by Mark Lucek
When the boy turned back, Iwa saw the bodies: Jezi Baba had been at work. Three men lay dead, their skin bleached like over-smoked fish. Outside, the darkness gathered and the men huddled close to the fire. She could see seven or eight of them now, but she had the idea that there’d once been more. Perhaps there had been as many as ten or twelve to greet the day, and tomorrow there would be even less. They had nowhere to hide. Some had already tried to run but, out in the forest, death was certain. Their cries howled piteously through the trees as the others shuddered around the fire. The rest were trapped in the cave, too scared to leave, with the last remnants of their food and water scattered loosely about the floor. They’d left their spears on the ground, their bows shattered and their arrows broken; now they were the hunted.
In the gloom there was a sound, like the buzz of an angry wasp. It was a song. By the cave wall an old man daubed frantic symbols in blood and paint. Even now she could see him quite clearly as he worked his spell into the rock, his beard matted with sweat as he dabbed a line of blood and ochre across the ragged edges of the rock.
She felt the weight of his arms, the sense of futility that hung heavily on his shoulders, as he sang the last of his magic into the paint. She could feel the sweat of his limbs, see the tribal marks along his skin. A line of dots followed the shape of his cheekbones where someone had rubbed bearberry juice into pierced skin to form a rough tattoo.
Then she realised the meaning that lay behind the paintings. This was a sacred cave, the history of the tribe marked on its walls. Some of the paintings were different; here the drawings were sacred offerings in celebration of their gods. Others were instructions, a record so that the elders could train the young men for the hunt and mark their passing from boyhood.
How long had people been coming here? Suddenly she had a sense of the passing of things: centuries of hands pressed against the rock, filling the cave with their prints. Even to the old man this was an ancient place, the symbols so antiquated so that not all could be read. Wizened spells stirred amid the rocks and Iwa got the sense that some had not been cast by men at all, but some far older race.
Now the old man worked on a new section. His pictures were different and tainted with magic. This was a paean, the last plea of the dead: not a warning but a memorial. Around the fire the last of the tribe gathered. The food was all but gone as they looked blankly into the flames, their gods forgotten. The scent of death fixed upon them.
Finally, the man put down his brush. Behind him the flames rose as he finished his chant, the words trailing off as the men gripped their wooden spears and waited for death to come. Then suddenly he turned towards Iwa, as if he had some inkling that she was there. But it was nothing more than a momentary glance before he walked back to the others.
Behind her the fire died, and then all was dark.
Chapter Eight
‘Are you there, little one?’ a voice whispered through the gloom. With a start, Iwa blinked and looked into the face of her father.
‘I never thought to see you alive!’ She flung her arms around him.
‘Alive maybe,’ he said stiffly, ‘but very weak.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She relaxed her grip. There was a cold tingle to his skin, or was it just the cave air? But at least he was alive and that was all that mattered. She’d be sure to sacrifice to Bielobog and Chernobog for letting his body pass back to life. And she wouldn’t forget Veles, who guarded the cave that led to the ancestor world, either.
‘I have you to thank for my life, or so it appears. I remember a great darkness, the light flickering over the paintings. I thought that I had travelled deep into the ancestor world. This is a place for such things, don’t you think? I could almost see them, the spirits of my forefathers dancing around the paintings. After all, there are far worse places to die. I heard the call of the dead and my soul was ready to walk the paths of the ancestor world.’
‘The spirit world was ready to claim you, but I wouldn’t let it. I’ll have to apologise to your ancestors for keeping you from them, but I need you here.’
‘Then there was your voice.’ He smiled and leant back against the rock. ‘I should have known that you would never leave me to die so easily. That was always your way, always grasping onto whatever you wanted. You were good at tricking the older children – trust you to find a way to cheat the spirit world too.’
‘It was a simple potion, just a few berries, that’s all.’ Iwa paused and nestled her head against him. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so eager to mention the berries: she didn’t want to have to go back for any more. There are many things best left alone, and the Leszy are chief amongst them.
‘Since when have your hands grown so wise? I didn’t think even old Katchka capable of such skill.’
‘You just rest.’ Iwa pressed her head against his shoulder while his fingers stroked her hair. Everything would be all right now. She’d tell him about Jezi Baba and he’d know what to do. Maybe he could find a way to free the women so that they could live in the forest once more; who knows, he might even get Jezi Baba to kill Krol Gawel and all his woyaks.
‘I feared that you were dead,’ Yaroslav said. ‘I was alone, slowly dying, and all I could think of was you. I prayed to all the gods that I’d not meet you in the ancestor world, the victim of some woyak’s blade. But then you always were a survivor. I should have known better than to imagine that death had claimed you. Just like the snowstorm,’ Yaroslav smiled and coughed up a trace of phlegm.
‘It was you who rescued me then,’ Iwa hugged her father to her, ‘after the rest of the clan had given up hope.’
‘The hunters searched but none could find you. They all thought I was a fool to go out into the forest that one last time, though none would say so. You were nothing but a child of five who’d wandered off into the snows alone. Only you could have been so stupid, only you could have survived such a night. I couldn’t give up, I just couldn’t.’
‘But you did find me, just as I have found you now.’
‘Near to death and ready for the ancestor world.’
‘I’ve always had you to look after me.’ Iwa felt the warmth of his chest, the soft touch of his hand as he stroked her cheek. ‘I’ve always had you to guide me,’ she whispered.
‘There is somebody with you.’ Yaroslav nodded to the remnants of the fire where a salmon skin glistened over the ash and the last flicker of flame. ‘I had an inkling that one of the hunters had returned. My eyes were filled with death, but I caught sight of somebody moving in the gloom: one of the ancient spirits of this place, or so I thought. Except that the ancestors are not given to hunting in this world.’
‘It’s Jarel. He found me and brought me to you.’
‘He keeps to the darkness, that one.’
‘His leg is hurt, some woyak’s arrow caught him as he tried to flee the camp.’
‘Then he will struggle to find food and I’ll not recover my strength easily, even with your potions.’
‘I’ll pick berries.’ If only she could stay in the cave. Perhaps they could live here forever. She could learn to hunt as well as any man. Then the others could come and they could begin the clan anew, safe here in the deeper forest far from the krol and his woyaks. Who knows, in time some of the women might escape and join them. And they could raise the great fire and slaughter a bison so that the god would be reborn and come to live in the bones once more. Behind her the patterns of the cave wall shone. But they were paintings, colours daubed on gypsum and lime, nothing more.
‘But first we must get to the river and clean away that stench,’ she said. ‘You smell worse than rotten bark. We’ll go to the river and…’
‘That may not be so easy.’
She jumped at the voice; she hadn’t realised that Jarel had come up behind them.
‘We don’t want to bring the woyaks down upon us.’
‘Then it’s lucky that the woyaks stick to their ships, like old women keep to a fire,’ she said sharply, as she t
urned to hide her look of anger. Couldn’t Jarel have given them a moment’s peace?
‘Or rather they used to. The woyaks cling to the shore by night, but they come into the forest by day. They’ve taken to using some of the more open paths, small groups only, but heavily armed. They might not be hunters, but they’re not fools and their eyes are sharp.’
‘I thought they would have left by now,’ Yaroslav said. ‘There’s nothing to keep them here once the plunder’s done.’
‘The woyaks want to stay,’ Iwa said. ‘Krol Gawel told us.’
‘They have a krol?’ Weak as he was, Yaroslav couldn’t help but laugh. ‘As if there’s anything in this forest to tempt a Polish krol.’
‘That’s what everybody calls him, and everybody does what he says, even Grunmir, who’s Krol Gawel’s knez.’
‘Kneiez.’ Yaroslav corrected, hardly able to keep the mockery from his voice. ‘These woyaks carry such noble titles with them.’
‘What is a krol?’ Jarel slumped against the cave wall, as he tried to take all this in.
‘He is like a hunt master,’ Iwa began slowly, though she had little enough of an idea herself. It was only now that she began to realise how little she knew of these Poles outside of the traders’ romances, and those were sketchy enough.
‘If only that were true,’ Yaroslav cut in, ‘but a krol is far more than a hunt master.’
‘But everybody obeys him as if he was one, except they’re all afraid of him. He has this sword, as big as a man, and he has the protection of Piórun.’
‘A krol is power,’ Yaroslav said, ‘and ambition. Where there are krols then war is never far away.’ He paused. If only he could make them understand. But suddenly, as he looked into his daughter’s face he was aware of the great gulf between them. Jarel too didn’t understand. How could they? They’d known nothing but the clan and the herds. Suddenly he realised how much he had grown to love this life, the rhythms of the seasons and the soft scents of trees and bracken. All to be swept away.
‘Krol Gawel talked of other war bands, and Grunmir sets guards on the river to watch for their ships. That’s why they go into the forest.’
‘That and to hunt,’ Jarel smirked. ‘Though they stick to the well-worn paths and cower like rats.’
‘We’ve always had the mountains and the forest to shield us,’ Yaroslav said stiffly. ‘It’s only the river that links us to the rest of the world. If there are more war bands out there then that’s how they’ll come – across the water. I know what these woyaks are like. They’ll have enemies, others who’ll slaughter them and take their place if they get the chance. War and death come easily to men such as them.’
‘What would they want with us?’ Jarel played with his thick fingers as he tried to understand what was going on. Until now he’d never considered much beyond his own survival. ‘What have we to do with krols or kneiezes?’ Jarel was panicking now, his voice echoing shrilly around the cavern. ‘Why can’t they leave us and take their wars with them?’
‘Because they want to strip the trees away from Matka Ziemia,’ Iwa replied. ‘This Krol Gawel has brought seeds with him, sacks of them, and he plans to cut open the belly of Matka Ziemia so she’ll give him bread to eat.’
‘That’s trader talk,’ Jarel laughed. ‘All this nonsense about crops and seeds has addled your brains. You always were one for loose ideas. Be careful, or else your brains will pour out of your ears.’
‘No, it’s true. The krol wants to burn away part of the forest and get the women to help him plant the seeds. He has the women stuffed away on one of those ships of his, crammed in toe to toe like herrings pickled in a trader’s barrel.’
‘What, all of them?’ Jarel slumped back against the cave, the sunlight playing on his face, but there was a hollowness about his laugh, a hint of desperation. He still longed for the simple world, where the woyaks were little more than a rival clan and the attack on the camp a mere raid, nothing more than a scuffle and soon forgotten.
Even now he could barely conceive of the great ships. Because of his leg Jarel hadn’t gone with the others to scout, let alone join them on the raid. He’d heard some talk about the ships, but in his mind they were nothing more than the traders’ canoes, a bit larger perhaps, but that was all. How could all the women be stuffed into them? Even the largest rafts could only hold a few and they’d only have to clamber over the roughly hewn guardrails to escape.
The hunters always exaggerated. Surely the fool girl didn’t know what she was talking about. How could men build boats large enough to hold all the women they’d taken? Such things didn’t exist. He shifted his weight, and a short jab of pain stung below his knee.
‘Iwa is right,’ Yaroslav said. He was weary, tired of the conversation and eager for sleep as he looked to his daughter and wished that the krol had never come. She still thought of him as nothing more than some kind of a hunt master. Larger and more powerful, of course, but she hadn’t the experience to realise that this was something different.
Always he had wanted to protect her. At first the clan had wanted to rid themselves of the child – one who’d killed its mother in childbirth was never welcomed and could attract all sorts of evil Leszy and other creatures. If it hadn’t been for him, she’d have been left for the wolves and the winter frost.
It’d taken days of careful pleading before the clan would keep her… the promises he’d made, the oaths he’d sworn. They lived always so close to death, these hunters. The winter snows and the endless hunt worked constantly to harden them. Who else could have crafted a life out here? They had to move as one, work together in tiny units where each knew their place, their lives always balanced on the knife edge where one single mistake could spell their doom. Here there was little room for those who did not fit in, no time for argument or those who did not know their place.
Yet he’d found a softer side to these people. There were the dances round the campfires, the songs and the feasts. He’d found a freedom he’d never known amongst the cities of the Poles and learned so much in their scrabble for existence. Now it could so easily be swept away.
‘Matka Ziemia will not give bread to these woyaks,’ Jarel was saying. ‘Do you think they can just pluck bread from her body?’
‘But they will try,’ Iwa said, ‘and they’ll burn the trees to do it.’
‘And the Leszy will let them?’
‘Where were the spirits when the camp attacked?’ she echoed the words of the women. Of course she didn’t believe that the krol would be able to coax food from Matka Ziemia. But that only made him more dangerous. ‘Would you leave the women in the hands of a madman?’
‘Soon the Poles will realise that they cannot get Matka Ziemia to give them food, no matter how they try, and then they’ll leave. The women can run away when the Poles are drunk. Leave the woyaks to their victory and their feasting; they’ll be gone soon enough.’
‘These Poles are farmers and farmers stick to the land,’ Yaroslav said slowly. ‘You’ve never been to the countries of the Poles, or lived in their cities, you don’t understand their ways.’
‘And these Poles don’t understand the ways of the forest,’ Jarel replied hotly, as he levered himself up and went to stand at the cave mouth. ‘This is what I understand.’ He pointed to the trees and the river beyond. ‘What do we want with crops and seeds here? Surely the Leszy will never allow that.’
‘Give the woyaks a chance and they will push the clans out into the mountains,’ Yaroslav said, but Jarel wasn’t listening. He stood at the cave mouth, refusing to turn.
‘They will be gone, the woyaks will melt away like the spring thaw and we can go back to the summer camp. You’ll see, there’ll be fish and spit-roast boar. I’ll make the first kill myself.’
‘There will be no fish up in the mountains,’ Yaroslav said.
‘But how can we live up there all year round?’ Iwa asked. ‘We’d never survive, and even if we did we’d end up as hermits.’ She paused and looked in
to her father’s face as the shadows danced darkly across his features. She knew what he was thinking: Jarel had the same thought, they all did. A clan was not a clan without a hearth for all to sit round and the totem of its god laid out before the flames. Without those, the men would drift off to join other clans or live solitary lives among the mountains.
‘Does nobody want to fight?’ Yaroslav asked, but Jarel shook his head.
‘What can we do against the woyaks and their battle craft?’
‘So the clan is no more,’ Iwa said in disbelief. ‘We have to fight.’
‘It’s not the first time a clan has disappeared.’ Yaroslav hugged her to him. Lately he’d tried to be distant, more aloof so that she’d be left to make her own way. Even now the clan barely tolerated her. He was conscious of the looks that the men would sometimes give her, the curses of the women as she passed. It’d been a long time since one of them said anything, but he heard them all the same, silent utterances in the looks that lingered long after she’d passed.
He couldn’t be there to protect her forever. She’d always been apart from the others, trailing in their footsteps, never quite ready to keep up. He’d been born outside of the clan, her mother too, so that had given her a certain freedom. Few of the clan expected much from her and were content to let her wander off once her work was done.
It wasn’t as if Iwa didn’t try – she’d help out with the tents and the skins, but she was so easily distracted and clumsy and there was little room for one such as her. Not when life and death could hang so easily in the balance. Tents had to be pitched even in the deepest snowstorms; one mistake could lead to disaster.
She didn’t see that. Gently he hugged her to him. Would the clan turn against her? Out of respect for him, they’d tolerated her, but what would happen once he was gone? He couldn’t help but glance around the cave, this place where he’d almost died.
Not that the clan would have murdered her, but she had a knack for trouble and she could expect little favour or mercy. Of course, people were rarely punished but that was because few transgressed. They’d been born to the clan, the hard rules of their lives learned even as they suckled their mother’s milk. And, for the few who did transgress, the punishments were always harsh.