He staggered back from Joboam, saw a panorama of folk spin past as the hot blood seared his leg. He should have known Joboam would be better at this game, more savage, more experienced. Better as he had always been better, stronger as he had always been stronger. Tillu's scream rose above the others, her hands reaching wildly toward her fallen son and the struggling men as Stina and Ristin clutched her and mingled their cries with hers. He glimpsed the broken haft in his own hand, oddly distant, and then felt the world explode against his jaw. He knew he was falling from the suddenly peculiar angle of Joboam's legs, from the traveling chest that leaped up against his forehead. It took forever to roll onto his back. The world spun around him, full of cries and searing pain. Joboam had felled him with his knife hilt and fist, was coming now with his knife's point. Heckram pushed against the skins that cushioned the earth, rose, but too slowly. Kerlew lay near him, blood leaking from his chest. With a sudden clarity Heckram knew he would not be the first person Joboam had killed with his hands. The thought brought with it a peculiar strength, and he surged full to his feet, crouched weaponless to grapple with him.
A small man suddenly leaped from the gaping, circled folk, screaming 'No!' and flinging himself into Joboam's path. Joboam brushed him away, the small man tumbled back before the push of that muscled arm, struck one of the tent supports, and suddenly became Lasse sprawling at the edge of the circled folk. His eyes met Heckram's as he stood swaying stupidly and waiting for Joboam to kill him. 'The bone knife!' Lasse screamed. 'By your foot!'
He looked down dully to see Elsa's knife, his knife, Kerlew's knife lying on the hides where it had tumbled from the boy's lax hand. Joboam was coming, his bronze knife low, his mouth wide with teeth and madness. He stooped for it as Joboam collided with him, felt Joboam's knife momentarily stopped by his leather jerkin, then biting through into his flesh. Heckram cried out wordlessly at the new agony, felt the bronze knife within him, felt the bone knife under his hand. He gripped it as he fell. With a terrible wrench, he felt Joboam's bronze knife leave his body.
The blood that followed it was the river of his life; his thoughts seemed to flow out with it. 'No!' he cried, as much to forbid the loss as from the pain. The world narrowed around him as blackness closed in from all sides. He felt the familiar hilt in his hand, felt Elsa's carving under his fingers. He was looking up at people spinning past him, their faces white, their mouths red and open in horror. The circle of his vision grew smaller and yellowed and Joboam suddenly filled it. He held a knife that dripped red, Kerlew's blood, his blood, Elsa's blood, and as the knife came down, Heckram saw only the yellowness around him. The light that surrounded Joboam was like the yellow glow of a wolf's eyes by night. Joboam was in the Wolfs eyes. Heckram cried out aloud at the sight and strove to surge up, to follow the bone knife that leaped suddenly in his grip. But there was too much pain, and his blood was ebbing out of him in pulses. Joboam's blade descended. All sound stopped.
Tillu screamed wordlessly, in pain and fury. She lunged forward, but Ristin and Stina gripped her with the force of hysteria, and she could not break their hold. Their screams mingled with hers, the cries of people who witness the unthinkable, men fighting like beasts and beloved blood spilling. The noise and the crowd around her had snared her, she could not escape their grip. She could only watch Joboam as he finished killing all she loved, all who loved her. She wanted to be unconscious, to be dead, but her eyes went on seeing.
She took a deep breath, willing it all to stop, to be a hideous dream, but it went on. She had to watch Joboam's knife leap in, saw Heckram twist his belly away from the danger only to take the blow along his hip. The blood, impossibly red, leaped out as if anxious to leave his body, and then Joboam's fist connected with the angle of his jaw with a terrible cracking sound. A small part of Tillu noted how Joboam used the butt of his knife to strike, and within her the healer was nodding, saying to herself, yes, even so was Elsa's jaw broken, only she was smaller, so it was torn loose entirely, and with just such a blow was her skull dented in.
Tillu stopped screaming, could make no sound at all. The pack noise of the herdfolk around her swelled up, filling her ears unbearably as she suddenly knew she must watch Heckram die as Kerlew had just died. Joboam was killing with savage efficiency now, with skill born of practice, and the shock was so great, the law broken so implacably, that no one could remember how to intervene. Joboam was an avalanche, a river in flood time, a killing force impossible to avert.
Heckram had fallen, the broken knife haft still gripped in his hand. 'Oh, please, please, no!' Tillu cried out, her voice high and thin as a child's, and if in answer to that plea, Heckram scrabbled once more to his feet. He crouched, weaponless, looking more like a man getting ready to wrestle a calf down than a man facing a killer. Joboam, almost unscathed save for Kerlew's cut down his forearm, moved in. His lips were drawn back in a mirthless sneer. She was not the only one who saw the difference between the two men's attitudes. She heard someone call Heckram's name, in a voice deep with pain, and another cry out without words.
Then, impossibly, someone did act, someone leaped in as no one else had dared, small, unarmed, Lasse flung himself into the cleared area that had once been Capiam's home, to stand before Joboam. 'No!' he roared, in a voice filled with fury and pain, and met Joboam's advance, only to be brushed aside with shocking ease. No one had ever suspected the true strength in Joboam's thick arms. Lasse went flying as if batted by an angry bear, struck one of the tent supports and slid down it to lie half-stunned on the floor.
Heckram was swaying. Blood dripping from his chin, running down his chest and leg in red swaths. His mouth moved, but no words came. His eyes were distant. Tillu wondered if he could see at all. Then, 'The bone knife!' Lasse screamed. 'By your foot!'
Tillu found she had fallen to her knees, that she could no longer stand. Stina crouched beside her, her arms locked around Tillu's waist, and Ristin's grip bit into her shoulder. 'Please,' she begged, struggling to get free, but they were deaf to her, their eyes filled only with the horror of the spectacle of killing. 'I have to go to him,' Tillu whispered as she saw Heckram stoop slowly as an old man, to take up the bone knife. In the same long instant, Joboam was stepping in, his bronze knife was travelling down in a ripping arc. She heard the solid thud as it sank into Heckram, felt the impact of the blade as if in her own flesh.
'He's dead,' she said softly, watching him fall, seeing Joboam's knife jerk clear of his body and the bright gout of blood that followed it. It was the way he fell, bonelessly, making no effort to catch himself, that told her he would not get up again. His heart might still beat, he might take a few more breaths, but there was nothing left in him to fight. He landed badly, his legs crumpled, his head turned to one side so that for an instant he seemed to be staring right into her eyes. His back was wide and exposed, and Joboam was moving in, coming swiftly, stooping like a hawk with talons of bronze, and all gasped, knowing he was as unstoppable as a falling tree.
'Heckram!' Tillu screamed, and still he did not stir.
And then he blinked, his eyes widening afterwards, his jaws opening in a snarl that displayed his teeth. An inhuman sound roared from his throat, and Tillu believed he finally saw his own death coming. She cried aloud, a sound that echoed his.
She knew that what happened next was not possible. Heckram flipped onto his back, and all saw the bone knife gripped in both his hands. He thrust it up before him, as if hoping Joboam might fall upon it, and then, incredibly, followed the knife up. It seemed to jerk him to his feet as if he gripped a lasso around a wild sarva instead of a knife carved from reindeer bone. Joboam's eyes went wide as Heckram rose to meet him. Perhaps for the first time in his life he experienced pure terror. His mouth gaped in disbelief as Heckram met his blow and stood before it. Joboam's knife skipped suddenly over Heckram's leather jerkin, finding no place to bite.
Terror still reigned on Joboam's face as he winced at the impact of Heckram's blow. All saw the thin blade slip swe
etly into his chest, all felt the rush of red warmth that leaped out around it as it slid into his flesh. Joboam jerked spasmodically, his knife flung wide, and then his fists were hammering Heckram's back like the flapping of a desperate bird's wings. They fell together, embraced like lovers, to roll on the floor skins. From that tangle, Joboam pulled himself up, crawled a staggering reach of his arms, and fell again. His hands came up and curled around the bone handle that jutted from his chest. He looked down at it, swallowed convulsively, and died, his eyes open and full of disbelief. Heckram lay as he had fallen.
Pain opened his eyes again. No more than a moment could have passed. He rolled his head on the rich pelts that floored Capiam's tent. Joboam, he remembered suddenly, Joboam was coming to kill him. But Joboam was gone. Someone had stopped him. Someone had put an end to their fight. He blinked stupidly, wondering what had happened, why all was so silent. Folk still stood awe-stricken, frozen from watching the unimaginable: two herdfolk battling to the death. Horror transformed their faces, outlined skull bones, and aged them. Heckram lifted his head, feeling bloody fur cling stickily to his cheek. He tried to sit up, but found he could do no more than hold up his head. His head swayed on his neck as he gazed around the circle, trying to decide what had happened.
Joboam lay on his side, curled up, his hands clutching at the slender knife that had slipped so neatly between his ribs. He was still, and the puddling blood was still spreading. Heckram felt ill. Pain surged through him in waves, but could not distract him from the warm stickiness that coated his hand. It dirtied him. He lifted his head slowly, then gave it up, letting his cheek sink down on the bloodied furs. He wondered why the ring of people were so still, why the silence was so deafening. He had killed. Were they gathered to witness him dying of his wounds? Would they turn away now and walk off, leaving him to his punishment? 'Tillu?' he asked softly, his lips moving painfully, and found her suddenly kneeling beside him, heard the mutter of folk begin.
'He lives!' a woman screamed suddenly. Heckram rolled his head toward the sound, saw the pointing finger that marked not him, but Kerlew. The boy staggered upright, his hand pressed tightly to his ribs and the sheen of blood across them. Tillu stiffened, her eyes going wide. Her hands, that had begun to touch his wounds, fell to her sides. 'Go to the boy,' Heckram croaked at her. But, 'Stay as you are!' Kerlew commanded in a voice high with pain. 'Stay, and see!'
Voices rose, but over them Capiam's panted shout, 'Obey him!' Stillness followed, people shifting awkwardly but no one daring to step forward. Capiam, pale and sweating, staggered forward, seated himself atop a chest. He curled forward around the pain in his belly. 'Listen to him,' he gasped. He looked around the circle of gathered folk challengingly. 'The herdlord commands it.'
The boy staggered toward Joboam. He fell to his knees beside the body. With an effort that made the crowd groan he rolled the big man onto his back. 'See this!' he panted, pointing to the protruding hilt. 'Remember this. Heckram did not kill Joboam. Elsa's Knife did!' He lifted Joboam's hands from the knife-haft, held one palm out to the crowd. Two swollen abscesses dotted it. 'The mark of treachery,' Kerlew intoned, letting the hand fall, palm up, onto the skins. Boldly the boy seized the pale knife handle, jerked it from Joboam's chest. A last leap of bright blood followed it.
'Blade ... calls to brother ... blade.' Kerlew panted out the words, his strength rapidly failing. Tillu tried to rise, but Heckram's frail grip on her wrist held her. The boy spoke on, his faltering words paced to his labored breathing. 'This sign Elsa gives you. The mark ... she left ... Behold!' A woman cried out as he pressed the bone blade against the cut he had earlier scored in Joboam's forearm. 'From this scar.' He was gasping now, each word coming with an effort. Pain bobbed his head. 'Elsa's Knife calls ...' He pressed his cupped hand against the wound. 'This!' He rose jerkily. In the hand he lifted, shining white and red, a fragment of worked bone. He lifted it high, hand shaking with the effort. 'The broken edge of Elsa's blade, where she left it to tell on her killer. Where Pirtsi saw her put it, though he dared not tell.' Pirtsi's head was nodding, his eyes wide, too fear-stricken to deny anything now. Kerlew was sinking, going back to his knees beside Joboam's body. 'Because then Joboam would tell that Pirtsi had accidentally shot Lasse, with Joboam's bow. Shot him, and in his terror, ran away, instead of offering aid.' Pirtsi whimpered his assent.
Kerlew's head fell forward onto his chest, his child's face twisting with pain. He slipped to the skins, panting suddenly from lack of breath. He turned his face to Heckram, and as their eyes met, Heckram heard him say, very softly, 'And I am herdfolk, Wolf.' The words followed him down as he slowly spun into a darkness filled with a pack's wise howling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was dark in the tent. She listened to them breathing, often holding her own breath to be sure she could hear them both. She was horribly tired, with a tiredness that was a pain in her back and head, but still she could not sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw blood. Blood on blades of bone and bronze, blood trickling down Kerlew's ribs, blood that flowed from Heckram's wounds as if spewed forth by small gaping mouths.Yet again she held her breath, listening for his breathing close beside her. It was still there, hoarse and rasping, but steady. As was Kerlew's lighter breath an armspan away on the other side of her. They both still lived.
This, she thought, is what other women have felt, as I knelt over their men and put my hands in their blood. This helplessness.
She put a hand out in the darkness, rested it gently atop his chest. She felt the stiffness of her bandages, and through them the warmth of his life. His breath ebbed and flowed in him still. The wavering slash of Joboam's knife down his ribs had not been so bad; it had been the puncture wounds that had frightened her, the deep stabs in hip and back that looked so small on the outside, but had done damage within. What damage neither she nor any other healer would ever be able to tell. All one could do with such an injury was to bind it closed and hope against fever. As she did now.
If only he would open his eyes, she thought to herself. As Kerlew had. He had been conscious, but silent as she bound up his chest. He had watched her, his eyes a stranger's, and made no sound as she washed and bound his wound. Stina, Lasse's old grandmother, had been right at her elbow, already waiting with a bowl of warm broth for 'the young najd.' In the darkness, Tillu shook her head suddenly. It was what he was, now. And ever would be. He was not her child anymore; that much she knew. But she also suspected that he was not what Carp had hoped he would be, either. From that, she took comfort. And from the steady beat that hammered in the wide chest under her hand.
'Tillu.'
She stiffened, then sat upright. 'I'm here,' she assured him. She touched his bearded cheek lightly. He turned his face to her touch so that his mouth brushed her hand. His lips were dry and chapped. Immediately she rose, to bring cool water in a dripping cup. He could not help her lift his head and shoulders, but he drank thirstily from the cup she held to his mouth. She wanted to weep at how weak he was. Instead she eased him back onto the bed of hides. Then, even as she chided herself for making him talk, she asked, 'How do you feel?'
He groaned in reply, then took in a stiff breath. 'Kerlew?' he asked, and she realized he could not know.
'Kerlew will be fine. A knife score down his ribs, and some bones broken beneath them, but he will live. And will be up and around long before you are, I fear.'
She heard him breathe again suddenly, and realized the depth of worry she had just relieved for him. She sat for some moments beside him in silence. Just as she thought he had dropped off to sleep again, he spoke. 'He killed them all.'
'Yes. He did.' She went over the tally again in her mind. Elsa and Kari and Carp. Rolke, too. And he tried to kill Ketla and Capiam and Kerlew. The depth of revulsion that rose in her surprised her. As did her astonishment at Kerlew's solving of the puzzle. She had held the same pieces as he had; why had not she known what he had? She spoke aloud, filling in for Heckram. 'Back when the herdfo
lk were in the talvsit still, Joboam came to me. He had a festering wound in his forearm; I opened it and took out a piece of bone fragment. I thought he had been carving something that had broken, and sent a chip into his arm.'
'Elsa's ... knife.' It took him two breaths to make the words, and she sensed the importance to him of what she had told him.
'Yes. Only I never knew it. I set the bone chip aside, and never saw it again. Kerlew must have picked it up, and somehow figured out what it was.'
Heckram sighed his agreement. The silence stretched, and then, 'Rabbit?' he asked.
'I don't know. Some kind of a disease, passed on to whoever ate the meat. Or touched it, as Joboam found out too late. What I do not understand is why others have it now, ones who never ate the meat nor touched it.'
Heckram took a deep breath. Tillu waited. 'I killed. I will be ... set apart from herdfolk.'
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