Ahroe came up to him, took his head by the hair and lifted it up. She looked at him in the dim snow light. The blood was drying on the side of his face. She took snow and cleaned his face, gently and thoroughly. Then she found his hat and put it on him. He still said nothing. She searched the snow for some time in the gloom, finally finding his knife. This she put in her backsack. Then she came back to him and said, “I’m going to need that rope. I will have to let you go again. But I promise you that if you follow me again, I will have to kill you.”
“I will. Why not do it now?”
She grabbed his head with both hands, shaking him by the hair, screaming at him, “Why, why, why are you doing this? Leave us alone. We haven’t done anything to you.” She dropped her hands, and Assek laughed silently again. Ahroe, enraged, hit him with one open palm, then the other. Then she dropped her hands again.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. Don’t you see I have enough trouble? My whole life has been shredded away, and now you track me like a tanwolf and try to destroy me.”
“Then why not take me? I am not running from you. I am a man and will stand up to you. I will show you what men are all about. I will make a—”
“Oh, shut up. What do you know about what men are all about? Stel is five times the man you are. He—”
“Then why has he left you? Did you hold your knife to his neck too often? Wasn’t he man enough to take it away?”
“You couldn’t. No, I never did that to him. Never. Why do I have to tell you? Damn you. How do you reason with a common destroyer of women?”
“You don’t. You give yourself to Mm, and he shows you how to live.”
Ahroe hit him again, so hard she hurt her hand. The blood started to flow down his cheek again. She took snow and blotted it away again as Assek laughed. She didn’t say any more to him, but untied him and shoved him away. He staggered but didn’t fall, then stood, rubbing his wrists and laughing derisively. Wearily, she put on her backsack and started out through the dim woods.
Assek stood still for several minutes, then followed her, laughing again as he saw that she had lost Stel’s faint trail in the new-fallen snow. He held his side. When the trail dipped through a brake, he had to move slowly. Going downhill was nearly impossible with his rib. He stopped at one straight sapling, took a third knife, a small one, out of his boot, and, kneeling in pain, slowly cut the winter-hardened wood through, then stood and trimmed the shaft, removing the side branches, feeling their bases with his hands, smoothing it all off carefully as he stood in the snow. The butt end he sharpened, then using it for a staff, he again took up Ahroe’s trail. She was not walking quickly. Even in the dark he could see the fatigue in her dragging footsteps, which were not lifted above the snow anymore. She would not climb a tree again to sleep. If she did, he would spear her. After all, she was only a woman. He knew all her tricks. Like his own wife, Nimm, she had wronged him, and he would right all his problems here, once and for all. When he finally caught her, he would make her enjoy it; then he would make her suffer, not only for her own evils, but for Nimm’s as well. Her husband would be a free man because of him.
By dawn the snow had stopped. Ahroe knew she had lost Stel’s trail, but she hoped, by sweeping in arcs, to pick it up again. Now, though, she knew too that she had to rest, and had to find a place where the Shumai could not surprise her, or get to her, if he still followed. She had been walking out onto a prairie, and chose her camp with care there, at a curving bank of a stream, facing back along her trail. She prepared it meticulously, with Pelbar exactness, readying its defenses, slight as they were, according to her training. As before, she relied on the Shumai impulsiveness her pursuer had already shown. But here she would expect him to weigh and calculate. He would see the first traps, though she carefully concealed them. He might even see the second. He would not assume, she reasoned, that there would be a third set, so he would be safe. He would have armed himself, but not as she was. She would keep awake all day, then sleep only at night, when all her preparations were less visible.
Ahroe took out some dried meat and her last lump of waybread. She built a small fire and heated tea, sweetening it with dried honey. As the day progressed, the disk of the sun grew clearer, and as Ahroe looked back eastward across the open land, her head drooped repeatedly. By noon she was asleep She was still asleep when, in the gray twilight, a dark figure moving along her trail stopped and looked ahead. Assek could smell her long-dead fire as a slight whiff. He moved slowly, and then, as the lay of things came clear to him, he smile at her naivete, walked closer, and finally squatted down in the snow about fifty arms off, still and careful. His rib still hurt sharply, but he would let it hurt. When he surged in on her, he would be so fast that the pain would not reach him before he had her; it would have to be that way. He knew she would kill him this time if she could.
Assek cut the distance to her in half, then watched awhile. He would come around above. No, she had blocked that way with willow poles, and he would awaken her. Closer still, he could see the thin stakes along the trail by the stream. She would have put out small ropes or thread there to trip him. He could not cross the stream without making noise going down the steep bank, and she had broken the ice in the stream. Perhaps there were submerged stakes. He would go by way of the stakes on the bank, feeling at each step, moving like the steam of his breath.
Now he was close enough to hear her even breathing. He had made three spears and could throw one from here. Impaled, she would know who had won. But he wanted her whole. Any impaling could come later. Still Ahroe slept. He drew within eight arms of her now. Feeling ahead with a spear, he touched the last string, and, still and silent, focused until he could see how, in a final rush, kicking that string would lift the rack of pointed willows to catch him in the belly. Gingerly, he stepped over it. He could dimly see the short-sword in her mit-tened hand. Now it would be one leap on her, and, swallowing, Assek took it in a rush.
As he came down, though, Ahroe’s four wires, taut and braced on a slant, caught him and threw him sideways into the stakes set in the bank. He felt a sharp, sudden pain. Ahroe had rolled away and stood up. She reeled a little, dizzy with sleep, but he couldn’t get up.
She threw aside her sleepsack and stepped free, then came toward him.
“Ah, ah,” he murmured, in spite of himself, trying to hold his mouth shut, gritting.
“Shumai. You again. And night,” said Ahroe, vaguely. As she came to herself, she cleared away the light brush, uncovered tinder, and struck a lire. It blazed up, showing her face still puffed with sleep, and, as she looked at him, with horror. The stakes had gone through his side, and he lay, breathing roughly, his small knife still in his hand. Ahroe snapped it away with a stick, pulled him up, and bound his feet. He said nothing, his eyes swimming in pain.
Ahroe built up the fire, laid him out, shook out his fur roll and covered him with it. She looped a string from wrist to wrist behind him, leaving his arms loose but restrained. Then she knelt by him, lifted him up against her, and said in his ear, “This will hurt. I’m going to take out the stakes.” His head fell limply against her.
He panted and coughed, whispering, “Damn you, fish belly,” then screamed out as she drew back the first stake. The second, lower, was not in deeply, and he held his breath on that one, keeping silent.
Ahroe laid him back down. In the firelight she could see a slight trickle of red froth from his mouth. He panted, looking up at her as if she were some far thing in a mist. She finally began to come completely awake, and the sound of the wounded man’s breathing, rough and gasping, made her put her hands to her ears a moment. Then, ashamed of herself, she set about to stanch the blood.
Assek, panting, said, “No matter. It is all over now. It is done.”
“No,” she said. “I will get you on a litter and back to Pelbarigan.”
“No, it is done. I would not make it halfway.”
“Why have you followed me this way
? Why have you made me do this to you?”
“All women do this to all men, but not so, not so . . . obviously. Look at you and your husband. Is he not on a skewer?” Ahroe did not reply. Finally, Assek added, “It would have been simple if you would have loved me back on the river. I would have tracked your husband for you.”
“You would have killed me, not only shamed me.”
In spite of his wheezing, Assek laughed again, but this time lightly. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I might have. It is all so baffling. It is a great release, this dying.”
Ahroe built up the fire again, gathered her things, and wearily began to put together a Utter. Assek watched. “Don’t do that,” he muttered. “It will do no good. If you want to do anything, stay with me.”
Ahroe returned to him, again wiped away the blood from his mouth, and knelt by him. He smiled up at her crookedly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t understand. . . .” She stooped over him, put her cheek against his cheek, then wiped his mouth again. She smoothed his hair and held his shoulders lightly. Then she freed his hands. He didn’t move.
“The Pelbar way. You are friendly now that I am helpless.”
“No. I am now free to comfort you because I know you will not attack me. I see your hatred is all gone. That is the Pelbar way.”
“And your husband? Let him go. Let him go and be free.”
“What is he to you?”
“He,” Assek gasped. “He is a man. It is a troublesome thing.”
Ahroe could not think of a reply. For Assek, twisted as he was, it was a troublesome thing. But was it to Stel? She wondered. They were silent a long time, except for Assek’s labored breathing. The fire hissed as the new wood, snow-dusted, dried out before burning. Ahroe saw there was little she could do but stay with the dying Shumai, so she sat with him, held his hand for a time, then prayed, holding the heels of her hands against her eyes in the Pelbar manner. Assek watched her with glazed eyes. His brow furrowed and grew calm repeatedly, like clouds passing the moon. It was as if he were finally perceiving the key to intimacy in gentleness and compassion. But that could not be right. No. The hunter’s way had no place for . . . and yet. . .
Suddenly there was a sound, and Ahroe stood and whirled. A voice from the dark called, “Assek?”
“He is here. Who is it? Stand clear so I can see you. Don’t come through my defenses. I am armed and will defend myself.” Ahroe nocked an arrow.
“Is that Ahroe the Dahmen? Are you all right? I am lean, sent by your Protector. Hagen will arrive when he catches up. Where is Assek?”
“He is here. Come where I can see you.” Ahroe guided lean through the defenses. The young Shumai was a tall, thin man, with freckles across his short nose. In spite of the cold he streamed with sweat from his running. He had a full mouth, now set tight as he saw Assek. His eyes, pale blue, were red from the cold and his exertion.
With only a glance at Ahroe, lean went to Assek, kneeling down by him, taking him in his arms and putting his face by that of the dying man.
“Don’t lean on his chest. He is having trouble breathing,” said Ahroe. lean whirled and glared at her, but said nothing. She had her short-sword out, holding the blade in her mittened hand. lean glanced at it, then turned back to Assek, who nodded and smiled feebly up at him.
“It is . . . all right,” he whispered. “She did . . . nothing wrong. She only . . . defended . . . herself. She is one . . . tough woman. . . . Take good care ... of her. Do not. . . harm . . . her. Besides, she . . . would probably . . . kill you, too.” Here Assek attempted a laugh, but ended in a fit of bloody coughing, then lay back still.
lean sighed once, held Assek’s hands a few moments, then turned to see Ahroe, her face set, tears gleaming in the firelight. Turning back to Assek, he crossed the young man’s hands on his chest.
“He was my cousin,” he said, his back to Ahroe. “I am glad you are all right. I will see if Hagen is coming.” lean plunged out of the firelight to have his grief alone in the winter night. Eventually, Ahroe heard him call from several hundred arms off. There was no answer. Then, in a while, he silently returned, his eyes more red.
“I am sorry for my cousin that he caused you this anguish and trouble,” lean said. “We were wintering near you to keep him away from our people. He has had trouble. His wife, Nimm, left him, with the child, for another man. She couldn’t help it. Assek was strangely cruel to her, even when he loved her. Then when he tried to recover her, the whole band met him with spears, and he had to leave in shame. He has never been much good with women. With me he was as good a friend as I ever wanted. We read the tracks you left. You were lucky.
“After we saw what happened at the tree, Hagen had me run ahead. He is old. He was afraid for you. Assek could have easily killed you in the tree. His mistake there was in climbing for you. You took a big chance. Well, maybe not. He was destined for bad luck. He was always assuming that things would be some way, then going ahead as if his assumptions were realities. This was his worst. It has been a bitter life for him. I am glad you were kind to him here. He has had little enough of that. I could see that he had let the bitterness go, even at the moment of his death. When Hagen comes, we will find a place with rocks and give him a proper burial. You look tired. I am sorry for all this. Do you have any tea?”
As Ahroe dumbly made tea, lean arranged Assek further, unnecessarily, then lay down beneath his fur roll, putting Assek’s over him as well. When Ahroe gave him the tea, and some dried meat, he rolled over and sat up only slowly. Far off, they heard Hagen call. lean answered in a long, quavering falsetto yell that made Ahroe’s hair rise. Eventually, the old man came, tired and slumping, and took his tea without a word, staring at Assek, then Ahroe.
“Don’t worry,” he finally said. “We will not do anything but help. Do you remember when I first saw you? No? It was at Northwall, and you, limping from your running, bandaged my wrists. I was a captive on the Tantal ships. Now, Assek will keep. He has a long sleep ahead. I am tired as an old weed. Let’s get some sleep ourselves.”
Ahroe thought she could never sleep, there and then. But somehow the presence of Hagen brought a steadiness, a sense of mellowness and calm, that let her sink down into a level of peace comparable to that she felt in Pelbar-igan, where she would watch the several stars that shone in through the tall, thin windows in the great walls of stone. The two men had moved Assek out to the rim of the firelight and arranged him carefully again; then they had settled down on either side of Ahroe. Hagen fell into a deep sleep almost immediately. As Ahroe finally relaxed she knew lean still lay stiff and troubled. Once she heard him sob quietly. She didn’t move. Finally, the cold night wind rustling in the snow and dry weeds lulled her into a slumber she did not awaken from until broad day.
5
Ahroe awakened slowly, feeling ill. The two Shumai had already nearly finished a litter for the body of Assek, and had built up the fire. Ahroe walked down the stream on the ice to a nearby bend, feeling dizzy, then nauseated. She threw up, repeatedly, though with little in her, and before she was through, Hagen stood beside her, supporting her, as she leaned against a bush. She stood up and looked at him through tearing eyes.
“Are you pregnant, then?”
“I don’t know. It’s none ... I don’t know. Don’t say anything.”
“I think you are. What does that mean to the Pelbar?”
“Without Stel? Oh, well. I would have a place, but not much of one. I would not get another husband. I don’t want one. I want Stel.”
“When we take care of Assek, we will pick up the trail again.”
“We? I will do it. You—”
“No. We will. This is my world out here. I have nothing to do. My wife died on the Tantal ships. My daughter is married and now living down in the Arkon country. I was cutting wood for the Pelbar to try to help Assek, but he is beyond help. I don’t think you would do well out here alone and in your condition. Do you know how immense this country is, and how empty? It
is my world, and I am comfortable in it, but it is not yours.”
“Well, let me think about it.”
“There is nothing to think about. I am not going to let you go alone.”
Ahroe drew herself up and looked at him. There was nothing in his face but pure frankness. He had achieved the freedom of the old. “Well, then,” she said. “We will go together.” Hagen gave her a brief embrace, patting her shoulder as one would a child. Ahroe felt a touch of anger at being so patronized, but she said nothing.
They took Assek back across the prairie to a small woods by a stream. A limestone outcrop rose on the inside of a bend of the stream. Near its summit a small open area lay flat and enclosed, a pleasant overlook, facing southward, toward the prairie, over which they could see their own winding tracks. Four sets had gone out, three come back. Using flat rocks from the outcrop, the two Shumai dug laboriously down through the snow and frozen ground, scooping and tearing a shallow grave. They laid Assek in it and built a large rock mound around it from stones. Ahroe gathered as they dug. More rocks crowned it, until the whole structure made a long, high mound.
As the afternoon sun, still a disk behind clouds, waned, the two Shumai prayed and went through a slow ceremony of burial. Ahroe stood silent and drained.
When they were nearly done, Ahroe saw two figures far to the east, coming along their track. “They are the guardsmen,” said Hagen. “We ran ahead. They must have lost the trail in the snowstorm.”
“I don’t want to talk to them. They will want me to return,” said Ahroe.
Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02] Page 4
