Prince of Malorn (Annals of Alasia Book 3)
Page 27
Apparently I only get to be a hero for one evening. The next morning, it was back to regular life. Even though Korram woke up still a little stiff and sore, the whole family obviously expected him to do his full share of the work more than ever, now that he was officially one of them.
The available food supplies in the valley were running low, Thont explained as they drank their morning milk, so they needed to move on to a new camping spot. Besides, it was time to head toward Gathering Valley.
They took down the tents and rolled everything up, and Ernth showed Korram how to fasten a pair of bundles onto Clinja’s back. The mare twitched her ears and eyed them as though wondering what they were doing, but Korram was proud that in the end she accepted her share of the load just like the other horses.
When the packing was finished and the goats had been watered, the family hiked with their livestock to the top of the slope. They spent the rest of the day trekking along the ridge before finally choosing another narrow valley to camp in just before dusk.
Some quick exploration turned up two patches of lumjum – some of the last they would be likely to find before winter, Carch predicted. Korram helped Korth pick and wash several of the fat roots and then chop them into the pot they had gotten in Nilvey along with some dried herbs. When they added some goat meat left over from last night, they had a delicious hot stew, or at least something close to a stew. There was no broth to speak of, but that made sense, Korram realized, since the family had only flat leaves to eat it off of.
Chun suggested that this would be a good place to camp while they butchered and skinned the goats that they wouldn’t need for the winter. The family would then spend the next few days drying the meat and tanning the hides to use for new jackets and blankets. This task must be completed before the Mid-Autumn Gathering; there wouldn’t be enough grazing around Gathering Valley, he explained, if everyone brought their full flocks. Of course, their flock was much larger than usual at the moment because of all the extra goats Lantil had given them. But those belonged to Otchen and his family, and it would be up to them to decide what to do with the animals later.
There was an animated discussion over their milk the next morning about which of their own goats were to be kept and which weren’t. After some debate, the family voted on each animal one by one, finally selecting eight of the strongest and healthiest – six does and two bucks – to keep. Korram was surprised to see how matter-of-factly everyone treated the subject of butchering the rest.
Korram, Ernth, and Ernth’s sister Charr took the goats the family had chosen to keep, along with Otchen’s, and led them out to pasture over the top of the ridge. Thisti and Sench came skipping along after their mother, eager for a day free of other chores, while the others stayed behind to attend to the butchering.
As they started up the slope, Clinja came trotting after them, not wanting to be left behind. Korram didn’t like to leave her either; it would be the first time they had been apart since she had Accepted him. But he stopped and stroked her nose, assuring her that he would be back before dusk and that she should spend the day grazing and getting to know the other horses.
He almost thought she understood; at any rate, she stopped trying to follow him. But her dejected whinny as he walked away sent a pang through his heart.
“It was the same way with Hungry at first,” Ernth confided as they led the goats uphill. “I still don’t like leaving her for a whole day either, but we all get used to it.”
Korram was proud to have his own spear to bring with him this time – a spear that was just as good as anyone else’s, as far as he could tell. He helped to drive the goats to the top of the slope and partway down the other side, until they found a grassy open area beside some large rocks. The five humans picnicked on leftover meat while the goats spread out to graze on the lush grass.
After their brunch, the two children darted about, laughing and playing and gathering wildflowers. The adults, meanwhile, strolled around the meadow in different directions, keeping a watchful eye on the children and on the goats.
The task was easy – dull, even – and Korram found his mind wandering to the upcoming Mid-Autumn Gathering. Would the Mountain Folk really listen to him now that he had been Accepted? How would they know he hadn’t just brought Clinja with him from the Lowlands? Would he have to prove he was one of them in some way? And even if they listened, what would it take to convince them to join his army?
Korram was patrolling the edge of the meadow by the rocks, lost in his thoughts, when Thisti came dashing over to him. “Korram, Korram, come and look! Come see what me and Sench found!”
Ernth and Charr were both out of earshot, but Korram saw no reason not to follow the eager little girl. Beyond some bushes at the edge of the meadow, he found her brother crouched in a patch of mud – it had rained last night – staring intently at the ground.
“Look!” Sench squealed excitedly, pointing.
Korram looked. Imprinted clearly in the mud was the footprint – pawprint, actually – of some large beast. Instinctively, he glanced around, wondering if whatever had made it could be watching them from among the rocks nearby.
“I wonder if it’s a wolf,” he murmured in concern, bending to peer at the print more closely.
Thisti giggled. “It can’t be a wolf, silly. You’d see the claw marks if it was.”
“It can’t be a wolf,” Sench parroted knowingly.
“Then maybe it’s a snowcat. Don’t cats walk with their claws pulled in?” Korram glanced around again, uncomfortable even though he saw no other obvious signs of danger. “We’d better let your mother and Ernth know. It might still be close by.”
“But Mother will just say we have to leave,” Thisti protested, “and I want to see it. I’ve never seen a snowcat before.” She brandished the stick she was holding, pretending it was a spear. “Whoever kills a snowcat gets to wear its skin and then everyone will know how brave they are. They’ll be a hero! Mother says I’m too young to get Accepted for a long time yet, but you don’t have to be Accepted to do brave things.”
The little girl looked so courageous already, clutching her stick with fierce determination, that Korram couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m sure you’ll be a hero someday, but for now I think we’d better get back into the meadow.”
“Look!” squealed Sench again, pointing, just as a hint of movement out of the corner of Korram’s eye caught his attention. Korram spun back toward one of the rocky crags. Had something moved near its base? The snowcat, perhaps? Or was it merely a bush waving in the breeze?
“Get back,” he ordered just in case, grabbing Sench’s arm. “Quickly! Get back into the meadow!” The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for the safety of two young children in the face of an attacking predator. He gave the boy a push toward where the goats were grazing, then turned to seize Thisti. But the girl was already darting in the other direction, brandishing her stick.
“Thisti, stop!” Korram yelled. He hoped his voice would frighten the creature away, if there was a creature, and also alert Ernth and Charr to the possible danger.
A pale form stirred between two of the rocks ahead, and Korram was sure he heard a growl. Sprinting forward, he caught up with the little girl and seized her arm with one hand, gripping his spear with the other. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his heart pounding. “Do you want to get yourself killed? Stay away from there!”
“I’m not afraid,” she protested, struggling to shake off his grip. “Let go!”
The beast – it was obvious now that there was one – stirred again, whether to flee or attack Korram didn’t know. Panicking, he drew back his arm and flung his spear as hard as he could at the shape crouching in the shadows. Then, dragging Thisti behind him, he turned to run.
He nearly collided with her mother, who was dashing toward them, Ernth and Sench just behind. Charr snatched up her daughter while Ernth pushed past Korram, spear brandished.
“What do you think you’r
e doing, Prince of Malorn?” he demanded.
“You put my children in danger,” Charr snapped at the same moment. “What were you thinking?”
“I was trying to protect them,” Korram protested. “There’s a snowcat over there – or something.”
“Protect them? By throwing your spear?” Ernth scoffed. “You don’t ever let go of your spear when there’s danger nearby. Ever!” He peered at the rocks, his eyes searching for signs of life. “Whatever it was is probably gone now, and a good thing, too.”
“I was going to kill it,” Thisti lamented from her mother’s arms. “I was going to keep us all safe from the snowcat and make myself a beautiful big coat from its skin.”
“You know we don’t kill without a good reason,” her mother scolded. “If an animal – even a predator – isn’t harming us or our goats or horses, we stay out of its way and leave it alone.” She turned to Korram. “Did you actually see this supposed snowcat, or is it a figment of my daughter’s imagination?”
“There was something in the rocks, but we didn’t see it clearly,” Korram admitted. Ernth was right: whatever it was seemed to have vanished now. “We did see a footprint, though.”
He pointed at the patch of mud, but one of them must have stepped in it, and the evidence was erased.
“If there’s even a chance a predator is out there, we’d better head back to camp,” Charr decided. She set Thisti down but kept a firm grip on her hand, still holding her own spear with the other. “Come on, Sench. Let’s go round up the goats.”
“We’d better go find the spear that you threw away,” Ernth suggested sarcastically. He marched over to the rocks, making a big show of holding his own spear ready and peering every which way for danger. Korram trailed along behind, glancing warily around too, but there was no sign of the animal now. It must have darted off among the rocks when his back was turned.
He found his spear at the base of a boulder, but when he picked it up, he was surprised to see that its tip was wet and red. “Look!” he exclaimed, forgetting his annoyance with Ernth.
Ernth stared at the spear, then snatched it from Korram and touched a finger to the moist tip. “You actually hit something!” There was both surprise and respect in his voice.
Only by chance, Korram wanted to say. He had never actually practiced throwing a spear at a target. Instead he shrugged modestly. “It seems I did.”
Ernth rubbed his finger and thumb together, examining the damp red smear on his skin, and abruptly the respect faded from his face. He turned accusingly to Korram. “You’re not a stupid Lowlander anymore, so what are you doing acting like one? You wounded it, and for no good reason. Whatever this animal was, now it’s out there somewhere injured and in pain.”
“I was only trying to protect the children,” Korram protested.
But Ernth wasn’t listening. Peering around, he bent to examine a few drops of red on the ground nearby, and then they both spotted a few more beyond the next rock. “Well, we can’t leave it to suffer. Now that you’ve wounded it, someone has to track it down and put it out of its pain.” He stared challengingly at Korram.
“All right, all right. I’ll go after it,” Korram told him resignedly. I’ve faced a snowcat before, after all.
Ernth laughed. “And have a coat made out of the skin so everyone will assume you’re some kind of hero instead of a clumsy ignorant former Lowlander? Besides, you think that just because you were lucky enough to survive a night with a snowcat once, that makes you an expert on them? If you can even find it, it will probably rip you to shreds, Prince of Malorn. No, I’ll go after it.”
And boast to everyone about what a great hero you are for solving the problem I caused? “I started this,” Korram protested. “I should be the one to end it.” He was sure that one way or the other, people at the Gathering would hear about the incident. They would either be told that he had wounded an innocent creature which someone else had then been forced to put out of its misery, or that he had single-handedly slain a dangerous predator. This will affect how they all see me, which will probably affect my recruitment efforts.
“End it? More likely the snowcat will end you,” Ernth predicted scornfully. “No, I’d better do it.”
How would Mother handle this situation? Diplomatically. “Let’s go together, then,” Korram suggested humbly. “I’ll have a chance to try to make up for my mistake, and you can show me how a Mountain warrior ought to deal with a wild beast. You can keep the skin, no matter which of us kills it, but then at least I can learn from you and fix the problem I created. Besides, the worst that can happen is that I’ll get eaten, and then you’ll feel better, I’m sure.”
Ernth’s scornful expression dissolved into a grin, and Korram was surprised to see his anger fade as quickly as it had appeared. “All right, then, Prince of Malorn. But you have to stay out of my way and do everything I tell you. Wait here while I go let my sister and the children know.”
Korram grinned back. He suspected that Ernth would make sure his foolishness was the main topic of conversation around the campfire that evening, but at least if he helped track the beast down, the family would have something else to discuss.
When Ernth returned, he didn’t scold anymore, speaking only to point out the way. The trail kept turning corners and disappearing behind boulders and brush, but the red splatters always made it easy to find which way the wounded animal had gone.
Every time they passed a large enough boulder or rounded an outcropping, Korram wondered whether the cat would be waiting to spring out at them from behind it. He kept a tight grip on his spear and kept glancing around watchfully as Ernth was doing, but the only movement they saw was an occasional bird.
“If it is a snowcat, I’m surprised it would come so low,” Ernth remarked at one point. “You usually only find them on the higher slopes.”
“Maybe it was old or sick or injured already,” Korram suggested. “It could have moved down to warmer elevations where life is easier and there’s more food available.”
“And a goat would be an easy meal to catch,” Ernth agreed. “Likely it was getting ready to attack the flock.”
He wasn’t exactly complimenting Korram on saving their goats, but from his tone of voice, that could have been what he was thinking. That’s probably as close to praise as I’m going to get from Ernth.
Korram was surprised at how far the injured animal had come. It must have lost a lot of blood by this time, but that didn’t seem to have slowed it down much. It couldn’t keep going forever, though. At some point it would die, or crawl into a den, or turn to face them; or they would overtake it as it fled. He had better be ready for an encounter.
Eventually the trail turned and led down a shallow slope. Ernth stopped to look around, his gaze sweeping back and forth across the landscape. At the bottom of the incline, a small river cut the valley in half; a common sight here in the Impassables. Scattered rocks and boulders littered this part of the slope, perhaps dislodged in a long-ago earthquake or giant storm. There was no snowcat to be seen, but the rocks provided hundreds of possible hiding places.
They followed the sprinkles of blood downhill, Ernth leading the way at a jog. The sound of running water grew louder as they approached the bottom, and finally they stopped at the bank. The river was perhaps fifteen feet wide, water bouncing and swirling in shallow eddies around the rocks and boulders that filled its bed. In the mud at the bank they saw two clear paw prints.
“Definitely a snowcat,” Ernth declared, crouching down for a closer look. “You were right.” It was another almost-compliment.
The trail of blood ended at the water’s edge. Ernth frowned, peering about, but they couldn’t see far in either direction. Korram sat down on a rock and bent to splash cold water on his sweaty face while his companion pondered their situation.
After a moment Ernth crossed the stream, hopping from rock to rock to keep his feet dry. He walked a few yards back and forth in each direction before returning to K
orram. “Well, there are four possibilities,” he announced finally. “The snowcat obviously went into the water, and it didn’t come straight out the other side. So it must have waded either upstream or downstream, and it could have come back out on the same side, or the other side.”
Korram frowned as well. “I thought cats didn’t like water.”
“I don’t know about your Lowland cats, but snowcats are good swimmers. They’re clever enough to use water to hide their tracks.”
Korram rose to his feet again. “All right. I suppose this is where we split up. Who searches where?”
“I’ll cross over again. You stay on this side. We’ll start by both going downstream, and let’s see if one of us spots its tracks on the bank again.” Ernth forded the river once more, slipping on an unsteady rock but catching his balance before he toppled into the water.
They both turned and started downstream, but after ten minutes or so, neither of them had seen any more prints or traces of blood. “Let’s try the other direction,” Ernth suggested. “The snowcat isn’t likely to have kept to the water this long.”
They turned around and retraced their steps, stopping for a brief rest back where the tracks had first entered the water. Though Ernth didn’t say so, Korram knew he didn’t want to be too worn out when they finally met the creature.
They both drank from the stream and wet their faces and hair to cool down. Though the day was pleasant and breezy, they were sweating from their exertion.
After a few minutes Ernth rose to his feet again and they began making their way upstream, still on opposite sides of the water. The ground grew steeper and the current faster, but there was still no sign of the snowcat or of the telltale red drops.
Korram alternated peering at the ground and glancing nervously up at the boulders all around him. They were mostly white or pale gray in color, and he knew an angry snowcat could easily be camouflaged beside or lurking behind one.
Presently the sound of rushing water began to grow louder. Rounding the next bend, Korram saw a white, frothy cascade plunging over a low cliff into a pool full of half-submerged boulders. He glanced across at Ernth and saw him staring at the waterfall, which was about fifteen feet high.