by Gabi Moore
Ghal peered at them all, the grays in his hair and beard catching the firelight. “The Eldermen—and women—were not as we are. They were powerful, masters of this world. They could turn even the long night into day. Their houses were mountains, and their villages were thick with more of their people than you could imagine. No sickness was beyond their reach to heal. Even the Summoning God of Death agreed to wait on their will, and their lives stretched outward, endless, like long summer days.
“They understood the turns of the earth, and looked beyond to see other worlds, realms only the gods were meant to know.”
No one present had heard this tale any less than a thousand times. It was told at this coming-of-age rite, and also at the naming of children, at the deathbed of elders, in times of crisis and times of joy. The words were worn and rehearsed, but at this part, there was always a coil of something slippery and cold in Laova’s gut. They all felt it; it betrayed them each in the stiffness of their smiles, the down-casting of their eyes.
“They say the gods turned against them,” Ghal murmured, shaking his head. “They say the tides of sea and winds of storm came crashing down on their great cities. They say the earth opened her mouth in a war cry and swallowed their world. I dare not ask the gods for the truth.
“But we remember always the lost Eldermen,” Ghal recited the beginning of the end of the short, terrifying tale. “We remember than they climbed too high, and forgot that they were not gods.”
Silence fell. The fire crackled low, and Bamet added a few branches of deadwood. The flames exulted and raised praising arms upward, lively in the midst of a sudden stillness.
On her left still sat Rell; on her other side, Taren turned to Laova and grinned.
“Well, you’re an adult now. Before you know it, it’ll be your turn to tell that old story.”
Laova shoved him playfully. “You expecting to die, soon? You’d better pay attention and start practicing.”
This seemed almost absurd; Taren was only one year older than she, and to imagine either of them as old as Ghal was like imagining herself to be as tall as a tree. There was something impossible and odd about it. Something… uncomfortable.
“Hey!” Bamet tossed a stick at Nemlach. “Give us a song, you badger!”
Nemlach smiled and muttered something about tomorrow’s early start.
As one, all of them protested and insisted and pleaded. It didn’t take long to convince him, and Nemlach sighed dramatically and stared into the fire, thinking.
Laova held her breath.
His first notes rumbled out wordlessly like summer thunder. Full and rich and sweet, Laova had nothing to compare it to. There was nothing in her life so wonderful, except, perhaps, Nemlach himself. His voice as it rung out was better than the bonfires of feast days. Better than the smell of the pine trees, or the glittering light of stars. It was as if the All-Mother had rolled together the warmth of her parents’ arms, the familiarity of the common-house hearth, and the unmeasured majesty of the sweeping mountains and given it to Nemlach to sing with.
The opening tones became words, long, drawn syllables in mournful cadence. Laova’s chest squeezed as she watched him, and she wanted him. If he would have her, she wanted him.
His mournful, hopeful melody strung outward into the dark night and wrapped them in a magic, and Laova forgot to stop staring, forgot to worry that he might catch her open gaze again. This did not happen; Nemlach’s eyes were fixed on the fire as he sang, concentrating, or perhaps fighting his own stubborn instinct to avoid attention. Either way, Laova was free to gaze, and dream, and wish.
Nemlach’s song tonight was a story, as many of their clan’s songs were. It was the tale of the Bear and the Summer-Woman, of love that died with the cold breath of winter. But, if only the sun agreed to return after the long night, there was hope, at least. Hope that the two could meet again in the spring.
It ended in a gentle fade of heart-rending beats, and Laova wished he could only continue, endlessly…
“It time for you to rest, Laova,” Rell told her with another small smile. She patted Laova’s arm. “You take no watch this first night. Go, and sleep. When we have rested, the Hunt will begin.”
Laova nodded. Her fellow hunters were not ready to sleep, so alone she crossed to one of two low hide tents lashed between the gnarled fir trees and crawled inside. Of all they carried, the warm hides that formed the tent walls were among the most important. It was not unheard of that a hunter might freeze in their sleep if they slept exposed. Another hide was laid out over the packed snow, and Laova settled down to rest, to sleep, to prepare for the sunless morning that waited.
Sleep was playing coy tonight, however. Laova sighed and loosed her scarf from her neck. In the small space, her heavy winter skins were too hot for thinking of Nemlach. But think of him she did, imagining him there with her. No one saw much more than hands and faces during winter, but she’d seen him take off his shirt in the summer… Her hands twitched, thinking of all that muscle, the rippling, dark skin that spent most of the year beneath his layers of warm clothing. She longed to see the rest, to have her imagination satisfied.
She’d never been with a man. Laova tried to avoid admitting this, as she could offer no excuse or proper explanation. No one in the clan waited so long to act upon natural desires, natural needs. But for her, it had simply never happened. Before Laova realized, she was twenty moons old and a maid. It was embarrassing.
But then, she couldn’t deny a part of her situation was her own doing. She’d been watching Nemlach for years without the courage to approach him. It was viewed as strange for an older man or woman to couple--even temporarily—with a teenager, so he’d seemed quite beyond her reach. In truth, he likely would have refused her out of nothing more than propriety.
Longing for him had surely blocked the chance to explore sexuality with someone her own age, Laova realized. It continued now, here in this tiny tent on her ritual hunt. In her head, she wished him to come to her, to open the flap of the tent and crawl in with her, to kiss her, run his lips down her throat, loose the ties of her hide clothing.
Heat flushed up Laova’s neck; it suffocated her, made her legs weak. She imagined his beard against her skin, running her fingers through his thick hair. His weight, his scent, his body against hers, against and then inside, inside, hot and rumbling like his voice in song. His voice, speaking her name—singing it—in her ear, only for her…
The tent flap rustled. Laova sat up, shaking. Was it possible?
Taren smiled in at her, and Laova half-relaxed.
“Still awake?” he asked as he settled in by her side. Laova nodded.
“I’m too excited to sleep.” It was, after all, the truth.
Taren nodded, folding an arm under his head. “I was too excited to sleep this time last year. Do you know what you want to hunt?”
Laova grew very still, trying to think up something to say. Taren saw it at once; thankfully, he mistook her reaction.
“I don’t think anyone is really sure the night before,” Taren assured her. He pushed back strands of his long sandy hair absently. “I kept thinking I might try to slay a mountain cat, but I ended up with a nice elk, instead. We’d have to move away from the mountains for elk, though, I think.”
“Yeah,” Laova agreed. “I’ll know by tomorrow.”
Taren lay there grinning at her a moment, and Laova knew what he was thinking. They both always knew what the other was thinking. They’d grown together, played and learned together, and were more like siblings than Laova even felt from her own two elder sisters. Perhaps it was because she could run in the forest and hunt and laugh freely with Taren, who had a wild spirit, as she did.
Or maybe it was because, as Taren believed, they were meant for each other.
“You can marry now,” he murmured, hushed.
Laova groaned and pulled her hood over her face.
“I’m serious, Laova!”
“That’s the worst of it.”
She peered with one brown eye out from under the hood; he was trying to look serious, and maybe he was succeeding, because she felt it impossible to joke at a time like this. Taren was closer to her than anyone. Her lust after Nemlach was insatiable, but she really knew Taren. His likes and his needs and his life. Perhaps too well, Laova thought, looking into his brown eyes, so much like hers.
Taren inched closer. “We’ve never been able to talk about it seriously.” He brushed a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. “Even I haven’t been able to stay serious. But do you really think it would be so bad? To marry? Me?”
Wasn’t that the question! Laova had been asking herself for months, would it really be so bad? The answer, of course, was no. She did love Taren, but what she felt for Taren and what she felt for Nemlach were two opposite creatures. Neither would depart, but where one felt like the comfort of a loyal pup, always near and happy, the other felt like the insistent press of a wolf at her door.
It would be easier to speak freely of this if she could at least decide which man was which.
Taren moved closer still, and Laova allowed it. She was curious, always curious, and her scalding dreams of Nemlach had left her wanting. Taren was a different sort of man, younger and slimmer, lighter of skin and hair, with nothing of the beard that Laova imagined brushing against her skin, coarse and intimate.
Taren’s hand lined her jaw, his long fingers melting into the hair at the base of her skull. Laova’s heart picked up a sprinting beat, gaining speed, sending blood pounding through her ears. She’d never lain with a man, but she’d kissed before, and she knew she liked it. And Taren’s kiss was just as she expected: smooth and fast and dizzy with need.
Inside the little tent, it was growing warm, indeed. Taren held her close—no easy task, with both of them padded with thick hides—and rolled her onto her back, propped on his elbow next to her, not on top of her, not yet…
That possibility was eminent, and it shot through Laova’s mind, what was left of it, as she moved her lips to Taren’s jaw, clutched her fingers in his hair. The sounds he made brought out a wild and feral instinct in her, primal as the hunt, primal as a fresh kill.
For a moment the clouds seemed to roll away, and Laova saw how happy her life with Taren could be.
And then she recalled the other hunters just outside the tent. Sex was a natural part of life, and no one would do more than tease the two of them come tomorrow. Except Nemlach. He wouldn’t tease. He would just go about his morning respectfully, sadly, or worse, with utter indifference.
Like cold water to the face, this image broke over her and Laova drew away from Taren.
He frowned, puzzled. Rightfully so, Laova thought ruefully. Why had that thought come to mind now? Why had she thought of Nemlach now, of all times?
“What’s wrong?” Taren asked, panting.
“It’s just… I’m just… I’m… I’m… anxious,” Laova stammered. “I… I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”
But Taren knew. Laova couldn’t bear to look at him, afraid he’s see the truth in her face; but not-so-deep down she knew it was herself she was trying to spare, because Taren always knew what she was thinking.
He waited, but she had nothing more to say. Taren drew nearer; Laova flinched and didn’t know why. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, but didn’t try for more.
A moment later the tent flap shifted, a wash of cold burst in as Taren stepped out, and then Laova was alone again. Alone.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and Laova huddled into her skins.
Chapter 2
The world of Laova’s dreams was black as still water. She was not afraid; she didn’t feel oppressed or lost in the darkness, but welcomed by it. Part of it. Nothing here meant to harm her. A cloying breeze snaked against her back, urging her forward, and Laova began to walk through ankle-deep snow.
And now, the lights. As her steps trenched on, the colors of the lights of the spirit realm would spin out like ribbons in green and crimson and purple overhead. They rippled and stretched and crossed one over the other, veiling the stars and backlighting a shape up ahead. She knew the dream well, up to a certain point. If she continued to walk through the snow, she would make no progress, but something anchored in her chest would approve, as if a rope pulling her forward had slackened.
Onward she marched. The wind and the spirit lights and her own feet were the only movement. The world below, the ground under her boots, Laova’s own body, all were wreathed in shadow, and before her loomed the colorless specter of the mountain. It had taken her some time to understand which mountain, but tonight, as before, the next phase of the dream commenced.
The lights that shone from the realms of gods and spirits gathered together and their brilliance joined. Some feeling—not sound, not quite—echoed out into the night, and the lights touched down at the crest of the peak. It was Star-Reach. Laova had seen it from afar only, but there was only one place that the god lights met the earth.
It was the highest place in the world, the Grandmother said. Looking up at the impossible height, Laova believed it.
She was being summoned to there. By god or spirit or demon she was expected to climb to the top of the mountain, where no mortal had ever reached—or if they reached it, no one had ever returned.
In the dream world she hesitated. It was too high. She’d been walking for what seemed like hours, and she was hardly any closer. It was too far. It was too high.
To her shock, Laova noticed trees around her. Those had never been in the dream before.
The wind dove deep through the needles and boughs, rustling the branches and making the music of the wild world. After such silence, Laova listened for a while, still, drinking in the sounds she loved best.
But then… something unfamiliar lurked among the treesong. There were no animals, no people, none that Laova could see. It wasn’t quite a sound, but a feeling. It wasn’t quite the trees, now, but the ghost of a voice. If it spoke in her words, she couldn’t make them out.
Understanding was not necessary. Laova simply knew. Like the wind and lights and the very snow easing her path, whatever swooped and flew with the wind through the trees was urging her gently, firmly, forward.
There was no snowfall in Laova’s dreams; always, it was ankle-deep thin, effortless to move through. She could have run, if she liked, but Laova only walked, looking upward in awe and fear at Star-Reach.
The lights coalesced and burst upon the peak of the mountain, as they had in nights before. In green and red, violet, and now gold, colors Laova had never seen so brilliantly, they waved and spun as if in a frenzy of divine storm.
And tonight, for the first time in many nights, something new. A full and phantom moon cast down a silver glow upon the mountain’s white face, bathing all the winter night in sharp blues and blacks. And upon this lonely world of two colors, the gods’ lights offered a respite, a gift of glorious hues and vibrant energy.
And Laova looked down to finally see that the path she was following was scarred by the steady stride of another pair of feet that had gone before her, through the snow.
Chapter 3
“Morning, Bamet,” Laova sang, ruffling his hair where he was scrubbing out the fire.
He huffed. “Don’t know what’s so good about it. Don’t know what makes it morning, either.”
It was morning simply because they were starting the day’s work, nothing more. The barest smudge of light was shining feebly through the pass of mountains in the south, without hope for it getting any brighter. In fact, over the next few days, that bare smudge of purplish, bruise-colored sky would stop appearing altogether, and for perhaps seven or eight straight cycles of their daily routine there would be only the yawning azure-black of the night.
It happened every year. There was no reason to expect that the sun wouldn’t reappear at the end of the long night, just as it always did. Still, Laova crossed her mouth and eyes, the silent prayer to the gods that what she might se
e or say would not offend them.
As Bamet smothered the last coals, the tents were tightly rolled, the provisions stored, and packs strapped together. For the most part, their travel was light. Each member carried perhaps two stone or three upon their back. Each were armed with their stone daggers; Nemlach and Ghal carried thick sharp-wood spears. Laova and Khara and Taren were armed with bows. Bamet preferred a short club of knotted hardwood.
Rell, as Hunt-Leader, had inherited the Scim.
There were tales and legends of how it might have been crafted, stories about fire hotter than the sun, and the crushing force of giants—no matter how it had come to be, Laova cherished every time Rell drew it from the hide wrapping that swung at her side. Normally, only the battered handle was visible. Rell rarely drew the Scim, fighting and hunting with spear and bow and knife almost without exception.
Laova shouldered her gear, day-dreaming. When she was initiated as a Hunter, she would be in the running to be Hunt-Leader someday. Maybe someday, the Scim would ride her belt, at her side.
Maybe… if she had the chance to live longer than Rell. Laova looked up through the night that hung thick between the trees.
Looming large and gray above them were the Stormjaw Mountains. It was a literal name, taken from the jagged, fanged line of peaks and cliffs and spires that huddled together, near its base. True, the crags were good for hunting mountain sheep and the foothills that the hunting party had long passed were rich with wool-heavy snow buffalo. But further up, there was no hunting. Nothing mortal lived or breathed there.
And yet, the base of Star-Reach grew closer with each spent day.
Laova felt them watch her with unease. Bamet’s grouchy attitude was the most plain, but Laova saw it in Taren’s nervous smiles, Khara’s giving each new arrow a few extra swipes of her blade, to make sure each point was sharp as a crack when its turn came.
And Nemlach—
“Laova, might I speak with you?”