“Stay alert,” Chev says. But we were all here that day. We all saw the cat I killed, and we all remember the danger.
We turn, following a faint track where feet have crossed into the hills. My eyes scan the sky and I notice fast-moving clouds, blowing down from beyond the snowcapped peaks in the northeast, turning the placid blue into something ominous and wild. I drop my eyes, not wanting to think what kind of sign these clouds might be. Instead, I watch our shadows move over the flowers under our feet—purple, blue, and white—and search their blooms for honeybees.
By the time we reach the gravel path that winds up into the foothills, I haven’t seen a single one. Too cold, I think, as the wind swirls my hair around my shoulders.
We climb, hiking higher as the gravel underfoot turns to stone, then to slabs. The path twists as it winds around tall, jutting walls of rock. We arrive at the boulders that form a gate to the alpine meadow where we found the mammoth herd that day. Looking in, the field is as it was—windswept and lush—and the pool where the two streams meet remains wide and still. At its edge, caribou and elk graze between tall sedges.
But we find no mammoths and no hunting party.
Chev continues up the trail, and we follow without comment. I do not always like to let my brother lead—in fact, I rarely do—but today I’m happy to lag behind. I dread each new step forward, not knowing what might be found around each turn.
I can think of many things that might detain a hunting party. None of them are good.
We climb higher for a while, but then the path turns down, descending to a pass into a narrow canyon—a canyon surrounded on all sides by tall crags of steeply rising rock. The walls soar so high, and the sun in the west sits so low, a blanket of shadow covers the canyon floor. Standing above on the sunlit pass, looking down into the walled canyon, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the contrast. Slowly, shapes separate from shadows, and I recognize what I see.
Inside the canyon, their backs to the towers of stone, stand the members of the hunting party—Arem, Pek . . . Kol. And between the three of them and us, blocking their escape to the pass, stands a herd of mammoths. They hold still, as still as the rocks that rise behind the hunters.
I count ten mammoths in all.
Our vantage point is lit by the sideways beams of the evening sun, stretching our shadows toward the canyon like the fingers of a reaching hand. A hand reaching through the pass that forms the only route of retreat—the only way of escape. The mammoths are all attentive, all threatening, all waiting expectantly for the quick move, the sudden sound, the provocation that will send them surging forward to crush the cornered hunters.
The fingers of our shadows disappear into the gloomy light on the canyon floor, and I wonder if Kol and the others even know we’re here. I don’t dare call Kol’s name or even raise an arm to attract his eye. Seeri and Chev hover beside me, as motionless as the mammoths.
Six humans, ten beasts. Sixteen hearts beating. And yet the only motion is overhead. The clouds race by, and a buzzard, anticipating, circles high in the sky.
The danger of Kol’s situation sets a wide distance between us, so that he feels remote and far off, though in reality he is close enough that I can see his face clearly. The three of them are framed in light above the shade as if they wade in murky water. I notice the angle of Kol’s body, one shoulder pointing in the direction of the pass, ready to block his brother Pek, just a few paces to his right, from an advancing mammoth.
What good could that possibly do? What help could flesh and bones offer against a charging mammoth?
My foot slides as I shift my weight forward. A stone rolls out from beneath my heel and skitters along the gravel of the pass, sending small pebbles tumbling over a steep drop to my right. A long moment of silence is followed by the rattle of rocks against rock far below. The sound echoes against the canyon walls.
I hold my breath. A dark shape traces across the ground—the slanted shadow of the circling bird. He is expectant, ready, as we all are. I listen as the pebbles fall, each one a voice calling No! No! No!
And then the voices hush. Nothing else stirs. The mammoths hold their places like silent sentries.
The shadow of the bird sweeps across me, and I see Kol move.
His head tips back, ever so slightly, and he raises his eyes.
He sees me. I am revealed to him. Here, in this moment of held breath, of balance between life and death. I stand in the sharp light of the sun’s clarifying rays, in my ornate tunic, my stiff, new pants, my dark braids woven with ivory beads.
He sees me, and I am known to him.
My heartbeat trips on the thought, but before it can tumble out of control, something in Kol’s gaze catches me and sets me right again.
It’s not that he smiles, though he does smile. But it’s more than that. Something passes over his face—the opposite of the wildness of the fast-moving clouds and the ominous shade cast by the bird. Something like peace passes over his face, where there was nothing but wariness there before.
And that peace, just for a moment, comes back to me. For just a moment, it crowds out dread and fear.
I shudder. What would be worse? I ask myself. We’ve seen each other, and we’ve understood. Would it have been better to have never been seen at all?
As the sun drops lower and lower behind us, the wait—this painful, dread-laden wait—goes on. The darkness on the canyon floor deepens. Perception shifts. My eyes become unsure. Is that movement? Yes, yes. Pek, closest to the pass, has slid, almost imperceptibly, nearer. A step. A step. He comes closer, his feet pressing down softly on the gravel beneath them, his body rising higher, out of the shade and into the slanting light.
He is almost in the pass. If he were to run, he might make it out before they had him under their feet.
My gaze floats over the mammoths. There is movement there, too—the swish of a tail, the flick of an ear. A huge dark head tilts sideways, and an eye turns toward Pek before returning to the two gray shapes against the gray rock wall—Kol and his father.
At the back of the herd—closer to the pass, closer to Pek—a trunk rises. Then another. The sun catches two bright white tusks tilted toward the sky. Two spears in the light. The other mammoths listen, their ears alert. Will there be a signal? Is this the moment?
The tusks dip back into shadow. Not yet, the mammoth seems to say. But stay vigilant.
When my focus returns to Kol, he has moved.
He’s come closer.
Cloaked in that moment of unbearable frailty, he took a chance. When the slightest shift might have sent the balance crashing into pieces, he let fear and danger serve him as a distraction.
Like Pek, he has reached the bottom slope of the pass. He’s climbed high enough that his shoulders are now in the sunlight, his dark eyes squinting over a restless, tense smile—a smile sprung from the satisfaction of having achieved this small victory. He has gained a degree of safety, and yet the posture of the mammoths has not changed. Not yet.
But as I watch, changes take shape. Slowly, slowly. There are subtle shifts—the angle of a broad back, the turn of a head, the stomp of a foot.
Movement—small but meaningful movement—ripples across the herd. A few feet shuffle under the strain. Not a strain of fatigue, but of impatience—an impatience born out of inaction. Mammoths are active. Though these stand still, they are full of action. Ponderous, potential action.
My eyes shift to Kol’s face. If a moment ago he felt a bit of satisfaction at his progress, that satisfaction is already gone. His teeth clench. His gaze presses on his father, and his hand rises, as he slowly, carefully, fans the air in a circle in front of his chest, bidding his father to come.
Come on, I think. Follow your sons. Move toward the pass.
He takes the first step, his first tenuous step toward escape. A slow slide of his foot.
I do not raise my eyes to the clouds. I do not look for the shadow of the buzzard. I do not need to. I know.
> Everything—on the ground, in the air, far away beyond the camp in the bay—everything is still. The clouds could not possibly roll, the waves on the sea could not possibly stir while Kol’s father edges his foot toward the pass. The sun does not sink. The wind does not blow. I do not breathe.
But then one mammoth takes a step—a hurried, urgent step forward—and motion returns. The clouds shiver in the sky, the buzzard swoops low, diving into the canyon, and I draw a deep breath. One mammoth tramples the rock beneath his feet, and nine mammoths watch him, the hides of their backs twitching.
My eyes go to Kol’s father. He knows that the rules have changed. Motion has broken through, and he will make it his tool. In short even steps, he advances. He is steady, unwavering, full of authority. The mammoth whose feet had shown such impatience a moment ago reverts to his rigid posture. All eyes—ours and theirs—fix on Arem as he takes certain, measured strides.
The soft hides of his boots crush the gravel underfoot, and a low whisper of assent rises from the ground. Yes, yes, yes. Twilight sends the shade of the canyon ever higher up the walls, but he is rising, too. Soon he has climbed to the foot of the gravel pass. Thin streaks of evening sun touch the top of his head, glowing blue in his black hair. He walks with his back to us—keeping his eyes on the mammoths as he draws away from them and moves closer to his sons—but as he climbs he throws a quick glance over his shoulder and meets Kol’s eyes.
And something happens.
Beyond Arem, down in the canyon, the mammoth at the front of the herd lifts his tusks, spreads his ears, and lunges forward. A burst of sound flies from his raised trunk.
Stillness reigns as the echo grows and fades. And then everything moves.
Everything moves.
And everything . . .
Everything . . .
Everything changes.
THREE
The stillness dissolves like a snowflake on water.
As one, the mammoths turn and rush toward us, their feet carrying massive and twitching bodies over the ground. Chev, Seeri, and I clamber over the jagged boulders that border the pass, struggling to get out of the way.
As I climb higher I look behind me, my eyes sweeping the lower end of the pass. Pek scrambles onto the slabs opposite me, out of danger. Farther below I see Kol, and behind him—not far, maybe an arm’s length away—his father.
At the foot of the pass, shadows ripple like water. Everything—the ground, the sky, the sun itself—trembles with the motion of the herd.
Kol does not slow, but he turns. I see him reach back, his hand open for his father. He expects him to take his hand.
I watch. He is there. He is running right behind Kol.
A sound knifes through me—a violent breaking of rocks.
I see Kol, his hand out, his head raised as he shouts to his father—and then the place he stands is washed out by a swiftly flowing current of broad backs and tusks and raised trunks. The herd runs by like a river, raging and churning after a storm.
And then the river runs dry. The mammoths are gone. Only the whisper of falling dust remains.
From my perch above the pass, movement catches my eye. A hand slides out from under deep shadows and broken rocks—Kol’s hand. The same hand I’d seen him stretching out behind him toward his father.
He pulls himself up, and all I see of him is the top of his head. Even through the gloomy shade, I see his hair turning crimson as it fills with blood. I hear a voice call out his name—my own voice. I hurry down over the rocks, but before I can reach him, he’s on his feet, stumbling forward.
He moves only three steps before he drops to the ground. I think he must have collapsed—light-headed from blood loss, or maybe something worse. I rush to him, and when I reach his side—when I drop to my knees at the spot where he fell—I realize that things are much worse.
Much, much worse.
Bright red blood runs in the gray dust. It pools, dark and thick, in a rut, cut into the ground beside a long, shallow ditch.
And in that shallow ditch at the edge of the pass, beside a trampled and shattered spear, lies a trampled and shattered body.
The body of Arem, the High Elder of the Manu.
The body of Kol’s father.
Kol leans over him, takes his head in his hands, and tries to raise him up. Words tumble from his lips. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you.” Cradling his head, he pulls him to his chest. Blood flows like water over Kol’s hands. If he notices, he doesn’t let it show.
He rocks his father against his chest, and I realize he has no hope of saving him, and he knows it. He knows it is too late. His only hope now is to comfort his father as he goes.
He eases himself onto the ground beside the place where his father lies, still cradling him in his arms. For a short time, both chests heave, both men gulp in air. Both backs stiffen against the hard, cold ground.
But then Arem’s hands slide from the places where they cling to Kol, his arms dropping into the dirt. His back softens and his chest stills.
But not Kol’s. Kol’s chest heaves as he lets the lifeless body of his father slide from his arms. He does not get up, but stays where he is, stretched out beside his father. He is in no hurry to leave his father’s side. Instead, he lays his own head on his father’s chest, and weeps.
Time passes, but the sun remains, squatting on the horizon. Its rays hug the ground, drawing the shadows of mountains from the smallest of rocks. This is the time of year when the sun dips below the horizon only in the middle of each night, when the Divine leaves the Land Above the Sky to feed its fire in preparation for its next trek into day.
I stand with Chev and Seeri, at least twenty paces from Kol, his brother, and his father. The body of his father. They’ve asked us to wait, to give them time.
So we wait.
As the sun sinks, its warmth flees, and a torrent of cold sweeps over the ground. It seeps through my tunic. Without the protection of the parka I would normally wear on a hunt, it soaks right into my bones. My teeth clench but still they chatter, rattling in my head.
The sun is half hidden behind the western hills when Kol and his brother get to their feet and remove their parkas. A shiver runs through me as I watch Kol, stripped from the waist up, crouch and slide his parka under his father’s shoulders. Pek slides his own under his hips. When they tie the sleeves, they have fashioned a sling to carry the body home. Before they lift it, Kol runs both hands through his hair, shaking his head as if to clear it. Drops of blood splatter his bare chest, and his hands, still stained with his father’s blood, are wet again, this time with his own.
At last, he turns toward me. His eyes are red-rimmed and damp. “Could you help me?” he asks.
Biting my bottom lip to hold in a sob, I nod. “Of course.”
Kol squats at my feet and lets me look at the gash on the top of his head. Blood cakes his hair into clumps, but using water from my own waterskin, I rinse it away, careful not to let any drip onto his bare skin. It takes almost all the water I have before I can see the cut in his scalp. “It’s not bad,” I say. I let out a deep breath, relieved to see that this injury shouldn’t need any special care. “The cut’s a bit jagged but not long—maybe the length of my thumb. And not deep.”
“Thank you,” Kol says, but the words fracture and become a groan as he straightens to his feet. His left knee buckles, and he clutches my arm and holds on to keep from falling.
Looking down at his leg, I notice blood running from the hem of his pant leg and over his boot. Dirt mixes with it, forming a sticky dark mud. “Let me look at your leg,” I say, but Kol steps away.
“It’s fine.”
“Kol—”
“There’s no time right now. When we get back to camp I’ll look at it—I’ll let Urar look at it—but there’s not enough time to worry about that now.”
I want to argue, but I don’t. He’s right. Especially about Urar. Kol needs a healer, and the sooner we
return to camp, the better. Kol and Pek need to get back into parkas. The cold air stirs and I notice Kol is trembling. Seeri and Pek stand huddled together, her arms around him for warmth.
“Can I help carry him?” my brother asks. He stands away from us, closer to the body. His voice sounds strange, like I’d almost forgotten he was here. Chev usually doesn’t stay quiet for so long, but I can tell by the look on his face that he isn’t sure what to say.
“No, but thank you,” Kol says. “Pek and I can manage.”
The two brothers lift their father’s body in the makeshift sling, and Kol nods for us to follow. Like this, they lead us out of the foothills. We walk in single file, Kol and Pek carrying their father’s body at the head of the line. Arem’s legs hang down, but his head is wrapped in the hood of Kol’s parka. The laces are pulled tight and wound around Kol’s hand in such a way that his father’s head is supported by the sling.
I think of Kol attending to this detail, tying the laces beneath his father’s chin, and my throat closes so tight, I can’t swallow.
We reach the Manu camp after the sun has fully set and the sky is the blue-black of a summer night. Most of the clan is still awake, shadows huddled in the meeting place with Mala, but while we are still too far away to be clearly seen, she hurries to Kol and Pek’s side. It’s too dark to see her face, but I know when I hear the cry come from her throat that she knows what Kol and Pek carry. She knows her husband is dead.
The body is placed in the center of the meeting place, and everyone from Kol’s clan crowds around. The fire burning in the central hearth had nearly gone out, but Urar adds kindling to help it grow. Kol’s uncle carries wood out from the kitchen—this fire will burn throughout the night. Pek emerges from his family’s hut wrapped in a clean parka and heads right to Seeri’s side. Chev joins Lees and Roon among the mourners. I find myself alone, listening and watching from the edge of things. I hear Pek, Chev, Seeri—their voices overlap as questions swirl through the crowd. It’s only when he touches my hand that I realize Kol is not with them.
Obsidian and Stars Page 2
