asks of you, you will not hear Her or the Spirits.’
He fell silent and Tarin thought about what he had said. He wondered what Valo’s sacrifice had been. The ache in his bones when the cold winds blew? His loneliness? He had no children of his own.
‘What has Valo sacrificed?’ he wondered aloud.
Kai snorted and his eyes narrowed. ‘I think Valo’s burden is his fear. Every day he lives with the fear a stronger Spirit Keeper will take his place. It is a fear that gnaws at his belly like a wolverine.’
Tarin crossed his arms across his stomach. ‘And me?’ he asked in a quiet voice. ‘What will I have to give up?’
Kai picked up his discarded stick and gave it to Utu to chew. ‘Tarin, I think there is something the Earth Mother is asking of you, but you do not hear. I think your Spirit guides are speaking to you, but you do not listen.’
‘But I do listen!’ Tarin’s voice rose. ‘This is all because I failed at the Mountain.’
‘No!’ Kai spoke sharply. ‘Think about it, Tarin. You say since Kaamos you have had trouble talking to Owl and Wolf. That was before you reached the Mountain.’
Tarin stared. Kai was right. How had he not seen that before?
‘Maybe you didn’t fail, Tarin. Maybe the Earth Mother accepted your Offering and gave you Her token. You just refuse to see what it is.’ Kai held his hand out for Utu to jump back onto Tarin’s shoulder. The little owl chirruped happily and nestled into the warmth of Tarin’s neck. ‘You are not listening, caught up in your ideas of failure and weakness.’
Tarin pressed his lips together.
‘I will tell you now of a vision Geert had. Snow lay on the ground, but the streams were already running. The Ice Mother was retreating and Geert was flying with Golden Eagle above a high meadow in the forests south of the Mother’s Mountain. Owl was there, and he was circling above a boy who had been hunting. Eagle saw the boy, and his spear was tipped with blood from the hunt. As Eagle watched, the blood dripped from the spear to cover the boy’s hands, before falling onto the snow. Owl was calling to him and flying low, but the boy couldn’t hear.’
Kai’s voice trailed away.
Tarin drew a deep breath. He remembered his own vision, of flying as Owl and seeing the boy in the meadow. He had thought at the time the boy looked familiar, but he knew now.
‘The boy was me,’ he said, and his voi
ce was flat. ‘I had been hunting.’
And I couldn’t hear Owl. Owl was calling to me – but I didn’t hear.
‘Owl showed you the boy in the meadow. He thought that was important. What had the boy been doing?’ Kai persisted.
Tarin cast his mind back, but his memories were vague and disjointed. ‘I flew above a mountain – Ice Bringer. That’s how I found the Mother’s Mountain.’ He shook his head. The boy had been such a small part of his flight. He had seen mountains and rivers and volcanoes. Huge herds of migrating animals. He had seen – he faltered – he had seen his mother and father. And out of all those wonders, it was the thin weakling boy that Kai wanted him to remember.
‘When did Owl stop coming to you?’
Tarin thought back again. ‘Before Kaamos. Before the Ice Mother covered everything in snow. Before . . . no . . . after the hunt.’ Tarin stopped. ‘The hunt . . .’ he started again, but couldn’t finish.
When had he first realised Owl was not coming to him?
When he became a hunter. That was why he couldn’t hear Owl, or Wolf, or the Earth Mother!
The realisation was like a blow. His lungs no longer breathed. His heart no longer beat. This was what the Spirits were trying to tell him. This is what the Earth Mother wanted of him. If he wanted to fly with Owl and run with Wolf, if he wanted to walk the dream trails between this world and the Spirit World, he had to give the Earth Mother something in return. Something that was special to him. The hunt!
All his life, all his short, miserable, pain-filled life, he had wanted to be a hunter. Now the Earth Mother was asking him to give that up? She was asking so much. She was asking . . . too much.
He finally spoke. ‘It was after I hunted . . . after I received my tattoo.’ His hand covered his upper arm protectively.
Kai spoke softly, sadly. ‘I think the Earth Mother is asking that you not hunt. It is this way with many of us, Tarin. We choose not to hunt ourselves, but we claim a portion of every hunt for our own use. It is the Clan’s way of looking after their Spirit Keeper. But for many, the choice is not as difficult as I think it will be for you.’
Tarin stood. He waved Kai away.
‘Tarin! Wait!’ Kai called after him as Tarin strode away from the earth-lodge. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He didn’t want to hear the laughter and songs beckoning them inside to food and sleep. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts and his anger.
Kai caught him and gripped his shoulder.
‘A great Spirit Keeper I’ll be if I can’t even talk to my own kin!’ He shook Tarin gently. ‘You will find your way, Tarin. I know you will.’ Then Kai’s face fell and a deep sigh shook him. ‘But there is something more I need to tell you, and it is not easy . . .’
‘More! What more could there be?’ Tarin turned to Kai, but the older boy was looking down the hillside towards the river. Tarin followed Kai’s suddenly distracted gaze and saw a blur of movement that could be animal or man.
Kai gave a shout of surprise and started running, and Tarin realised it was a young boy coming towards them, stumbling with injury or fatigue. The boy reached the ford and faltered on the rocks, falling face-first into the water.
‘Petri! Someone is coming,’ Tarin shouted. ‘He needs help.’ The door of the earth-lodge burst open and the men ran down the hill towards Kai and the boy.
‘What’s happening?’ Kaija asked.
‘I think the boy is hurt.’
Tarin held back the bison hide as Kai carried his wet and shivering bundle towards the earth-lodge.
Kaija snorted and clicked her tongue.
‘That’s not a boy, Tarin,’ she said. ‘That’s a girl. Quickly, lay her by the fire.’
Now they were closer Tarin could see Kaija was right. The runner was a girl, tall and thin, dressed in a reindeer hide tunic and leggings. Her pale brown hair was braided and looped around her head.
‘She’s shivering so much,’ Kaija said. ‘Tarin, bring me some of those hot rocks and wrap them in a fur. I’ll place them around her until her body warms.’
‘Noora!’ Kai took the girl’s hands and rubbed them between his own. ‘Why are you here, and in such trouble?’
But the girl could only clasp Kai’s hands and tremble.
‘Noora is from a settlement not far from here. They call themselves the Ungirski,’ Aatos said. He handed Kai a cup of pozhr, and he helped Noora take a sip. The strong liquid made her cough, but her shivering stopped and she was able to take a few more sips by herself.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. Her face regained some of its colour and she looked around the lodge. ‘Thank you all.’ Her eyes widened at seeing the wolves but Kai placed a hand on Rohk’s back and smiled.
‘The wolves won’t hurt you. In fact, if you’ll let them lie next to you, they’ll keep you warm.’
‘Really?’ Noora’s face lit up. ‘They will let me touch them?’
Luuka led Nilkka forward and Noora tentatively reached
a hand out to her. She gasped as the wolf licked her fingers, then settled down comfortably against her.
‘Noora, what brings you here? If it weren’t for our guests, we would already be gone for Summer.’
Noora’s face clouded. Her hands trembled as she reached once more for Kai and clasped his hands tightly. ‘I knew that, but I had to take the chance. Oh, Kai! The children – Elli and Juha. They are gone! They are dead!’
Shocked silence filled the earth-lodge. Kai was the first to speak.
‘How? How did they die?’
Noora wiped the tears that ran down her cheeks and sniffed. ‘They took the nets out to the river, but something went wrong. They tangled, or they . . .’ She stopped speaking, her tears overwhelming her.
Kaija passed her a soft leather of rabbit skin and the girl held it to her face. The men stayed silent and grave.
‘No one knows what happened, but we heard Kirsi scream and all came running. They pulled them from the water, but it was too late. They were so cold.’
‘Kirsi is . . . was the children’s foster mother,’ Petri explained in a low voice. ‘She lost her own daughter many, many years ago. Then when the children lost their own parents, she took them into her home and cared for them.’ He shook his head sadly.
Noora continued. ‘A band of reindeer traders were travelling through. They had a healer with them . . .’ She paused and her gaze rested on Kaija as though she was just now seeing her. ‘She tried to save them, but it was too late.’
‘Noora, I’m so sorry,’ Kai said. ‘Rest here now. They are with the Spirits and can take no more harm. We will go with you tomorrow to see Kirsi.’ He glanced up at the Musk Ox men. ‘They will need our help.’
‘Of course,’ Aatos said, and Timo and Petri nodded.
‘Thank you,’ Noora sniffed. ‘Kirsi said you would come. We need a Spirit Keeper to . . . to honour them.’
‘Then I will help you,’ said Kai.
And with those simple words, Tarin knew that Kai accepted whatever the Earth Mother asked of him, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to do the same when the time came.
Noora had fallen into a restless sleep when Tarin remembered his interrupted conversation with Kai. The food had been eaten. The pozhr was slowly disappearing. And the animals curled quietly by the fire.
‘The Ungirski are a gentle people,’ Petri said, stroking his beard. ‘They make beads and discs out of mammoth tusks, and lances. They have this special way of boiling the tusks and straightening them. I don’t know how they do it.’
‘Kirsi is their master carver. Her skill making the beads is very special.’ Timo nodded. ‘She was teaching the children to paint patterns on the beads using ochre.’
The men shook their heads sadly.
Tarin swallowed a mouthful of pozhr. It didn’t burn so much anymore. In fact, it made him feel warm all over. He remembered, then, of Kai’s urgency before Noora first came stumbling over the stream. Tarin frowned and took another sip. ‘Kai? There was somethin
g you wanted to tell me before, when we were talking outside?’
Kai shifted and looked uncomfortable. He stroked his chin and looked gravely at Tarin. Silence fell on the little gathering clustered around the fire. Then he sighed, and the sound was weary and filled with sadness.
‘I wanted to tell you the other night. You have a right to know,’ Kai said. ‘But when you first arrived, I wasn’t sure how. We were so happy to see you, and you seemed happy, too.’ His voice trailed away.
Tarin’s fingers wrapped tightly around his bone cup.
Kaija moved closer to him. ‘Tell him what?’ she said.
Kai set his cup down and clasped his hands in front of him. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you straightaway. We had a visit from Markku. It surprised us, because it was early in Spring. The rivers were still swollen and snow lay thick on the ground. It would have been a difficult and dangerous journey for my brother.’
Tarin swallowed hard and leant forward. Shadows danced over Kai’s face, making it hard to read, and his voice was soft and sad.
‘He had already told us some of your story,’ Kai said gently. ‘But Tarin, your clan thinks you dead.’
Tarin closed his eyes.
‘When Bison Clan fished young Niko alive out of the river, they saw you washed away. Now you know why I thought you a spirit, standing before my door.’ Kai shook his head in amazement. ‘And yet here you are, with wild animals sitting calmly at your feet. You walk like a man, Tarin. Like a hunter. You talk like a hunter. Where is the scared rabbit who hid in the darkest corner of his lodge?’
Silence fell. Tarin stared at the flickering flames.
‘I think maybe he did die,’ he murmured. ‘Somewhere up there on the mountain.’ He raised his eyes to Kai and his voice was hoarse. ‘How . . . how did Mammoth Clan fare? Did they survive the Winter?’
Kai’s smile faded. ‘Not all.’
Tarin felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. He was hardly aware of Kaija taking his hand and squeezing.
‘Who?’ Tarin struggled to force the question from his bloodless lips.
