Tuyo

by Neumeier, Rachel

  I jerked up, my knife in my hand, my mind a blank white of terror and rage, ready to kill him the moment he touched me, the moment he touched my mind. But he was not looking at me. He had bowed to the ground. I wanted to beat him; I wanted to break all his bones. All the furious hatred I had pushed back while facing the inKera rose up, hot and violent. I took a step toward him.

  He said, not looking up, “No matter what he owed me, Hokino would never have spared me now except that he judged me according to your opinion. Thank you for taking his blow.”

  I had moved without thought to put myself in the way of that blow. My body had remembered a truth even though my mind had forgotten it. I breathed deeply, remembering how fast I had moved. Only certainty could have made me move like that. Slowly my reason came back. I was breathing hard with the force of the storm that had crashed through me ... but I was able to press down the desire to hurt him, kill him.

  I stepped back. Then I picked up the bow and ran it through my hands, to help me think of the generosity of the man who had given it to me. I longed to string it and shoot Aras where he knelt. I tucked the string away instead, and gathered up the arrows. By then he had straightened, though he had not yet dared to get to his feet. Nor did he look at me, but only at the snow.

  I said harshly, “You carry the rest.” Then I walked away, leaving him to follow.

  A hand’s-breadth of time later, I dropped back beside him, showing him how to use dried aspen leaves to pad his new boots, how to bind the snow paddles onto his boots in the proper way. They were much better snow paddles than mine, which I threw away.

  Then, as I felt calmer, I strung the bow and walked with it in my hand. It was a light bow, someone’s spare, likely made for his sister first. But it would be perfect for ptarmigan or other small game.

  We walked north, and only a very little west. Now that we had permission to travel through these lands, it would be better to cross the Little Knife here in the east where it did not cut so sharply toward the sky. The forest was quiet. Now and again I heard a fox call, or a falcon. The peace of the long cold settled into my bones, so I could almost forget I was not in my own tribe’s territory, almost forget what man accompanied me.

  Late in the afternoon, while we walked along a ridge that led almost directly north, I put up a hand and pointed out a white tiger lounging near the top of another ridge a short bowshot from ours. For a long time, Aras could not see the tiger, though he lay in plain sight. Then the tiger flicked his tail, and Aras caught his breath. “How big is it?” he asked me in a low voice

  I smiled. “Big. That is a male. You see how broad his face, how heavy his shoulders. He will weigh six times what I do. Eight times. Maybe more. His teeth will be longer than my hand – as long as yours. He has seen us, but he is pretending he does not care. You see how he turns his face away.”

  “He’s beautiful. Is he dangerous?”

  “Oh, yes. He is very dangerous. But probably he will not follow us.” I led the way forward. I said, “That is the king of the forest. But the little deer are easy prey for him in deep snow, and the big deer are not much more difficult. Probably he will leave us be.” But I added, “If I tell you to climb a tree, do not wait to ask why.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised me. “He can’t climb?”

  I shrugged. “Not as fast as he can run. No tiger likes to climb after he realizes someone is shooting arrows at his face.”

  Aras laughed, and I realized I had been speaking to him almost as though he were a friend. That he had been speaking to me almost as though I were not an enemy. Hatred knotted in my belly, and I swung around. He shied back just before I moved, so I did not hit him very hard. But he staggered, and rather than try to keep his feet, dropped to his knees.

  I stared down at him. “I could cut across your belly,” I said softly. “You would beg for the tiger to come kill you. Perhaps the blood scent would draw him, if the gods were merciful.”

  He did not move. He only asked quietly, “Does your face hurt where Hokino hit you?”

  I felt the bruise then, a deep ache. The whole side of my face hurt. I would feel that ache for many days. That had been a hard blow ... I took a breath. Another, drawing the cold air deep into my lungs, trying to pretend it cooled my anger. It did not really help. “It is worse than before!” I said in despair. Looking away from him, I said, “I will kill you before we even come to the Little Knife.” But I started walking again, because what else could I do?

  Before I had gone very far, he came up beside me, not too close. He did not look at me, but at the snow where he set each foot. He took a breath as though he would speak, but then he bowed his head and said nothing.

  I glared at him. “Speak if you wish. I will not hit you. Or perhaps I will. How can I tell?”

  He turned his face away. “How far is it to the Little Knife, Ryo?”

  “Seven days, eight, nine. Another day to cross it. Once we are past the Knife, we will go west. The women’s camps will be there in the north, beyond the Knife.” I thought about the distance that lay between us and the nearest place we might find my mother’s camp, and could not find strength in my heart to go so far. “Twenty days, twenty and five, twenty and ten! I will kill you long before we come there.”

  “Perhaps you will. I’m surprised you haven’t already done it. But you’re a very stubborn man, Ryo.” When I glared at him, he bowed his head a little more, not looking at me.

  In a little while, when I thought I might hear him speak without hitting him, I said, not quite a question. “It is worse now.”

  He glanced at me, but looked away again at once, gazing into the winter forest. “Yes, it is. Your mind is trying to fight free of the lies, but there are so many and they’re so vivid, and the growing confusion is feeding into the compulsions to kill me.” His voice was quiet. “I know I should not speak to you, or look at you. Is there anything else I can do to help you?”

  I could not think of anything, and walked in silence until I judged it time to make a shelter. I took care to choose a place where great stones lay close together. As Hokino had predicted, it had begun snowing, and snow sifted down between the stones. Usually I found a better-sheltered place, and Aras looked at me questioningly.

  “A tiger would have difficulty reaching us here,” I explained. “The gap is too narrow.”

  He nodded, casting a glance back the way we had come. Of course there was nothing to see, but if the tiger were stalking us there would be nothing to see then either. A little wind found its way between the stones, and Aras shivered. He asked in a low voice, “May I send the snow aside and make the air a little warmer?”

  My anger stirred at the suggestion and he bowed his head immediately. But I knew my anger was unjust. I said curtly, “Do it if you wish,” and walked away to gather wood.

  The air was warmer when I came back, and the snow had ceased to fall into our shelter. Aras had started a fire and put the meat to roast and laid out the blankets. He did not look at me when I put down the wood, and I tried not to look at him either. I stared into the fire and tried to forget how much I hated him.

  The meat was rich, good in the cold, and the man who had packed it had sprinkled it with salt before making up the packet. I gave most of it to Aras, and made an infusion of water with willowbark. He glanced at me when he tasted it.

  “Drink it,” I snapped. He obeyed immediately, which finally eased my anger a little. I was able to explain, “If you have taken a fever, it will help. The earliest signs of the lung fever are a tightness in the chest and a sharpness in the throat. Do you feel those things?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Tell me if you do.” The lung sickness is dangerous even to Ugaro, though ordinarily after the first time, it comes more lightly. But for a Lau, I was certain it would be a very dangerous illness. The blankets and the new coat were good, though the coat was short. The air here was now almost warm, but he was still too cold.

  “Drink all the
tisane,” I told him. “I will teach you the song to the Dawn Sisters.”

  I taught him the words in taksu because it was the right language for the song. Then I taught him the words in darau so that he would understand what he was singing. I had never imagined that song in his voice. I tried not to think of anything but the song. When we lay down together, he murmured the words of the song, and even when his voice died away, the song lingered in my mind. I slept more easily that night than I had for many nights.

  I woke early. It was still dark, but the skies had cleared, and the Moon cast down her light. That had not woken me. Nor Aras, who had tucked himself tightly against me, completely hidden by our new blankets. He murmured in protest when I moved away from him, and hatred stirred, the desire to hurt him, but I looked up at the sky and the worst of the hatred eased.

  I moved quietly, building up the fire, melting snow, making an infusion of willowbark. Aras sat up and began to roll up the blankets, but I stopped him and led him out of the shelter, into the light of the Moon. The sky was silvery in the east, and the snow cast back the pale light so that the world was bathed in silver.

  “The Dawn Sisters,” I told him, indicating the three brightest stars. They stood almost due north, one a little above the others. “We see them only during the long cold. They travel a short path above the mountains, so they can be seen for only a little while, near dawn.” I showed him the path, tracing it with my hand. “They bring luck. When famine comes, or the long storms, or in any time of hardship, we pray to the Dawn Sisters. Sometimes they are silent, but sometimes they answer.”

  He was shivering in the pre-dawn chill, but he nodded with no sign of impatience. “We don’t see them in the summer lands.”

  “Of course not. They belong to the winter country, and to the starlit lands north of our country.” I turned my face up to the three stars, standing now near the apex of their path. “We say that a difficult oath should be made by their light, because they will bring luck to keep the oath.” Now I looked at him, meeting his eyes. “I swear before the gods and before the Moon and beneath the gaze of the Dawn Sisters, I will not harm you before we come to my people.” I turned my face up again to the silver light. “Sing the song when you are afraid of me. I will try to remember this dawn.”

  He bowed his head to me. “Thank you, Ryo.”

  I made the gesture that denies a debt and turns away gratitude. “Probably I will break that oath. Then at least you will have vengeance for anything I may do to you. Go in by the fire. Drink the willowbark tisane. I will look for willow today.”

  We walked a long way that day. Better snow paddles made a great difference. So did the bow. I shot a ptarmigan and a hare and collected wood to make more arrows. I found willow, too, and barberries frozen on the shrub. I watched carefully for tigers, and for the smaller tawny lions that can sometimes be more dangerous than the tigers because they are clever and fierce. I saw a wolverine once, and a file of the great deer with their broad antlers, forging their way down toward a little river that glittered, icy, at the bottom of the ridge. They do not yard as the little deer do, not unless the snow is very deep indeed, and then not for long.

  Wolves sang, too far away to disturb the deer. Like us, the wolves our cousins sing to the gods. We honor them for that, and for their bravery on the hunt and their care for their families. The wolves’ song, rising into the high and infinite sky, carried away some of my anger. I held that song in my heart as long as I could even after they fell silent.

  The land ran up and up. All that day and the days after that, we walked uphill more than down. We had not glimpsed the Little Knife yet, but I knew it would be soon. The skies were clear. Every dawn I went out and stood in the cold and looked up at the Dawn Sisters. Aras hummed the song, or sang it quietly, in darau or in taksu, whenever he had breath for it.

  Sometimes I saw him as he was; thin and cold and quietly relentless. Sometimes I saw him as he had been when he cut off my brother’s fingers or laughed while his soldiers impaled my younger brother. Sometimes he would turn his head at just the wrong angle or smile at just the wrong moment and I would remember him as he forced my little sister down and feel again my rage and helplessness. Then I would walk fast until I was a bowshot or more in front of him, far enough that I could pretend to myself that I had forgotten he was behind me.

  When we finally came to the foot of the Little Knife, he stopped and looked up at the sharp-edged, naked ridges of black stone and said helplessly that he could not do it. I feared he was right. His length of limb would be an advantage, but I doubted his strength and endurance. My fear made me furious. I told him savagely that my little sister could have made that climb, that he would climb or I would do to him everything he had done to her. I thought viciously and deliberately of all those things, driving him up when he fell. Twice I hit him when he thought he could not get up, until fear of me drove him to his feet despite his exhaustion.

  But by the time we crested the highest ridge, my hatred had eased as I remembered he had not done the things I remembered—I was almost sure he had not done them—maybe he had not done them. He had fallen again, but I tried to be gentle when I pulled him up. “We cannot be here on the Knife when night comes,” I told him. “The wind will be bitter, and you can see there is no shelter. You would die. Even I might die. You must go on.”

  He nodded, not looking at me. His face was drawn and his breath came in hard, painful gasps, but he began the descent. I carried everything, bow and snow paddles and bowl and the hare I had killed before we came to the naked stone of the Little Knife. As we neared the base, I went ahead and found a place where scrub spruce and hemlock grew hard against the face of the Knife. I cut branches to clear a place and piled the branches up to block the wind, and brought wood for the fire, and made a tisane of spruce needles and willow and rose hips. Then I went back to find him. He was coming, but slowly, stumbling with exhaustion and cold. I half-carried him to the shelter I had made and showed him where to call the fire. For a moment I thought he might be too weary to do it, but the little flame came at last. I arranged wood so it would burn for some time and then lay down with Aras until he had stopped shaking.

  When his breath came more easily, I left him and made soup with the meat and a handful of barberries. I brought him this and helped him sit up to drink the broth.

  “I hit you,” I admitted finally.

  “I climbed the mountain.” His voice was husky with weariness. “If you hadn’t forced me to do it, I don’t think I could have.”

  “It is not a mountain,” I told him. “It is the Little Knife. The gods set it here long ago. To the north lies the high forest and then beyond that the steppe. Far to the north beyond the steppe, the true mountains rise up. Fortunately we will not need to go that far. My mother and her camp will still be in the forest.”

  “Yes,” he said. He bowed his head over the bowl.

  His hands were shaking. I thought it was weariness as much as cold. I took the bowl away from him before he could spill it. “Lie down,” I told him. “Tomorrow you can rest. I am sorry I hit you.”

  He did not answer. But after he had lain down, he said, not looking at me, “I don’t mind when you hit me, Ryo. What you do to me with your thoughts hurts me much worse.”

  I was silent. I had known that. I had known it all the time. I built up the fire, and lay down with him, to the north so my body would shield him from the wind that made its way through the piled branches.

  Two days later, the fengol cold came down from the heights.

  If the fengol cold had descended while we clung to the heights of the Little Knife, we would both have frozen there. But we were in the forest, where the snow lay deeply among the trees, and I heard the cold falling while it was still high above. Perhaps I had been listening for it. It was the kind of bright, cold day that we say calls the fengol down.

  First I stopped to listen. Then I signed to Aras to wait while I found a protected place midway down a slope where th
e snow was deep and heavy. Taking off my snow paddles, I used them to dig into the snow, carefully, packing the snow as I went because if the cave collapsed, I would not have time to do it again.

  “It must be small,” I told him. “We will warm it with our bodies. But it must be big enough to hold some air. More will come in through the snow, but not enough if the shelter is too small.” I gave him the knife. “Cut spruce branches.”

  The branches he gathered, I spread on the snow where we would lie, and packed into the extra space to help hold the snow. If the snow is too tight, air cannot come through it. Spruce branches would make more space for air while also keeping the shelter a little warmer. I spread the blankets over the spruce branches and beckoned him to crawl in before me, rolled into the little cave, and began to pull snow across the opening. The light dwindled and then all but vanished. The only light now came filtered through an arm’s-length of snow. It was enough to know there was light, but not enough to see.

  Twisting around again, I put my back to the entrance, since if the killing cold crept into the shelter anywhere, it would most likely be there. “Lie close to me,” I told Aras. “Do not talk. There is not enough air to talk. Breathe slowly and quietly. Do not be afraid. We will not freeze, or if we do, we both know how much worse a death can be. Let yourself sleep.”

  He laughed a little in the dark. “I don’t think that’s very likely, Ryo.”

  I laughed as well. The hatred had left me, driven away by the descending cold. I forgot everything that was past, watching the faint light brighten and sharpen. I knew that the cold had come down. But the snow protected us, and the blankets and coat held the warmth of our bodies. Already I was warm and comfortable. Soon I hoped Aras would be warm enough to sleep. “Just wait,” I told him. “Work a cantrip if you wish. All the world will be calm and quiet. There is no danger anywhere. We will both sleep. Close your eyes.”