Blooded Ground (Clan of the Ice Mountains Book 2)

by C. S. Bills

  “It is dangerous, I can see that,” Suka said, his voice low. “But the animals die such a horrible death, don’t you-”

  “Who cares how they die?” Stannik interrupted, looking with scorn at Suka as if he were stupid. “We say the proper words over them. Death is death, and their spirits go to the Great Spirit in the sky, who looks after all living things. How they die doesn’t matter. What matters is how much meat each animal provides for our Clan. Much more than those same hunters could bring home by hunting smaller game.

  “Right, Bruna?” He grinned at Bruna. “Even if we do lose a foolish young hunter now and then-”

  But Stannik was interrupted by Bruna yanking his water pouch from his belt and thwacking Stannik on back of the head with it. The water pouch broke and drenched the man to his waist. Much to Attu’s surprise, Stannik didn’t react in anger. Instead the Elder hunter shook his head, sending a shower of water over the rest of them. Then he laughed, a loud roaring laugh that drew the attention of the rest of the group. Bruna joined in and after a moment Kinak, as well as many of the other hunters and women, was laughing, although Kinak looked uncomfortable about it.

  Suka remained silent after that. Kinak tried to strike up a conversation with Attu and Ubantu, but when they only grunted back, he gave up, and the three hunters moved past them, followed by Suka walking alone.

  The wind was warm from the west, the grass rippling like waves across the sea, the sky like an upturned bowl of blue. Almost like home, Attu thought. Like home would be now, I think, with waves moving on the Expanse, now open water, and the sky shining above. But thinking about what the Expanse might look like unfrozen only made him feel worse, so he concentrated on pulling instead.

  A hopper popped out of the grass onto Attu’s arm. Attu had at first reacted to every one, jumping back as they leaped in random directions out of the long grass and into the air in front of him. He’d grown used to them by now. At least they don’t bite us, he thought.

  One jumped and landed on Attu’s chest as he pulled the sledge. The little creature was as long as his smallest finger, green like the grass, with six little legs bent at odd angles. Its eyes looked like broken bits of dark ice, and two waving appendages moved on its head like flexible spears testing the air around it. Just as suddenly as it had jumped on him, it leaped away, making a rasping sound as it disappeared into the grass.

  “They died without honor,” Ubantu said into the silence.

  The hoppers? Attu looked his question at his father.

  Ubantu stopped, and Attu studied his face. It was stony, his eyes like two deep holes in the ice, dark and dangerous. He spoke low, for Attu’s ears alone. “I don’t like this curved tusk hunting. It is not the Nuvik way, to kill game by scaring it into stampeding, to threaten its young, to kill it slowly, to cause it such great pain before its spirit is freed from its body. I don’t like it at all.” Ubantu grasped Attu’s shoulder, his grip strong.

  Attu looked into his father’s eyes again and his heart beat faster as he saw a clearness there he hadn’t seen since their arrival.

  “I know I’ve been like a poolik hiding in its mother’s hood, my son, since we stepped onto this new land,” Ubantu said. “It has all seemed too much to know, too much to learn. I feel like I’ve been neither in the Here and Now nor in the Between of sleep, but somewhere else, somewhere I could not escape. But Stannik’s words have woken me out of whatever place my spirit has been. My spirit stirs within me, and it says this way of life is wrong for a Nuvik.”

  A sudden rush of release swept through Attu’s body. “I don’t like it either, Father. And I won’t do it again,” Attu added. He looked to see how his father would react to his declaration.

  “Good,” Ubantu said. “There is enough game along the coast. I will learn the ways of the skin boat, too. We will stay. Paven can go with Ashukat and his people. Let them live on this grass of biters.”

  “Ashukat doesn’t want Paven to come with them,” Attu said, his heart heavy, his spirit sinking.

  “Why not, my son?” Ubantu said.

  “He believes Paven will bring violence to the Seer Clan because Paven doesn’t respect the Gifts.”

  “But we need to separate from the Great Frozen Clan and Paven and his hunters.” Ubantu grew thoughtful. “Surely our Clan can learn these new ways, can make a life for ourselves in this land of trees and water?”

  “I want to go north again, Father,” Attu said. “North along the coast to where we can see ice-covered mountains, where it snows and stays, at least in the time the Seers call winter, and everyone can be near their name spirits again.”

  “I would like to think such a place still exists...” Ubantu’s eyes grew hopeful. “Do you think it does?”

  “I think I’ve seen it in my dreams, Father,” Attu said. “Along the way we must pass by a mountain of fire and it may be difficult, but we will make it safely, and beyond it lies the land I described, where we will live. The Seers say there is such a fiery mountain north of our camp. We must go north and past the mountain to find it.”

  His father grinned at him. “You have dreamed all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll learn all we can from Ashukat’s people, about the skin boat hunting and the fiery mountain you talked about to the north, and you and Rika will learn the Gifts. When we’re ready, we’ll go.”

  “Paven will say we are fools not to follow the curved tusks. And they’re leaving soon. Some of our Clan may choose to go with them instead of us. What will we do then, Father? We will be very few again, once Paven’s Clan and the Seers leave, like we were on the ice. But other Clans will not be near enough for Clan gatherings, for the exchanging of hunters and women. What will we do when our children are grown and there are no others for them to bond with?”

  What about Suka? Or Meavu, if Rovek has to go with his father into the grasslands, and we head north along the coast instead? Then neither Suka nor Meavu would have a suitable partner in our Clan. Cousins sometimes bond, if the situation is desperate enough, but I know neither Suka nor Meavu think of each other in that way...

  “I don’t know, my son,” Ubantu said. “I’ve only now begun to think clearly again. We’ll figure out something. We can’t let our small numbers stop us from doing what we think is best. Let Paven say what he will say. Let who wants to go with him, go.” Ubantu started pulling his sledge again, and Attu pulled beside him. “We cannot force our hunters to come with us. They must decide for themselves what will be best for their families, to come with us, or go with Paven, or go with the Seers. We must not invite the spirit of violence into our midst as well by trying to take advantage of our position as leaders and trying to force others to come with us, just so we will have more people.”

  “We’ll work hard to build our boats and be ready,” Attu said. “You and I will lead all who choose to stay with us by showing them another way, a way where they won’t have to live on this hot grassy expanse, killing curved tusks by scaring them into killing themselves without honor, and without being sliced by these flying creatures.” And a way where we do not stay in the wet and dreary land near the Rock of the Ancients, with its constant rain and the sense of something evil lurking there.

  Ubantu slapped another bloodsucker off his bare forearm. “They pierce the skin with their tiny long knife mouths. What evil comes with them? Look how my wounds fester.” He pointed to the welts all over his arms from their bites. “The Seers need to find something to keep these little hunters from wounding us. They say they have the memories of their ancestors, but I don’t think they’ve remembered all they need to know about this place. Surely their ancestors knew something to keep these biters away.”

  Attu picked up his pace. “You’re right, Father. That’s another reason to go north, our Clan together once again, without all the others. I don’t want to rely on anyone else. We’ve lived our whole lives on our own, until the Warming. Let’s get ready and head north. We’ll go far enough so the sun do
esn’t make you sweat when you aren’t even moving and there are NO bloodsucker flying animals.”

  They hurried to catch up to the others. Soon they were all together again, and Attu began whistling a soft tune, one the hunters often whistled as they walked the long distances over the ice. Ubantu joined in.

  Suka, who was a few steps ahead of them, turned and walked back. He looked surprised at Attu’s sudden change of mood, smiling at him with a question in his eyes.

  Later, Attu gestured off to the side. He walked on, hoping once he told Suka of their plans, his cousin would want to come with them. Suka had been his companion and friend since they were pooliks riding in their mothers’ hoods. Surely he would prefer coming with me over this? He didn’t seem to like hunting the tusked animals either.

  Attu continued slapping off the biters as they walked the rest of the way back to camp. Entering the pass, the ocean breeze whistled among the rocks and the biters disappeared. Another reason to live near the ocean. Attu took a deep breath of salty air. But as he moved through the pass to the shore, dread rose again. Evil lurked just out of reach of his seeing. And it was growing.

  “So, your training begins today.” Ashukat sat with Attu and Rika near his fire in the Seer camp. “The first thing you need to know is-”

  “Ashukat,” Stannik approached the Elder and bowed. “The hunters need to talk with you.”

  “I’m instructing Rika and Attu. I will come by your fires later.”

  “It is very important that you come now,” Stannik said.

  Behind him, Tingiyok stepped out of his shelter, a confused look on his face. “Ashukat, I think you need to come with us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ashukat said. “I’m needed. Perhaps later today?”

  Attu and Rika nodded.

  Ashukat pulled himself to his feet and, leaning heavily on his staff, walked away with Stannik and Tingiyok, toward the Seer hunters’ central fire.

  A few nights later, Attu woke to the sound of a spirit calling into the darkness. It was a sharp call, an evil call, echoing back from the mountains and out over the water. Rika clutched his arm, and Attu came fully awake as he realized the sound was in the Here and Now, and not the Between of his dreams. He leaped to his feet and, grabbing his spear, raced out of their shelter, Rika following.

  Attu’s heart drummed as they raced toward the sound, which seemed to be coming from the beach. Hide flaps were thrown back all around him as others came out of their shelters and joined them. They reached the edge of the water, and Attu and Rika stood on the beach with the others.

  South along the coastline, what appeared to be monsters made of many fires were moving rapidly toward them. The fires reflected in the dark waters of a calm ocean, and the light of the fires was so bright it blotted out the stars to the south.

  A low sound resonated through Attu’s body, so deep he couldn’t hear it as much as feel it, his whole body reacting with a trembling he couldn’t control.

  Women clutched their babies, grabbed their toddlers’ hands. Men stared off into the distance, their eyes reflecting the fires of the now recognizable giant canoes, boats not made of skins, but of cedar logs. Tingiyok and a few of the other Seers had taken Attu out in one the Seers had recently made. But it had been much smaller. These were giant. And there were so many...

  Rika grabbed Attu’s hand, and he pulled her to him.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  It was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked to Attu as if each of the mighty canoes was at least twice the length of the Seer Clan’s largest one. And if the shadows of movement among the torches of fire mounted on each side of the canoes were what Attu thought they were, the canoes held swarms of people. Hundreds of them. More people than Attu had ever seen in one place. It would be as if all the people Attu had ever met were like a drop of water in a bowl filled with the water that was these people. And they were coming toward his Clan.

  “What do we do?” Yural repeated Rika’s question. The question was repeated throughout the Clan as Attu’s people gathered anxiously together.

  “Are we in danger?” Yural asked again.

  “I don’t know,” Ubantu replied.

  “Shouldn’t we hide?” Several of the women began gathering up their children, getting ready to flee.

  “Wait.”

  Attu looked up to see Suka standing on a large jumble of rocks, debris from the flood that had opened the pass. “They’re moving in toward the large river.”

  The Clan grew silent as all watched the huge canoes drift out of sight into the mouth of the river to the south. One by one the flaming boats disappeared around a bend in the shoreline. As the last one vanished, the sound of the drumming faded.

  “They must be heading up the wide river with the waterfalls,” Paven said. “The beach there is large enough for all those canoes to land.” His voice rose on the light breeze.

  A child started to cry.

  The stars gleamed above once again in the black night. The child was comforted by his mother, and Attu held Rika even closer to his side. No one spoke; no one moved for a long time. Then a fresh breeze rustled in the cedars, and with its sound the people stirred.

  “I bring no evil,” a voice spoke out of the darkness.

  Ashukat. The Seers must have seen, or at least heard, the canoes, too. Attu looked to where Ashukat stepped out from behind the rock Suka was still standing on.

  Suka, startled, jumped down from the rocks and walked to where his family stood.

  “Didn’t you See them coming?” Suka asked. “Why didn’t you warn us?”

  “None of our Seers Saw them. I don’t know why.” Ashukat looked disturbed by his Clan’s lack of foresight. “We need to withdraw into the caves near the Rock until we can figure out what they mean to do. We must be cautious with all new people. Our ancestors have taught us this.”

  “There are so many of them. We could never fight them and win.” Tingiyok had moved to stand beside Ashukat.

  “We don’t even know if they mean us harm, yet,” Ubantu said. “They may just be staying until light before moving on.”

  “They are warriors and mean to kill everyone who comes across their path. That’s why they came with such noise and light. It is a challenge.” Paven stood at his full height, facing Ubantu. He had run from his shelter with only his waist cloth on, and now his massive shoulders and arm muscles rippled as he flexed them, the scar on his face and chest from a long ago ice bear attack standing out white in the light of the now risen moon.

  “How could you know that?” Ubantu asked.

  Paven scowled and shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe anyone would question what seemed obvious to him.

  Attu studied Paven. Ashukat said he had Gifts. What if he somehow Sees something we don’t sense?

  “We don’t know who these people are, or why they travel with such ceremony. The wise thing to do is to watch and wait and not alert these people of our presence before we know something about them.” Ashukat spoke, seemingly unperturbed by Paven’s stance as he towered over the bent old man.

  “Our few hunters wouldn’t stand a chance,” Ubantu said, putting his hand on Paven’s shoulder. “This is not about a hunter’s honor, it’s about putting the safety of our Clans first. Did your people ever encounter others like them, Ashukat, with numbers like the pebbles on the beach, too many to count?”

  “Yes, who are they, mighty Seer?” Paven sneered at Ashukat.

  “I don’t know,” Ashukat replied. He seemed shaken. “We have never seen so many people together in one Clan, or even in groups of Clans.”

  “The Seers are not spirits, but human.” Yural moved to stand beside her man. “We can’t expect them to know everything. Ashukat and some of his people have great Gifts, but we must not assume they know more than their Gifts or their past teaches them.”

  “What good are your so-called Gifts?” Paven asked. “You couldn’t ‘See’ a huge Clan of hunters in giant canoes coming tow
ard us? I say your ‘Gifts’ are worthless.”

  “Father is afraid,” Rika whispered to Attu. “He covers it with anger, always.”

  “But he loses honor, disrespecting an Elder.” Attu looked at Ashukat again. The man did not even glance his way, but the Seer spoke into Attu’s mind as if Ashukat were beside him, whispering in his ear.

  I am also afraid, Attu. Aren’t you?

  Ashukat’s voice? Inside my head? And I’m not dreaming?

  Attu felt his whole body tense. The hair on his arms stood up as he glared at Ashukat. “How did you do that?” He took a step closer to the Seer.

  “Do what?” Rika asked. “What are you talking about? Ashukat didn’t do anything.” She reached for Attu, but he moved away from her to stand facing Ashukat beside Paven.

  Well? Came Ashukat’s mental question again. And this time, think your answer.

  Attu thought back a strong, Yes.

  Ashukat flinched, and Attu was sure the Seer must have heard his response, but Ashukat continued as if nothing had passed between them, speaking in a voice that carried to the people now gathered around them. “I can’t tell if this is an evil thing, these people coming. It’s as if my senses are blocked to them. I feel a deep sense of dread, and I don’t know if it’s just from the sight of this horde of people, or it’s because we couldn’t sense them, or if it’s my Gifts alerting me. Perhaps these people are violent. You may be right, Paven.”

  “We need to gather our hunters and sneak up on them while they sleep. Then we can-” Paven began.

  Ubantu interrupted. “We need to get our women and children off this beach and to a place of safety. Then a few of us can go to their camp and watch from a distance, try to discern what they are doing and whether or not they are staying or just stopping for the night before continuing their journey.”

  “Father is right. Let’s go,” Attu said and he turned and strode up the beach. The others quickly gathered their families, moving back toward their shelters.

  Within moments, Paven stood alone on the beach, his mouth still open as if to issue orders to the sand.