by C. S. Bills
“Veshria will heal, given enough time. A person can withstand much heartache, if necessary.” Farnook looked at Attu, her eyes filled with compassion. Attu realized if anyone understood living through heartache, it would be Farnook.
“You are probably right. I just feel conflicted about all of this. It used to be I simply listened and did what I believed Attuanin and the other spirits desired of me. That’s what it means to be Nuvik, isn’t it? But now...” Attu let his words trail away. He didn’t know what to think.
Keanu gave birth to a large boy. He looked so much like Soantek that even Attu could see the resemblance. It was as if Soantek had been given a baby’s body with his own head still attached. The poolik had Keanu’s light hair, which to Attu made the infant look even more unusual.
Keanu thought him beautiful, of course.
“Mothers always do,” Rika assured Attu as he left from his first visit with the baby and new parents. Attu remarked on the looks of the child as soon as they were out of earshot of Keanu and Soantek.
“His eyes are so large; he looks like a startled owl with that shock of wild light hair standing straight up on his head.”
Rika giggled. “But, it is a handsome face. The poolik just needs to grow into it.”
Meavu stepped up beside Rika and walked with them back to their snow houses. They’d all braved the outside air today since it was sunny. The pooliks were in Yural’s care, and the young parents could enjoy the quiet and the sunshine.
“I need you to look in on Elder Nuka,” Meavu said as they neared the old woman’s snow house. “Her cough is getting worse.”
“All right. I have my healer’s bag. I’ll come now. Attu?”
“I’m coming, too.”
Elder Tingiyok had volunteered to take Elder Nuka into his snow house this winter, and in spite of a few of the women’s opinions about the two of them being unbonded and living together, Elder Nuka had said yes.
“Look at the two of us,” the old woman had laughed, before succumbing to another bout of the coughing she’d been doing for many moons now. “Do you think there will be pooliks in our future?”
“Warm Fur will not let me share my bed with anyone else.” Tingiyok winked at Nuka.
“Who said anything about sharing a bed?” Nuka pretended to scowl at him. “You need someone to tend your nuknuk lamp, and that’s the only fire I plan on keeping bright.”
The others had laughed uproariously at her remark, and Ubantu had slapped his thigh as Elder Nuka walked away to gather her things from her shelter and move into Tingiyok’s. “Spoken like a true Nuvik woman,” Ubantu had said.
Meavu, Rika, and Attu stopped outside Elder Nuka and Elder Tingiyok’s snow house. “Come in,” Tingiyok called before they could call out a greeting. “She’s getting worse.”
“Oh, you are a fussy old man,” Elder Nuka wheezed, and tried to laugh. But her cough erupted, and the spasms took her back down into the furs she was lying on, gasping for air.
“Let me brew you some tea,” Rika said, and grabbed a pouch out of her bag. “This is stronger than the potion I’ve been giving you. It will help with the cough.”
“She can’t sleep,” Tingiyok said, keeping his voice low. “The cough is draining all her energy.”
“I hear you,” Nuka rasped and coughed again.
“Don’t try to talk,” Meavu said. “Let Rika give you the drink first.”
Rika blew on the potion steeping in the water Tingiyok had already heated. When it was cool enough, Attu helped Rika sit Elder Nuka up so she could drink. The old woman took a long swallow, then another.
“That feels good on this sore throat,” she said. The effort to drink exhausted her. She lay back on the furs and closed her eyes.
Rika looked to the others and shook her head. She laid her open palm on Nuka’s chest. The Elder was so thin, Attu knew Rika could feel Nuka’s heart beating her lifeblood, even through her hide clothing.
“Your heart is struggling in your chest like a bird caught in a trap,” Rika said. “You need to rest.”
“The bird wishes its freedom from this body. And so do I,” Nuka said.
“Soon you will be feeling-” Meavu began.
“No, child. Soon I will join my ancestors in the Between,” Elder Nuka said.
“You need to sleep,” Rika said, moving to cover Elder Nuka with more sleeping furs, for the old woman had begun trembling.
The nuknuk lamplight wavered, and Meavu adjusted the flame so it burned steadily again.
“I know I am going to die.”
“You are not-” Rika began.
“It’s all right,” Nuka interrupted her and turned her head to Meavu. “You can... tell them. I’m dying. I know you’ve Seen it. I won’t last much... longer.” Her breath was coming in rasps now, making it hard to speak.
“I’ll go tell the others,” Attu said.
“I’ll get Farnook to help me feed your children.” Meavu moved to the snow house entrance with Attu.
“Thank you,” Rika said as they slipped out of the snow house. “Have Yural come soon,” Rika added.
Chapter 23
“She passed to the Between in the middle of the night,” Elder Tingiyok told Attu the next morning. “Yural was able to speak with her until just moments before she passed. It was an easy death in the end.” The old man looked away, brushing at his face. “I was afraid, because of her cough...”
Both men had seen those dying of the lung sickness, and for some it was a horrible death. “I knew if anyone could keep Elder Nuka comfortable in her passing, it would be Rika,” Attu said.
“Your woman is truly a gifted healer,” Elder Tingiyok said. “When it comes to be my time, I pray to the spirits she is with me.” The men moved to prepare the burial mound. Attu thought the Elder could have given him no greater compliment than to think highly of Rika. “I pray you will be with us for a long time still, Elder Tingiyok. Elder Nuka will be missed. Such wisdom as she had is vital for our Clan, as is yours.”
Elder Tingiyok turned and smiled at Attu before resuming their walk to alert the others and begin the burial preparations.
Attu stepped into the snow house later that day to pay his respects to Elder Nuka’s spirit and the other women who were preparing her body. He was surprised to see Elder Tingiyok holding Nuka’s head in his lap, but he said nothing. The two had been close.
“Did Elder Nuka dream before she passed to the Between?” Attu asked his mother.
“If she did, she didn’t tell anyone.” Yural looked up from her preparations, her eyes full of concern. “Sometimes a dying person will dream; sometimes, not.”
“I know.” Attu turned back toward the entrance to the snow house. “I’d just hoped she would have had a word for me. Something to...” his words drifted off, and he left the snow house, his mind in turmoil.
“What had I been hoping for?” Attu asked himself aloud as he walked back to his own snow house.
Something to help me in my struggle, he realized. I wanted Elder Nuka to reassure me, to tell me I hadn’t heard the sprits wrongly. But the spirits didn’t even have a dream for me. I feel like I can’t count on anything, anymore.
“I almost hope those last thieves come soon,” Ubantu spoke Attu’s own thoughts around the nuknuk lamp that evening.
“Why do you say that?” Rovek asked. At the mention of the thieves, he’d wrapped his arm around Meavu and Tovut, who was nestled in Meavu’s arms.
“Because knowing it will happen and not knowing when is torturing his spirit,” Meavu said. She was looking at her father, but her words pierced Attu’s heart.
“Our men are hunters,” Yural said. “Give them a target they can hit and they will hit it, an animal or an enemy and they will kill it.”
“It’s driving me mad to be prepared, and then to wait, not knowing when the attack will come. I’m beginning to doubt it will come at all,” Attu said.
Yural looked at her son, but Attu looked away.
Ti
ngiyok and Attu walked back from the river, where they’d spent the day fishing through the ice. “Veshria will stay with me the rest of this winter,” Tingiyok said.
“Some of the women won’t approve, but Yural will and she’ll convince the others.”
“Nuka is gone. Veshria has begun speaking again, but she’s still grieving deeply. Someone needs to be there for the children.”
“Tishria will feel better with you there to keep an eye on Ganik.”
“The boy has been kinder to his sister since Grey Wolf’s return, but he still resents her Gifts. I think he realizes his sister won’t try to take Grey Wolf for her own, though. She trains with all the dogs, but when they’re not training, Grey Wolf never leaves the boy’s side.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be training with them as well?” Tingiyok asked Attu, pausing on the trail.
“When the thieves come, I need to be able to lead our hunters. The three of them are more than capable of directing the dogs – ours and the thieves’ – if that’s possible. And there’s no reason to believe they won’t be able to.
“Thank you for taking care of Veshria and her family,” Attu said as they entered camp. Attu grasped Tingiyok’s arm briefly, then the men each headed back to their own snow houses.
“A few of the rocks have fallen from this side, but the others we piled are still there,” Ubantu said. He and Attu and a few others had walked out to inspect the traps they’d set above the ravine. “Here is the best place now for us to hide and watch this path.” Ubantu pointed toward the highest point in the ravine, between the two traps. “With the overhang above, our hunters can hide there as well.”
“Once the thieves are trapped between the landslides, we can shoot them from above.”
“I think we should add a pit trap at the end closest to the camp,” Rovek said, looking back toward their snow houses. “If we can’t get to the logs to set off the landslide in time, at least the first of the thieves’ sleds will fall in, and that will slow them down.”
“A good idea. But how do we dig there?” Soantek asked. “The ground is frozen.”
“Use fire to thaw the ground, then dig down to where it’s frozen again and build another fire, like the Ravens did to hollow out their giant canoes,” Ubantu said.
Attu groaned with the rest of the men. It was going to take a lot of wood and a lot of digging.
But looking around, Attu saw determination growing on his hunters’ faces. Anything they could do to protect themselves was worth the effort. And Rovek’s idea had been a good one.
“I am hearing animals communicating,” Tishria said. She had come to Attu’s snow house as the eastern sky lightened behind the mountains. Attu and Rika sat with her around the nuknuk lamp while Gantuk and Nuanu played on the sleeping furs.
“Tell us more. What do you hear?” Rika asked.
Tishria shivered. It was warm in the snow house, but Rika gave her a fur to wrap around herself. “Thank you,” Tishria said. She smiled briefly then looked back at the light of the nuknuk lamp. She stared at it, apparently gathering her thoughts.
“It started in the night. The thoughts feel like Warm Fur’s, but they’re not hers or any of our dogs. I know their thoughts, their minds. At first it was just feelings. Hunger. Cold. A sore shoulder. A cut foot pad. But then it became more. Eagerness. A journey. The scent of pine, the roughness of rocks on cold feet. Many thoughts. Tired, but happy. And the thoughts are getting stronger. I can sense them clearly now.”
“Do you think it’s the thieves, and you are hearing their dogs’ thoughts?” Attu studied Tishria’s face.
“What else could it be?”
“But Keanu has seen nothing.”
“I know. But I also know what I’m hearing.”
“You were right to tell us,” Rika assured the girl.
“I don’t know how she’s doing it,” Keanu said to Attu later that day as they sat in Keanu’s snow house. “Because Tishria insisted she was hearing something, I had Farnook watch my son while I searched farther than I usually do, many days’ journey on foot to the east. I looked for rocks and pine trees. I searched lower in the sky. I even rested in the trees, something I rarely do, but the bird I was flying with had gone so far, he needed the rest. And I saw them. Tishria was right. Thieves south and east of us, coming north and west.” Keanu turned her face away from Attu, her shoulders drooping.
“What else?” Attu asked. “You saw something else, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Keanu met Attu’s eyes, the pain in hers overflowing with tears. “I saw Senga. Senga is with them.”
“No!” Veshria shouted. “I won’t believe it. Senga was a good man. A good man. Like my Rusik. He drowned. He is not evil like the others. He can’t be with them.”
“But Keanu-” Yural began.
“Keanu. Always Keanu!” Veshria glared at Yural. “She is wrong. She didn’t see Senga. He wouldn’t leave me, wouldn’t go back to them.” Her words trailed off into choked crying sounds that tore at Attu’s heart.
“Such grief, such loss for one woman, and now this,” Rika whispered. Her fingers were clenched so tightly around Attu’s forearm he thought she would bruise him. But he said nothing.
Veshria tore away from them and ran for her snow house.
“Why did Attuanin tell me to save Senga, only to let us think he’d drowned when in truth he was plotting to turn on us? He used us to get better, fooled us all, then went back to his friends once he was fully recovered, before the snow came again.”
Attu stood in his parents’ snow house. His whole body trembled with anger.
“We don’t know why, Attu. All we know is Senga is alive, and he’s coming with the thieves to attack us,” Yural said. She reached for her spirit necklace.
“I will kill them,” Attu said as a dark rage rose up in his spirit, a need for revenge like he had never felt before. “This needs to end. We will kill them all.”
“You want them to come?” Tishria looked confused.
“Yes. So we meet them when we’re prepared to fight and we’re not taken by surprise.” Attu clenched his teeth, working to control his anger.
Attu had stayed with Yural and Ubantu until he felt in control of himself again. Then he went looking for Tishria and found her out playing with some of the other children. He’d taken her aside and as soon as he began speaking to her, the anger rose in him, again.
Get control of yourself, Attu berated himself, breathing deeply.
Tishria took a step back from Attu, her eyes wide, but she said nothing about his turbulent emotions. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, instead.
“Now that you’re hearing the thieves’ dogs, do you have an idea about controlling them?”
Tishria swallowed reflexively before speaking. “I will begin telling their dogs our camp is a good place, with meat and warmth. It’s the truth. They’ll believe me. They can see Warm Fur, Grey Wolf, and Dog in my mind. They can see how happy they are to be with us, how well we treat them. It will make the thieves’ dogs eager to come quickly.”
“You can communicate with them? I know you thought you could hear them, but they can hear you from this distance?” Attu was shocked out of his anger. “And it doesn’t tire you to mind speak with them?”
“Tire me? Why should it make me tired? I’m not running or jumping; I’m just talking to them in my head.”
“If you can, please talk to them. Let them get to know you and want to come.”
“I will.” Tishria smiled at him briefly before turning back toward her shelter.
Attu stared after her.
“They are still two days away?” Attu asked Soantek after he’d flown the day’s watch flight.
“Yes. They might make more or less progress depending on how much it snows. It’s hard to tell.”
Nowhere to run. Attu lay in his furs that evening and struggled, as he had for so many nights, to think of more ways to protect his Clan. How can we face them, but keep our women and chil
dren safe? There must be a better way than hiding in caves. But caves are all we have, aren’t they?
At first light, Attu gathered a few men to walk to the point of the bay, where they could see the farthest. Attu stood on the point, looking back at the ice with Ubantu and Suka. With the severe cold they’d had for the past few days, he had thought they might be able to walk out onto the ice, move far enough out where they could hide the women and children on one of the bay’s islands, making it look like both their camp and the caves had been deserted.
“We can’t do it,” Suka said. “Look there and over there.” He pointed to two dark patches where ice had frozen, broken, and then frozen again. Just the surface was solid.
“It will take days of this bitter cold to make the ice safe enough to walk all the way to the islands,” Ubantu agreed. “Even if we walk to the point and then across. It’s just too dangerous right now.”
Attu scanned the ice one more time. His body stiffened as the rocks and snow around him came into greater focus. The groaning ice grew silent. Attu no longer felt the wind. His mind raced back to the river’s edge, to Keanu, and the vision. Everything around him looked exactly like it had that day. Except this time he was not surprised when Rika mind spoke. They’re coming, she said. Do what you must. I will keep our children safe.
Chapter 24
“How did they make it here so fast?” Ubantu asked as the men raced back to camp.
“Keanu says they must have travelled nonstop through last night,” Rovek said. “She says it’s her fault. She didn’t think to fly at night, too. Just to be sure.”
“It’s not her fault,” Attu said. “Once we knew they were traveling by day, I didn’t think they would risk their animals by pushing them to pull through the night, too. This is my fault.”
We’re heading for the landslide traps, Tingiyok mind spoke to Attu.
Attu relayed the information to the others. “You go ahead. I’ll be right there. I need to speak with Keanu, Soantek, and Tishria.” Attu veered off.
Attu crawled into the snow house on the edge of camp. Keanu came back to herself for a moment as Attu arrived. “Soantek said the thieves are hitting the dogs with the ropes on poles like I saw in your vision. Whips, I think Senga called them. Tishria keeps telling them she will make the men stop hitting them, and they will get much meat and a warm place to sleep like she’s been showing them for the last few days. She says Grey Wolf, Warm Fur, and Dog are encouraging the other dogs to chase after them to get the meat. The thieves are furious, but their dogs won’t stop. They’re nearing the ravine.”
