by neetha Napew
As quietly as she could, she went to where the skins were spread and stood above them, undressing. Layer by layer, her garments fell away until she stood naked and shivering in the meager warmth and fading light of the dying fire.
Within the fire pit, the blackened haunch bone settled and cracked. Marrow swelled out and oozed onto the coals. Steam hissed. The sound roused Torka. He looked up. At one whom he had never seen before.
She stood at the edge of the darkness. The soft, fading fireglow defined her every curve. Torka stared, entranced, enflamed, and confused. The figure standing naked before him could not be Lonit. Yet the eyes that stared at him could belong to no other. They stared back at him like the eyes of a startled antelope—round, dark pools in which the firelight swam.
But it was not her eyes that held his glance. It was her body.
Almost A Woman was a woman. And for the first time since Torka had left the camp of death behind, Egatsop’s memory was eclipsed. She was dead. Lonit was alive. And it was life that rose in him now. It banished memory. It banished comparisons. It banished all longings but one. He was hard with need as his eyes moved over the contours of a body that did not belong to any half-grown adolescent. Lonit’s skin was as sleek as a young doe’s, her form lush and rounded. This was the flower of which Umak had spoken. Long dormant, it was now ripe with life and promise.
Torka stared into the darkness after Lonit had knelt, wrapped herself in the closest skin, lain down, and closed her eyes. Anger stirred within him now. Why had she displayed herself if she had not intended to come to him for gratification? How dare she turn her back upon him now, curling up in her skins like a child after brazenly flaunting the fact that she was anything but that? Among the People, it was a man’s right to sate his sexual need with any available female as long as her own man offered no objection. Lonit was the last female in the world whom Torka would have singled out to be a vessel for his pleasure, but since the murderous rampage of the Destroyer, she was the only woman in the world. She was his. And Umak’s.
Torka looked at his grandfather. As far as he knew, the old man had made no overtures to the girl, but he had made no secret of the fact that he had been considering such possibilities. Now, asleep beside the fire pit, Umak slept heavily. Torka knew that, unless deliberately awakened, he would not stir until dawn.
His eyes strayed back to the girl. She lay on her side, unmoving in the shadows. He suspected that she was only pretending to be asleep. Now that she had aroused him, she rejected him. A growl formed at the back of his throat. He did not notice that the dog heard him and looked up. It had been too long since he had known a man’s release. The flame that Lonit had ignited within him would not be extinguished. She had no right to turn away from him. It was her obligation to yield to his desire.
He went to her and pulled the skins away. He lay down beside her, drawing his own sleeping robe over them both to cut the chill of the deepening night. Her back was to him, as hot and rigid as his need. Roughly, he turned her toward him. Roughly, his hands explored the woman whom he had not known existed until this night.
Lonit yielded to Torka all that he desired, all that she could offer of herself, for his pleasure as much as for her own. Now, at last, she was his woman. Now, at last, he found her useful. Now, at last, he was guiding her in ways that truly pleased him. She followed eagerly, touching him, loving him, opening herself to his questing mouth and hands, arching to accept him when he entered her. Her body was no longer her own. It was one with his. Her movements were his movements, as savage, as intense.
For Torka, her response was shattering. Never, in all of their years together, had Egatsop responded to him as Lonit was responding now. Never. Even in this, she shamed the memory of his beautiful beloved. But in the darkness, joined to him, moving with him, Lonit was beautiful in ways that he had never imagined. He had intended to use her, to come to a quick and purposefully hurting release, but her unexpected passion had aroused him to heights that he had never thought possible. He forgot everything but the moment, prolonging their union, savoring it, withdrawing and entering in an ecstasy of control that was broken at last when the girl cried out and his release came in a final, probing thrust that brought a sob from her.
In the darkness, Aar turned his back upon them and moved a little closer to the fading warmth of the fire pit. Umak slept on undisturbed. Dazed, Torka and Lonit lay trembling in exhaustion, their bodies joined, still moving, seeking the last ripples of pleasure until, at last, sleep took them. They knew no more until the first of the creature’s screams of pain cracked the night in two. The first rays of the sun were just pouring across the eastern plain by the time Torka dressed, took up his weapons, and began the ascent of the wall. Having slept fully clothed, Umak had a head start. The old man had said nothing to either Torka or Lonit when he had noted their unusual sleeping arrangements. The screams of the creature had been too imperative to ignore. He had chosen the lightest of his spears, tightened his belt, and gone out to see for himself just what was howling on the cliff above the cave. He climbed above Torka now, both balancing their spears across their shoulders, using the chin to steady and grip it when necessary. Although it was awkward going, Umak was at his best in the morning. Despite his bad leg, he moved with a natural grace and agility.
The full light of morning bathed the mountain. Above them, screaming like a scalded child, the creature hung upside down over the side of the mountain face; one of its short, hairy legs was caught in the noosed end of the last snare that Torka had set the day before. They could see the animal fairly well now, and smell it. Its head was hidden within the stiff downfalls of hair that were as long and dark as a musk ox’s. They could not see its face. As it flailed madly with its thin, furry arms, its small, stinking body spun round and round, propelled by the force of its own frantic movements.
Umak paused, looking down at his grandson as he felt obliged to concede:
“No wind spirit that.”
But what was it? Neither man had ever seen anything like it. It was much too large for a weasel or wolverine and too small for a mountain cat or bear. As they stared up at it, its screams stopped and became panting moans as it grabbed with hand like paws at its trapped limb, desperately trying to pull itself up and work itself free. If it did the latter, it would fall to its death, but it would die anyway.
Umak took his spear in his right hand. He aimed with the precision of one who seldom missed, leaning back as far as he dared, then hurling the projectile upward with as much weight behind it as his tenuous position on the mountain would allow. It allowed little. The spear fell low. It missed the target’s body and lodged itself in one of its thighs.
The scream that came from the animal struck both hunters as sharply as though they, and not the creature, had been pierced.
On the ledge below, Aar cocked his head. Still in a half-dreaming state of bliss induced by the events of the night before, Lonit stopped midway through her dressing. She listened, certain that her ears must be tricking her.
The hunters stood frozen. The little body above them continued to spin. It was no longer screaming. It was sobbing in short, pathetic bursts of sound that only one creature in all the world could make: words. This was not an animal. This was not a wind spirit. This was a child.
In one moment, their entire perspective of the world had been changed by a small, sobbing, indescribably filthy child.
They ascended the remainder of the wall and hauled themselves onto the overhang from which the child had fallen. They pulled it up. It fought them all the way, thrashing like a fish on a line. When Torka reached down to grab it, it shrieked and slapped at him. Trying not to breathe in its stink, he grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, hefted it onto the overhang, and attempted to put it on its feet. Its response was to kick out at him with its good leg. The wounded leg offered no support, and the child collapsed, its weight snapping the protruding end of the spear and driving the shaft deeper into the muscles of its thigh. The resulti
ng pain was so excruciating that the child did not cry out; instead it dropped as though it had been brained by a boulder. Unconscious, it lay sprawled at the feet of the hunters, a ragged heap of foul, tattered furs and long, unkempt hair.
Torka and Umak stared at one another in perplexity, wondering if they were both experiencing the same delusion. What lay before them could not be a child. In all the world, they were alone. The People were dead. All of the children were dead. The mammoth had slain them. And yet, only a cursory examination revealed the “creature” to be an emaciated, fully human little boy of about nine. When they parted the filthy strands of his hair, both men drew back as though stung. The tear-streaked, dirt-blackened little face was so like that of Torka’s beloved son, Kipu, that they gasped, momentarily disoriented.
With tremulous fingers, Torka traced the familiar features. “Father of my father, how can this be?”
For the first time in his life, Umak could not summon a harrumph, much less an answer.
Torka closed his eyes and withdrew his hands. The sight of the child had brought the old agony back—memories of that small, precious boy who was lost to him forever.
Umak was crouching over the boy beside Torka. He examined the wound.
Even though still unconscious, the child was murmuring against his pain. The old man was confused. He had thrown the spear and had made the wounding. But how could he have known that this small, foul-smelling thing was not an animal?
As Umak extracted his ruined spear, blood bubbled warm and red and wet out of the boy’s wound. Umak dipped his fingers in it and touched what he could not deny.
“Spirits do not bleed,” he said, rising, hefting the boy across his shoulders as though he were an antelope taken in a hunt. “Come. Torka and Umak must return to the ledge now. This child’s wound must be tended.”
Dazed by the implications of their discovery, a befuddled Torka followed. Midway in his descent, he paused. His head was clearer now. Things were suddenly coming into a new and distinctly different focus. The boy had changed everything. He was real. Somewhere out there was another band. They were not alone! There were people, hunters, men who might be convinced to go in search of the Destroyer. And if they could not be convinced, he would go alone. It would not matter to Umak and Lonit. They would be a part of a band again.
Torka would be free to follow the beast, and find it he would, even if he had to follow it beyond the edge of forever. In memory of all who had died, for Nap and Alinak, for Egatsop and Kipu, for all of those who now lay looking at the sky, this Torka would do!
The boy sat naked at the back of the cave. His leg hurt. He felt hot with fever; but he would not chew upon the sticks that the old man tried to force upon him, nor would he put on the new tunic that the strange-eyed girl had placed before him. The tall, good-looking young hunter knelt before him, asking questions again. The boy pretended not to understand, although the man’s words were so similar to those of his band that he knew most of them.
“Why are you here, alone upon the mountain? Where is your band?”
The boy kept his features set, scowling with feigned stoicism, trying hard not to make a face of disgust that might betray his understanding of the hunter’s questions. Surely this man had seen children abandoned before? Surely it could not come as a surprise to him that sometimes those who were left to die survived? The old one was staring at him. He glared up at him, then looked away. The old one’s eyes had a way of making him feel invisible.
“This little one has been left alone to set his spirit free to walk upon the wind,” the old one said.
Hearing the truth, the boy cast a careful look up at the old man. He stood beside the younger hunter, his arms folded across his chest, his time-runneled face scowling with introspection. The boy knew him for what he was and was afraid of him. He wore the paws of a dire wolf around his neck, as did the younger man, but he carried a medicine bag at his belt, and where he walked, the wild dog was usually close at the heels of his shadow. The boy looked around. The dog lay at the far end of the cave, looking back at him out of a blue eyed, black-masked face that was as impassive as the old man’s. The boy gulped. The dog was in the old one’s power. Clearly, the old one was a magic man.
“The boy is strong,” the young hunter was saying, “He is beyond the age of name giving. The People would not waste such a boy as this!”
“The People are no more. If there are others in the world, who may say what they would do?”
“Where is your band?” pressed the young hunter. The boy held his tongue. My people will come back, he thought. They will come back for me. Supnah has promised. He has sworn that if they survive the winter, they will come back for their children. My father would not lie! If he lives, Supnah will come for Karana. And he will kill these people and their dog. He will make them pay with their lives for the way they have treated his only son! So Karana will be silent. When Supnah comes, these people will howl with surprise. Then Karana will speak. Then Karana will laugh. Then these people will die!
He glared at the young hunter. His thoughts had made him feel brave. He glared at the old man. Had the strange eyed girl not been bent over the cooking fire, he would have glared at her too. They had all conspired to take him captive. While he had been in the place of dreams, they had burned his leg and sewn up the wound that they had made. They had scrubbed him with water and ashes. They had stripped him of his garments and of his dignity.
The garments were the last clothes that his mother would ever make for him. Fringed, and sewn from the furs of all the kinds of animals that a man might hope to kill, they had been for his first hunt. She had stitched the many seams and strips so finely that the stitches were nearly invisible. He had gone forth with his father boldly, proud of the new clothes, proud of his new dagger and of the spear that had been made just for him. It had been a good hunt. But it had been the last of the good times. The dark times had come and stayed until his mother was dead, and all of the babies had been exposed, and all of the old men and old women had walked away into the endless storms so that the younger men and women would have enough food to share with each other and their children.
The band had moved on in search of game. There was no game. The women grew weak. The surviving children grew gaunt and ill. The hunters sang the songs that would bring Isack the sun. The sun had not returned.
They had moved on again and again. In each camp there was starvation. In each camp there was death. Then, in the looming presence of the mountain, Navahk, magic man of the band, had taken Supnah, the headman, aside. And when at last their words were done, Supnah had looked old even though he was young, and Navahk had walked past Karana, stopping to look at him as though he were of no more worth than the larva of a black fly squirming in the beak of a rapacious bird. He had turned and walked on, but not before the boy had seen him smile.
Supnah had come to him. “Magic Man has seen much game ahead. It is far across a hard land. We will go there. We will hunt. Karana will wait here with the children who are sick. Karana will guard the little ones until Supnah returns.”
Supnah had not returned. Although Karana had done his best to guard the children, they were weak. One by one, they gave their breath to Spirit Sucker until Karana was left alone with his spear, and his dagger, and his fine warm clothes, listening to the remorseless moaning of the wind, remembering the smile of Navahk, knowing that the magic man had wanted this for him and wondering what he had done to make the shaman hate him so.
In the blue shivering light of the aurora borealis, he had seen the eagle flying back and forth from its aerie high upon the mountain wall. Weakened by hunger, he had yet enough reason left in him to know that it was still too early to see the eagle flying above the tundra. But there it was, and Karana had thought that if he could bring down the eagle, he would keep Spirit Sucker at bay, and somehow, across the many miles, Navahk would know that he had survived and would stop smiling.
It was this thought that got him to his feet,
but it was the presence of dire wolves arriving to feed upon the dead children of Supnah’s band that had put fire to his intent. He had run and run until at last he was on the mountain, hefting his spear, hurling it with his last ounce of energy. Impossibly, it had taken the eagle through its breast. The bird had fallen, and the boy had pounced upon it, devouring it even as it screamed its last; and all the while that he had eaten, he had thought of the smile of Navahk and wished that it was the flesh of the magic man that he was consuming.
For long, uncounted days he slept in the eagle’s cave, warm in its nest, safe upon its broad aerie until a huge tera torn sighted him and swept down to pluck him off the cliff. His spear saved him, but in his panic, he stabbed upward once, then drew back, took the weapon in both hands, and whacked at the bird as though the spear were a stave. In a squawking rain of flying feathers and spurting blood, the condor was driven away. He stood shaking, the spear splintered and broken in his hands, and knew that he must seek a smaller, less-conspicuous refuge.
He followed a marmot up to the little caves, then killed the marmot and ate off it for several days. Hunger drove him down off the mountain to hunt; but where there was prey, so too were there predators. A great, fang-toothed cat almost caught him once, and he was nearly mauled by a young, solitary short-faced bear. Soon, inspired by his strong desire to survive, he snared as many weasels as he could, regretfully rubbing their stinking, oily glands into his clothes and hair. It had hurt him to ruin his mother’s beautifully made garments, but he smelled so foul that nothing wanted to eat him. Now he was safe. He did not think that his mother would be angry.
Alone on the mountain, he lived by his wits, hunting the lowlands when hunger made it necessary, then retreating to the safe, sheltering heights. Patiently, he awaited his father’s return, confident that Supnah would come for him. He longed for that day and dreamed of the moment when he would stand with proud contempt before Navahk. He watched the wide, empty miles for endless hours, but Supnah and his band had not returned. These people and their dog had come instead.