by John Norman
There were three sleds in our party. Karjuk had his own, and his own snow sleen. The second sled was Imnak’s, and the third was Ram’s, brought with him from the south, which the men of the permanent camp had drawn to the camp fol him. Imnak’s sled was drawn by a snow sleen borrowed from his friend, Akko, and Ram’s sled was drawn by another snow sleen, replacing the one the Kur had slain outside the camp. He had purchased it from Naartok for Bazi tea. Karjuk sledded alone; so, too, did Ram: Imnak and I brought up the rear with Imnak’s sled, fashioned long ago at the remains of the wall. The four girls traveled with us, usually running as we did, with the sled. Sometimes, as they grew exhausted, we would permit one or another of them to ride upon the sled.
Karjuk lifted his hand, to again commence our journey.
“No, wait!” called Imnak. He was looking up at the sky. No storm had yet struck, but the sky was growing overcast. We had been five days now upon the ice. A storm, for days, had foreboded, but it had not yet materialized. In this we had been fortunate. As I may have mentioned the arctic night is seldom completely dark. Indeed, the visibility is often quite good, for the light of the moons, and even the stars, is reflected from the vastness of the ice and snow. I looked about at the irregular and jagged shapes, wierd and mighty, yhich loomed about us, of the pack ice, eerie in the deep shadows, and bright, strange light of the moons and snow. We stood small in the midst of incredible and fearful geometries. There was a beauty and a menace in these gigantic structures, fashioned by the bitter gnawing of the wind and the upheavals of the sea stirring beneath us. Sometimes we could feel the ice move. Sometimes we bridged, carefully, leads of open water, broken open by the groaning, shifting ice, soon to close again, almost beneath our feet.
Imnak pointed upward, back toward the south. We could not see the stars there. Cloud cover obscured them.
“Let us make camp here,” called Imnak to Karjuk.
Karjuk did not respond, but looked ahead, onward. Again he lifted his arm.
Ram came up to us. “There Is going to be a storm,” said Imnak. “We must camp.”
Karjuk again lifted his arm.
“I must check the runners on my sled,” called Imnak. Karjuk stood still, waiting.
The runners of our sleds were of wood. At the beginning of the season, usually in the late fall, a paste, a muck, formed of earth, and grass and moss, for solidity, is shaped and placed on the wood, some five to six inches to thickness. Ice will adhere to this coating, which is plastered thickly on the wood, as it will not to the wood alone. The ice is extremely important. At low temperatures snow becomes granular and has a texture somewhat like sand. A coating of ice on the earthen plaster, fixed on the runners, reduces friction. The coating, or plaster, will normally suffice, with patching, for a season. The layer of ice, of course, is renewed often, sometimes many times a day. Urine, which freezes instantly, is often used for the ice coating. But, too, a skin bag, filled with snow, placed within the clothing, next to the body, which causes the snow to melt, may also be used. At night, when the sled is not being used, it is overturned, so that the runners will not freeze to the ice. Sleen harnesses and traces are hung on a pole, thrust upright in the snow, to protect them from being eaten by the sleen.
Imnak relieved himself, icing the runners. He also used water from the skin bag he carried about his waist. One may also take snow in one’s mouth, melt it and spit it on the runners, but this takes. time. When one eats snow, incidentally, one melts it first, thoroughly, in the mouth, before swallowing it. This helps to preserve body heat and prevent shock to the system.
“Let us continue on,” called Karjuk.
“A storm is coming,” said Imnak, pointing to the southern sky. “Let us camp.”
“We will camp later,” said Karjuk.
“Very well,” said Imnak.
“Is it wise to continue on now?” asked Ram of Imnak.
“No,” said Imnak.
We righted our sled.
“Tie the slaves to the sled,” said Imnak.
The wind was rising.
I took a length of binding fiber and tied it about Arlene’s neck, knotting it tightly. It was about fifteen feet long.
“Master,” protested Arlene.
“Oh!” she cried, struck brutally to the snow. She looked up at me, blood about her mouth, the tether on her neck.
Audrey hurried to me, to be fastened by me to the sled. I tied another piece of binding fiber, smiling to that with which I had secured Arlene, about her neck. Audrey then stood before me, tethered. I threw her to her knees in the snow before me, beside Arlene. Let Audrey not think she was privileged, or better, than Arlene. Both were only slave girls at my feet. I then tied the two loose ends of the tethers about the base of the tabuk-horn upright at the rear, right-hand side of the sled. Meanwhile Imnak had similarly secured Barbara and Poalu to the left-hand, rear upright on the sled.
“Do you want your wrists, too, bound behind your backs?” I asked Audrey and Arlene.
“No, Master,” they said.
“On your feet, pretty beasts,” I said.
They leaped to their feet, obeying me.
Karjuk stepped on the runners of his sled, and cracked his whip over the head of his snow sleen.
Ram’s sled fell into line behind him.
“On!” called Imnak, taking his place behind his sled, and cracking the long-bladed sleen whip over the snow sleen. Akko’s beast, which was in his traces. The animal, with back hunched, and its wide, furred paws, claws extended, scratching, threw itself against the harness, making taut the trace and linkage, and the sled moved. From the side I gave it an additional shove, to help it gain momentum. Imnak did not now ride the runners of the sled, but ran between them. I moved at the side of the sled, on its right. The girls, now on their tethers, ran, too. Sometimes a man or woman runs before the sled, to hasten the sleen, which will normally match the guide pace. Now, however, that was not necessary, as we had before us two sleds to set our pace, that of Karjuk, in the lead, and that of Ram, behind him.
From time to time, then standing on the runners. Imnak would turn to regard the jagged terrain behind him. This is a habit of red hunters. It gives a check on what may be behind one, and, too, it shows him what the country will look like on his return. This is a procedure which helps to prevent the red hunter from becoming lost. It makes it easier to find his way back because he has already, in effect, seen what the return journey will look like. He has, so to speak, already filed its appearance in his memory. This habit, of course, tends to be less fruitful in a terrain of sea ice, such as that in which we now found ourselves, because of the bizarre, twisted sameness of much of the ice scape. There remain, of course, the stars and the winds. Winds are extremely important in direction finding to the red hunter, for at certain seasons they prevail in different directions. Indeed, even in the darkness, the total darkness of an overcast sky in the arctic night, when the winds do not blow, he may often find his way simply by feeling with his mittened hands the alignment of ice crystals on slopes and blocks, which are a residue of the earlier passage of such winds. This is not to say that red hunters cannot become lost. They can. On the other hand an experienced trekker usually has a good idea of his whereabouts. The lay of the land, the winds, the stars, help him with directions, as well as, of course, his own keenly developed sense of orientation, probably selected for in the harsh environment. Distance he tends to measure in terms of sleeps. Interestingly, in his descriptions and rude maps of terrain, scratched in the snow, he shows little awareness of or interest in land masses or shapes. His interest tends to lie in given geographical points and landmarks. The shape of a peninsula on which he may have a permanent camp, for example, is of less interest to him than is the direction and distance to the next nearest camp. I suppose this makes sense. If one had to choose between cartographical fidelity and arriving alive in the next camp perhaps one would sooner sacrifice the former excellence to the latter desideratum. And even if a red hunter should bec
ome lost it is normally possible for him, at least for a time, to live off the land. He generally carries such things as hooks, fish line, knives, snare strings and harpoons with him. Sometimes, when one does become lost, as on a trading journey south, it takes months to find his way back to his camp. “Where have you been?” he is asked. “Oh, I have been hunting,” he says. Sled sleen, too, of course, may be killed for food. It is important, of course, to be the first to kill in such a situation. A sufficiently hungry snow sleen will turn and attack its driver. There is much danger in the north, and much to know. I was very pleased to be in the company of Imnak. Though I thought him strange I admired him greatly. I did not delude myself that I did not owe him much. It was fortunate we were friends, for between friends there can be no debts.
I, too, from time to time, looked back. This was not only to consider the terrain as it might appear on a return journey, something I had learned from Imnak, but for another reason as well, one held in common by warriors and red hunters. It is well to see what might come behind one.
I fell back a bit, jogging beside Imnak.
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“It has been with us for four days,” he said.
“Do you think Karjuk knows it is there?” I asked.
“How could he not know?” asked Imnak.
“Do you have any recommendations?” I asked.
“Let us continue to press on,” said Imnak. “I think it would elude us in the ice. And I do not wish to turn my back on Karjuk.”
“But he is the guard,” I said.
“Did you see the head of the ice beast which he brought to camp?” asked Imnak.
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you examine it closely?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But Karjuk is the guard,” I said.
“Yes,” said Imnak. “But whom does he guard?”
26. Imnak Makes A Camp; Poalu Boils Meat
The wind howled about us, and I could hardly keep my footing.
“We must stop!” I called to Imnak, over the storm. I do not know if he could even hear me, and yet he was little more than a yard away. It was utterly dark. The moons, the stars, were obscured. Winds struck against the hides I wore, almost tearing them from me. I kept my left hand, mittened, on the supplies on the sled. It then began to snow, the crystals whipping against our faces, driven almost horizontally over the level and among the pinnacles and turrents of the jumbled, bleak terrain. I pulled down my hood. The lart fur, with which it was trimmed, snapped against my face on the left, and was almost torn from the hood on the right I felt my face might freeze. I could see nothing. I stumbled on, holding the sled. I could not see the girls but I knew they were fastened to the sled. Imnak had had us tether them thusly, that they might not be swept away from us and lost in the storm.
“We cannot see where we are going!” I cried out to Imnak. “We must stop!”
I heard the sleen in the traces squeal ahead of us, the noise torn in the fierce snow and wind. I sensed Imnak turning about, and then again he was at the tabuk-horn uprights at the sled, glimpsed momentarily in a break in the clouds. I saw the girls then, too, their hands on their neck tethers, small, pelted, coated with snow, pathetic in the storm, weary, with us. Then again it was dark. Ahead I had seen Ram’s sled for a moment I had not seen Karjuk’s sled.
“It is madness to continue!” I cried to Imnak.
The sled stopped, wedged between two ice blocks. Imnak and I tilted it and it slid on one runner and then righted itself and again moved on.
“Let us stop!” I called out to Imnak.
I thought I heard a scream but I could not be sure, in the howling wind.
Imnak threw his weight back on the uprights. I held back too, on the sled. The sled stopped. I fumbled for the tethers of Audrey and Arlene and pulled them to the sled. Then I went toward the head of the sled. The sleen was there, already curled in the driving snow. Its pelt shook under my touch. It would be asleep in moments. Snow was almost to my knees. I felt my way back about the sled to the uprights. Imnak was shouting to me, but I could not hear him. Audrey and Arlene, as I could tell by putting forth my hands, were crouched beside the sled. I went about the back of the sled. I could see nothing. The wind howled fiercely. On the other side of the sled, extending my hand, I felt Poalu. She, like the other girls, was crouched beside the sled. Imnak was at my side. He pressed a strap into my hand. I drew it to me. Barbara was gone. The end of the strap had been cut. I made to move out into the snow, to search for her, but Imnak, bodily, obstructed me. He pushed me back. I did not resist. Imnak, of course, was right. It would be madness to go forth into the howling darkness, the snow and wind, to search for her. In moments one’s trail would be obliterated and, shortly, wandering foolishly in the darkness, the storm, one might find oneself lost, and dangerously separated from the sled and its supplies.
I do not think the other girls even realized, at that time, that Barbara was gone. Poalu, exhausted, fell asleep almost immediately, beside the sled. The other girls, too, were soon asleep.
“What are we going to do?” I shouted at Imnak, putting my face near the side of his head.
“One will sleep, one will watch,” called Imnak.
I found it hard to respond. I found it hard to believe he had said what he had.
“Are you sleepy?” asked Imnak.
“No!” I shouted.
“You watch first,” shouted Imnak. “I will sleep.”
I stood beside the sled. Imnak then lay down by the sled. It was hard for me to believe, under the circumstances, that he could sleep. Yet, in moments, I think he was asleep.
After a while I crouched beside the sled, and peered into the darkness.
The wind howled about the sled. I wondered how far Ram had continued on. I had not seen Karjuk when the clouds had parted for a moment earlier. I wondered where Barbara was. I did not think she was lost. The strap which had held her had been cleanly cut. The lovely blond slave had been taken prisoner, but by whom, or what, I did not know.
After a time Imnak awoke. “Sleep now,” he said. “I will watch.”
I then slept.
I awakened, Imnak’s hand on my shoulder.
“Observe the sleen,” said Imnak.
The animal, some nine feet in length, twisting, was awake, and restless. Its ears were lifted, its nostrils distended. The claws in the wide, soft paws emerged, and then retracted. It did not seem to be angry.
It lifted its snout to the wind.
“It has taken the soent of something,” I said.
“It is excited, but not disturbed,” said Imnak.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“That we are in great danger,” said Imnak. “There are sleen in the vicinity.”
“But we are far out on the ice,” I said.
“The danger is thus much greater,” said Imnak.
“Yes,” I said, understanding him. If the snow sleen had taken the scent of sleen in this area it might well be one or more sleen wandering on the ice, sleen driven by hunger from the inland areas. Such animals would be extremely dangerous.
“Perhaps Karjuk or Ram are in the vicinity,” I said.
“The sleen knows the animals of Karjuk and Ram,” he said. “If it were they he would not be as excited as he is.”
“What can we do?” I asked.
“We must hasten to build a shelter,” said Imnak, getting to his feet. The girls were still sleeping. The storm had passed, and the light of the three moons was bright on the snow and ice. “There is little time,” he said.
“What can I do?” I asked.
Imnak, with his heel, traced a circle, some ten feet in diameter, in the snow near the sled. “Trample down the snow inside the circle,” he said. “Then unload the sled and place our supplies within the circle.”
I did as I was told, and Imnak, with a large, curved, bone, saw-toothed knife, a snow knife, began to cut at a nearby drift of snow.
The sleen grew mor
e restless, and it began to make noises.
“Listen,” said Imnak. I listened, in the cold, still air. In the cold air I did not know how far away it was.
“They are on a scent?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Imnak.
“Ours?” I asked.
“That seems quite likely,” he speculated.
He had begun to take snow blocks from the drift and place them in a circle, within the edge of the area I was trampling down. The first block was the most difficult block to extract from the bank. The first row of blocks were about two feet in length, and a foot in breadth and height.
I started, suddenly, Audrey screaming. Imnak ran toward her, snow knife in hand.
“Where is Barbara!” screamed Audrey. “She is gone!” There was horror on her face. In her hand she held the severed strap, that which had tethered Barbara before it had been cut. She had awakened, crawled to the strap, understood its import, and screamed.
I saw Imnak strike her to the snow. She fell, twisting, to his feet, her own neck tether, seeming to emerge from her furs, still fastening her to the sled.
Imnak stood over her, his head lifted, listening. There was a distinct modulation in the hunting cries of the distant sleen pack., It was almost as though the sound began afresh, energized and renewed.
Imnak tore back Audrey’s hood. His hand was in her hair, pulling her head cruelly back. Her throat was fully exposed. She was on her knees. The blade of the saw-toothed snow knife was at her throat. Then Imnak threw her angrily to her stomach in the snow.
There was no doubt now that the sleen pack was turning in our direction.
The scent it had been following was doubtless a difficult and fragmented one, carried on the air, suggesting little more than a direction. The storm had obliterated sled tracks and the customary trail signs of an afoot passage. This difficult trail to follow, little more than a waft of scent in the air, carrying over the ice, had now, however, because of Audrey’s scream, been supplemented with a clear auditory cue, one supplying both an approximate distance and location to the pursuing pack. Its meaningfulness to the sleen was reflected in the sudden alteration in the nature of the pack’s hunting cries. They had now, for most practical purposes, targeted their quarry. An analogy would be the hunter’s pleasure when first he actually catches sight of the prey.