Blooded Ground (Clan of the Ice Mountains Book 2)

by C. S. Bills

  Attu realized he had been staring, mesmerized by the man’s looks. He pulled his eyes away from the man’s face.

  Kagit said, “As leader of the Ravens, I wear His likeness.”

  “Oh,” Attu said. He glanced at Kagit again, then looked away quickly as that same odd feeling began to overcome him.

  “How can the girl speak Nuvik?” Ubantu asked.

  Father seems to have pulled himself back out of this odd sleepiness.

  “Ah,” Kagit said, and annoyance flashed across his face before he covered it with a smile.

  “That one,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. The girl translated as he answered Ubantu’s question. “When I heard you speak, I knew you were of her people. When she was just a young girl, we were traveling up from the south and came upon her people’s village. All of them had been killed or carried away but her. We found her hiding under a fish box. Of course, we couldn’t leave her there to...” and here he paused, watching the girl closely as she spoke the words to them, her tone stiff, her eyes on the fire in front of her rather than on them, “...to starve. We brought her with us.”

  Attu listened to the girl dutifully relate what Kagit had said. She said the words, but Attu felt something was wrong with how she said them, her voice flat.

  Kagit seemed to notice also. He said, “Seeing her people attacked and killed did something to her. She doesn’t remember that horrible time. Please don’t trouble her about it.”

  The girl translated this, turning her body away from them as if to accentuate Kagit’s request.

  “Just one more question about your people, child?” Ashukat asked. He seemed to be pulling himself back to the Here and Now from some distant place. He turned toward the girl. “It is a simple one, if I might?”

  The girl translated Ashukat’s question, but Attu noticed she had also begun trembling and was clasping her hands tightly together.

  Kagit is right, Attu thought. She doesn’t like talking about it.

  Kagit shifted as the girl spoke, and he stared at Ashukat. He appeared fierce instead of friendly for a moment, but just as quickly he smiled again. “Yes,” he said.

  “Your people, my child, the woman who bore you, the ones who raised you, did they dream?”

  Kagit spoke quickly to the girl, his voice turning harsh. The girl answered him, and this time her voice was strong and she looked at him as she spoke. He raised his eyebrows at her, but she nodded and turned to Ashukat.

  “You must never address me directly again, Elder,” the girl said to Ashukat. “I am Raven Clan now, and you must speak to Kagit and he will speak to me. It is the way of the Ravens. But Kagit has given me permission to answer your question. Yes. My people dreamed. I have dreamed, and my mother, she dreamed, and spoke of the Seers. And now, my people are no more.” Her voice caught and she turned away from Ashukat, back toward Kagit, lifted her shoulders and as she stared at the fire, her whole body grew still. Within moments she herself looked dead, or like a carved figure rather than a living person.

  Kagit studied her for a moment before he spoke again. The girl continued to interpret, but for the rest of the evening, she stood as if made of wood, gazing at the fire and speaking as if she were a mere tool. It was eerie and made Attu feel they had wronged her by coming here and putting her through such a trial as to remember her past. But Kagit continued to talk until it grew hard dark.

  “We came from the south, bound to come north to the place of the great fish and little fish, of the game and of plenty that we had heard from those who traded at the mouth of the far south river. They said that once this land was the richest any people have ever seen. We are many people, and needed such a land that would keep us all.”

  “The stories our people to the south used to tell...” Ashukat whispered to himself.

  The others nodded.

  “We have been traveling north, praying to the Raven spirit to show us a sign of when we had arrived in the right place. The day we landed here, our scouts spotted ravens flying north ahead of us. They flew into this bay and up this river, landing on the large rocks at its mouth. That was our sign. Our hunters came back with their report: a wide beach, the river, rocks, and trees for building, and evidence of much game in the water and on the land. I knew our prayers had been answered. Raven sees all. We had found our new home.” Kagit looked around himself, his arms spread wide, his eyes full of pleasure.

  “We are the People of the Raven, the Ganhada, and our ravens had shown us the way. We prepared our canoes with the ritual of fire and drums, and we entered our new home with the proper ceremony. Here we will build homes for our women, have many sons, and grow even stronger in this land of plenty.”

  “The drums and fire are a tradition?” Paven asked. His brow furrowed, as he struggled to understand. “Not to signal readiness to fight?”

  “Why would we fight, when we can have all we desire by the skills of our own hands and the great work of our Raven spirit? We are many. You are few,” Kagit added. “Why would we bother to fight ones like you? You are no threat to the Raven Clan.”

  Paven and Stannik both bristled at Kagit’s comment, but said nothing.

  Attu glanced at Rika.

  “Perhaps we can build our boats and ready ourselves to leave without worrying about these strangers after all,” she whispered.

  Chapter 8

  “We are still leaving immediately,” Stannik told the Expanse Clan hunters as they gathered around a small fire the next morning near the Rock. “I don’t care if that Kagit, or Raven, or whatever he is seems to be friendly. I don’t like him. We’re following the tusked animals like we’ve been planning to all along, and we’re leaving in two suns.”

  “Are you going with them?” Ubantu asked Paven.

  “We are,” Paven stood. Rovek reluctantly stood by his side. “Who is with us?” Several of Paven’s hunters stood as well. “And you?” Paven looked at Attu, his face showing no emotion, as if Attu’s answer mattered little to him.

  “We prepare to head north,” Attu said.

  Paven grunted his acknowledgement and left with his hunters and Stannik’s men.

  A smaller group of hunters clustered around Attu. He was surprised to see a couple of Paven’s men as well as a few from the Seers, Tingiyok included.

  “What now?” one of the men asked.

  “The canoe people seem busy with their own building, and Kagit seems to have no reason or need to attack us.” Attu glanced in the direction of the Ravens, where the constant smoke of many fires could be seen rising into the sky. “He has everything he needs and plenty of people to lead.”

  “Still, we will prepare as quickly as if he were a threat,” Ubantu said.

  “And we’ll keep a close eye on them all,” one of the Seer hunters added.

  Attu walked with the rest to the beach to begin working on the skin boats.

  “He’s leaving,” Meavu was saying as Attu reached out to lift the flap on his parents’ shelter that evening. He paused, realizing his mother and Meavu were talking of Rovek and probably didn’t want to be interrupted.

  I should come back later. But he stood, instead, just outside the shelter as his mother spoke quietly to Meavu.

  “If the spirits wish you and Rovek to be joined one day, my child, then it will happen. All has not come to pass, yet. Think about how Attu seemed to lose Rika forever, only to be reunited with her again.

  Mother had known, back then, how much I loved Rika? And I thought I’d hidden it so well...

  “Don’t give up yet, my child,” his mother continued. “Don’t stop praying to the spirits to make your way clear.”

  “I know I shouldn’t stop hoping, Mother. I know Rovek is the one for me. My spirit has never felt so strongly about anything in my life as I do about this. But what do I do? He’s leaving. And I can’t go with him. He’s not even a hunter yet, and besides, I know I’m not supposed to have that life on the grasslands. Something is so wrong here, and it’s making what shoul
d be working out for the two of us not come to pass in the Here and Now.”

  Attu heard movement in the shelter, then soft crying.

  “I know, my little one, my poolik. How I wish I could spare you this pain,” Yural crooned.

  Attu couldn’t see them, but he knew his mother was holding Meavu tightly, as his sister cried out her grief at losing Rovek. He prayed for them both as he quietly stepped away from the shelter.

  “Ashukat is meeting with Kagit by the water,” the Nuvik-looking girl said to Attu as he approached the beach of the Ravens the next day. Attu had convinced himself in the night that as the leader of his people he needed to speak with Kagit again, decide for himself if it was safe for his Clan to remain here so close to this massive group of people, or if they should trade for as many of the Seer boats as they could fit into and put some distance between themselves and these Ravens. They would have to leave some much-needed supplies behind them if they chose to leave now, and that seemed a foolish thing to do if it was unnecessary.

  The girl had rushed out to meet Attu when he rounded the bend in the shoreline and walked into their camp. “Kagit said to wait for you and to follow. We go now,” the girl turned to walk farther down the beach.

  How did the Raven Clan leader know I was coming?

  “Wait. What is your name?” Attu asked.

  “Farnook,” the girl said, looking sideways at an older woman who was nearby on the beach, tending a fire. The woman scowled at her, and Attu recognized her as the one who had waved the stirring stick at the girl the day before. Still the girl kept talking. “I am called ‘the abandoned one.’ And I am nothing to everyone else. Now come, hurry,” she added, glancing at Attu with a pleading look as the older woman moved toward them, her stirring stick in her hand and a fierce look on her face.

  They approached Ashukat and Kagit, who were standing on the beach, looking back up at the buildings under construction on the rise about two spear throws up from the high tide mark.

  “Cedar houses, or longhouses, the Raven Clan call them,” Farnook told Ashukat in answer to his question to Kagit. Kagit was distracted this morning with the building around him and was only half paying attention to Ashukat’s attempts at conversation. Ashukat looked ill. Attu wondered why the Elder had come again today.

  Something is wrong here, and I’m trying to figure out what it is before we leave. Ashukat mind spoke to Attu.

  Farnook stepped back, her face suddenly ashen.

  “What’s wrong?” Attu asked.

  Kagit turned and spoke to the girl. She shook her head and dropped her gaze before answering him.

  Kagit seemed pleased with what she had said. Then he motioned with his hands and said something in his guttural tongue, before grinning at Attu and Ashukat.

  Farnook cringed, but obediently translated the gesture and words. “Kagit says I am strange and often act in odd ways.” Her cheeks reddened.

  Kagit looked at them again, and Attu thought he noticed a look of satisfaction come over Kagit’s face as he studied the two Nuvik men. Then he turned and walked up the beach toward the building site.

  They approached the first cedar house. As they neared the building, Ashukat stumbled. Attu caught him before he fell, and Ashukat gave him a grateful smile before wincing again, as if in pain. “I think I need to leave, now,” he said. “My spirit feels strange, like I’m getting sick.” He seemed dazed, like he had the day before in the Raven Clan’s camp, and Attu reached out to steady him as the old man swayed on his feet.

  Ashukat started speaking a formal goodbye to Kagit, but as Farnook started interpreting his words, Kagit put up his hand to stop her. He grinned at them and spoke again to Farnook, slowly.

  Attu had a sudden sense of the earth opening up under his feet like rotting ice. Just as quickly the feeling vanished.

  What was that? Attu’s mind was reeling.

  I don’t know, my son, but I felt it, too.

  Farnook spoke, her eyes wide with the surprise she could not hide. “Kagit says you may tell those who are questioning your decision, Attu, that we indeed mean your Clans no harm. We are truly a peaceful people and hope many of you will come to trade with us. And your hunters who leave for the grasslands should know that the tusked animals will leave next sun. They will not have to wait any longer to follow them.”

  “How do you know this?” Ashukat said. His face was still pale.

  “The Raven knows all,” was Kagit’s enigmatic reply. “From the top of the mountain, the Raven sees everything, everyone.” Kagit turned and walked away.

  Farnook stayed standing in the sand, studying Attu and Ashukat, as if they were not mere humans but some kind of spirits.

  Kagit barked an order to the girl as he walked, and Farnook startled, then turned and ran back toward the settlement and the fire one of the women was tending.

  The next day, the tusked animals began to move east and north again.

  The Seer Clan and most of Paven’s Clan left with the tusked animals. After the time they had spent together, and after so many generations of living in this place, under the Rock of the Ancients, and waiting for their time to call the Clans off the ice, Attu thought the Seer Clan’s leaving would be marked with ceremonies and at least some excitement. Instead, Ashukat appeared ill as he walked, leaning heavily on Keanu. He had barely said a word of goodbye to Rika and Attu and there had been no ceremonies of departure.

  “I told the Seer Clan’s healer to keep an eye on him,” Rika said as the old man walked away. “He is too old now for such a journey, no matter how badly he wants to leave.”

  The rest of the Seers watched, subdued, as Ashukat walked out of camp down the path through the woods toward the grasslands to the east. Mothers picked up small children, and a few quiet goodbyes were said among the Clan members who were leaving loved ones behind.

  “I feel like we’re running away, not leaving because it has been our plan all along, but because we need to escape whatever influence the Raven Clan might try to have on us if we stay.” Bruna looked to the south and the smoke of the Raven Clan’s fires against the lightening sky. “We weren’t expecting the tusked animals to move yet, and the women are exhausted from the packing, the children tired as well.”

  “How did they know?” Paven asked. “It’s like somehow this Raven leader can call upon his Raven spirit and make the tusked animals leave early. Some of their young are too small to travel yet, and still they’re going. I don’t like it.”

  Paven reached out and touched Rika’s cheek as they gathered to say goodbye. “I will ask my name spirit to give you many children,” he said. “For your name spirits seem to have forgotten you.” He looked at Attu, his scarred face twisted in a grisly look of scorn mixed with pity. Then he turned away before Rika had a chance to say anything to him in return or Attu had a chance to say anything in answer to his crude comment. Rika stood motionless, her hand raised to the place her father’s fingers had touched as if she had been slapped. Tears filled her eyes.

  Attu held Rika, and the others stood, watching the rest of the Seers go. Ashukat was still moving so slowly that he was falling behind, now at the back of the group rather than the front. Around him, Attu saw the faces of his people. Worried.

  Only one hunter and his family from Attu’s Clan were leaving with the Seers, besides Kinak and his family.

  “It is best we go,” Kinak said again to them, as if working to convince himself.

  Tulnu cried, holding on to Suka. Shunut clung to his older brother. Suka held his mother for a long time. When she pulled away from him, she was crying, but smiling also. “You will follow your spirits north. This is a good thing. I am proud of you, Suka. I have always been as proud of you as if I had borne you.”

  “I know, Mother,” Suka said. Their eyes met and Attu saw what a great sacrifice both were making, each for the other’s happiness.

  Suka tussled his brother’s hair and then turned to Kinak. “You have Mother and Shunut to care for and Suanu’s baby
to come. Life on the grasslands will be good for the women and children, I think. But I will miss you, brother.”

  Kinak nodded. The two hunters grasped each other in a long embrace before thumping each other on the back. As Kinak pulled away, he rumpled Suka’s hair like Suka had Shunut’s. “Are you sure you want to stay?” He looked to Suka, his eyes yearning for his brother to change his mind.

  “I want to go north again,” Suka said. “I want to fly on the water in my skin boat, spear the seal and nuknuk, and sleep under the lights that dance in the sky on the coldest nights.” He turned and put his arm around Attu. “And how can I leave this one to fend for himself? He will drown if I’m not here watching over him.”

  Attu scowled as Suka grinned and pulled away to punch his cousin playfully.

  “This is true,” said Tingiyok, who was standing nearby. He smiled briefly at Attu before his lips moved back into a tight line as he watched Ashukat leaving.

  Attu suddenly reeled as his vision blurred and he felt himself transported into a skin boat, riding the waves under a clear blue sky, water splashing over the front of the craft, hair blowing, and salt tang on his tongues. A love so deep it brought tears to Attu’s eyes enveloped him as he glided along.

  Tingiyok reached out to steady him as Suka looked on, confused. It is all I have now that my woman has gone Between. It is what I must do. Tingiyok mind spoke, and Attu knew it was not to him that he had communicated the vision, but to Ashukat. Attu had just been standing close enough to experience it also.

  “What?” Suka asked, but Attu motioned that he would explain later. Suka followed his gaze toward Ashukat.

  The Elder stopped, and turned to search for Tingiyok in the small group left behind.

  I know, old friend. I know. Attu heard Ashukat’s reply, as he found Tingiyok, and the distance between them seemed to disappear as their eyes met. They raised hands to each other, and Attu felt the love between these old friends as well as Ashukat’s weariness and Tingiyok’s concern for him.