First, he walked over to the wall. It looked like crystal, especially in the moonlight, but the cold it radiated and the wetness around it proved it was ice. He reached up and touched it, but quickly withdrew his hand; it was so cold it had almost burned his skin.
He kicked around the wreckage, hoping he wouldn’t find any more bodies, but that hope died when he nudged something soft and squishy under a pile of ashes. He unearthed something that appeared human at first glance but couldn’t have been any of his tribe. The body was too burnt for any detailed recognition, but the clearly pointed ear and an abnormally large eye told him all he needed to know. It wasn’t human.
Nikolai and Sigmia had told him what Samara had claimed happened, but he had doubted them then. Now the creature lay directly in front of him, and its existence filled him with wrath. He searched for tracks.
Pacing the wreckage, he kicked trees and branches around, not really concentrating enough to find anything. He breathed heavily through his nose, his lips pressed tightly together. He stopped and took a deep breath.
What’s gotten into you? he thought. He knew he was throwing a tantrum. After regaining some control, he searched the clearing at least three more times and found nothing. His anger flaring back up, he ran at the dead elf and kicked it as hard as he could. The body crashed against a charred tree and bent around it.
He stood staring at it, feeling useless, powerless, and scared. He wondered how his little girl had survived this destruction. Somehow, she had, and he was glad. He began to calm down. She was a special little girl, he knew that.
Perhaps Karena had died trying to save his daughter. He liked that idea. Walking back to the martyred girl’s body, he lifted her and carefully carried her through the ruined blackberry field and down the slope, heading back toward camp.
Chapter 4: Eruption
Samara sat alone on Sigmia’s mat, hugging her knees. Familiar faces made a circle around a sizable fire pit. Many of her tribesmen talked among themselves, and she could hear some of the children crying. She felt like crying, too, but her tears were spent.
Some of her cousins had tried to comfort her, but she had turned her back to them. She had told them all that she could; now she wanted to be left alone.
At some point, Sigmia had disappeared. Samara had missed her leaving during the commotion of the gathering. She looked around now to see if the old shaman was with another group around the fire.
She couldn’t find her, but she did spot Nikolai standing alone at the edge of the camp, staring off toward the mountains. She would have liked to go out by herself, too; however, she had no desire to move. A hollow pit seemed to have formed in her stomach, and moving would only make it worse. Even the decorations that spotted the camp in preparation for the night’s festivities seemed drab to her.
From behind her, Sigmia hobbled up and sat down on the mat. A wrinkled frown hung on her face, and she stared off into the night, deep in thought.
When she noticed the girl studying her, she smiled, leaned over, and gave her a gentle hug. Out of all the hugs Samara had received around the fire, Sigmia’s felt the best. She leaned into her grandmother’s lap, hoping no one else would notice her if she stayed low.
Sigmia stroked the child’s straight, black hair and asked, “Would you like to go to sleep, love?” Samara shook her head. She wanted to stay up and wait for her parents. “Well, you can sleep on my lap if you like. You’re a good little girl. Do you know that, Samara?”
She let the question hang. She felt like a horrible little girl. Good girls didn’t kill their family. When Samara failed to answer, Sigmia continued, “Your father left tonight; he went after your mother.”
“I know,” Samara said. She twisted a leather strand that hung from the old lady’s necklace, the bone on the end twirling in front of her eyes.
“And you understand that I’ll take care of you if anything happens? You’ll never be alone, love.” Samara refrained from answering, but she wanted to tell her that she was already alone.
She dropped the string and stared at the ground. Tears pooled in her eyes as she thought about never seeing Karena again, and she really doubted that she would see her parents again, either.
At the thought of Karena, she peeked over at Nikolai, and guilt flushed her face. He leaned against a tree outside the camp, the glare of the fire concealing most of his details. His long, brown hair spilled slightly past his shoulders. He was tall, even though he rested on the tree, and Samara observed that he wasn’t just staring, but scanning the landscape, looking for signs of the returning party.
She dropped her gaze to the ground again, sniffling. She wondered what he would do if he knew it was her fault Karena was dead. Her eyes closed, and she saw her friend lying twisted and broken on the ground, eyes staring, unblinking and lifeless. She snapped her eyes open and set her gaze back onto the bleary figure of Nikolai walking out into the night.
She sobbed, and Sigmia comforted her with shushing sounds. “Oh, poor little girl,” the old lady cooed, rocking back and forth. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” she repeated, hugging the child’s head to her soft belly.
Through her tears, Samara watched as people began to stand up excitedly around the fire pit, every head turning toward the mountains. Hopeful, she sat up, drying her eyes on her sleeves.
Using her tall stick, Sigmia pulled herself up as well, her knees sounding like twigs breaking as they straightened. Out of the dark, Pyotr, Yaroslav’s oldest son, limped toward them, leaning heavily on Nikolai’s shoulder.
Trying to see around the crowd of people, Samara searched for her mother and father, but she seemed to be the only one looking for more. Sigmia walked over to Pyotr.
His wide eyes stared at the old shaman. Dried blood pasted strands of his beard and hair together in grisly dreads. The cluster around him rattled off questions, everyone trying to speak over each other, and Pyotr shouted something frantically, trying to be heard. Pounding the butt of her staff against a rock, Sigmia’s voice carried above the din, “Silence!”
After everyone quieted down, Pyotr’s gaze still flitted wildly between the expectant faces around him, and he said, “It was a trap.” Samara’s heart beat loudly in her chest, and her breath came in short pants. “The women are still alive, but they were shackled and chained. I saw them before the . . .”
He grasped Nikolai’s shoulder tightly, speaking feverishly, “The men . . . Father. All of the men are dead! If any lived, they too were captured.” He bent over and vomited a putrid yellow liquid. Then, wiping the bile from his mustache, he continued, “The demons hid high in the trees, and arrows rained down at us.”
Some of the children wailed at this news. Samara understood their pain, but at the same time, she breathed a little easier upon hearing that her mother still lived.
Talking over the cries, Pyotr continued, “I ran back for reinforcements when I saw everyone dying around me. The monsters were fast like cats. I killed one of them, but there were too many.” He put his chin to his chest and breathed heavily.
Sigmia placed her wrinkled old hand on his shoulder. “Do you know where they were heading?” she asked.
His wide, haunted eyes peered back at her through his dangling hair as he said, “West. Over the mountains.”
Cries rose up from all around the fire. “What shall we do? The tribes never leave the Hunting Grounds, and if you send more for them, we will fall weeks behind the mammoths,” an old man said above the din.
“Many of our best hunters were killed tonight, and even more of our women have fallen victim to these creatures. We cannot leave our own to be carried off by them,” Sigmia responded to the old man and to those who shared his voice. “Pyotr, as chief after your father’s death, what do you advise?”
“I need all the men. We’ll follow them, and we’ll hunt them down . . . kill them. We will follow them to the ends of the earth if we have to.” Spittle flew from his lips as he spoke. He wiped his hair out of his face, revealing
more blood. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and his skin had an unnatural, sallow tint.
People glanced around at each other with grim faces, some voicing their concerns, while many of the children still cried. Samara sighed with relief, knowing they would go to save her mother.
She felt like shouting at the few who didn’t want to listen to Pyotr. Although he was acting chief, important matters concerning the welfare of the tribe would ultimately land on the shaman’s lap, and Samara knew that she usually deferred to the wishes of the majority of the tribe.
Pyotr relinquished Nikolai’s support and stood as straight as he could with an arrow still protruding from his leg. “We are the strongest tribe on the Hunting Grounds,” he said. “We cannot allow these creatures to steal our women. If we stand together, we can defeat these demons, just like any other enemy.”
When his angry gaze landed on those who had muttered their doubts, they looked away, unwilling to challenge him. “Go get your spears.” The remaining hunters turned and ran for their weapons.
Pyotr cast around for any sign of disagreement. When he saw Samara watching him, hope glowing in her dark eyes, he smiled at her. Although she did feel hopeful, happiness of any kind eluded her. The smile she returned to him was a weak one, and her face felt too heavy to support it.
Without warning, he lurched forward, a spray of blood dotting Sigmia’s face. Shock silenced everyone. Then Samara broke the silence with a scream. Pyotr grasped the tip of an arrow that protruded through his neck. He tried to say something, but blood bubbled out of his mouth instead. As he fell forward, Nikolai caught him.
Samara watched Nikolai, as if in slow motion, lay his dying brother on the ground. He was screaming, but the sound didn’t register; rather, she saw his mouth open, spit flying from it. People scattered away from the fire as more dropped, arrows pincushioning their bodies. The elves descended on the camp like a pack of wolves.
Sigmia returned to Samara and hauled her to her feet. “Come, we’ll go to my yurt. Quickly!” Samara watched older men trying to fight back, but the elves easily overpowered them.
One of the older women gathered up the rest of the children and tried to herd them away, but an elf cut her down. The children ran, but a spiderweb net appeared and fell upon them. Samara noticed the faint, blue aura around the elf grow brighter during the exchange. She wanted to see the fate of her peers, but Sigmia rushed her through the flap of her yurt.
The shaman turned to Samara. “We’ll wait in here until the hunters chase off these elves.”
The old woman stooped and grabbed her backpack. “I keep this bag full of emergency items for when I’m out gathering my herbs. Keep it close to you. If everything goes wrong, I want you to sneak away . . . run. Your father went into the mountains. Run to the forest and hide, wait for him to return.” She tied a water bag to the backpack and placed some dried foods inside it.
“What if he doesn’t?” Samara asked.
The shaman tied a few smaller bags to the pack, then handed it to her. She put a wrinkled old hand on the child’s shoulder. “I don’t have all the answers, love, but our people are travelers,” she said, smiling down on the girl.
“You’ve spent your life walking or riding horses. In the unlikely event that you find yourself alone, walk east to Mammoth River. Then follow that south to Standing Lake. The fishing people won’t turn you away.”
The idea of traveling alone scared Samara, and she said, “You can come with me. Let’s both sneak out and hide from them right now.”
The shaman chuckled. “Samara, we’re members of a great tribe. I am the grandmother of the greatest tribe. I must stay and protect my people.” She straightened and walked over to some hanging baskets.
Samara clung onto the older woman’s clothes. She could hear the fighting going on outside and feel that strange energy floating not too far away, never too far away, but more enticing as her fear grew. It called to her; she hungered for it.
She wanted to seize the energy like she had in the mountains. It had felt good, but she hesitated. Karena’s broken form appeared in her mind when she touched the energy, so she recoiled from it.
Sigmia pulled a closed clay bottle from one of the hanging baskets. As she grabbed another, the tent flap kicked open. The same elf who had tossed a net over the children stepped in. When he noticed the old woman and the child in the dwelling with him, his mouth twisted into a cruel smile.
Samara grabbed at the energy and felt it coiling around her invisible hand. She yanked away before it could take hold. She watched as her grandmother tossed one of the clay jars, following its progress as it arched through the air. The elf followed her gaze just in time for the jar to smash into his forehead. He bent over sideways, screaming words Samara didn’t understand.
“Lift the hides. Run, Samara!” Sigmia demanded. Samara looked at her, hesitating uncertainly. “Go!”
She quickly lifted the taut hides and slid the backpack underneath them. She slid her feet out first, and when most of her body was outside, she glanced back.
Having removed his shirt, the elf was trying to use it to wipe the burning contents of the jar from his face. He only accomplished smearing it down his neck; everywhere the lye touched, his skin slid onto his shirt. Eventually, he fell to the floor, writhing as the chemical continued to burn him. Having seen enough, Samara slipped the rest of the way out, dropped the hide back into place, and ran.
As she neared her hut, her heart sank. Her father must have put the forge out before he left, meaning he intended to be gone longer than she had expected. She plunged into the dark interior of the yurt, then dropped to her knees beside her mat. Moving her hands back and forth across the leather and the ground, she found the pouch she sought.
Ready to go, she started to get up, then noticed a slight blue aura coming from inside her harvesting basket. Investigating, she identified her knife, encased in its sheath, but the handle was different, and the glow had come from something on the pommel. She lifted it out of the basket to study her father’s workmanship. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the blue gem she had found had been set into the carved mouth of a panthera.
She wondered if her father would have left if he had known that the elves were going to attack. The shaman had instructed her to hide at the edge of the woods to wait for him, but after seeing the cold forge, she doubted that he planned on coming back any time soon.
Suddenly, it was all too much for her, and she curled into a ball on her mat and cried. Everything she had grown up with was gone. Her mother, her father, and probably her mentor, Sigmia. She heard the screams and fighting outside and thought she might just lose the entire tribe. The hollow pit in her stomach deepened, and the energy teased her.
You can end this. You can take that power and rain fire on the elves, she heard in her head. She hadn’t heard the voice for most of the night, even when she needed answers, but now it returned. “No,” she whispered. “Not that. Never!”
But they took your mother, and they’ll take the rest, too. Samara wondered what the elves did with their captives. The elves will use them as slaves, and they’ll be kept in cages the rest of their lives. Where the thought came, she didn’t know, but she trusted that it was correct. Regardless, she didn’t want to use the power, and she didn’t want to kill anyone else.
Use only small amounts at a time, the voice said. In her mind, she saw herself sending little fires against the elves, then remembered how it had taken over before. She remembered how much she had enjoyed it. No, she thought, that won’t work.
However, the power hung just outside of her consciousness, tantalizing her. She stroked it, felt it try to cling to her with every mental touch. Grab it, she heard, as if the temptation from the energy itself wasn’t enough. If you learn to control it, you can save everyone.
Samara sat, weighing the thoughts put into her head against her own. While she argued with herself, the flap to her hut opened, and an elf came in. The rock he carried
lit up the interior of the yurt. She glanced curiously at the stone, her eyes briefly widening at the flameless glow.
The elf studied the gem set into her knife and smiled, glancing up at her. Sticking his head out of the yurt, he yelled something in his language. The energy coiled around her invisible grasp like a snake catching its prey.
The intruder looked back in and pointed at her knife with his sword. With his other hand, he gestured for the kukri. Instead, she pulled the blade from its sheath and pointed it at the elf, who laughed. He stepped forward and clutched her wrist, squeezing until the knife fell.
Now! the voice commanded.
“I can’t!” she said. The pain in her head came back as she fought against using the power. The elf laughed as he lifted her off the ground.
NOW! The voice filled her head.
The elf tossed her over to the flap of the hut. Poking her with the tip of his sword, he trilled something, and his blade bit into her arm. A drop of blood trickled down and dripped off her fingers. She watched the blood crater into the dirt. The elf turned to pick up the dagger from her mat.
When he turned back, he saw Samara blocking the exit to the yurt. She glared at him, feeling the energy welling up inside her. Her hands hung at her sides, clenched into little fists. Her resolve exploded, and the energy came rushing into her with renewed vigor. The elf chuckled and poked her again, but she ignored the shallow cut and continued blocking the exit.
She lifted her hand and mimed the elf’s gesture for her blade. He let out a full laugh that sounded like music. His foot came up and shoved her out of the tent. She stumbled backward, landing hard on her backside, but she didn’t stop glaring.
The Unfettered Child Page 6