by C. S. Bills
Toonuk shook his head.
“We need these,” Ubantu said.
“Our survival may very well depend on having them,” Tingiyok agreed.
Attu reluctantly handed the bow back to Toonuk. “You must keep trying. We will, too.”
Around him hunters and herders voiced their agreement.
“We have some other questions about these thieves,” Tingiyok said, glancing at Attu.
Attu met his gaze and realized what they still needed to know. “Yes. We are wondering if they also have dogs.”
“Of course,” Toonuk said. He sounded annoyed. Then a look of understanding replaced his first reaction. “Oh, I forgot about your ignorance of dogs. You are the first people we’ve met who haven’t had them. I understand that you haven’t seen wolves; the wild cousin of the dog, because over the years we’ve killed most of them. They attack our herds. But it’s strange you know nothing of dogs.”
“Does every Clan use dogs to pull sleds in winter?” Attu asked, trying to ignore being called ignorant, again, and trying to hide his shock that apparently, dogs were common to everyone else and wolves, like the large male that was killed, used roam where his Clan now lived.
“Most use dogs to pull sleds. Some Tuktu herders don’t. We use a few of the tuktu we train from the time they are fawns,” Toolnuk said. “But the thieves use dogs. They’ve trained them to pull like the tuktu, and dogs are much faster and easier to maneuver. That way the thieves can attack quickly and escape.”
Spartik made a noise in his throat and started walking away.
“We must be leaving at first light, and it grows late.” Toonuk looked after Spartik with concern and turned to follow the Elder.
But Spartik had stopped. He looked around the group, and his eyes rested on Yural. She returned his gaze. He nodded and spoke to the whole group. “Be on guard of these thieves,” Spartik said. “They may come back from the east at any time. If they discover you are here, they will attack you. Protect your women and children. I pray with your spiritual leader that we can find the bow wood and that both our Clans will be able to make bows of our own to defend ourselves if the thieves come again.”
Spartik turned back to Toonuk, and the two men appeared to be arguing as they walked out of Attu’s camp with the rest of their people. Attu followed them, wanting to catch up to the leaders to ask a few more questions, but as he drew close, Attu realized the men were arguing about him. Spartik turned and glared at Attu so fiercely that Attu just raised his hand in the farewell sign and moved off to the side toward one of the shelters, as if he’d been meaning to go that way in the first place.
Chapter 7
Attu stood with Toonuk and several others at the top of one of the six hills to the east. The Tuktu were almost ready to leave, and Attu had come to bid the leader a safe journey. Toonuk motioned Attu away from the others.
“I have one more warning before we leave you. Light and Shadow ran off with a wolf,” the leader remarked. He turned and looked over the horizon. “That is why they were on their own and the male was so much larger than the female. Half-wolf, half-dog pups usually turn wild when they’re grown. The male will be large and the most dangerous. You will have to kill him, as you would one of your men who has gone rogue like an angry male tuktu.”
Attu said nothing.
“You would be best to kill the pups now, before the children grow any more fond of them.”
Attu nodded as if in agreement. “You are welcome in our camp next spring, if you choose to come,” he said, changing the subject. “Thank you for your warning.” Attu hit his chest with his spear three times, to honor the Tuktu leader. Toonuk did the same with his staff, then turned and walked down the hill toward his people.
“I did not want to invite them back, but it was the right thing to do.” Attu walked back to camp with the others. “They are our only source of information about the thieves.”
“I flew at first light and saw no one,” Keanu said as the group walked back. “I will fly again tomorrow.” She left the group, walking over to where some other women stood at the edge of camp.
“They should have waited another day to travel,” Rovek said, joining Attu and Suka as they continued toward their shelters. “It took them too long to get ready, and now it’s too late to start out. They won’t get far before dark.”
“I heard Toonuk and Spartik arguing as they were leaving last night. Spartik was furious with Toonuk for stopping at all and for warning us,” Attu said. “I don’t like that man.”
“I’ve been thinking about how they shared the bow and arrow weapon with us, even though we’d just met. I would never share knowledge of such a weapon with people I didn’t even know.” Suka looked perplexed by the Tuktu.
“I don’t think they consider us much of a threat,” Attu said. “I know they were once Nuvik, but they don’t seem to respect anything that links us to them.”
“It was wrong for their men to laugh at Ubantu,” Suka added.
“I know.” Attu turned toward his shelter. “I think they believe we won’t be able to make bows and arrows, since they haven’t been able to. But I’m glad Toonuk warned us of the thieves.”
“I don’t trust these Tuktu,” Suka said. “When I understood they keep the tuktu alive and care for them, moving to where the grass grows, I thought they’d be a gentle people. But they seemed to be angry with us or ridiculing us most of the time they were with us.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Attu said. “The Tuktu herd the animals, keep them safe, watch them grow, and when the tuktu are adults and strong, they single out the ones they need for food and kill and eat them. The animals have no choice to come to them by the spirits. It’s like mind blending to draw animals to the hunter. It feels wrong.”
“The tuktu are safer living with the herders than they would be in the wild,” Suka said. “As long as they follow the herders and do what they want them to do.”
“Until they are grown...” Attu made a slitting motion across his throat.
Suka nodded his agreement and turned into his shelter.
Attu walked the short distance to his own shelter, thinking about Toonuk’s explanation of the Tuktu thieves and his words about the half-wolf pups. I bet the young, strong tuktu bucks see the knife first in Toonuk’s Clan.
Attu placed extra guards around the camp, and the men and women worked the rest of the day storing more water and meat in the caves. Ganik, Chonik, and the other children dragged pine branches, running in random patterns between the caves and the Clan’s camp, adding to the churned earth the tuktu had left.
“If the thieves come back from the east through the pass by the river, following the Tuktu, they’ll think this was just the Tuktu’s camp,” Ubantu said, turning to Attu. “They won’t see a path back to ours.”
“I hope you’re right. It’s the best we can do.”
“I’ll tell the others to stay away from the caves now,” Yural said. “But if it doesn’t snow and still stays this cold, we’ll need to move into them soon.”
It was near dawn as Attu held his son in their shelter. His boy had just gone to sleep again. Attu met Rika’s tired gaze as she held their daughter, who was yawning but finally quiet as well.
“Do you think a spirit of sickness is trying to enter them?” Attu asked. “I’ve never seen our children so fussy.”
“They have no fever, no stomach sickness, and both are eating well,” Rika said. “I don’t know what is happening to them. It feels as if they are having bad dreams in the Between of sleep that keep waking them.”
“I sense peace in their minds now,” Attu said, “or possibly it’s exhaustion from being awake for so long.”
“Or maybe you’re just sensing ours,” Rika yawned, rested back against the furs, and closed her eyes.
A moment or two passed, and in the light and crackling of the fire, Attu felt his mind finally drifting into the Between of sleep.
Outside their shelter, the camp er
upted in yells. Meavu ripped open their shelter flap. “The thieves are coming for the Tuktu. I saw it. We don’t have much time.”
“Where are they?” Attu reached for his foot miks. “Can we reach the Tuktu in time to help them?”
“They’re sneaking up from the east and south. The Tuktu didn’t get very far. Their camp is just a short run south of the bay, and the thieves are closing in on them. You must hurry.”
“Go,” Rika said. Her eyes held both her love for him and her fear. “I’ll get the women and children into the caves.”
Attu grabbed his parka and weapons and ran from the shelter.
“Are we too late?” Ubantu asked. They’d only been running for a short while, but up ahead a large cloud of dust was rising as the herd of tuktu came into view, moving north toward them.
“Look!” Mantouk popped his lips. “The Tuktu have surrounded the thieves with their herd, just like they did with us.”
“And their dogs are driving the herd between the hills. They’ll go right past our camp.”
“Is that a Tuktu boy riding on one of the animals?” Rovek shook his head. “Why are they coming back this way? Why would they push them back north, toward us?”
“Not toward us. Into a trap,” Attu said. “And we can help.”
From the hill closest to the lake, Attu and the others watched in amazement at how the Tuktu kept the thieves in the middle of the moving herd. More than two hundred tuktu surrounded thirty or so men, and the Tuktu were moving the animals at a steady pace, fast, but not running. The thieves were fighting to keep from being crushed under the animals’ feet, pushing at the animals with their spears and screaming at them, but the tuktu kept moving. A few arrows flew into the middle of the herd.
“How can they hit anything?” Suka asked. “They can barely keep from being trampled.”
“If one of the tuktu gets shot and bolts, maybe the others would follow, like the tuskies do. Then the thieves might have a chance to get away.” Attu watched as one of the thieves, shooting wildly into the animals, hit a Tuktu boy riding low on his tuktu’s back near the edge of the herd. The boy toppled off into a flash of antlers and hooves.
Attu felt sick.
Another thief shot, and the arrow struck deeply into a tuktu’s side. The animal screamed and bolted, but before others could follow it, a dog cut off its path, nipping at its legs and sending it back into the herd where it was forced to stop running and move with the rest, the arrow still dangling from its wound.
The thieves hit the tuktu, yelling and cursing at the Tuktu herders, who were keeping animals between themselves and the thieves as much as possible.
“Here they come,” Attu said. He ran down the hill toward the lake.
Suka, Tingiyok, Rovek, and Bashoo hid behind the skin boats in the dead tuft grass on the west side of the frozen lake. “Remember. Stay hidden until you see me attack,” Attu said, then turned with the other hunters to take up their positions behind some trees on the east side.
Soantek wiped his hands and grasped his heavy whale spear, carefully checking his rope. Attu held his spear at his side and took in a deep breath to steady himself.
Then the world exploded in hooves and screaming men as the tuktu ran onto the lake, forcing the thieves with them. The ice shattered a few spear lengths from shore, and the thieves and animals sank into the water.
The lake turned into a brown mass of broken ice as the thieves found themselves thigh deep in water and muck.
The now panicking tuktu turned toward shore and thrashed out of the lake, taking small high steps with their thin legs and making sucking sounds with their spreading hooves. But the thieves had sunk into the ankle grabbing mud at the bottom of the newly frozen lake and struggled to move at all.
The Tuktu dogs and men waited on dry land with the rest of the herd. The dogs held the tuktu less than a spear throw away from the water’s edge while the thieves fought to free themselves of the muck. Some had lost their bows, and several were already injured from tuktu antlers and hooves. A few panicked and thrashed about wildly, their legs pushing more firmly into the mud with every twist. Attu saw the thief farthest out into the lake struggling in the deeper water. He tried to pull himself up on the edge of the still unbroken ice there, managing to get his upper body onto it before the ice cracked and he went under. He didn’t come up again.
One man had given up fighting to free himself and was grabbing at his arrow pouch to shoot from where he was trapped. Several others in the deeper water saw him and did the same. But one man just stood there, holding his weapons above the water, no longer struggling. The ones who had turned their bows toward the Tuktu on the bank yelled at him, calling him a coward and a traitor. Then the thief who had first stopped struggling aimed his weapon at the man just standing there.
Beside him, Attu felt Rusik flinch. “Do you see that? Will he shoot his own man if he doesn’t fight?”
The other thief must have thought so because he grabbed for his weapons and turned to shoot with the others. The man who had threatened him began yelling again, this time toward the bank, where the Tuktu remained behind the animals.
“Toonuk, show yourself!” the man yelled. “Or are you still the coward you were when you forced me out of your Clan, hiding behind your tuktu like a woman?” He pointed his arrow at the herd, searching.
“They know these thieves?” Mantouk asked.
Attu said nothing, but his mind raced. Why didn’t Toonuk tell me the truth?
“You were evil when we cast you out of our Clan, and look what you’ve done now,” Toonuk walked out into the open, keeping a wary eye on the men before him. “Any of you who don’t want to follow Korack anymore, come out of the lake, weapons above your heads. We won’t kill you. But if you fight, you die.”
Korack spat into the freezing water in the direction of Toonuk. “My men know better than to disobey me, Toonuk. We take what we want from anyone we decide to attack. And today that’s you.” Korack raised his bow in the air, and then, turning it parallel to the water, he pulled back and shot an arrow at Toonuk. Toonuk threw himself sideways, and the shot barely missed him.
Korack’s men hooted and shouted their approval of their leader, pulling themselves through the mud toward the shore.
“You saw him,” Mantouk said, moving to crouch closer to Attu. “Whether Toonuk knows him or not, Korack is a killer.”
Attu nodded. He tightened his grip on his spear.
Korack, who was closest to the bank, took another step forward and suddenly grinned. He said something over his shoulder to the men behind him, then, at his signal, they struggled forward with renewed energy.
The mud is frozen near the shore. Attu opened his mouth to warn Toonuk, but Korack had already reached the frozen mud and slung his bow on his back, exchanging it for his spear in one smooth motion. He plunged up the bank and toward Toonuk. The other thieves followed.
“Now!” Attu drew back his weapon and leaped from behind the trees to the water’s edge. He threw his spear at the nearest thief. It struck with a spurt of blood. The man’s voice cut off in mid scream as Attu knelt by the edge and snapped his rope sharply to the side. The spear released, and Attu used his rope to pull it back, curling the rope as he did, ready for his next strike.
One of the thieves still in deeper water turned toward Attu, his eyes widening in shock at seeing more enemies. He paused a moment before pulling back on his bow. Attu threw his spear again and ducked. An arrow whizzed by Attu’s ear. The thief collapsed, speared through the throat.
“Korack!” One of the thieves shouted, pointing toward Attu’s men, but Korack was fighting hand-to-hand with the Tuktu and paid no attention to the man.
Mantouk yelled and fell to the ground, an arrow through his forearm. Attu ran to him. Mantouk sat up and, gritting his teeth, pulled the arrow the rest of the way through his flesh. He dropped it beside him.
“I’ll be fine,” Mantouk growled. He ripped off his knife belt and began wrapping it
around the bleeding wound. “Ubantu’s in trouble.” He jutted his chin toward the lake. Attu turned.
Ubantu was struggling with a thief who’d managed to get to shore. The thief raised a knife, ready to strike at Ubantu, who was trying to fend the enemy off with only a broken spear shaft.
I can’t reach him in time, Attu thought as he plunged through the dried tuft grass toward the pair. Then the thief went limp and slumped to the ground. Behind him stood Spartik, staff butt resting on the dead enemy’s back.
Ubantu looked his thanks at Spartik, and the two turned away to continue fighting.
Look out! Attu mind shouted to Tingiyok across the lake as he saw a thief pull himself out of the water and run toward the Elder. Tingiyok dropped the spear rope he was drawing in and pulled his knife, ready to fight.
But the thief, instead of running at Tingiyok, veered away from him toward the hill they’d run down a short while ago. What is he doing? None of our men are chasing him... Then Attu’s mind froze as the thief screamed and fell face first in the long grass, an arrow jutting from his back.
Chapter 8
Attu stood at the edge of the lake. Bodies of dead thieves littered the surface of the water, many with their legs still caught fast in the mud. Several had managed to get out, like Korack, and died during the fight. The thieves had been trapped, with Tuktu in front of them and the lake and Attu’s men behind them. Three more Tuktu men had been shot before the thieves had run out of arrows and Attu and Toonuk’s men had been able to kill them. When the last of the thieves had fallen, a strange quiet overtook the grisly scene as the hunters and herders gathered by the water’s edge.
“What do we do now?” Suka asked.
Attu turned to Toonuk. The other hunters gathered around them.
“Some of the thieves must have stayed behind with the dogs. They’ll be close to our camp. Our women and children are still in danger,” Toonuk said. “And once they realize we killed the others, they’ll surely be after us, seeking revenge.”
