by J. C. Hendee
Karras spotted villagers above, hanging by ropes and standing up crude ladders as they worked at building a walkway behind the top of the pole wall. It was not until Fiáh’our neared the new wall’s far unfinished end that he slowed again, and Karras spotted Lêt’vöulsat ahead.
He had met that clan warrior once on the night he helped Fiáh’our steal back a prince from a longboat filled with the Maksœ’ín Veallaksê or the People of the Bear. It was hard to fathom that these villagers were of that same people, though certainly their tall males had the build of those barbarians if not the leather clothing and fur hide cloaks. Two of them stood talking quietly with the clan warrior.
Lêt’vöulsat looked much the same as when Karras had first seen him, dressed in a scaled mail shirt and steel plated boots. He was not carrying his heavy oaken spear or wearing his huge iron-banded helmet. To match his puffy beard, wooly red-brown hair ran around his head except for the shiny bald dome atop his skull. He looked a bit more red-faced than the last time.
More curious were the heavy, roughly hewn old planks from the shorter wall piled up beyond the trio. Most looked like they had been hacked and shattered rather than pulled down with care for further use.
“What is this all about?” Fiáh’our called, jutting his bearded chin toward the new wall.
The clan warrior muttered something more to the two men. They all nodded with grim faces, and the pair headed off elsewhere.
“The change is necessary… since the old wall was breached,” Lêt’vöulsat answered. “Fortunately, I brought Pìlit with me to manage the construction. And I see a couple of familiar faces with you, as well.”
The clan warrior nodded to Gän’gehtin, and then even to Karras, and they both returned the same as they gathered around.
“Any more coming?” Lêt’vöulsat asked rather flatly.
“Not that I know of,” Fiáh’our answered. “Why… and what made you bring your brother? Did you hear something more before you left the seatt?”
Lêt’vöulsat shook his head. “No… just call it an ache in my one big toe, I guess.”
Karras briefly glanced at the warrior’s boots, wondering which foot was missing a toe.
“So where is Pìlit?” Fiáh’our asked, looking about once. “And what do you mean by ‘breached?’”
“My brother is off felling more trees for poles, though the wall will not be half finished by nightfall. And yes, I meant breached. They used a downed tree of their own to ram through the old wall.”
“What?” Gän’gehtin hissed. “Those animals used a tree… for a battering ram?”
Karras was also surprised. He had heard Fiáh’our mention sluggïn’ân scavenging possessions off of their prey, but this seemed different, even to him.
Lêt’vöulsat said nothing with a twist of his mouth, as if the young shirvêsh’s question should not need an answer let alone have been asked. Fiáh’our let out a grumbling sigh with a sharp glance at Gän’gehtin, and Karras kept quiet.
“I cannot see them doing this, even for the large pack reported,” the old man muttered, hanging and shaking his head.
“Not one pack, at a guess,” Lêt’vöulsat replied, and Fiáh’our looked up. “From what I got out of the elders here, there were too many large males among the group… not normal for the way they dominate each other into submission and obedience. More likely three smaller packs joined together to do this.”
Fiáh’our simply stared at his old comrade. “That makes no sense. They range in small groups to hunt and scavenge as much as they can before returning eastward.”
“They had reason,” Lêt’vöulsat said. “Earlier in the moon, the villagers here managed to catch one—a scout or straggler—after two separate herders were killed, one barely past dusk. The villagers had lost almost a fourth of one herd as well. Back then there were only signs of standard packs, three to five in each by what tracks could be found.”
Fiáh’our was silent for a moment, and he frowned, though Karras still did not understand all of this.
“So they did this to retrieve just one of their own?” the old man asked. “They would not bother for one stupid enough to…”
Before Fiáh’our could finish, Lêt’vöulsat shook his head. He then turned to point out beyond the village toward the distant woods seen through the gap between the old wall and the near end of the new one.
Karras saw nothing out there, not even villagers with one rughìr trying to fell trees.
“The villagers chained it down, in plain sight, just short of the tree line,” Lêt’vöulsat said.
It was a moment longer before the clan warrior turned back. When he did, his gaze dropped from looking up at Fiáh’our. Lêt’vöulsat glanced sidelong about the village, and a hard twitch fluttered one of his black-iris eyes as he growled.
“They burned it alive in the night.”
· · · · ·
Fiáh’our exhaled as all of the journey’s exhaustion caught up to him with those words. He closed his eyes, put the heel of one fist to his forehead, and ground at the sudden ache in his skull.
How could he blame the villagers after so many years—generations—out here being plagued by ever increasing occurrences of packs? And yet, they had made it all so much worse with their rage fed by fear and anguish. And by such a vile act as this!
When he opened his eyes, in the corner of his sight he saw Karras’ face had paled, but not Gän’gehtin’s. The young shirvêsh was silent and cold, and that was all.
“The assault… how long ago?” Fiáh’our asked.
“Five nights,” Lêt’vöulsat answered. “I arrived the following dawn, and there have been no further attacks… yet. They took one woman and three men from among those who fought back.”
“Did you go after them?” Gän’gehtin demanded too sharply. “Did anyone?”
Lêt’vöulsat turned a hard glare on the young shirvêsh, as if the question was ignorant, for it was.
“There was nothing to go after!” Fiáh’our hissed. “Keep your voice down, or your mouth shut, until you know what you are talking about.”
Gän’gehtin did fall silent, though not without an angry glare in return.
No, there was no hope those “captives” were still alive, if they had still been alive when they were dragged off. This was a reprisal for what the villagers had done in like ignorance for vengeance.
That was also part of the problem with Gän’gehtin.
But as Fiáh’our glanced at the kitten, he said no more. Karras was wide-eyed as he looked between all three others around him.
“We should go out and track them,” Lêt’vöulsat said. “Now that there are more of us.”
Fiáh’our shook his head. “No, please stay here. Someone needs to watch while the work is finished… for the rest of this mess may not be done with.”
“All right,” Lêt’vöulsat agreed. “And perhaps the packs have broken up and gone their separate ways, now that they have their payment in exchange.”
Fiáh’our only nodded, knowing this was not likely, just as his old comrade would not believe his own words, either. Lêt’vöulsat had only said so because of the other two young ones present… or any villagers close by who had been listening.
“We stay the night,” Fiáh’our declared, “and head out before dawn to track them and see if they have at least broken up.”
This was as much a lie as Lêt’vöulsat’s suggestion of the same. But it needed to be said to keep the kitten from panicking further and to keep the shirvêsh under control.
“The commonhouse is still sound,” Lêt’vöulsat said. “Take your rest there, though I can do nothing about the noise around here.”
Before he left, Fiáh’our exchanged an ally’s grip with his comrade and clan-kin, hands wrapped around each others’ wrists. That night was a restless one.
Even after Karras and Gän’gehtin bedded down in the commonhouse’s back room, Fiáh’our merely sat against one wall nearby with his eyes
closed. He listened to their breaths and the noise of construction outside carrying on into the night.
Blood for blood was a fool’s barter, for it never concluded. It could only be abandoned through one side deciding that it had finally lost too much in the trade. Or when it had nothing left for the other side to demand. Even that always left the victor wanting eventually, for a further barter.
That was the problem with Gän’gehtin.
Fiáh’our’s thoughts broke in hearing Karras’ quick breaths. Even though the kitten lay perfectly still with his eyes closed…
“Go to sleep,” Fiáh’our whispered. “Nothing will bother us tonight. This I know for certain.”
He remained sitting there, and finally the kitten’s breaths grew long and deep. Even then, Fiáh’our only lingered on the edge of true sleep, listening for any warning change in the sounds around the village.
11. In Plain Sight
Karras thrashed through the underbrush in the eastward woods behind Gän’gehtin and Fiáh’our, and he could not stop shaking inside for what he knew and did not know in following the old braggart. His pack had grown cumbersome, and his hands were already sweaty, making the iron haft of his weapon feel slippery in his grip. They had left Shentángize just before dawn, and by midday the land around them had changed quite a bit.
Open bits of flat or rolling plains gave way more and more to woods that took longer to cross and always appeared to cover more upward sloping terrain the further they went. Along the way, Fiáh’our often paused, commanding Karras to spar with Gän’gehtin using the new ku’ê’bunst. Then the old man went off into the next woods.
Whenever Fiáh’our returned, sparring continue briefly as he watched, until he stepped in to apply corrections for Karras in using his ku’ê’bunst. Then they moved on. Karras had no doubt that Fiáh’our was trying to track the pack, though he hoped the old man would fail.
There were some signs along the way that even Karras could not miss. He smelled one before he knew what it was, as he swatted flies aside.
Off their path to one side, and across torn up mulch and the remains of a shattered bush among the trees, lay a small carcass… or what was left of it.
“A hare,” Fiáh’our said quietly.
It was little more than bones covered in half-dried blood, bits of fur, and clinging forest mulch. All of it was partly obscured by a whirling mass of flies. Even the small animal’s skull had been stripped of nearly all skin, and at a guess, most of its innards were missing as well, for there was too little of those in the muck made by blood.
The sickly smell thickened in Karras’ head.
“Look to that fir tree,” Fiáh’our instructed, pointing with his axe beyond the carcass and slightly ahead.
Karras saw where bark had been stripped raggedly off the tree’s base.
“They can eat anything living to survive, if they have to,” Fiáh’our explained, “though they prefer meat. They will eat that raw, though for storage they may dry or even cook it.”
“Cooking does not change what they are,” Gän’gehtin hissed. “And why this little animal, especially if they steal cattle and sheep all summer.”
Fiáh’our glowered back at the shirvêsh. “Because they are storing up for the coming winter!” he barked and then lowered his voice again. “Anything that is more than a meal in the moment will be cooked and or dried. They might even take horses for their haul, if they catch such… and slaughter those as well once they return to their own land.”
Fiáh’our turned forward, pointing his axe again at the tree. “Look above the bare spot.”
Karras tried but could not see anything. Fiáh’our motioned him around and ahead for a better angle, and Gän’gehtin followed. Karras saw something, though he was uncertain what it was, like four strokes of a heavy blade against the bark.
“Claw marks,” Fiáh’our explained. “They sometimes mark a place to return to or a scouted path for others… or it might be from a smaller one up a tree on watch.”
Both Karras and Gän’gehtin retreated a step and looked upward.
Fiáh’our snorted. “There are none left here, as the kill is a day old at least. Maybe two or three for these damp woods.”
The old man turned around.
“Never go off on your own,” he commanded. “If we become separated, and you see such marks, backtrack and watch above until you can get clear of any trees. Even then, you are not safe. Ambush is their last resort, and if they drop on you from above, you will go down as others rush in from hiding before you get to your feet. But they prefer driving their prey into the open to run it down or surround it.”
Without another word, Fiáh’our turned onward.
Karras followed, though he stared at those higher marks one last time. He was not close enough to be certain, but he wondered if two of his own fingers could fit between two of those marks. Had those truly been made by a “smaller one”?
Along the way, the more he listened for anything but their own footfalls, the more he noticed something else. Other than a breeze rustling brush, or maybe an insect he had to swat away, he heard no animals, not even a bird. It was well past noon when Fiáh’our halted again with a back sweep of his free hand.
Karras retreated a step, but Gän’gehtin pushed closer behind Fiáh’our. As the shirvêsh opened his mouth, the thänæ quickly twisted his head around.
Fiáh’our silenced Gän’gehtin with a fixed glare and then slowly crouched, motioning them to do the same. He crooked a finger over his shoulder without looking back, and Karras crept forward as the thänæ pointed.
Ten strides ahead, the trees broke and the ground sloped down out of sight. Beyond in the distance was another forested ridge across what must be a valley below. There were multiple places along that far side where barren, rocky spines shot out and down into the unseen valley. They reminded Karras a little of the mountain’s toes beneath the ocean that he had once seen in his youth.
Fiáh’our reached back and tapped Karras’ bent knee and then pointed slightly lower between two large fir trees at the forest’s edge. Karras spotted something like the mess of many footprints, and Fiáh’our twisted halfway aside in his crouch as he glanced directly down and whispered faintly.
“Look here.”
Beside Fiáh’our’s large boot was one clear print longer than the thänæ’s foot.
The back of it narrowed, perhaps not even full width for a human heel, but the front was wide and had sunk deeper. Where there should have been toe marks were five wide gouges in the bare earth, and the most inward was the largest and set back from the others.
Karras might have put his whole palm into the front of that print; all of it looked like some twisted cross between that of a too large human and some animal.
“Back… and around?” Gän’gehtin whispered.
Fiáh’our scowled before answering. “They already know we are here somewhere, or they soon will.”
Karras grew sick right then as his sparse lunch surged up his throat.
He was not supposed to be here but rather at home, preparing for the family’s next run down the coast. Why had he not just run off and faced whatever came from breaking his father’s barter with the braggart?
Fiáh’our slowly rose, looking to the valley’s far side. The way his eyes fixed in one direction made Karras stare, but he could not see what the old man watched. Almost as the shirvêsh had suggested, Fiáh’our suddenly cut rightward through the trees.
Karras had one fleeting thought of slipping back along the way they had come. Even in that, he was too uncertain of finding his way to the village without running into… something.
· · · · ·
Fiáh’our worked his way through the underbrush, staying ten strides into the trees. Already the sun had set low to the west, for the ridge he traversed shadowed the valley and the eastern forested slope.
By those tracks he left behind, the sluggïn’ân pack must have settled itself for the day on the vall
ey’s far side. Better still, some tracks were old though all were along the same path. That meant there might be fewer than he had feared, but taken all together there was a camp over there.
Fiáh’our wanted them to notice him—eventually—but not until he was closer.
He certainly would not tell this to Karras or Gän’gehtin, though for separate reasons each. He needed to be close enough to frighten some of the pack when they roused at dusk to nightfall. They would hesitate in coming at him until certain of what had crept in so close on them before they noticed. Cunning and ferocious when they knew they had their prey on the run or taken unaware, they hesitated at any who showed no fear at first and took them by surprise.
This was the way of things with sluggïn’ân. It was not something for which most had the stomach or the wits.
Fiáh’our led Karras and Gän’gehtin as far south as he could without losing sight of where he thought the pack had settled. Then he cut out of the trees to head down into the valley behind a descending spine of rock.
“What are you doing?” Karras whispered sharply.
Fiáh’our slowed to glance over his shoulder but had to snatch Gän’gehtin’s shoulder to hold the shirvêsh back.
“Finding a better, closer vantage,” he answered. “You can stay here, if you find that more appealing.”
Fiáh’our headed onward, knowing the kitten would follow out of fear, and that might be a good thing. Sluggïn’ân, as a people, were mostly nocturnal, preferring the dark in which they had the superiority of sight. Some might think to attack them by surprise while they slept, but any being when too suddenly frightened by a lethal threat would quickly resort to frenzied assault. That too might be an advantage, but not while he had two, let alone one ignorant companion, to watch over. And besides…
At the following dawn, Fiáh’our had one old tactic to try in hope of scattering the pack with as little bloodshed and risk as possible. It was a slim chance, and would leave the kitten frantic and the shirvêsh incensed, so best not to let them know until too late.
