“The last place we raided. Their gardens were coming on good.”
Feather tried not to think about the Woban village and the burgeoning gardens there. She stretched out her legs, glad to sit still for a little while. She yawned and picked up the piece of meat.
“You did not so bad today,” Hana said. “You help me every night. We clean up after. Then you rest. Sleep all you can.”
A light mist fell on them, and the people began to settle down for the night. Some had blankets or bedrolls. Others stretched out in the grass with no covering from the rain. The women clustered near the edge of the woods, and Feather wandered toward them, uncertain of her welcome. They ignored her, and she found a place beneath a pine tree where she could lie on the spent orange needles and be sheltered by the thick branches overhead.
Lex had taken his pack from her after supper, and she had no belongings to worry about. Before crawling into her sleeping place, she looked around. Hadn’t Tag said he would come here? Or was she in the wrong place? Two teenaged girls had spread their blankets nearby. This must be right.
She saw him then, standing at the edge of the trees. When she caught his eye, he jerked his head to the side and turned away. Feather headed in the direction he had taken, stepping carefully in the dimness, trying not to draw attention to herself.
She came near a large oak tree, and he suddenly stepped out from behind it.
“Here!”
She ducked under a low branch and joined him. The rain was steadier now, pattering down on the broad leaves above them. Feather shivered.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. Just tired.”
“Lex sent you to work with Hana.”
“Yes.”
“Was she mean to you?”
“No. Not mean, but not nice either.”
He nodded. “She is Lex’s wife.”
“That cannot be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they barely seem aware of each other. They exist in the same time and place, that’s all.”
“That is their way.”
As Feather considered his words, it made more sense to her. After all, Hana had given Lex and his slave food when the others had already finished eating, and she hadn’t questioned his word, though Feather had seen other women bicker with the men. “I guess I could have a worse master and mistress. Thank you for helping me.”
“Lex came and asked me why I did it.”
Feather gasped. “What did you say to him?”
“That it was too much for you.”
“You dare speak to him like that?”
Tag shrugged. “It is not about honor and courtesy here. It is all strength and grit. Soon I will join their men in hunting and raiding, and I must prove that I can stand up to them.”
Feather stared at him, wondering what sort of world she had entered. “How long have you been with them?”
“Nearly two years now.”
“And they stole you?”
Tag broke a small twig from the oak branch and twisted it in his hands. “I was taken, much as you were, only . . .”
“What?” Feather asked.
“I’m afraid most of my clan was destroyed. I saw many killed before they took me . . . me and another boy.”
“Is he here?” She looked around, as though expecting him to materialize from the mist.
“No.”
“Where is he?”
Tag threw the stick out away from the tree. “He hurt his foot the second day, and he couldn’t keep up.”
She stared at him, unable to speak.
“Don’t worry,” Tag whispered. “You will be fine. You are doing well.”
“Is that why you helped me? Because of what they did to him?”
“Perhaps. Just remember, if you work hard, Hana will not be cruel to you, and once she decides she likes you, she will not let Lex beat you.”
“Do you think about running away?” she asked. “About going home?”
“I have no home now. And you mustn’t ever speak of it. If you do, they will try to find your village and raid it.”
She stood staring at him in the dark shadow of the tree, shifting her weight from one sore foot to the other. She could barely make out the glitter of his eyes. “Why didn’t they look for it yesterday?”
“Who knows? Although they ambushed a band of cattlemen only a few days ago, so they have plenty of food for now. But you’re right. It was unusual to take a prisoner and not try to find the rest of her people.” He studied her for a moment, then whispered, “Why were you alone?”
Feather clamped her lips shut. Almost she had blurted out the fact that she wasn’t alone at the berry patch, but it occurred to her suddenly that Tag might be spying for Lex and the others. Perhaps they had threatened him and told him to question her.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said.
There was a moment’s silence, then he said, “You’re right. It’s better not to trust anyone. Not yet. I hope you will learn later that you can trust me. But the Blens come this way every summer. If you let slip anything about your people, they will have to beware next year. Here.” He fumbled in the darkness and pushed a damp bundle into her arms.
“What is it?”
“A blanket. Take it.”
“What will you use?”
“I have a leather tunic in my pack. I will be warm enough.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Tomorrow we will head westward to meet the other bands of their people at Three Rivers. Then we will go on to the City of Cats. Every year they go there. They will make several stops along the way, to raid and to trade with the few clans they have made peace with. Then we’ll go south for the winter.”
“The City of Cats? What is that?”
He chuckled. “You will see. It is where I shall either become a man or suffer the worst humiliation possible in this tribe.”
Chapter Four
Under the hot sun of late summer Karsh worked with his tools.
Alomar sat near him, watching as he heated a thin strip of iron, then lifted it and quickly set it on another piece of metal and began to hammer it before the heat fled. All too soon the iron cooled, and Karsh heated it again and again, worrying at it with his hammer.
He was determined to shape a hundred nails that day. The adults not working in the gardens were building a new shelter, and Neal, who directed the project, had asked Alomar if they could provide strong nails or pins of metal to hold the timbers together. It would make the work of building go much faster than carving wooden pegs and boring out the holes for them.
“If we could only contain the fire better,” Alomar sighed. “Then we could make it hot enough to soften the iron more. It would be so much easier for you.” Karsh knew the old man ached to take the hammer in his own hands once more, but his arms were too weak to wield it.
“How could we do that?” Karsh asked. “A bigger fire pit?”
Alomar shook his head. “Some people use a kind of big oven.”
“Build the fire inside the oven?”
“Yes. And they have machines to blow on it and make it hotter. In the Old Times, when they rode horses, the king had a man who did nothing but make iron shoes for the horses. And others made tools and weapons from iron.”
“There were a lot of people then,” Karsh said.
“Yes.” Alomar sighed. “The towns held many people. Hundreds. My grandfather said that a thousand lived in the town near the castle back then.”
Karsh shook his head. It was hard to think what a thousand meant, or how much space the houses of a thousand people would take up. He didn’t think he’d like to live among so many people, but he wished he could see the iron worker’s shop.
Sometimes when Rose and Zee were baking, they scooped hot coals from the fire pit and transferred them to the clay oven. When the oven was hot inside, they scraped out the coals and put in the food they wished to cook. But the oven would nev
er get hot enough to soften metal, Karsh was sure.
“In the Old Times,” Alomar said sadly, “they even melted metal and poured it into molds. That’s how some of the things you’ve found were made.” He nodded toward Karsh’s woven belt. “That buckle, for instance.”
Karsh wiped the sweat from his forehead and returned his strip of iron to the fire. “How could you melt metal? In what would you melt it?”
“A pot,” Alomar said, but he sounded doubtful.
“A clay pot would crack,” Karsh said.
“Not a clay pot, then.”
“What kind of pot would hold the molten metal and not melt itself?”
The old man had no answer. They had spoken of this before but never found a solution. “The trader comes soon. We can ask him. He goes to many tribes. Some of them work metal. He may have knowledge of special tools and ways to work.”
“We know some metals are softer than others,” Karsh mused. “The red metal is softer than iron, and the heavy metal softer still.”
“Yes,” said Alomar. “I’ve seen lead melt on a stone beside a hot fire. You can shape it easily, even when it’s cold.”
“But we don’t have much,” Karsh said, “and it’s too soft to use for tools.”
He was glad they were raising the new building. For the last month they had worked hard on their hidden sleeping platforms and secret food caches in the forest. But those were finished now, and they had turned to this new structure in the village.
It meant they would have another house that was livable in winter and would not all be crammed together in the lodge. Three winters they had spent that way, and now, especially with the addition of Neal and Weave’s baby, all could see the need of a larger living space. The two married couples would move into the new house, and each family would have a room of its own on opposite sides of their common living area. Shea and Rose, with their daughter Gia and young son Cricket would live in one side, while Neal, Weave, little Flame, and the new baby would be in the other. The unmarried adults and orphans could spread out a bit more in the lodge this winter, and it would be quieter.
But Karsh knew it would be too quiet for him at times. He could not stop thinking about Feather. Imagining a long, cold winter without her was too painful to bear.
The others seemed to have forgotten her. Seldom was her name mentioned. On rare occasions, Karsh would look up and find Hunter watching him. Only a week ago, Hunter had come to him on the ridge, where Karsh had climbed to sit and look down at the berry patch where he had last seen his sister.
“You miss her,” Hunter had said, and his simple words had started tears flowing. Karsh hid his face in his arms.
“Don’t be ashamed,” Hunter said, touching his bowed head. “It’s not a disgrace to weep for one you love.”
Karsh gulped for air and wiped his face on his sleeve. If Rand had been the one to find him, Karsh knew he would have received a stiff lecture on discipline and the good of the tribe. “Do you think Feather is alive?”
“I do.”
“I want to find her, Hunter. I need to go and find her.”
Hunter shook his head and looked out over the valley below. “You must give up that idea. The Blens range far and wide over the plains. Even if we could find the band that stole her, we are not strong enough to take her from them. We found their camp, remember? There were dozens of them. We would surely lose more of our people in such a venture. We mustn’t lose any more of our number. Do you understand that, son?”
Karsh closed his eyes tightly. It hurt him inside when Hunter spoke to him so gently. It was almost as if he had a father. But without Feather, his family would never be complete, even if Hunter got married and asked the elders to allow him to adopt him. That was one of Karsh’s daydreams. Even before Feather was lost, he had dreamed of it. They were children of the tribe, but it would be so much better to have a family of one’s own, a strong and caring father like Hunter, and a mother like . . . He never saw the mother’s face in his dreams. He would let Hunter choose the mother for him and Feather.
But in the years they had been with the Wobans, Hunter had not married, and now Feather was gone. The family was a mirage that had evaporated into dry, empty air.
And so his conversation with Hunter had ended in frustration once again, and he was still here, forcing himself to lay aside the vision of finding Feather and working for the safety and comfort of the tribe.
“The sun is setting,” Alomar said, and Karsh looked up. It was true; the light was already fading. He quenched the last nail of the day—only sixty-three today. He would do better tomorrow.
“Go join the men at the lake,” Alomar said. “I will put away the tools.”
“No, I’ll help you. Then we’ll both go.”
The old man smiled at him. “You are a good lad.”
Karsh stored the tools in the men’s shelter while Alomar carefully fitted the new nails into a small box. Neal and the other men left the building site and headed for the lake to swim before supper.
“Go,” said Alomar. “I follow, but I come slowly.”
Karsh ran down the path, pulling off the leather tunic he wore when working with metal and fire. It was uncomfortably hot in summer, but it kept the sparks from burning him or making holes in his fabric clothing.
“Hey, Karsh!” Cricket called from the water, and Karsh hurried to leave his leggings and moccasins in a heap on the shore, then splashed in to frolic with the other boys. The men came in more leisurely, ducked under the water, and swam a few lengths, surfacing beyond the shallows where the young boys played.
Karsh kept an eye on Hunter, and when he returned to shore, Karsh followed.
“What, done dunking Cricket and Bente so soon?” Hunter asked, reaching for his clothes.
“I want to talk to you.”
Hunter pulled his leggings on and sat down to brush off his feet before donning his moccasins. “We can’t track the Blens, I told you,” he said quietly.
“I know. It’s not that.” Karsh waited until Hunter looked up at him. “I want to go on the big hunt with you.”
Hunter gritted his teeth. “Not this year. I can’t let you.”
“Why not? I’m a good shot; you know that.”
“Yes.”
“Please.”
Hunter sighed. “You are hoping we will find some sign of Feather.”
Karsh looked down at his feet. The fine gravel was sticking to them. “It’s too hard to just sit here while you’re gone. It was bad enough last year. I wanted to be with you so much! But now . . .” He looked up, not wanting to whine, but hoping Hunter could see his aching need to do something, to make some progress toward finding Feather. “I can’t do nothing. Hunter, I need to find her, or at least . . . at least to be trying.”
Hunter’s mouth softened, and he rested a hand on Karsh’s shoulder. “When my wife died—”
“You had a wife?” Karsh blinked at him, shocked for a moment out of his distress.
“Yes, many years ago.”
“You’re older than I thought.”
Hunter smiled. “We married very young. I was eighteen, as was she. And two years later she died.”
Karsh frowned, trying to see where this story’s ending lay. “What does that have to do with Feather?”
“It’s hard. That’s all, Karsh. When someone you love dies, it’s hard. But I suspect it’s not as hard as this has been for you. Because when Ella died, I knew there was nothing more I could do for her. You don’t have that knowledge. You will always wonder about Feather and wish you could have saved her.”
Karsh pulled away. “No! I will not always wonder! I will find her! I know I’m not strong; I know I’m young. Everything you say is true, but someday I will find her.”
Hunter sighed. “When the trader comes, we will ask him to inquire about her. Perhaps he can bring us news in the spring. Can you live with that?”
Karsh nodded slowly. “If we knew . . . if we knew where she was . . . or who
she was with, and that she was all right, I would feel better, and maybe then I could go after her. I can’t wait until I’m grown though.”
Hunter’s face was still troubled, but he stood up and reached for his shirt. “We will ask the trader. And you must stay here during the hunt.” Before Karsh could protest, Hunter held up his hand. “The women will need you. Perhaps you can help stand guard. Rand and Alomar will stay as well, and one other man.”
“Who?”
“We will draw lots.”
Karsh scrunched his face up. “No one wants to stay.”
Hunter went on quickly. “And besides, the trader may not come before we leave. If he comes while we are hunting, you must be here to instruct him about your sister.”
Karsh nodded slowly.
“The tribe needs you to be faithful now, Karsh.”
“I will be. And, Hunter?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
He smiled. “That I’m so old? I’m not yet thirty.”
Karsh smiled. “No, I meant, I’m sorry she died. Ella. I’m very sorry.”
Together they walked back to the village.
Chapter Five
The Blens camped for several days at the place called Three Rivers, where three streams merged in a pounding, foaming rush. Small bands wandered in from all directions until more than three hundred people filled the plain. All brought food to share from their summer raiding.
They were not all alike. Feather could see that they were a motley bunch, united only for convenience. They were the outcasts of other tribes, she guessed, and had made a wild, bullying tribe of their own. In the evenings they gathered to feast and tell of their exploits. During the day the men who wore the necklace went out to hunt game to replenish the meat supply.
Feather had the unpleasant task of helping Hana and some other women butcher the game. She was surprised that the men were successful day after day and brought enough to feed all the people. There was even some left over to dry for their journey.
“They go far across the plain and into those hills,” Hana said, pointing to a misty blue smudge on the horizon. “Not many people live out here, so the animals flourish.”
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