Ivory and Bone

by Julie Eshbaugh

  I fling the stone at Orn with all my strength.

  The move exhausts me—I’m throwing from my weaker side and my grip, desperate and uncertain, slips on the icy rock. The wind goes out of me as the stone lands hard against his cheek, tearing open a gash, stark and bright, just below his left eye. Startled, he raises both hands to his face, as if to assess what just happened, his features frozen in shock, and as he does he drops both his club and an ax he held in his other hand. He’d been ready to throw the ax, his attention trained on Chev.

  A moment, and his horror transforms to rage. This rage lights in his eyes like a living thing, its attention shifted from Chev to me.

  He staggers forward, blocking me from the pile of stones. Chev separates me from your dropped spear. With no weapons of my own, I grab Orn’s ax from the spot where it fell near my feet. It’s heavy, and sleet already coats the handle. I struggle to grasp it, never taking my eyes off this boy—this virtual stranger—through the ice-encrusted hair that hangs in my face.

  Gripping the ax between my muddy hands, I gather my strength and straighten to my feet, but he is ready. He throws all his weight against me, arms extended, hitting me with so much force I cannot hold on to the ax. It flies out of my hand as both our bodies hurdle backward toward the ground.

  We land hard against an outcropping of rocks that forms the edge of the cliff. Pain sears through me as my head collides with stone.

  His weight pins me down. He claws at my neck, but his hands are wet and slick with mud. His fingers slide across the skin of my throat.

  I kick him off and crawl away, creeping backward like a spider, never taking my eyes off the boy’s face. Even through the haze of pain, cold, ice, and wind, I see his eyes—the eyes of a boy. I reach behind me, feeling for the point where the ground falls away, as he rushes toward me, his hands extended.

  He reaches me, presses a knee into my chest, grabs my shoulders, and pulls me up before slamming me back down. My head snaps back, shattering the film of ice that coats the surface of the rocks. A large splinter breaks free and cuts my cheek. My fingers scramble, clutching at the broken ice. Just as he throws his body forward one more time, I swing my hand up and stab him hard in the neck with the shard in my fist.

  His eyes widen as blood bursts from his throat. He slows, shifts his balance, giving me just enough time to roll away.

  He stumbles forward. Unable to catch himself, he falls against the ice-covered ledge. He flails, claws, and grasps, but he cannot find a handhold. I reach for him, lunge for his waist . . . his leg . . . his boot, but he is moving too fast, his weight finding no resistance on the ice-slick ground.

  A blood-red streak paints the edge of the cliff, disappearing beyond the ledge.

  He has fallen.

  The sudden quiet stuns me. All at once I notice a whisper—sleet rapping against every surface—the only sound that stirs the air. Even the wind has stopped. I listen hard, focus my ears, and below me I pick out the sound of waves. Did the bowlegged boy land in water or on rocks? I can’t force myself to look over the ledge to see if he survived. Exhaustion holds me in place. I lie on my back, letting ice collect in my hair, afraid to move, afraid to know if your brother is dead or alive.

  But this is not the time to rest, I tell myself. Rest will come, but not now.

  I sit up. Your brother still slumps on his side, exactly as he was. With the wind blowing in from the sea, I call his name with all the strength I can summon.

  His only answer is a low and ragged cough, but he’s alive.

  The relief I feel is replaced quickly by dread. I’m running out of time. I need to get him to the healers.

  I need to find you.

  I’ll send help. Those were your words as you jumped up with your brother’s knife in hand and disappeared down the trail. But help hasn’t come. What kind of fighting is happening on the ground beneath this cliff? And where are you now? If you’re hurt, how will I ever forgive myself for not running after you?

  A flicker of panic lights in my chest. Like kindling catching the flame, the flicker spreads, until my heart is racing and my breath comes in quick gasps. I have to get moving. I scramble to my feet, exhaustion gone. Standing over Chev, I suppress the horror I feel at his sunken eyes and address the immediate problem—the long shaft extending from his chest. Like the spears of my own clan, this one is carved from a mammoth’s thighbone. If I can find a way to break it, Chev can move without having to pull the spearhead from his wound.

  The bowlegged boy’s ax lies at my feet right where I dropped it. I pick it up, and Chev seems to know what I intend to do. He props himself up and steadies the length of bone against the ground while bracing the end that pierces his body with two bright red fists.

  Three swings of the ax and the shaft splinters. Three more and it breaks. Chev sits up, a short piece of bone, maybe the length of a hand, protruding from the spot below his left shoulder. Maybe it’s relief—maybe it’s fear—but a bit of color returns to his face.

  “We need to go,” I say, and tucking a hand under each of his arms, I pull him to his feet.

  I’m amazed by how well Chev is able to move. He holds the broken stub of the spear in place with one hand while he leans on my shoulder with the other. He has an uneasy energy—his unblinking eyes never leave the path.

  Freezing rain stings my face until we move under cover of the trees. This stretch of forest unnerves me—sound, light, air—everything changes. I shoot frequent glances over my shoulder, afraid that in these unfamiliar conditions, someone might surprise me from behind before I hear them.

  I have no idea what we will encounter on the trail. Have Chev’s people all been massacred? Have Lo’s?

  More than anything, I think of you. Like ghostly fruit, newly sprouted leaves hang from tree limbs fully encased in ice, and I think of what you said about winter returning. I had told you that winter would not triumph, but summer would return tomorrow. As ice crunches like gravel under my feet, I hope that time does not turn me into a liar.

  Everything is strangely still. I had expected the sounds of mayhem—screams and shouts and crashing through the trees. But for most of our journey we hear only our own boots on the ground. Once, I pick out a distant clamor like someone running, but my ears are not accustomed to the tricks trees play with sound and I can’t tell which way the steps are traveling. Before I can decipher it, the sound has faded.

  The weather confuses my memories of your camp, but I begin to think we’re almost to the huts. I hear a voice from up ahead—someone calling out. The trail bends left and I briefly catch sight of the canopy that shades your meeting place through an opening in the trees. The path winds farther left, and I lose sight of it again, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen it, and just knowing we are close makes travel easier.

  We follow the trail as it bends back to the right, back toward your camp, and my feet become just a bit lighter. The tight bands around my chest loosen just enough to allow me to draw a real breath. The sleet even seems to slow. But then Chev and I round a blind turn, and we both abruptly stop.

  A figure draped in pelts stands in the middle of the path.

  My eyes sweep his frame, my hands clenched on the two spears I carry—yours and mine—but then I realize that he is just a boy, a boy no older than Roon. Blood soaks into a scrap of hide he holds against one eye. It forms a red trickle down his sleeve, dripping into a crimson puddle, bright against the bits of ice at his feet.

  “Nix.” Chev breathes the name like a gasp. The boy does not respond, but stares past us, his one open eye filled with shock and fear. Chev’s hand drops from my shoulder and he calls out the name again. “Nix!” The cry takes almost all his strength, but whatever is left in him, he uses it to propel himself toward the boy, falling to the ground in front of him. The boy moans, startling as if he’s just awoken. He throws his arms around Chev, dropping the bloody compress to the ground.

  Noise floats down from farther up the path—the sound of boots poundin
g on the ground—and I panic. Whoever hurt this boy could be just beyond my view. I have to be ready. I position myself beside Chev and the boy and raise my spear, ready to defend them.

  I see him first between the trees—a young man running toward us, alone. He comes into full view a distance away, but not so great a distance that I couldn’t land the strike.

  He sees us—sees the raised spear—and lifts his own hands, both empty, over his head. His eyes and face are red and streaked with blood and tears. “I’m not a threat,” he calls. “It’s only me.”

  He is too far away, too blood-smeared for us to recognize his face, but Chev and I both recognize his voice.

  Before your brother can get to his feet the man is on the ground beside him, wrapping him in an embrace.

  Up close, his face is unmistakable—this is Yano, the man Chev loves.

  The sweetness of their reunion is cut short when Yano’s eyes take in the broken spear and the hole in Chev’s parka, blood forming a crust so thick it almost appears to be a separate dead thing pinned to his chest. Yano helps him stand and Chev groans—a sound so full of frustrated, impatient pain that even Chev’s strength can’t hold it down any longer.

  “Will he . . . Can you—”

  “I think so. Yes.” Mercifully, he knows what I want to say, despite the fact that fear clogs my thoughts so thoroughly I cannot speak. With Yano leading, we start down the short distance separating us from the ring of huts—Chev leaning on Yano, Nix leaning on me.

  “Have Lo and her people withdrawn?” I ask, unable to lower my guard. I turn my head from side to side and search the underbrush as we move through the trees.

  “They fled to the beach, at least,” Yano says. “They were injured—our fighters were pushing them back—when word traveled through shouted warnings that one of their boys had fallen from a cliff. You could see the panic spreading. Then Morsk called out that he would destroy their boats if they didn’t retreat. I guess the fear of being stranded drove them all back to the shore.”

  We finally climb the last rise and your camp comes into view. The sight of it shocks me; the meeting place is so transformed. I remember your clan gathered beneath this canopy. The shade it gave seemed to represent the protection and prosperity you had found here in the south.

  But unlike that first night I came here, when your meeting place was filled with the sound of conversation, your meeting place tonight is filled with moans and cries. Men and women are stretched out on the ground, bloody and broken. Some look up as we pass. Their pleading eyes terrify me. Others lie completely still. These scare me even more.

  Am I to blame for this? I was friendly toward Lo, unable to see through her lies. Did I contribute to this pain?

  I notice a woman washing wounds on a young girl’s lower arms and hands and I realize she is Yano’s sister, Ela. Yano leads your brother to her and she immediately makes a place for him directly beside the girl she is treating. When the young girl recognizes him, she calls out Chev’s name, announcing to the whole clan that the High Elder is here and alive. As the whole crowd cheers I recognize a familiar voice—the voice of your sister Seeri. I search the crowd and find her beside your sister Lees. They are both near the center of the space, binding wounds.

  Seeri, Lees . . . But you are not here.

  There’s no reason for you not to be in camp. The fighting is over. As long as you are safe and well, you should be here.

  But you are not here.

  My ears begin to ring. My vision shrinks down to a small spot directly in front of my feet. Everything else goes dim around me, but I don’t care about that. I need only this bit of focused vision to make it through the mayhem under the canopy. Following this bit of light, this spot of ground right in front of me, I find my way to the threshold of your hut.

  The drape that forms the door hangs askew, exposing the shambles inside—the hides that form the walls, hides I’d noticed for their intricate patterns, have been torn loose, their surfaces splattered with tiny droplets of blood.

  Outside the hut, I find the shaft of a broken spear at the foot of the path that you led me down earlier today—the path up into the pass to the cliffs and the cave. The sleet is still falling hard and the wind is increasing. Without deciding on a course of action or even letting myself think, I begin to climb the trail.

  As the path narrows and heads into the trees, something draws my eyes to the ground—something small and white. Why would my attention be pulled to such a thing—something so simple and plain it resembles a pellet of hail? I bend down, picking up the tiny bead.

  I find another white bead, and then another. As I gather them together in the palm of my hand, I can’t deny what I have found. . . .

  Pieces of your ivory pendant lie scattered on the ground.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I follow the trail back up into the trees, ducking into the shadows, gauging my progress up the slope by the feel of the ground under my feet—first spongy, turning to gravel, turning to rock. Here, the underbrush thins, the soil too grudging and meager to support roots. Finally, I emerge above the trees.

  In front of me rises a cliff, and above the cliff, a canyon of stone. Shivers—part fear, part cold—ripple across the skin of my arms and back as I make my way up the cliff and into the canyon. Climbing down this trail this morning was difficult. Climbing up now, even as the sleet finally slows, might be impossible.

  Did you really come this way?

  I scramble up and over boulders, each one more slick and treacherous than the one before, water racing around the sides. I come to the place where the trail splits, rocks rising to my right, up and out of the ravine, leaving the rapids below to my left. Ascending the rocky ledge, my feet test every surface, searching for the safest footholds.

  Halfway to the summit, I reach a huge shelf of stone—a hanging boulder as flat and smooth as my mother’s cutting stone. Ice coats the surface. My eyes trace its edges, seeking the safest route. Water runs off the canyon wall, draining into crevices in the trail—small gaps between boulders and knobs of rock—before spilling over the edge and into the ravine far below. My eyes follow the course of the rushing water as it passes beneath this slick shelf of rock.

  That’s when I spot you.

  You lie perfectly still, directly below the place where I stand, on a strip of rock just above the water. Did you fall? Before I can process all the possibilities, I’m lying on my stomach, lowering myself, feetfirst, over the edge. I hang by my hands for just a moment before I drop into the ravine.

  Even through my heavy sealskin pants, the cold cuts into me like daggers as I slide into the water. Surfacing, I call your name, but the sound is swallowed up in the roar of the rapids. I scramble to the side of the stream. The wall is too steep to climb out, but the water runs shallow and my feet find the bottom. Careful, careful. My legs brace against the force of the current. If I fall—if the water pulls me away—there will be no hope for either of us.

  You lie on your side, facing away from me, your legs underwater from the knees down. Your hips balance on a small ledge that protrudes from the wall of rock just beyond you.

  I call your name again, but you give no response.

  The dread I’ve been feeling transforms to gradual acceptance—you are not conscious. You can’t be—if you were, you would answer. But you must be alive. . . . You must be. The position of your body—your head out of water—you couldn’t have fallen like that. No, you must be alive.

  All I need to do is reach you, to find a way to lift you out of the ravine.

  I lean heavily into the current, taking slow, steady strides, clutching at the canyon wall. One . . . two . . . three more steps and I am there.

  I reach out to lay a hand on your back, but before I touch you, my hand jerks away. A wide stripe of blood paints the back of your parka from collar to hem.

  A head injury . . . blood must be running down from some hidden wound.

  Careful to hold on to the rock you lie on, I run my ey
es over the stain and up the length of your back to a dry, crusty puddle on your collar, protected by your draped hair. I reach out a hand and gently touch you. To my surprise, you startle and turn toward me.

  “You’re awake.” It’s obvious, but it’s the only thing I can think to say.

  “Where is she?”

  “Where’s who?” I ask, though I’m certain what your answer will be.

  “Where’s Lo?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, taking care to look behind me without compromising my balance.

  “She found me in my hut—I’d gone to get another spear. She found me, and we fought. I cut her—a gash across her forehead. There was so much blood. . . .”

  I remember your hut, the bloodstains on the walls.

  “I threatened her, warned her to run back to the beach, but she said I would have to kill her—I would have to kill her or die. . . .” Your voice trails off and your eyes fall shut, as if you have dropped back to sleep.

  “Mya?” I squeeze your shoulder and your eyes fly open again.

  “She followed me,” you say. “She chased me into this canyon. We struggled. . . . We struggled and we fell.”

  Could Lo still be here? To my left and right, to my front and back, I see no one, yet there are plenty of spaces and crevices between rocks for a person to hide. We need to get out of the open. The cave is our best hope, but we’re not there yet.

  Despite your quick reaction to my touch, you are far from alert. Talking seems to have exhausted you. You scowl and turn away.

  “Mya, you can’t sleep here. Mya!” I shake your shoulder, not rough but firm, and you spin around, wide-eyed, as if you’d already forgotten I was here. You whirl so quickly I grab you by the waist to keep you from falling from your narrow perch. “Mya!” Your eyes are already closed; your forehead slumps against my shoulder. I take your face between my two palms. Your cheeks feel warm, despite the cold all around us. “Can you stand?” I shout into your face. “We need to get out of here.”