Hunting the Ghost Dancer

by A. A. Attanasio

  "Ul udi," Baat said. He raised a finger to the sky and then to the violet shine already beginning to suffuse his skin.

  "Is that the name of the spirits? Ul udi?"

  Baat nodded, then placed both hands over his heart and opened his palms to her with a bow of his head.

  "You're thanking me," she grasped. She put her small hands in his. "I thank you. You led me to the guardian spirits. Baat, they spoke to me today! I heard their voices. They're so gentle. They told me about your journey. I want to help you."

  Baat's huge face bobbed, smiling, and he gently squeezed the girl's hands. The Bright Ones had found him his companion, this unlikely child, this daughter of the smallheads! Holding her hands, he looked up at the last light of day burning on the tips of the trees, and the fear that had harried him all season lifted away into the violet chill.

  He released her hands and lay down beside the fire. The smallheads would not kill him. The Dark Traces would not take his spirit. He closed his eyes, released a long sigh and, at last, slept deeply.

  )|(

  The next four days, Hamr and Kirchi trekked through mossy spruce terrain under high ridges of aspen and birch. The dense, shaggy land made travel arduous and slow, and Blind Side of Life followed unhappily, even though Kirchi favored him with honey-bubbled roots only she knew how to find.

  At night, the hot disembodied eyes of the wraith returned. They gazed from the shadows of the moon-lustered fog. Each night, the moon grew brighter and higher in the sky, and the yellow eyes glittered sharper. A bestial shape began to take form around the burning stare. Something like the matted face of a hog appeared, with upcurved, evil tusks and gnashing fangs.

  Blind Side noticed the wraith first, whinnying shrilly into the dusk where nothing was. Then, out of the smoldering remains of the wrecked sun, it shaped itself—serpent stare, hog snout, wolf fangs, and a squat torso muscled with the scaly integuments of an alligator.

  Hamr shouted his battle cry and heaved his spear through the lizard frills of the beast’s throat. Its eyes flared before it floated off with the night mist, unwounded.

  "No weapon can pierce it," Kirchi told him grimly. "The most we can hope to do is hold it off. Before each sunset, I will build a circle."

  Kirchi doubted she could actually stop Neoll Nant Caw, yet she showed Hamr her moonstones and warding powders as though they were powerful weapons. She had learned to use them to keep the ul udi from penetrating her trances and possessing her. But she had never tried or had reason to hold off a wraith before.

  "What about this?" Hamr asked, taking out the tracking stone. During their trek, he had used the stone to feel the direction of the ghost dancer and had always found that the stone chilled to the east, each day a little farther north. The bonesucker was not retreating to the mountains after all but heading for the tundra. And if Yaqut and Timov had not been deflected from their easterly course, they would intersect with the ghost dancer any day now.

  "It's true, the stone is good for more than tracking," Kirchi said. "It's a scry crystal, too. In trance, one could use it to see afar. But it's not a weapon, not against the Moon Bitch." She pointed to Duru's satchel, which Hamr carried at his hip. "There's a knife in there that could kill a wraith. I saw it when you showed me Spretnak's wheel."

  Hamr took out the obsidian blade he had found on the tundra and given to Duru. He had not used it, because its glass edge easily chipped. "This is a flensing knife."

  "No. It's more. Look at the haft." Kirchi took the knife in her freckled fingers and touched the viper-curves carved in the bone. "This is a Moon Serpent knife. It's a ritual implement. Only a priestess would have this."

  And with those words came the memory of the one trance where she had seen a ghost dancer—Baat on the tundra at night, attacking the priestess and her escort. She remembered the priestess taking this knife from her attendant and throwing it in the fire.

  Her fingers feeling suddenly brittle, she returned the knife. "The Moon Serpent can cut the Moon Bitch. And my moonstones can block her. We have our weapons, Hamr."

  The moonstones, four chunks of pearly feldspar, had been polished to a glossy sheen that made them look as if they held trapped light. At sundown, Kirchi talked to them and rubbed them with her bright hair, waking their power. Then she used each one to etch a quarter arc in the ground, encircling their sleeping space. "The smaller the circle, the stronger its protection," she said when Hamr complained that Blind Side was not included.

  Kirchi admired Hamr's solicitous care of his horse, and each night, after she groomed the animal, she sprinkled him with warding powders, the gem-dust of old crystals.

  Hamr was grateful for that and also for the way she gentled Blind Side after the wraith came and went. This horse held the outside shape of his soul, and her care for the creature justified his showing his affection for her.

  After Aradia died, Hamr had thought he would always live as though she lived in this world with him. Now, this witch had begun to earn his caring—and his desire.

  While they traveled along the leaf-clogged creeks or struggled over boggy ground, he often found himself noticing how she took time to find footing for the horse, or the way she pulled aside bramble without hurrying or cursing when she snagged herself. Simple things, like reading the land, spotting the tiniest pawprints of mice and voles—that led to caches of winter grouse eggs hidden for the spring—impressed him. Despite all his losses and the great uncertainties ahead, he felt happy with her.

  Hamr continued to remind himself that Kirchi was not as beautiful as Aradia. Each day, he believed himself less. The day the Forest finally ended and the wide grasslands opened before them, his and Kirchi's joy had become so strong they could no longer hide their passion.

  While Blind Side of Life romped through clouds of grass scents, Hamr and Kirchi clasped each other, tumbling to the ground. With swift fingers, Hamr caressed the girl. Her breath tightened to a moan, and the hollows of her body swelled with pleasure. In a hot glut of desire, she tore the antelope-hide from his body and pressed her hands against him, his nakedness feeding her heat.

  Hamr peeled off her wrap, and his long hair tented over them, hiding them from the bright day as they stared at each other, amazed and shining. Kirchi mewed softly as she received him, her eyes rolled up and closed, and her legs hugged him as they rocked and plunged.

  Afraid to shut his eyes, afraid to see the ghost of his wife, Hamr watched her move under him. He wanted only this skinny, pale-eyed witch, he insisted to himself, only this moment and the flash of rapture he had won for them by losing everything. So he stared at her luminous face until their passion exploded and banished all his grief.

  )|(

  Afterward, Kirchi asked him to grow a beard. With snippets of grass and daubs of mud, she pasted haygold whiskers down the line of his jaw and over his chin and upper lip. He cleared away the brown algae of a rain-pool and laughed at the sight of himself.

  That night, inside the magic circle, he used his clam shells to tweeze away only the hair of his cheeks and neck. Lying naked together in the fireglow, the lovers dropped resin chips on the embers to drive off the biting insects and rubbed the smudged ash on Hamr's stubble, darkening his beard.

  When Blind Side of Life whinnied nervously, Hamr and Kirchi untangled themselves from their lovemaking. The moon tilted like a cup, high in the blue depth of night. Out over the tundra, in the western darkness, another moon had begun to rise—a swell of ghostly light. Blind Side whined as it rose higher, though he caught no scent or sound.

  Hamr quickly donned his antelope loin-wrap and deerskin sandals. He crouched beside the fire, spear in hand. The moonshape took form as a huge beast loping toward them with a howl of wintry wind.

  Hamr's hackles bristled. He had never heard the wraith before, nor seen it moving. Its huge head slung forward, fanged mouth brushing the ground. He looked to Kirchi, who had wrapped herself in her grass robe and fumbled with her bag for the warding powder.

  With
a lean-legged stride, the Moon Bitch hurtled itself at them. Its bat-fanged face glared, and as it neared, Hamr noticed that its wrinkly eyes indeed glowered like the crone's.

  When Hamr rose to meet it, Kirchi grabbed his leg. "Don't leave the circle!"

  The storm-whistle of the Moon Bitch cracked the air. Ripped seams of green fire fell like a net over the area of the magic circle. Fangs drooling, the beast pounced.

  Hamr and Kirchi cowered as the monster crashed into the invisible barrier, bounced off, and lay in a stunned crouch. The moonstones at the four points of the circle pulsed crimson.

  Howling, the Moon Bitch slashed her talons across the nearest power point, trying to dislodge the stone. Lightning met her at the edge of the circle, and her claws came away curled with pain.

  Her head low, the Moon Bitch glared at the lovers, hissing so loudly that Hamr and Kirchi cried out as one and hid their faces.

  Sudden silence made them look up. A slavering grin distorted the Bitch's muzzle. With new purpose, she strode to where the Blind Side of Life strained at his tether. The horse bucked and neighed in terror.

  "No!" Hamr yelled, and leaped to his feet.

  Kirchi threw her arms around him, and he staggered backward.

  The Moon Bitch leaped upon Blind Side's back. Her powerful hind talons ripped the stallion's flanks. Her fangs stabbed at his throat while he bucked and kicked wildly. Blood shot out in black jets at his flanks.

  Hamr threw off Kirchi's hold and leaped out of the circle. His spear held high, his war cry rattled in his throat.

  Immediately, the Moon Bitch abandoned the horse. Hamr heaved his spear. The weapon sailed harmless through the apparition, and stabbed the tree where Blind Side tugged his tether.

  The wraith smashed Hamr to the ground. Her powerful jaws pierced his chest, and blood sprayed over his face, surged up his nostrils and down his throat with the bitterness of death.

  Hamr's hands fell away from the scaly body of the Moon Bitch and seized the Moon Serpent at his hip. The fangs knifed deeper into him, and he heard his ribs crack. With a last flare of strength, he gripped the black-glass dagger in both hands and drove it up hard into the Moon Bitch's belly.

  She roared with pain, and her hind legs frenzied, tearing open Hamr's abdomen and kicking his bowels out behind her.

  Hamr pulled down with all that remained of his life, slitting the belly of the Moon Bitch. She reared, her mad visage twisted, and a cascade of live blood and sticky tangles of hot matter spilled out over him. With the last gasp of breath in him, Hamr wept aloud, for the bloody knots of tissue flowing from the Bitch's underbelly thrashed alive!

  Red-fleshed, raw foetal monsters slithered over him. Glossy, big as rats, their lidless yolk eyes stared mindlessly as they whirled squealing on furious claws into the pitch darkness.

  )|(

  Neoll Nant Caw jarred awake in her burrow and found herself flat on her back. Every muscle throbbed with pain. Her face twitched and flinched with her effort to sit up, but all her energy had been depleted. Her body lay inert as a clod, her strength dead with the Moon Bitch. She tried to wail and could not. Where are my slaves?

  A muffled cry squeaked from her gaping mouth, and the darkness ate it.

  A shaft of moonlight alone illuminated the gopher tunnel of her subterranean chamber. The blue tar-oil fire had burned out. The crystals she had used to build the Moon Bitch sprawled around her in the dark, lightless, thrumming with pain only she could hear.

  "Those lunks," she cursed her two slaves. They would look for her at dawn and find her like this, battered flat to the ground—and not dead. She felt as though she withered, dying. Pain quilted her muscles to her bones. Air barely seeped into her lungs. But she would not die. She would not let herself. She would lie here in moon-glossed dark sucking air through her mangled mouth, waiting for her lunks to find her—waiting for strength to return and with it vigor and the keen malice of the invisibles.

  )|(

  Neoll Nant Caw's slaves found her at dawn sprawled unconscious on the floor of her burrow.

  One slave plunged off into the woods, toward the Longtooth to get help. The other propped the witch's head on a reed pallet, then jerked back from her with a grunt of alarm.

  On the mat beside her, a tangled mass of gelatinous flesh throbbed and pulsed blue. It broke apart into a panic of tiny pieces. Each piece metamorphosed into a rabid bitch, a miniature beast shattering into smaller explosions of snapping jaws. In a moment, the break-away blue jellies dispersed and disappeared, tarring the air with a black stench.

  )|(

  The spiraling song of a thrush called Hamr back to life. He woke with a cry. His eyes snapped open and flinched before the sun's glare. Kirchi's shadow blocked out the radiance, and her lean face moved closer.

  "I'm alive," he said, voice raspy. His hands passed over his chest and stomach—astonished to find himself whole. A giddy tremor shook him, and he would have laughed with joy but Kirchi laid her fingers over his lips. They smelled like grass, and he kissed them. "I dreamed—"

  "That was no dream," she said glumly.

  "The Moon Bitch..." he mumbled and sat bolt upright, pushing Kirchi aside. He spied Blind Side of Life nearby, grazing in his own shadow, not a mark on him. "I thought—I was killed?"

  You are killed, Kirchi knew, but could not say. "You fought the Moon Bitch. You slit her belly open. She wounded you—and Blind Side. You worse. Your body lives."

  "How long was I out?"

  "The night and the morning. It's almost midday now."

  Hamr looked down at himself, astounded. "The pain was so real."

  Kirchi nodded. She had not been sure he would wake at all. Throughout the night and the morning, after the Moon Bitch's wraith had withered to fog, she had sat over him, listening to his breathing. She had seen everything. She knew his body of light had sustained a mortal wound. No one could survive that. And though he sat up awake, she knew the shadow of death had settled darkly upon him.

  "The pain—" he repeated. "It was so real. Did you see?" He stared at her with large, astonished eyes, remembering but not believing.

  "Oh, yes," she said, and pressed her cheek to his. "I saw."

  Hunger Music

  In the firelight, Yaqut's countenance looked like a burst blood blister. Timov did not like to face him while they ate or dressed the skins of animals the hunter had killed during the day.

  Even after the dismal effects of the trance-thorn wore off, Timov continued to shuffle along behind, head lowered, not meeting Yaqut's harsh gaze when addressed, and keeping his eyes on the fire when they sat together at night.

  Yaqut made hunting seem effortless, and the few times Timov looked at him directly occured when the hunter whipped his sling or hurled his lance. Rarely did he throw in vain. He displayed deft skill at slaying animals, skinning and gutting them swiftly, almost casually.

  Impatient with Timov's awkwardness, he punished the boy's many missed shots by making him chew hide to leather and stretch and stitch pelts caught by the older hunter. He showed kindness only once, when he replaced Timov's hand-thrown rocks with a sling trimmed from a marten's belly—only afterward to snap at him for his incompetence with it.

  Once, when the shot from Timov's sling struck an otter a glancing blow and laid it out squirming on a rock in midstream, Yaqut sent him to retrieve it. Timov waded through the cold rushing water and found the otter staring at him, brown eyes bewildered and hurt. The boy reached for his knife.

  "Put that away," Yaqut called. "I want this pelt whole, and I will do the cutting. Strike it but do not crush the skull. I will not have bone-splinters in my tongue when we eat the brain. Knock him out with a blow across the nose—then grab him, break his neck. And hurry. We have a long way yet to go."

  Timov picked up a blunt rock. The otter, still too stunned to move, watched him. He had killed many small animals with his sling and his knife, and he wished now that he could simply sever the animal's heart strings and be done. He struck th
e otter between the eyes, and the creature abruptly stiffened.

  Quickly, Timov knelt and seized the unconscious otter's forepaws and pulled it under his arm. He could feel the small heart beating against his side. Any instant, the animal could revive. He grasped its muzzle firmly and twisted its head as far as he could. He felt the neckbone crack, and blood spurt from the nostrils. The small, furred body shivered and went still.

  A great loneliness soaked Timov as he sloshed back across the stream to give the limp body to Yaqut. The Forest seemed immense in its perpetual darkness. Jammed with lives eating lives, he experienced himself as just another small life in the gloom. He felt sure he would never see his sister or Hamr again.

  At night, with the fire leaping under the skinned body of the otter, Yaqut confirmed his fears, "The moon is filling out." He lifted his blurred face toward where the moon hung like a silver ax above the trees. "The witch is growing stronger. She will surely kill Hamr and the fool girl who ran away with him."

  Timov stared hard into the tatters of flame that sputtered with each drip of the otter's fat, not wanting to see the malice in the hunter's crooked features.

  "He was a dolt to go back for you," Yaqut continued. "A brave, arrogant dolt. If he had stayed with me, we would have held off those Stabbing Cats. The Beastmaker favored us. Soon enough we would have figured out that the witch had duped us with the tracking stone. We could have hunted down the ghost dancer on our own. But now—" His scarred face gleamed in the firelight like a painted mask. "He has brought Neoll Nant Caw down upon himself. He will die. You will never see him again. Look at me, boy."