Wolf's Brother

by Megan Lindholm

  The sun came out, sending vapors streaming up from the earth. And rising with the vapors came the midges. They hovered over Tillu as she walked on the other side of the harke Heckram led. They walked thick around the harkars' eyes and shrilled in Tillu's ears. They were not enough to distract her from Kerlew's loss. Heckram spoke softly over the moving back of the harke about the things they passed, telling her the herdfolk names for the plants and grasses. Kari had already taught them to her, but she let him speak on. She let her mind drift on the flow of his words.

  The bright sunlight soon dissipated the midges. 'But they'll be back come evening. We'll make fires tonight, and heap green moss on the flames to keep them away. Their humming can drive a man crazy, let alone a reindeer. I'm glad the Cataclysm is in sight. Watch it today; it will rise up before us, and tomorrow night we will camp at its feet.'

  She nodded to his words, unable to keep her mind on them. Somewhere ahead of them, Kari led the harke that Carp rode on, and Kerlew walked beside it. Tillu would have given a great deal to know what had happened to Kari. The change in her was plain to everyone. Many had turned to watch her as she took her place when the caravan formed up that morning. Even Ketla, bundled up on a litter dragged by two harkar, had lifted her head to stare at her daughter in perplexity. Tillu had met Capiam's glare with a blank stare. This was none of her doing; let him speak to Carp if he did not approve of it. Strangest of all was the oddly neutral look on Joboam's face. He showed no surprise at Kerlew's reappearance, nor at Kari's caretaking of Carp. He passed Tillu and Heckram without a word or a look, letting his rajd fall into line behind Capiam's. She watched the bunched muscles of Heckram's shoulders slowly relax as he stared after Joboam's retreating back. So he, too, had expected a confrontation. He turned questioning eyes to her, but she could only shrug. She understood nothing of what was happening today, except that she hurt. She stung as sorely as if Kerlew had been skin stripped from her body. To have him be returned and then once more taken from her doubled the hurt. She walked in a daze.

  Sometimes she let her hand rest on the warm shoulder of the harke. The smooth shifting of the muscles beneath her palm loaned her strength. There were moments when the fragrances of the warming earth pushed their way into her attention. Twice the cries of birds drew her eyes skyward to a territorial battle in the air. But as quickly as she roused, she lapsed again, sinking back into her own morass of abandonment. She felt Heckram watching her, heard the gentle stream of his words, but could find no replies. Her mind was too full. From Kerlew to Kari her mind wandered, and then to Ketla on her litter. Why was Carp so satisfied, Joboam so aloof of them? Her steps slowed as she tried to juggle all the pieces, and Heckram slowed the rajd rather than rush her. Other animals and folk passed them. She did not even watch where she was going, but walked with her one hand on the reindeer's shoulder and her eyes turned inward.

  'I want to show you this,' she heard him say. She was aware that they were veering gradually away from the caravan's path. The only difference it made to her was that the ground they trod now had not been packed into a path. Bushes caught at her feet, and low growing brambles scratched her bare ankles. The ground became rough where the unevenness of frost and thaw had heaved and broken it. Huge raw boulders had been squeezed up by the tortured earth, and in other places great sinks had been formed by lingering pools of water. It was the most uneven bit of ground they had encountered on the tundra, and its irregularity seemed restful after the eternal flatness and retreating horizon of the plain. The rest of the herdfolk detoured around this disturbance, but Tillu was glad that Heckram chose to lead his rajd over and through the buckled upheaval.

  The land rose around them. They traveled between the crumbling walls of an arroyo. In the lee of upthrust earth and stone, bushes grew boldly, standing taller than they did on the tundra proper. The flowers were larger in the collected heat of the hollows, and their fragrance hung in the still air. Thaws and running water had gullied the earth before seeping away. The edges of the ravines were bright with moss and dangling flowers. Ice-bright ranunculus dripped down a cleft. Small, fragrant anemones bloomed in the sheltered areas, and tiny blue forget-me-not cloaked the ground.

  'Stop,' Tillu said softly. Heckram muttered to the rajd and the animals halted and gazed around them, their ridiculous ears spread in perplexity. 'It's so quiet,' she whispered to herself. The depression of the ravine hid the herdfolk and their beasts from her sight, and muffled the steady tread of their passage. The soft soughing of the eternal wind was broken by the earthen barriers, letting the warmth of the sun settle and stay. Tillu swayed, feeling almost sleepy. Here, in this hollow of earth, the sky retreated to its proper distant blue, instead of pressing down on her as it did on the great flatness of the tundra. The world became smaller, cozier, and safer. She sank down to the earth and leaned her back against a mossy boulder that jutted from the verdant floor of the hollow. She watched silently as Heckram moved among the rajd, unfastening lead ropes. The animals quickly stepped away from him, to nuzzle and snuffle through the grasses and bushes. She heard the rip of their teeth and their grinding jaws as a peaceful sound.

  'We could rest here, for awhile,' Heckram said. The closeness of the earth swallowed his words. She nodded. A small wariness grew in her as he came closer. Well, he had brought her son back to her, hadn't he? She supposed she owed him something. And she was not reluctant, she admitted to herself. She realized she would welcome the closeness, the touching. Unless. The pit of her belly felt hard and cold. She tried not to imagine his suffocating weight atop her, her body pinned helpless beneath his. He probably won't be rough, she told herself. But ... her teeth clenched as he lowered himself to the ground beside her. And lay back.

  'I know I slept last night, but I don't feel like I did.' His eyes closed as he spoke. 'We can catch up with the others this afternoon. They swing wide of these ravines and hummocks, but there's a way through. Long time ago, when I was a boy, I found it.' The edges of his words were softening. He spoke without opening his eyes. 'They'll never even miss us.' He breathed out, long, and settled his shoulders into the cushioning earth. He stretched his body in the sun. Tillu sat an arm's length away, looking down on his lax face. He turned toward her, his eyes opening a crack. 'This is the beginning, you know. The Cataclysm starts here.' Then his eyes closed and his breathing became deep and even. She shook off the unreasonable shiver of dread that his words had caused and lay back on the earth. She closed her eyes, but the bright light through her eyelids still made her eyes water. She rolled onto her side, cradling her head on her arms, facing Heckram. The warmth and fragrance of the earth blanketed her. His brow was smooth in sleep, his beard more rust than his hair. His sleep roused an elusive feeling in her. She bit her lip, examining it. It was ... annoyance.

  She had to smile at herself. So it was a just debt she must pay? She had wanted him to reach for her, wanted him to have planned this interlude alone with her. Instead he had planned a nap. Her separation from Kerlew had weakened her. Something in her cried out for warmth and touch, demanded that someone want and need her. She realized she had been counting on him to voice a desire; she had been reluctant to be the one that reached out. But the warmth of the sun on her body and her new aloneness unfastened the reserves of her soul. She needed someone to want her touch. She needed warmth to ease the ache in her heart, like a poultice soothing a twisted joint. But she would let him sleep. For awhile.

  * * *

  He swam into consciousness like a swimmer rising to the top of a warm, deep pool. Her body was warm against his side, and after a moment he realized that her breath against the side of his neck had wakened him. She lay on her side atop his outflung arm, and her eyes were wide and close to his. He crooked his arm, pulling her closer, and found her easing her body atop his. Her desire warmed him, but he hesitated. Slowly, he told himself. Slowly. He forced himself to lie still, staring up into her face.

  'Tillu?' he asked, but her fingers softly stopped his words. She s
hook her head at him, and took a short, quick breath, like a diver facing cold, deep water. Close as she was, vulnerable as she was making herself to him, there was still a feral quality to her eyes. Like a wary vixen, he thought. He lifted one hand to the angle of her jaw, half-expecting that she would turn and snap at him. But she did not. Instead she leaned into his touch, letting her eyelids droop down over her watchful gaze.

  But even half-lidded, there was something unreadable in those eyes. A reservation. She wanted to be where she was, just as she had that day in her tent. Yet he was certain that if he made the wrong move now, she would flash out of his reach and be gone. It made the simple act of mating a complicated game with rules he didn't know. He would move with care, letting her make the decisions.

  He put his arms around her and was still, feeling her weight atop him as a near unbearable pleasure. She rubbed her face against his, her mouth trailing across his beard to his lips. He opened his mouth to hers, felt her hesitation before her tongue darted briefly between his lips. He smiled around her kiss and ran his hands gently over her back. In response she pressed fiercely against him and her breath was suddenly hot against his mouth. Emboldened, he pulled her suddenly tight against him, kissed her deeply.

  And felt her go suddenly still in his arms.

  He released her immediately, and she rolled away from him, and sat up. Heckram stared into eyes that were full of both desire and fear. 'Tillu?' he began, but 'I'm sorry,' she said, and turned swiftly aside from him.

  His mind scrabbled for reasons, could find none. The mother of Kerlew could not be a frightened maiden. And there was a fierceness to her reluctance, as if it angered her, not toward him, but toward herself. He did not understand it, but a sudden fierceness rose in him to match it. He wanted to be close to this woman, and he would be.

  Tillu heard him stand. She could not look at him, could not find any words to explain. She wanted him as she had never wanted a man, for she wanted Heckram as himself. Yet his size terrified her, and when his arms closed around her every savage memory had risen, screaming. The raiders that had taken her from her village had been hard men and cold. They had laughed when she had screamed, standing in circles around the captured women, watching, waiting a turn. So long ago. But they were still there, watching and waiting, always, hiding in the shadow of every man who touched her, waiting to hurt and shame her. She put her forehead on her knees and rocked in miserable wanting that she was afraid to satisfy.

  'Tillu.' His voice was soft with want. She shook her head, refusing to look up.

  'Tillu. Come here.' It was neither a request nor a command. She could not name what she heard in his voice, but it echoed something that spoke within her. She could not deny it. She lifted her head and looked at him.

  The mosses were green and the sky was blue, and between them Heckram stood. He was naked, his bundled clothing kicked aside. She stared at him as if she had never seen a naked man before. Nor had she, Tillu thought. Quick couplings in a darkened tent or in the shadows away from a fire had not shown her a man this way, nor had men stripped for healing, writhing in their pain. Nothing in her life had prepared her for a man who stood naked and unashamed in the bright sunlight. His face and arms were bronzed, but his chest and thighs were pale where the sun seldom touched them. He was thinner than she had expected and more muscular, his chest deeper, his legs long and straight. His manhood ... she pulled her eyes away from that jutting accusation, and made the mistake of meeting his eyes.

  His gaze was as naked as his flesh. He wanted her, and yet he stood, waiting for her to come to him. She knew in that moment that she could turn aside and walk away from him without fear. He would let her, would let her carry this tale back to the campfires of the arrotak, let her giggle with Kari over this. This tall strong man had made himself vulnerable to her. Vulnerable and naked as she had once been. It broke her heart and her eyes stung. How could he put himself at such risk? Could he believe in her that much?

  She walked to him slowly, her heart thundering more loudly with every step. He was too tall, too male. The sun made planes of light on his muscled arms, delineated his flat belly, glinted on the hair of his chest. Too much of him. Too male, too strong. Unthinkable to go on, impossible to stop. Smell of male musk, warmth of his bared body crossing the small space between them. 'I'm here,' she said softly.

  She was content to let her hands rest on the smooth warm skin of his sides as his big fingers worked the laces of her tunic. He stripped her clothing away, letting the sunlight touch her skin as warmly as his frank stare. Then he knelt slowly, and the soft rasp of his beard against her breasts was more than she could bear. An animal sound pushed out of her as she pressed suddenly against him. She guided his big hand between her legs, demanding his touch. Together they sank onto the soft mosses. The pressures of his body atop and within her were sweet and strong. In her demanding, Tillu forgot to be wary, and when the tide of passion rose to engulf her she clung to Heckram and pulled him under with her.

  The second time he awoke, the afternoon sun was losing its warmth. He came fully awake in an instant, knowing with great clarity exactly where he was. The warm weight of her arm and leg flung across his body in possessive comfort were welcome. He eased his hands over her back and shoulders, crushing the mosquitoes that had come to feast on unprotected skin. The heat of the day was seeping away from the earth. He shivered deliciously, and tried to reach his tunic without waking her. But when he shifted, she stirred immediately. She opened her eyes and stared silently into his.

  'It's late,' she said, and reached across him for her shirt, not casually, but contained. She sealed off their hours together as a thing accomplished. He sensed that she neither needed nor wanted love words and compliments. Her calm acceptance made him wonder if he had not been cheated somehow. She leaned against him casually as she pulled her shirt on, but he felt she was no closer to him. Ten years ago, he thought to himself, a woman like this would have left me sulking, wondering if I had satisfied her, desperate to know what she thought of our mating. But today ... He shrugged inwardly as he found his own shirt tangled with her leggings. Given time, he thought, she would let him know exactly what she desired from him. In her own good time. Shaking the garments apart, he offered hers to her, and then donned his.

  'It's late. We'll have to hurry and hope we catch the end of the caravan. I've a feeling I've called enough attention to myself lately.'

  'Capiam said as much when I was healing Ketla this morning. He said ...' She paused, ashamed to repeat the hard words.

  'The thing about my father,' Heckram filled in calmly. 'Again. I've heard it before, and the first few times it stung. Sometimes I think he resents a man he cannot control. At other times, I realize that in my own way I am a danger to his authority.'

  'I think he would rather you lusted after his power as Joboam does, instead of ignoring it,' Tillu observed.

  She did not walk blindly among the herdfolk, he reflected. Would it please Capiam to know how easily this woman read him? He watched her as she dressed and pulled the hair back from her face. For a brief instant he remembered the silkiness of her hair across his face, different from the coarser tresses of the herd women. More like his own. Absently he touched his hair and watched her as she gathered the straying harkar. Was this the woman who, days ago, had looked so shaken at the prospect of leading one harke? He watched her speak coaxingly to one, and grip the next by the coarse hair of its lower jaw: She would make a fine herdswoman. The thought displeased him. He didn't want her to merge with the herdfolk and lose her foreign ways. She was not curd to be packed into a cheese mold and shaped like a hundred others. He pulled his boots on and rose to help her.

  They formed up the rajd and left the little glen. Shadows were lengthening across it. It was a different place from the sun-filled hollow where they had paused earlier. Tillu strayed away, gathering sorrel, roots and all. He knew from his mother that it made a refreshing tea. But, 'What's that for?' he called as she dragged sever
al ranunculus plants from the earth. Tillu cut the roots free of the greenery and flowers and wrapped them in moss before adding them to her pouch.

  'For nosebleed,' she told him. 'And some use the root to blister the skin. They say it soothes the muscles beneath. But I think ...' She paused a long time, and then said softly, 'I miss Kari. She wanted to know so much. I felt as if I knew more, because I was sharing it with her. I don't understand why Capiam won't let her be a healer.'

  'You said it yourself, earlier,' Heckram answered. 'It would make her less vulnerable to his authority. Others would be listening to her, following her advice. He likes control.'

  Tillu said nothing more, but followed silently as he led the rajd on the winding path between boulders and gullies. Here a shelf of earth had been thrust up, there a wash of water had left bare a swatch of gravel down its face. He hurried the animals as the shadows lengthened and the warmth of the day slipped away. The overcast crept over the sky again, promising another night of rain. With the clouds came a wind that slunk amongst the broken earth to spring on them at unexpected moments. Whenever a drift of earth thwarted the wind, the midges and mosquitoes found them. The reindeer flapped their clownish ears in annoyance, and tugged their heads about to nip at sudden itches. Tillu stopped to gather anemones and stuff the whole plants into her bag. Then she ran to catch up, the shoulder pouch bouncing against her hip. She ran well, as if running swiftly were more natural to her than the bearing of heavy burdens. He realized he was comparing her to the herdwomen again. Her bones were longer and thinner, and her hair floated airily in the wind of her passage. Like foxes and bears, he told himself. Speed and grace against strength and stamina. It eased his eyes to watch her.