by C. S. Bills
The Clans worked furiously to remove all signs of their ever having camped in this place. They dug holes and buried all their ashes, bones, and other debris. Meavu worked alongside Rika and Yural and the other women, strewing small rocks along paths they had worn near the edges of the trees, taking handfuls of leaves and covering others.
Ashukat’s people were last out of the camp, pulling pine branches in front of them as they walked backward, brushing away any last traces of footprints or other marks on the sand. If the fiery canoe people did stay and sent scouts north too far into the trees, they’d see pulled-off branches and many saplings cut down, but Ashukat thought if they passed by in their boats, the beach would now look untouched by humans.
“The canoe people will probably paddle by, next sun,” Yural said as she worked beside her man. “Now they’ll never know we were here.”
“I hope so.” Ubantu lifted their last pack and they headed toward the Rock and the nearby caves.
“I don’t think it will work,” Suka whispered to Attu and Kinak as they finished covering a well-worn path along the edge of the small river that ran through the narrow canyon between the beach and camp of the Seers.
“Anyone who looks closely will see that many feet have traveled here,” Attu said, his voice even quieter than Suka’s.
“But what else can we do? Bruna told me that enemies of his ancestors once set an ambush for them and tried to steal their women. They meant to kill all the men of their Clan. The Seers barely escaped.” Kinak’s lips were a tight line across his face. “What if these people are like them?”
Rika moaned in her sleep. She and Attu had moved their things into one of the back caves and now sat by the fire near the opening to the caves, resting before heading out again to help others move. Rika had fallen asleep as soon as her head touched Attu’s arm.
Attu reached for her, but Rika pulled back, her eyes now open, wide with fright.
“No, no...” she whispered.
“What?” Attu held out his arms, and Rika moved back into them.
“I dreamed,” she said. “There was a woman. She was surrounded by fire, but it didn’t burn her. And she was very sad. She held a poolik in her arms, very small, a newborn. His eyes were closed. He did not burn, either, but Attu, it felt like he had died and was in the Between of Death. Still she held him and he didn’t burn. And she didn’t burn. She looked at me. She was so very sad,” Rika trembled.
“Did she speak?”
“No, I woke up.” Rika pulled back to see Attu’s face in the firelight. “What do you think it means? Am I to have a son who dies?”
Attu shook his head. “Dreams, Rika; remember, they are tricky things. You just saw the fiery canoes tonight, and you may simply have dreamed of the fire, mixed with your fear for our people, for us. That might be all it is.”
“I pray you’re right. For I could not bear to think I might have a newborn son, only to have him die.”
Chapter 5
Just before dawn, Attu and several others stood at the last place in the path before it opened out into the Seer Clan’s woods and camp. “This path has been heavily traveled for many days,” Kinak said. “What should we do?”
“Start a small avalanche of rocks,” Attu suggested. “That should cover most of the signs that people have been this way frequently.”
“Good idea,” Ubantu said. They climbed up the side of the ridge, and Attu helped his father loosen a large rock with a tree arm. Limb, Ashukat’s people call tree arms limbs, Attu corrected himself. They heaved at the rock and it loosened, tumbling down the ravine. A jumble of rocks fell with it.
Attu cringed, remembering how the rock from a slide like this one had hit his head, knocking him out when he and Rika had walked through the pass for the first time, ahead of the others. They’d found Moolnik after he’d sabotaged the dam to kill the Clans as they walked through the pass.
Was it really less than two moons ago? It seems like forever.
“This won’t fool anyone looking closely for a path,” Ubantu said, frowning at their results.
Kinak and Suka loosened another. Then Bruna and Tingiyok and a few others loosened rocks here and there, sending small piles down over the path.
“We still need a way to get back to the ocean,” Attu said. Just the thought of being blocked from access to the water made him feel uneasy.
“It’s enough,” Ubantu said. “It’s growing light. Paven has been watching the strangers with Rovek all night. It’s time to send out some hunters to relieve them.”
“I think it was foolish to agree to Paven being the first on the watch.” Rock dust and dirt covered Suka’s arms and chest, and his face was streaked with dirty sweat. He looked exhausted.
“He was going whether the rest of us wanted him to or not.” Attu swiped at his own face as the hunters walked through the small remaining opening into the woods by the Rock and caves.
“I hope he kept himself hidden,” Bruna said.
“Paven is hot-tempered, and he blusters like a male nuknuk during the mating time, but when it comes to real danger, he is no fool.” Ubantu said. “He and Rovek will have kept far enough away from the strangers not to be seen.”
Attu sat at the edge of the ridge at the head of the pass later that morning and studied the beach and the ocean below.
“This isn’t right,” Rika murmured as she slipped down beside him.
Attu jumped.
“Sorry,” Rika said. “I teased you once,” she added, “and you agreed you’d be glad to have sons who could sneak up on game as well as I can sneak up on you.”
“But not today.”
“No, today the ocean has been taken from you. And you are angry.”
“Look, you can see the smoke of their fires. See how many there are?”
Attu pointed to the south. Many fires were burning, the smoke drifting up into the blue.
“Do you think they mean to stay?” Rika asked.
“We’re not ready to leave yet. I still have to build at least one skin boat to hold us both. It’d be better if we had two, one for supplies.”
“How will you be able to do that if they are a violent people and don’t continue to move north?”
“And what if they are dangerous and do go north? Do we risk running into them again when we travel north ourselves, a far smaller group than we are now?” Attu kicked a loose stone, watching it bounce down the side of the ridge.
“I’m not living on the grassy plains, all that dirt, all those tiny flying animals,” Rika wrapped her arms around herself. “Standing in the grass and seeing nothing but green in front of you, grasses so tall they rise above your head. It’s like being under hide blankets all the time. I hated it.”
“You did? But all you said was you loved the meat.”
“It is good.” Rika quirked a smile at him. Her dark hair blew in tendrils across her face and she leaned toward him, teasing. Attu caught one of those loose curls in his fingers and tugged at it gently as he chuckled, letting her brighten his mood.
“Their hair can be woven into anything, and their large bladders and stomachs make excellent food and water pouches.” Rika pulled her hair out of Attu’s grasp.
“Their tusks are amazing. Just think of all the tools we can make from them, as well as from their massive bones and sinews. But it isn’t the same as hunting game with some intelligence. The tusk animals simply panicked and ran until they fell over the cliff.” Attu snorted in disgust as he remembered the hunt.
“But the meat is very good,” Rika said again. “We’d never go hungry. You are the hunter, and I will follow wherever you go. If these strangers stay and prove dangerous, or if they travel north and you don’t want to risk encountering them again, then we’ll leave for the north and east, the great grass and the tuskies, those huge smelly creatures.” Rika wrinkled her nose. “It’s a good thing they taste wonderful. They smell awful.”
Rika had started calling the huge curved tusk animals ‘tuskies,�
� and the name was catching on among the women. A few of the more arrogant hunters disliked the term, Attu knew, because it somehow made the huge beasts sound like little game that could be easily killed. Rika didn’t care and kept calling the behemoths tuskies anyway, apparently just to rile those hunters who thought too much of themselves. Attu grinned at her before growing thoughtful again.
“So, you really hated the grass plains, too?”
“Yes.”
“Then we must think of another way.”
“Until we know what those fiery canoe people are going to do, I don’t think we can plan anything.”
The two sat and looked out over the nearly blocked pass and the ocean beyond it, glittering silver in the sunlight. For a few moments, Attu felt the frustration of their uncertainty, but he was tired from being up all night and the ridge was warm. It was peaceful here away from the others for a while. He grew drowsy. Then he remembered something.
“I need to tell you what happened,” Attu said. “When we first saw the canoe people-”
Come. We need you at the central fire.
Attu jumped, pulling away from Rika.
“What?” Rika said, then she jumped too, and her eyes widened. “He can do that, talk into our heads?” Rika looked at Attu, her face a mixture of astonishment and fear.
“You heard him, too?” Attu asked. “Of course you did,” he added. “That’s what I was about to tell you.”
“We’re needed,” Rika started down toward the camp. “We’ll talk later.”
“They slept and by the time the others came to relieve our watch, the canoe people had already been up for some time. They were not preparing to leave.” Paven said. “There are many women and children among them, and the children are running around the camp playing, as if they aren’t worried at all about any others who might be in this place.”
“We need to find out what their plans are. If they had snuck up on us, instead of banging their drums and calling, we might already be dead. Would people set on attacking others come in such a loud way?” Ubantu asked.
“It makes no sense to me.” Tingiyok said. “Their huge canoes are difficult to maneuver. They could not use them well for fighting. And warriors don’t bring their women and children.”
“They had begun to unpack the canoes,” Paven said. “I counted at least twenty of the huge boats, and there may be more around the curve in the beach. They have many possessions, and some hunters were unloading them onto the sand. Others were taking great blades made from some dark stone and heading into the forest near the river.”
“What should we do?” Attu asked his father. “We have to know whether or not it’s safe to stay, don’t we?”
Ubantu’s face grew thoughtful. “Maybe the strangers have been exploring and have come as far north as they planned on traveling. Is it worth the risk to reveal ourselves to them?”
“We could leave ahead of the tusked animals,” Ashukat suggested.
“So you think you can use the coming of these strangers to get us to do what you’ve wanted to do all along?” A Seer hunter glared at Ashukat. “It’s not going to work. We are waiting for the tusked animals to move with their young. We can stay hidden until then if we need to. I say we should keep away from these strangers and leave when it’s time.”
Many other hunters from the Seer Clan nodded in agreement. A few of them looked bitter, as if this had been an ongoing disagreement among them for a long time. Some of the hunter Seers began arguing with those Attu knew had Gifts, and suddenly men were squaring off with each other, too close.
The Seer hunter who had been so angry with Ashukat now argued with another man. He pushed the other hunter in the chest to prove his point while he shouted at him.
Others in the Seer Clan were just as belligerent. Bruna shouted at one Seer and Attu cringed to hear the foul insults the two men threw at each other. Bruna moved in so close to the other hunter that their chests were almost touching. Spit flew from their mouths as their hands punctuated their words with broad gestures.
Attu and Paven’s Clans stepped back, silent. Rika moved behind Attu, and Yural and Meavu stood behind Ubantu, their curved women’s knives in their hands. All around him, Attu saw his people preparing their weapons, women moving behind their men, but also ready to fight if needed.
Any moment now, they will start killing each other, Attu thought. But his confusion grew as the Seers continued to yell at each other, pale faces reddening with anger, but no weapons being drawn.
The Nuvik hunters looked at each other in astonishment. Men did not act this way. If a Nuvik hunter had been angry enough to stand that close to another hunter, and pushed him, he was challenging the other to fight, probably to the death. But the Seers continued to yell without becoming violent.
Attu and the others just stood there.
What should we do? Anything?
Attu looked to his father, who shook his head slightly. The Expanse Clans waited, as watchful as hunters over a nuknuk hole.
Finally, the yelling and pushing stopped. It didn’t seem to Attu like anything had been decided, but the Seer hunters turned back toward the Expanse Clan hunters. Attu studied the man who had spoken out earlier. He was watching the Expanse Clan hunters just standing there, and his brow furrowed as if he were coming to grips with something hard for him to understand.
“You do not care whether we leave or stay, show ourselves or not?” The Seer hunter finally demanded. “Why do you stand there like rocks, saying and doing nothing?”
“It is not our way to argue like that,” Ubantu said. “Not unless we mean to kill the one disagreeing with us,” he added.
Now the Seers looked startled. Some began grumbling again.
Enough of this, Attu thought, as his stomach, already in knots, tightened even more. All your arguing has gotten us nowhere. You’ve reached no decision. And I need to know what you’re going to do. My Clan can’t go yet. We still need to build boats. Will we have to travel with you people after all? And I see now how different we really are from each other in the ways we decide things. In what other ways are we different, ways we still haven’t witnessed yet, ways that I don’t even want to consider right now?
“I have an idea,” he said. All turned to look at him. “I’ll paddle into the stranger’s camp, pretending I’m the sole survivor of my Clan after the ice broke and a giant wave killed the rest of my people. The beach south of us is still covered with the mess from water Moolnik set loose. I’ll say I was out on the hunt and came back to find them all gone. That will also explain the trees cut and other signs someone was here. The fiery canoe people will believe me.”
“Except for one thing.” Rika said, stepping forward to his side. “I’m coming with you. We can say we were on our bonding time, away from the others, and when we returned, the wave had killed them all.”
“I don’t want you to take-”
“We’ll say we saw their fiery canoes and want to make sure they know there are just the two of us now, no threat, and that we want to stay. We want to live near the spirits of our loved ones gone Between, for it is all we have of our families now. It makes sense,” Rika insisted. “We can dress as we did when we first came off the ice, and we’ll look like the travelers from the Expanse that we are. They’ll believe us.”
“No,” Ashukat said. “You should not take such a risk.”
Because you want us to leave now, Attu thought. I understand. But your plans are not mine.
Some of the Seer hunters began grumbling again, but no yelling broke out among them this time.
Ubantu thrust his arm out, palm up, the gesture for others to listen so he could speak. But Bruna ignored it and spoke up first. “I’m a Seer and a hunter, and I know that Ashukat and others have begun to feel not just restless here, but something else they can’t describe well. They want to leave now. The need to leave is upon us all, but we must stay a while longer, just a moon or so. Why can’t we just stay hidden, Attu?”
Att
u glared at Bruna. How dare he not show respect to Ubantu, an older hunter and leader, by giving him the chance to speak first? And why did he have to agree with the other Seer hunters?
Attu looked to his father, waiting for him to nod, allowing Attu to speak. “You may stay hidden if you like, but I can’t, we can’t, not if my Clan is to follow the path I believe we should. Those who choose to may join my family and head north. We wish to return to the place of cold, of our spirit names, and to do so we need to build our own skin boats and prepare to travel. We can’t do that and remain hidden.”
“You are taking my daughter north again? Why? Are you afraid to hunt the great tusked ones?” Paven frowned at Attu.
“I’m taking my woman and my Clan north again because that’s where we believe we need to go and where we want to go.” Attu turned away from Paven toward the others. He saw the stricken look on Ashukat’s face, but he pressed on. “I had meant to have more time to talk with everyone, thank each Seer again and decline your offer, and to give our hunters and their families a chance to decide for themselves what they wanted to do, who they wanted to follow...” his voice trailed away.
Several of the Ice Mountain hunters nodded and looked hopefully at Attu.
So, I’m not the only one who has thought of heading north again.
Ubantu said, “But if we are forced to hide from this great number of strange people, then how will we prepare? We need to know if they are a peaceful people and if they mean to stay or move on.”
Yural added, “Our choice will be taken from us if we hide. We’ll have to follow the hunters who travel with the tusked animals because we won’t know if it’s safe to stay behind with these strangers and our men won’t be prepared to lead us north. My spirit longs for the Cold again. Perhaps we can find it along this coast, if we paddle far enough.”
“Mine as well,” Meavu added. She stood beside her mother, strong in the firelight. Others nodded with her as lips popped in agreement with his mother and sister. Attu couldn’t tell for sure, but it appeared several of the Ice Mountain hunters and their women wanted to head north, also. Behind Paven, Rovek was also nodding, his eyes on Meavu in the firelight.
