As the days went by, I lived more and more in the present moment, not only because of the fear of loss that Maara's words awakened in me, but because that was how the forest people lived. They spent little time looking forward, either in anticipation of some good thing that might happen or in dread of some trouble that might come. Present pleasures were enough for them, and while they did attempt to foresee trouble and forestall it, they considered worry a waste of time.
They spent even less time looking back. They learned from their remembered past, but they never allowed it to intrude upon the present. They refused to regret what was past changing or carry with them the useless burden of things best left behind. They teased their children out of pouts and grudges. Aamah would sometimes remind them that the story of an old dispute should be retold only when no aftertaste of bitterness remains upon the tongue. I admired Aamah's wisdom. Too many of my people retold the stories of their grievances with the intention of fanning into flame the hot coals of their resentment.
One afternoon I spoke these thoughts to Maara.
To my surprise, she said, "Don't live so much in the present moment that you forget your home and those who love you."
She had anticipated me. More than once I had entertained the thought that I would be content to spend my life among the forest people. Here Maara belonged as she would belong nowhere else. Here no great responsibility would fall upon my shoulders. I would be the heir to no great house. I would never have to face Vintel, to challenge her, to take by force the inheritance I didn't want. Here Maara would be safe, and together we could live out our lives in peace.
"We've been happy here," I said. "We could be happy here all our lives."
"Don't you care for the happiness of others?"
"I care for your happiness."
In spite of herself, Maara smiled, but I felt she was about to scold me.
"I care for my mother's happiness too," I said. "And for Namet's, who must miss you terribly. And Merin's. And all the others."
Before I could say their names, the faces of my friends came back to me, and I was a little ashamed of myself, that I had forgotten my love for them, and theirs for me.
That night, while I was drifting into sleep, I heard the echo of my own words, spoken to Maara not long before we met the forest people. The fairy folk live in the hollow hills, in vast caverns lit by a thousand lamps, where feasting and merrymaking go on for days on end. I remembered stories of people who had been invited to a fairy banquet, who had tasted of the fairies' meat and drink and listened to songs and stories that told of a world older than the world they knew. Charmed by all these things, they fell into forgetfulness, until one morning they awoke back in the world above, and although it seemed to them that they had been only a short time among the fairies, they found that in their own world a hundred years had passed. Were we now among the fairy folk? I dreamed that night of going home and finding Merin's house full of strangers who knew my name only from stories of a girl who disappeared a hundred years ago.
At the time I didn't see that Maara was preparing me for my return. The end of my apprenticeship was more than a recognition of my ability or the change in our relationship. In her cunning way, Maara had made a connection in my mind between the wolfskin I wore as a hunter of the forest people and the wolf shield I had won in battle and hung in Merin's hall. I could not go wolf-clad to the hunt without remembering that my shield awaited me. Maara had given it to me as a token that I was now a warrior, but it was not a gift. I would have to win it for myself.
The end of my apprenticeship was also a recognition of my independence. I had been in the habit of looking to Maara for direction. Now she often left it up to me to decide how we would spend the day. Sometimes, if I said I wanted to go out, she would make up her mind to stay at home, and I would have to go alone. I knew better than to change my mind. It was almost worth missing her all day to come home to her at night. She let me know she'd missed me too.
68. The Forest at Midwinter
The brook had frozen, the snow lay deep, the days were short and dark. Even in deepest winter, men went to the hunt. When there was moon enough to see by, we left long before the sun came up. Game was scarce, and too often we returned home empty-handed.
Although I had been called to nearly every hunt, I had not yet hunted with the wolves. Then one early morning I awoke with a wolf's cry in my ears. None of the hunters had come to wake me. When I got up, I saw that they too had only just got out of bed.
We walked for several hours, into a part of the forest where I had never been. I had almost forgotten about the wolves when I caught sight of one. Soon I saw that there were at least three traveling with us.
One of them, bolder than the others, stayed in plain sight. He was the largest wolf I'd ever seen, and though his winter coat was silver-tipped like the others, his undercoat was black. In the changing light he appeared at times as dark as a shadow, at other times as faint as a ghost. He was their leader, and he assumed the leadership of us as well. He kept ahead of us, so sure we would follow that he never bothered glancing back.
The wolves took us into hilly country where the snow had piled up in deep drifts. On their great paws they glided easily over the surface of the snow. The hunters of the forest people had learned from their wolf brethren to make big feet of their own. They bent supple branches into hoops and laced them with a webbing of leather strips, with wide straps to fasten them to their feet.
Worr, the leader of the hunt, had made a pair for me. It took me several days of practice before I learned to walk in them. They kept us from sinking into the snow, but the wolves had four feet to hold them up while we had only two, and I felt their impatience with our clumsiness.
A shiver of fear ran down my spine when I remembered the hunting stories of the forest people. What would happen if we found no game? Would the hunters turn upon each other?
As the day wore on, I began to tire. A cloudy sky hid the pale winter sun. I didn't know how late it was until the light was almost gone. Whether we found game or not, we would have to camp out for the night. Then I wondered if the wolves were leading us through this rough country to wear us out, so that they could make a meal of us.
What if it was so? Only our weapons made us a match for them. No, we still had fire. That thought made me feel a little better. We had fire, and there were enough of us to keep a good watch. With fire we could hold our own against many wolves.
None of my fears came true. At last we wounded a young doe, who bounded away while we floundered after her through drifted snow. By the time we reached her, the wolves had brought her down and begun their feast. This time, when we approached, the wolves refused to yield, although there were only three of them and we were half a dozen. Fierce with hunger, they stood their ground, warning us away with flattened ears and snarling lips and growls that would haunt my nightmares.
"Let them take the edge off their appetite," said Worr, and we settled down to wait.
Beneath their heavy fur, the wolves were gaunt. All the same, hunger gnawed at my own belly, and I worried that when the wolves had fed there would be nothing left for us. Hunger made the other men impatient too.
Once I had been foolish enough to ask why we never brought food with us. "To show the forest we are confident," was Worr's reply.
For a while we watched the wolves as the wolves had once watched us. Then we began to glance at Worr, looking for a sign that it was time to take our share. Suddenly he gave a shout that rang through the cold air. Startled, the wolves leaped up and turned to face us. Worr ran directly at them. Brandishing his bow, he made them scatter and knelt by the kill just long enough to cut himself a piece of meat. The black wolf quickly recovered from his fright and started to give chase, nipping at Worr's heels as he fled. I thought for a moment that the wolf would catch him, but even on his clumsy feet, Worr stayed a step or two ahead.
When he reached us, Worr was laughing. Safe now among his friends, he turned and waved the
chunk of meat in triumph at the wolf, who had stopped a mere ten paces from us. The wolf laughed back. His bloody jaws gaped open, pulling the edges of his mouth up into a grin. I never thought that wolves could laugh, but there was something in his eyes that made me think he had enjoyed the game. That didn't make me fear him less. I feared him more, because I saw how intelligent he was, and how well he understood the ways of humankind.
The wolf turned and trotted back to join his fellows, and Worr squatted down in the snow and took a bite of the raw meat. I thought that now we would all rush the wolves at once, to drive them from the kill, but only one man started toward them, while the others leaned on their bows to watch.
Surprise was lost. The wolves still fed, but with one eye on the hunter who approached them, slow and deliberate, his bow unstrung, the better to strike with. The wolves stayed just out of reach. They retreated toward the head of the carcass while the hunter took his share of meat from a hind leg. Just as he was turning to come back to us, the black wolf stood up and challenged him. The hunter backed away. With the wolf so close he dared not turn and run.
Urtik, younger than the rest of us and still as playful as a boy, bent and scooped up a handful of snow. He formed it into a tight ball and threw it hard. It shattered against the big wolf's ear. With a yelp that deepened to a growl, the wolf snarled his anger at us. In reply, the men began to chant. It was the same sound they had made for the wolf dance, but louder and more menacing. Two men ran at the wolves together, and in confusion the wolves gave way. One at a time, each man drove them from the kill just long enough to take his share.
The black wolf paid no attention to them. Now he bore a grudge. He kept his eyes on Urtik, waiting for his chance to take revenge. Only Urtik and I had not yet taken our share of meat. We went together. I tried to distract the wolf while Urtik approached the kill, but he refused to be distracted until I scooped up a handful of snow. I held it ready while Urtik cut a piece of meat. Then it was my turn.
By now the other wolves, too full to fight, had abandoned the carcass. One moved off a little distance, dragging a foreleg with him. Soon I heard him crunch the bones. The other was rolling in the snow, to clean the gore from his winter coat.
The black wolf stood motionless a few paces from the kill. He watched me, but he made no move as I approached. Without taking my eyes from his, I cut a piece of meat and began to back away. I had not practiced walking backwards. My feet in their webbed hoops tangled with each other. My arms flailed at the air, my bow went flying. Before I hit the ground, the wolf had leapt. We landed at the same moment, he on his feet, I helpless on my back. He was so close I could have touched him.
I had never been more frightened in my life. The wolf was savoring the moment. His shining amber eyes held mine, as he wrinkled his lip at me in a half-snarl, half-smile.
I had forgotten my companions. Face to face with my own death, I was alone. If I was going to die, it didn't matter what I did, so there was nothing left to fear. As helpless as I was, I prepared myself to make the wolf's victory as difficult as possible. Then I thought of Maara.
Something new came into those amber eyes, a hint of doubt, a question. They saw that something new had come into my heart. After fear had come a burning anger, not that my life would be cut short, but that Maara's fears were coming true, as if this wolf were the embodiment of the doom that haunted Maara's life. My own death was bad enough, but Maara's grief outweighed it. Even knowing death was unavoidable, I would have fought it. For Maara's sake, I would refuse it. I would refuse to die.
Against his will, the wolf looked away. Twice he tried and failed to meet my eyes. Ears flattened in submission, he dropped his head and slunk away.
Urtik came and helped me to my feet. I had dropped the piece of meat that I had almost paid for with my life. I went to the carcass and cut another. The wolves were gone.
The hunters came to butcher what was left of the doe. I would have helped them, but Worr saw my hand tremble that held the knife and told me first to eat my share. The raw meat filled my mouth with sweetness. It was as sweet as life itself.
We kept our fire small. The six of us huddled close around it. While we cooked some of the venison, we talked together in soft voices, as if we feared to be overheard. Perhaps the wolves were listening. The forest certainly was. Its dark spirit, awakened from its winter sleep by our brawling with the wolves, hovered just beyond the reach of firelight.
No one spoke of my encounter with my death, just as no one spoke of his own encounter. Each of us had faced his death that day. I saw in their eyes what they must have seen in mine, a thoughtfulness, a turning inward, to guard and tend the little flame of life that might have flickered out. No one boasted of his courage or gloried in our victory. When death comes so close, there is no making light of it.
That day I had watched each man approach the wolves alone. At the time I didn't understand why we wouldn't use our strength in numbers. At first it had seemed like a game, one of those reckless, foolish games men play that make their women frown and shake their heads, murmuring their disapproval. Now I saw that it was more than just a game. It was a dance.
When I first envisioned the hunters of the forest people standing on the edge of the abyss, I wondered what they saw when they gazed down into it. Each man seemed so alone and so defiant. They would not fall, as I had, into the arms of love. I could have no idea what they saw there until I had danced with them along the precipice, until I had peered over the edge. Not love, but power dwelt there, and these men drew power from it. I had drawn power from it. Daani too had once drawn power from it, and that was why she had given up the wolfskin. She who carried life within her could no longer dance with death.
In the stillness of the forest, at the darkest time of year, a band of hunters sat around their fire, while all around them in the dark the wolf clan gathered.
I woke with a start and saw, across the circle, a wolf sitting among us. I was about to cry out a warning when I realized that it was a man asleep, his chin resting on his chest, so that the shining eyes of his wolf's head cap seemed to gaze directly at me. I peered out into the darkness. I saw no wolves, but I felt their presence, more than the three we had hunted with.
Two of the men were dozing, as I had been. The others kept the watch. One of them saw that I was awake and caught my eye. He nodded, to pass his watch to me, then tucked his chin against his chest and closed his eyes.
When I was a child, I used to lie awake at night in my familiar room, where even in the dark I could picture everything around me, the image in my mind's eye as faithful as that of ordinary sight. As I kept the watch that night, I beheld a picture in my mind of the forest all around me. It was not a picture left in memory or conjured by imagination, but a knowledge that came less through the senses than through the heart. I saw squirrels asleep in hollow trees, rabbits in their burrows and hunting cats in their dens, weasels and badgers curled up tight against the cold. A tawny owl drifted in the sparkling air, listening for the scurrying feet of mice and voles in their runways beneath the snow. While furred and feathered creatures stirred with life, the slumbering trees reached deep into the earth in search of dreams, their roots descending, deep into the dark.
At the time I didn't think it strange that I should be aware of all these things. Even as it slept, the forest was aware of me, as it was aware of all the animals that sheltered there. It was the forest that had dreamed us into life, and I shared the forest's dream.
In the morning the wolves were gone. Their pawprints in the snow showed us how close they had come. The day before, this evidence of danger all around us would have terrified me. Now, while I still had great respect for the power of the wolves, I no longer feared them.
The journey home seemed endless. I think I must have slept through part of it. I fell into that strange waking sleep in which the body does what it must do while the mind steps through a veil into the land of dreams. I lost awareness of my body, as my dreaming self rose into
the air and looked down on a band of hunters trudging homeward through the snow. Then I lost sight of them, as my dreaming self rose above the treetops into a dark winter sky. Below me I heard the forest sighing, as a woman sighs in sleep, while above me grumbling clouds blew by. This was the time for sleep, while darkness gathered.
Through the dark of early evening, our feet guided us along the familiar path. It drew us on, as more and more we felt the pull of home, where we would be warm and welcome.
Maara took me to bed right after supper, while the men were still telling the story of the hunt. I listened, half-asleep, to a tale so full of whimsy that if I had not lived it myself, I would have considered it no more than a dreamer's wild imaginings. The telling of the story mingled in my mind with my own dreams.
I heard Worr say, "We had a good laugh over it," and knew he was speaking of the big wolf who had chased him, but he told the story in such a way that I saw him and the wolf sitting side by side at our hearth fire, as fond as brothers, sharing a joint of meat and an amusing tale.
When I heard someone speak my name, my curiosity struggled against sleep.
"And Tamara the Fast -- "
"No, Tamara Clumsy Feet."
"Yes, he fell."
Someone made a whirring sound that brought into my mind an image of myself, arms waving wildly as I tried to keep my balance.
"And the wolf -- " A whooshing sound and the shadow on the cave wall of a hunter's upraised arms. "Such a leap!"
Maara's arms tightened around me. I tried to tell her that the story ended happily, but I found I couldn't speak.
It was dark when I awoke. I was too warm. I tried to throw off the elk robe, but it had grown too heavy. At last I freed one arm, and I was enjoying the touch of cold air on my fevered body when someone wrapped me up again.
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