Ortnar looked on with interest, stretched out his hand and rubbed it over the unmarked surface.
“Won’t cut, won’t scratch. Stronger than stone. I’ve never seen anything like it. Water won’t soften it?”
“No, nothing.”
“Even hot water, boiling water?”
“I’ve never tried. We had nothing like that in the city. You can’t boil water without fire…”
As soon as Kerrick had spoken the words he stiffened, looking down at the ring and its flexible lead, then slowly raised his eyes to the smoking fire on the shore. Not water, even boiling water. But something that the Yilanè knew nothing about.
Fire.
It might just be possible. The substance wasn’t stone or metal. It might melt, or char, soften perhaps. If this happened it might then be weak enough to cut. Ortnar saw the direction of Kerrick’s gaze and struck his hands together with enthusiasm.
“Why not? Fire might do something to it. You said the murgu don’t have fire.”
“They don’t.”
“Let me try.”
Ortnar picked up the discarded ring at the other end of the lead and stepped over to the smoking ashes of the fire, poked it down into them.
Nothing happened. Kerrick looked on gloomily when he took it out and brushed the ashes from the smooth surface. It was unmarked — but he burnt his fingers. Ortnar sucked at them, then spat out bits of charcoal. Still determined he stirred the fire with a stick until it flamed up. When the stick began to burn he touched it to the ring.
Screamed and dropped it as it burst into scorching flame, crackling and exploding.
Kerrick saw the flame gush out surrounded by a growing cloud of black smoke, the ring burning, the fire flashing up the lead towards his face.
Unthinking, he hurled himself backward, away from the scorching heat. Fell splashing into the stream.
When he spluttered and rose to his feet again he saw the red weal across his arm and midriff where the burning lead had touched his body. It ended on his chest. With wondering fingers he touched the stub of the lead that ended there as well.
It was gone. This connection that had dominated his life, this restraint that had been with him all those long years. It was gone. He stood up straight, not feeling the burns, aware only that a great burden had been removed. His last tie with the Yilanè severed.
As they rubbed deer fat onto their burns, Ortnar pointed to the length of lead still hanging from the ring on Kerrick’s neck.
“We could burn that off too. You could lie in the water, just that much above the surface, I could get some burning wood…”
“I think we’ve done enough for one day,” Kerrick said. “We’ll wait until the burns heal before trying anything like this again.”
Ortnar kicked the hot metal ring into the water. When it had cooled he examined it with great interest, rubbing it with a stone. “It shines like skymetal. They have great skills, the murgu, to fit it about your flesh like that.” He reluctantly gave the ring to Kerrick when he reached out for it.
“It was molded in place by one of their animals,” he said.
“You will keep it?”
There was hope in Ortnar’s voice and Kerrick almost gave the ring back to him. But as he clutched it in his hands he felt the same repulsion that he had when he took off the breech covering for the last time.
“No. It is Yilanè, murgu.” He threw it out into the stream where it splashed and sank. “I still wear one about my neck. That is enough to have.”
They were ready now to leave, but Herilak stood, leaning on his spear, looking back the way they had come.
“If more had escaped they would be here by now,” he said. “And we have been running like frightened women. Now we must stop and consider our trail ahead. Tell me about the murgu, Kerrick, what are they doing now?”
“I do not understand.”
“Are they still following us? Are they waiting still on the beach where they attacked?”
“No, they will have gone by now. They were hunting for food and had brought very little preserved meat with them. The object of the expedition was to come this far north to destroy the sammad. Then return. Nothing would be accomplished by remaining here. With the Eistaa’s death no one else would be in command. There would have been a lot of confusion and they would certainly have returned to the city by now.”
“That is what the main body would have done. But would there be others left behind to search for us?”
“There might be. Stallan might be doing that — no. Of all of them she is the one who was closest to second in command. She would surely have ordered their return.”
“Then you believe they are gone?”
“Almost certainly.”
“That is good. We will return to the shore.”
Kerrick felt a thrust of fear at the words. “They may be hiding, waiting for us.”
“You just assured me — that they would not.”
“We are hunters,” Ortnar said. “We will know if they are there.”
“We have no reason…”
“Every reason.” Herilak was firm now, once more in command. “We have two spears, one bow without arrows, nothing more. When the snow falls we will die. All that we need is back there. We return.”
They went fast, too fast for Kerrick. It was too much like returning to certain death. By dusk they were in the foothills above the shore and could see the ocean beyond.
“Ortnar, you will go carefully,” Herilak ordered. “Without sound, unseen. Look carefully for any sign of the murgu.”
Ortnar shook his spear in acknowledgment, turned and slipped away through the trees. Herilak settled down comfortably in the shade and promptly went to sleep. Kerrick was too upset to do anything other than worry, to look towards the shore and let his fear populate the forest with stalking Yilanè.
The sun was below the horizon when a bird called out from the valley below. Herilak was instantly awake; cupping his hands to his mouth he answered the call. There was a crackling in the brush and Ortnar came into view running easily up the slope.
“Gone,” he said. “Gone the way they came.”
“You can’t be sure,” Kerrick said. Ortnar looked at him scornfully.
“Of course I am sure. I found no fresh tracks. And the carrion birds were everywhere — and they are quick to take fright. And I searched as well.” His drawn face spoke louder than words. He pointed to the arrows that now filled his quiver. “Everything we need is there.”
“We go now,” Herilak announced.
It was well after dark when they reached the site of the massacre, but the gibbous moon’s cold light enabled them to find the way. The crows and buzzards were gone with the daylight and now the mantle of darkness concealed the worst horrors of the massacre. The smell of decay was already strong. Kerrick stood on the shore, looking out to sea, while the others searched for what was needed. He turned back reluctantly to face the slaughter only when Herilak called to him.
“Put these on,” the sammadar said. “They belonged to a great hunter. May they bring you good fortune.”
There were fur leggings with solid leather soles, a cape, belt, and other heavy garments. Too warm for the summer, but they would make the difference between life and death when the snows came. A long spear, stout bow, arrows. Kerrick made a bundle of the things he would not wear and put it with the other bundles and baskets they were taking. Herilak had taken some of the crosspoles from one of the large mastodon travois and made a smaller one that they could pull. Everything they needed was now lashed into place upon it.
“We go now,” he said, his voice grim as death with the dead of the sammad on all sides of him. “We will never forget what the murgu have done here.”
They walked until the moon set, taking turns between the shafts of the travois, until they were too tired to go any farther. Kerrick still feared that Yilanè hunters were searching for him, but so great was his fatigue that he fell asleep while he was worr
ying and did not stir until dawn.
Herilak unlashed a bag of ekkotaz from the travois and they dipped out handfuls of the delicious mixture, dried berries and nutmeat, pounded together. Kerrick had been a boy when he last tasted it and childhood memories flooded back as he licked it from his fingers. It was good to be Tanu. But even as he thought this he was scratching at his waist, over and over. When he pulled the fur back he saw the red bites. His skin crawled as he realized that the brave hunter who had last worn these furs had been infested with fleas. Suddenly being Tanu was not that pleasant. His back was sore from lying on the hard ground, his muscles ached from the unaccustomed exercise — and if that wasn’t enough there was a sudden spasm of pain in his midriff. The burnt and tough meat was not sitting too well in his stomach; he hurried behind the nearest clump of bushes.
Racked with cramps he saw the flea crawl across his discarded garments. He cracked it between his fingernail, then wiped his fingers disgustedly on the grass. He was filthy and sore, flea-infested and ill. What was he doing here with these crude ustuzou? Why wasn’t he in Alpèasak? He had been comfortable there, at peace, close to the Eistaa. Why couldn’t he return? Vaintè was dead of a spear thrust — but who in the city knew that he had wielded the spear? He hadn’t been seen. Why couldn’t he go back?
He washed himself well, then went a few paces upstream to drink. On. the bank the two hunters were lashing the load back onto the travois. They could go on without him.
But did he want to go back to Alpèasak? For years he had been thinking of escape from the city — and now he was free. Wasn’t that what he had always wanted? That was the Yilanè’s world, not his. There was no place for him there.
But was there a place for him among the Tanu?
He stood knee-deep in the cool water, his fists clenched. Lost. Belonging neither to one world nor the other. Outcast and alone.
Herilak called out to him, his words cutting through Kerrick’s dark thoughts. He waded ashore, then pulled his garments slowly on.
“We leave now,” Herilak said.
“Where do you go?” Kerrick asked, still torn by conflicting feelings.
“West. To find other hunters. To return with them and kill murgu.”
“They are too strong, too many.”
“Then I will be dead and my tharm will join the tharms of the other hunters in my sammad. But first I will have avenged them. It is a good way to die.”
“There are no good ways to die.”
Herilak looked at him in silence, understanding something of the conflicting emotions that Kerrick was feeling. Those years of captivity must have done strange things to the boy who was now a man. But the years were there, they could not be taken away. There was no going back. The way ahead might be hard — but it was the only way.
Herilak reached up to his neck and slowly lifted the leather thong with the pendant skymetal knife over his head, then held it out.
“This was your father’s. You are his son for you still wear the smaller boy’s knife made at the same time. Hang this one about your neck beside it. Wear it now to remind you of his death and the death of your sammad. And who killed them. Feel hatred in your heart and the knowledge that you seek vengeance as well.”
Kerrick hesitated, then reached out and took the knife, held it, then clenched his fist tightly about its hard shape.
There could be no going back to Alpèasak. Ever. He must teach himself to feel only hatred towards the murderers of his people. He hoped that would come.
But now all he felt was a terrible emptiness inside.
CHAPTER FOUR
Es mo tarril drepastar, er em so man drija.
If my brother is wounded, I will bleed.
The hunting was very bad. Ulfadan had been out since before dawn and had little to show for it. A single rabbit hung from his belt. It was young and scrawny, with scarcely enough meat on its bones to feed a single person. How was his entire sammad to eat. He came to the edge of the forest and stopped under a large oak, looking out at the grassland beyond. He dared go no further.
Here there were murgu. From here to the end of the world, if the world had an end, there were only these despised and frightening creatures. Some made good eating, he had once tasted the meat from the leg of one of the smaller murgu with bills that grazed in vast herds. But death was always waiting for the hunter who sought them out. There were poisonous murgu in the grass, snakes of all sizes, many-colored and deadly. Worse still were the giant creatures whose roars were like thunder, whose tread shook the ground like an earthquake. As he always did when he thought of murgu, though he did not realize it, his fingers touched the tooth of one of these giants that hung on his chest. A single tooth almost as long as his forearm. He had been young and stupid when he retrieved it, risking death to show his bravery.
From the trees he had seen the marag die, seen the repulsive carrion eaters that quarreled and tore at the creature’s body. Only after dark had he dared to leave the shelter of the trees, to pry this single tooth from the gaping jaws. Then the night-murgu had appeared and only chance had saved his life. The long white scar on his thigh was witness that he had not returned unharmed. No, there was no game to be sought beyond the protection of the trees.
But the sammad must eat. Yet the food they searched and hunted for was growing scarcer and scarcer. The world was changing and Ulfadan did not know why. The alladjex told them that ever since Ermanpadar had shaped Tanu from the mud of the river bed the world had been the same. In the winter they went to the mountains where the snow lay deep and the deer were easy to kill. When the snow melted in the spring they followed the fast streams down to the river, and sometimes to the sea, where fish leaped in the water and good things grew in the earth. Never too far south though, for only murgu and death waited there. But the mountains and the dark northern forests had always provided everything that they had needed.
This was no longer true. With the mountains now wrapped in endless winter, the herds of deer depleted, the snow in the forests lying late into the spring, their timeless sources of food were no more. They were eating now, there were fish enough in the river at this season. They had been joined at their river camp by sammad Kellimans; this happened every year. It was a time to meet and talk, for the young men to find women. There was little of this now for although there was enough fish to eat there was not enough to preserve for the winter. And without this supply of food very few of them would see the spring.
There was no way out of the trap. To the west and east other sammads waited, as hungry as his and Kellimans’. Murgu to the south, ice to the north — and they were trapped between them. No way out. Ulfadan’s head was bursting with this problem that had no solution. In agony he wailed aloud like a trapped animal, then turned and made his way back to the sammad.
From the top of the grassy slope that led down to the river, nothing looked amiss. The dark cones of the leather tents stretched along the river bank in a ragged row. Figures moved about between the tents and smoke rose from the fires. Close by him one of the tethered mastodons raised its trunk and bellowed. Further along the shore some women could be seen scratching at the earth with their fire-hardened sticks, digging up edible roots. The roots were good food now. But what would happen when the ground froze again? He knew what would happen and he thrust the thought from him.
Naked children ran screaming, splashed in the water. Old women sat in the sun before their tents plaiting baskets from willow and reeds. As he walked by the tents Ulfadan’s face was set and stern, unreadable. One of his smaller sons hurried up to him, bursting with an important message.
“Three hunters are here, from another sammad. One of them is very funny.”
“Take this rabbit to your mother. Run.”
The hunters were sitting around a fire, taking puffs in turn from a stone-bowled pipe. Kellimans was there, and Fraken the alladjex, old and withered, but respected greatly for his knowledge and healing powers. The newcomers rose in greeting when he appeare
d. One of them he knew well.
“I greet you, Herilak.”
“I greet you, Ulfadan. This is Ortnar of my sammad. This is Kerrick, son of Amahast, son of my sister.”
“You have food and drink?”
“We have eaten and drunk. Ulfadan’s generosity is well-known.”
Ulfadan joined the circle about the fire, took the pipe when it was passed to him and inhaled deeply of the pungent smoke. He wondered about the strange hunter without hair, who should have been dead with the rest of his sammad but was not. He would be told at the proper time.
Other hunters were also curious about the newcomers and came and sat in a circle about them, for this was the way of the sammad.
Herilak was no longer as formal as he once had been. He waited until the pipe had passed only once before he spoke.
“The winters are long, and we know that. The food is scarce and we know that. Now all in my sammad are dead except two.”
There was a silence among the hunters after he had spoken these terrible words, wails of agony from the women who listened outside the circle. Many had relations who had married into Herilak’s sammad. More than one looked up at the eastern sky where the first stars were beginning to appear. When Herilak spoke again no sound disturbed him.
“It is known that I went with my hunters so far south that there was no snow and it was hot in the winter, to the place where there are only murgu. It was my thought that murgu had killed Amahast and all in his sammad. My thought was correct for we found murgu that walk like men and kill with death-sticks. It was one of their death-sticks that I found among the bones of sammad Amahast. We killed the murgu we found there, then returned north. Now we knew that death lay to the south and we knew what kind of death it was. But we were hungry this last winter and many died. In the summer the hunting was bad, as you know. So I took the sammad south along the coast because of the hunger. I led the hunters farther south for the easy hunting there. We knew of the danger. We knew that the murgu might attack us too, but without food we would be dead anyway. We were on our guard and there was no attack. It was only after we turned back that they fell upon us. I am here. Ortnar is here. The rest are dead. With us is Kerrick who is the son of Amahast, captured by the murgu, now free at last. He knows much about the murgu ways.”
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