by R. Lee Smith
Olivia didn’t want to, but his arguments were certainly pervasive. And for the next two weeks, at least, it was still her tribe. Doru was running himself ragged trying to provide for it and lead it as well, and her frequent absences couldn’t be helping. She put out her hand. “I’ll give it a try,” she said.
Doru beckoned to one of the males and a spear was brought. He showed no hesitation giving it to her despite the dubious glances and mutters from the other gullan in the commons, but when they reached the entry shaft and he’d lifted her to make their ascent, he murmured, “You’re sure about this?”
“I doubt I’ll catch anything, but at least I’ll get some fresh air.”
When he reached the aerie, Doru set Olivia down, threw back his head and unleashed a deafening roar. As the echoes rolled down the mountain, he tipped his head to the side and cocked his ears forward, listening. “There’s Bodual,” he muttered after a moment. “And that’s Mudmar. Huh. I wonder where the others are.” Doru tapped the haft of his spear on the aerie and waited.
Shortly, Olivia’s eyes could make out moonlight on wing as two gullan swooped in out of the night. Bodual landed lightly on her left; Mudmar sank his claws into the overhang and looked at them over his broad shoulder.
“Well?” Doru said expectantly.
“Hodrub and Augurr are away raiding a hive,” Mudmar said. “Damark is showing Thurga and her crook-nosed little friend how to check and set traps. The others are fishing. Wurlgunn’s dropped his fool self in the lake twice already, but be damned if he hasn’t caught four fish.”
“Not bad.” Doru glanced down at Olivia. “Any sightings?”
Mudmar followed his gaze. “For a human-hunt? Nothing my way, unless you want to go after goat.”
One year ago, Olivia might have gone along with this, unaware of the true dimensions of a mountain goat. However, she had seen goats by now and she was horrified by the prospect of hunting one with a crude spear. She stepped back at once, both hands up as if the suggestion could be physically pushed away. “Absolutely not!”
“It’s a good time for it,” Mudmar said, shrugging his wings. “They haven’t started rutting yet and the males are everywhere in small groups.”
“Hate to go after them so damn soon,” Doru muttered.
“Doru, they’re huge!” she protested.
“Big, but dumb,” Bodual agreed, and gave his horns a slight toss towards Doru. “Like someone else I could mention. Easy, Olivia. Just about everyone goes after goat for their first hunt.”
They looked at her, all three of them. Olivia gripped her spear in both hands and looked at Doru.
He raised a brow at her. “It’s your decision,” he said. “I could as easily drop you at the lake and let you spear for fish, or I suppose we could fly out on a wide-patrol and see if we can’t scare up something else.”
“But the goats are already here,” Mudmur inserted. “I’ll take easy meat, even if it is early in the season, over a whole herd of maybes.”
Olivia sighed, her shoulders slumping. “So would I.”
Doru gave her a clap to the shoulder and scooped her up. “Let me clarify your role in this,” he said, leaping into the sky. His wings caught the wind and he soared out over the mountainside, allowing Mudmar to take the lead. “We’re going to circle the goats and drop you downwind. Don’t worry about charging them. This is your first time out and I don’t want you getting hurt in a ground fight.”
She didn’t like the sound of that—ground fight—and told him so.
“Goats aren’t as aggressive as, say, elk, but they can get plenty mean if they think they can get away with it. At this time of year, they’ll be in small groups of males, and half-growns at that. They’ll fight if they’re cornered, so stay back and keep your wits.” He caught a hand-signal from Mudmar, nodded, and banked sharply.
Olivia looked down around his arms and saw a handful of white drifts like clumps of snow lying against the dark rock, motionless, perhaps even sleeping. She shivered and clutched Doru tighter.
“Easy, Olivia. We’ll take them from the air if we can. It’s not in the nature of large animals to look up.” He landed and pried her off. “Look, it’s very simple. We’ll circle around and get them from the air. If any of them come your way, stab one with the spear and get out of the way.”
“They’re enormous!” she cried. “They’re bigger than cows!”
“It’s mostly wool,” he said. “Remember, come in from below, stab up, and let the prey do all the work.” He jumped back into the sky and quickly soared out of sight.
Olivia hunkered down, her eyes huge, her spear gripped tightly in both hands. She waited.
There was a bleating scream, then another, and then a thunder of hooves headed straight for her.
Olivia braced her spear against the ground just as the first goat leapt over a jutting stone and onto the point. She felt the crunch of its body as it was impaled, and then all its weight came down and knocked the spear and Olivia in different directions. The goat fell over awkwardly around the shaft, landed on its back, kicked the spear out of its body, and stumbled away, bleating.
“Olivia!” Doru vaulted over the stone and saw her. He looked at her bloody spear, then at the receding shape of the wounded goat. Grimly, he picked up the weapon and held it out. “After it.”
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“It’s suffering,” he said.
She stared at him, silently begging him to take the spear and finish for her, but he merely met her pleading eyes and waited her out. And in the end, yes, it was suffering. Olivia took her spear and went after her goat.
She must have chased it for an hour. The three gullan hunters followed at a discreet distance as she climbed over rocks, slid down slopes, and jabbed feebly at the terrified animal. The fifth time she got close enough to hit it, it wheeled about and launched a back hoof at her. She wasn’t quite fast enough to get out of the way. The blow landed high on her chest and she dropped hard against the ground as the goat staggered clumsily away.
She lay there, wishing she could go home. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Doru standing tensely nearby, ready to help if she were seriously injured. She was tempted to let him think so, but only for a moment.
She got up and started after the goat again. It took another two steps, gasping, then turned to fight. Its head lowered, aiming the small spikes of its horns at her. It charged, all its remaining strength rallied for one last attack.
If she’d thought about it, she would have frozen. Instead, her mind a perfect blank, Olivia’s hands braced her spear against the ground and shoved the head in under its thick throat, letting it drive itself headlong into death.
It made a sound, an awful sound. Its front legs folded underneath it and it slumped towards her. The tip of her spear ripped through the back of its neck, parting the wool and turning it pink. It glared at her with muddy, confused eyes. “Bleh?” it said.
“Please forgive me,” Olivia whispered.
The goat kicked its back legs and toppled drunkenly over on its side. Its bladder voided. It died.
Olivia held onto her spear, not trying to pull it free. She shivered. She didn’t move.
Doru put his hand on her back. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. “That’s as bad as it gets,” he said.
“Good,” she said tearfully. “Because that was pretty goddamn bad.”
Doru removed his hand and turned to the others, standing quietly nearby. “Clean it up,” he ordered. “I’ll take her home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she said, although she did. “I want to see.”
He gazed at her closely, but seemed satisfied with what he saw. “All right,” he said, pulling out a narrow, much-weathered knife. “See.”
Olivia watched the animal be butchered. The heavy pelt pulled free with a wet ripping sound. The guts were separated into what was useful and what was not. The meat was hacked free of most of the bones and wrapped in bundles to be ca
rried back. Very little was left behind. Nothing was left that could be used.
Doru loaded up the last of the meat and sent it away with Bodual. He turned, picked up Olivia’s spear, and offered it to her. “It might not be what you want to hear,” he began, “but you did well tonight.”
“You’re right,” she said, taking her spear. “I don’t want to hear that.”
His brow furrowed, not with concern, but with conviction. “It’s important, Olivia. You’ve helped today to provide for your tribe and the females that bear our young. You respected the life you took and took it only from need. Olivia, there is no shame in this death.”
He took her hand, leading her away from the bloody stain on the stones, to a place that overlooked the valley. “Not everyone can do what you just did. Liz would like to be a hunter, but she hasn’t got the stomach for it. Wurlgunn would like to be a hunter, but he doesn’t have the eye for it. If he weren’t needed so badly, I’d make him stop trying. I won’t make you hunt again.” He held her hand in his, looking out over a dark world. “But a good hunter is new life for the tribe. You could be a good hunter.”
“I want a bath,” she said.
He sighed, and then took her home. The tribe was already gathered and the scent of roasting meat pervaded the caverns; there would be a feast and she should be there, but he led her on to the baths without comment and stood by while she stripped away her clothing and tried to wash everything away. After a moment, he gathered up her bloodied garments and the spear and took them away. When he returned, the spear had been cleaned and he was naked.
He put the spear down next to the bath and slipped in beside her. He put his arms around her and leaned against the side of the tub, a tight squeeze for the two of them together. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” she said. “I just didn’t know it was like that. I expected it to be clean and…” She thought of the butcher’s section of the grocery stores where she shopped, and all those nice, plastic-wrapped pieces of meat, none of which ever looked like it had ever belonged to a living, breathing, bleeding animal. “I didn’t know I was going to hurt it,” she said in a small voice. “I’m sorry. I know how stupid that sounds.”
“I never should have brought you along,” he sighed. “But I’m desperate. Tobi was one of our better hunters. I need someone to replace her.”
“Oh, is that the only reason?” she said with a forced laugh. “I thought maybe you figured that if you ran a deer over me, no other man would want me.”
“I’d have to run something a lot more impressive than a deer over you for that,” he grunted. “Anyway, snapping Huuk’s horn off has pretty much made your position on mate-taking clear. The smarter gullan I can trust to leave you alone. It’s the dumb ones I worry about.” He was frowning over her head at the steam rising towards the top of the cave, his mind obviously elsewhere. “I suppose we have enough meat now that I won’t have to hunt for a few days. You have a little time to decide whether or not to try again. No one will blame you if you don’t, you know.”
“No one would dare,” she sniffed.
“That’s probably true.” There was the faintest hint of a smile in his voice. “There are some who think that every being is born with a single driving purpose—to be a hunter, a leader, a healer. I don’t believe that, but I do think a man, or a woman for that matter, should do what he’s best at. If he happens to be best at different things, so be it. You are an excellent example. You are a good mate, a wise healer and a strong leader. It’s all right if you don’t want to be more. It’s all right if you do.”
“Thanks,” she said, still thinking of the goat.
He nudged her discretely. “You were supposed to say, ‘Oh Doru, you’re good at lots of things too,’ and then name them,” he explained.
“You cuddle very well,” she said.
He groaned. “You’ve been talking to Bodual. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to stand tall and look formidable when your best friend is spreading rumors about how cuddly you are?”
“You don’t want to be the leader anyway.”
He disengaged his arm from her shoulders. “You’re right about that.” He glanced at her with a warm smile. “But you seem to be feeling better. I need to see that the meat is divided fairly. You should consider joining the feast. This was your first hunt and it was successful. Others will want to praise you.”
“I don’t want to be praised for what I just did.”
He had started to heave himself out of the bath, but hearing this, he dropped back beside her, frowning. Very gently, he caught her chin in his hand and turned her meet his eyes. “My father used to tell me, the earth will have what the earth desires. The earth desired my sister. The earth desired that sweet female that shared my heart and soul for thirty years. The earth desired the three sinless infants I was made to sire. I have learned at last that it does no good to curse the earth. I hear it calling for the life of my tribe, and I don’t question that call, but I do fight it and I fight it with blood. Tonight, Olivia, you stood before the hungry earth and pushed it back, yes, with blood. Now it is done, and here is the only wisdom that I know: The animal’s pain is over, your tribe is fed and the earth has nothing of yours. There is comfort in that. Small comfort, maybe, and bitter, but there.”
“I killed it, Doru,” she said bleakly. “It was just a dumb animal. It didn’t even know what was happening.”
He pulled her into his embrace and wrapped his wings close around her.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Okay. I’m done.”
He made no move to release her. She closed her eyes and leaned into his body, savoring the warmth and kindness in his touch, savoring even the wet-fur smell of him.
He stroked his hand through her hair once or twice, then held her out at arm’s length and offered her a thin smile. “Olivia, no one is starving now. It’s all right to grieve for the life you took tonight. But it’s all right to keep on eating goat, too.” He studied her face closely. “Will you come to the feast?”
Olivia shuddered, covered her face, counted to ten, and finally looked at him again. “Yes.”
“That’s always been your greatest strength,” he remarked, and got out of the bath. “Not just to do the things you don’t want to do, but to stand and face the consequences when they’re done. Olivia, you may never be a hunter, but whatever you are fated for, you surely will be great.”
“Everybody says that,” she said with a sigh.
“Everybody does,” he agreed, pulling her out of the water. “So you’ve been warned.”
2
Olivia did not hunt, but after that night, she put herself in charge of watching over the few captive goats which the gullan kept for milking, reasoning that every goat whose escape she prevented was one less that Doru would have to hunt down again. Under Amy’s critical eye, and with the help of several gullan women, a pen was constructed, and as long as she kept their feedbox full and replaced any half-eaten slats, it seemed to be holding them. It was not exciting work, but it served a purpose and more importantly, it got her out of reach of all males apart from Doru’s hunters, none of whom were any threat to her now that she was officially his mate.
And it gave her plenty of time to sit just as she sat now, gazing up into the night sky at the moon. She did not move, had not moved, and at times the captive mountain goats forgot she was there and came close enough to brush against her before bounding away and bleating curses at her. She didn’t notice.
The moon was full tonight. In fourteen short days, the goddess’s season would be on her, and when she and the Great Spirit had met to conceive the next child, Olivia’s time would be over. The thought no longer had quite the same sting that it once had. She still couldn’t see the end of the journey, couldn’t imagine the battle that awaited her in the pool of Bahgree’s waters, or whatever fate came afterwards, win or lose, but she finally thought she would be able, at least, to begin.
A cloud crawl
ed slowly over the face of the moon, and the thought came to Olivia that this was a signal, that Urga had delivered another child into the world, and somewhere among some unseen tribe, there was a new baby with a silvery crest down its perfect back. “Congratulations,” Olivia said, startling a nearby goat. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
The clouds grew thicker, dimming the sky, and when the reluctant answer came, silent in the night but roaring like blood in Olivia’s ears, she was not entirely surprised.
“A son. The Great Spirit breeds only sons with me.”
“Chauvinist.”
“In many ways.”
“Do you love him?” She was somewhat amused by her own sense of calm, as if speaking to a goddess wasn’t important enough to get excited over.
“He is mine. My mate. My creator.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It is what I have answered.”
Olivia watched the captive goats graze and mutter at each other.
“Do you love him?” Only the faint inflection made this a question; Urga’s voice was distant and cold as…as moonlight.
“No.” She smiled faintly. “Always a bridesmaid.”
Urga overlooked the nonsensical remark. “Does he know this?”
“I’ve made no secret of it. You ought to know better than anyone that he doesn’t exactly care what other people think. I am not required to love him. To quote the man himself, I’m not even required to be conscious.”
“So it is.” There followed a lengthy pause. “Why is it then that you seek to give him pleasure more than he takes in his own course?”
“I think the greater question here is, why don’t you?”
Pensive silence. The goats clacked over stone.
“He spoke of you when last we met.”
Olivia shifted on the rock, looking up to see that the clouds had now almost entirely blackened the moon from sight. What little smudge of light shone through them only served to make the whole sky seem bruised and baleful. Uneasily, she said, “I’m sorry about that.”