by R Magnusholm
After rummaging in his cardboard box, he found the phone battery he’d broken out of his phone and the wires they’d used the last time to produce a spark. He didn’t expect it to work, but they might as well try.
With Spot watching them curiously, he prepared tinder and then shorted the two wires amid reed head fluff and paper-thin strips of birch bark. As expected, the old battery proved too flat to provide a spark.
John shrugged. “We’ll use the bow-drill.”
They found a hunk of seasoned fir wood with a suitable knothole and knelt in the square of light falling from the wigwam’s entrance. The earthen floor was hard and dry, so if a glowing ember fell upon it, it wouldn’t go out like the last time when it landed in the damp grass. He bent the bow-drill to kink its string, fit a drill-rod into the loop of the bowstring, then pushed the tip of the rod into the knothole.
Liz capped the top end of the stick with a flat stone. “It better work.”
“Oh, I’m sure it will.”
He started sawing the bow back and forth with smooth, confident moves—back and forth. Back and forth. The top of the drill-stick rotated under the capping stone, squeaking. The drill bit into the wood, heating up. A resinous aroma filled the air. After months of hard labor in the fresh air, his muscles had grown tough and wiry, and he felt that he could go on and on.
But going on and on wasn’t required. After some ten minutes, a thin trickle of smoke began coiling around the tip of the stick, and they exchanged a triumphant glance.
“I knew it would work,” he said.
The stream of smoke thickened. He sped up his sawing. “Shall we?”
“Okay.”
John stopped, and Liz removed the capping stone. When he pulled the drill-stick out, the tip wasn’t even smoking.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed.
But smoke was pouring from the knothole. Quickly, Liz stuffed a bit of tinder in and blew at it through a hollow stem. A tiny flame burst out of the hole momentarily, and John held a handful of reed fluff tinder over it. The tinder in his hand burst aflame, and grinning like a lunatic he dropped it atop more tinder in the hearth and piled reed stalks over the tiny fire. Elated, they crouched around the growing flames, feeding them reed stems and thin fir twigs. Soon, John introduced middle-sized branches, and once those caught, he and Liz breathed a sigh of relief.
“We made it, didn’t we?” Liz cried.
“We sure did. We sure did!”
“Do you know what that means?”
“That we’ll have tea for breakfast?” he said. “Albeit a late breakfast.”
“Yes, yes.” She laughed. “That too.”
“Huh?”
“If we can make fire, it means we’re free . . . free from fear and worry. At least about losing fire accidentally.”
Tired and proud, John stood up, grinning. His back ached from cramped posture, and his knees were numb from the hard floor, but inside he wanted to sing and dance.
Chapter 45
The Growly Song of Fire
30 miles northeast of Camp Bramble
Gnorrk jogged through the snow-laden trees, a burning bunch of reeds clutched in one paw and a fresh replacement torch in another. The other Woodlanders hurried after him, carrying sheaves of premade reed torches. Once his young followers had seen that the fire could be controlled, and basking in its glow was rather nice, they soon shared his enthusiasm.
Gnorrk imagined the shaman and many older bears would be horrified to see him bringing fire into the village, and there would be resistance—perhaps even violence. But he wasn’t unduly concerned. The young warriors supported him, and Gnorrk had long realized that power grows out of the club and the paw that wields it. Shamans and elders can growl and protest all they want. And if they got out of line, Gnorrk would teach them a lesson they’d never forget.
Through experimentation, he’d discovered that holding a torch upright made it burn slower, and that by using thinner bunches of reeds he could have more torches.
The fur on his forearm was singed and his fingers smarted from burns he’d sustained in his eagerness to carry the fire faster and farther. Gnorrk was vaguely troubled that they might run out of torches before they reached home, so instead of heading directly to the village, he led his troops on a detour to the lake country where reeds grew in profusion.
There, Gnorrk ordered brushwood to be collected, and he lit a bonfire. While he kept it going, the rest of the Woodlanders foraged for food and made more torches. The night had fallen, and they slept in the open, huddled by the flames.
At dawn, Gnorrk lit the first torch of the day, and the hurried procession resumed.
When he arrived at the clan’s village, dusk was falling. He was swaying on his feet with fatigue and feeling rather grouchy. As the torch-bearing team headed for the communal hut, the villagers scattered in terror: females squealed, cubs bawled, and the old-paws growled.
Gnorrk stopped in the clearing in front of the communal lodge and turned to his lieutenants. “Strongpaw, organize deadwood collection. Split-Ear, see to dinner.” He lit a fresh torch and waited.
A young hunter ran up to him with an armful of brushwood that he dropped at Gnorrk’s feet. The others spread throughout the village, gathering discarded lumps of wood, while some scooted into the surrounding trees and began dragging in deadwood branches and whole logs.
The shaman appeared from his hut, sniffing the air and goggling fearfully. “Fire, fire! What’s going on? What’s this?”
Gnorrk ignored him. The old fool could very well see for himself what it was. Fire. Obviously.
“Good, very good,” Gnorrk muttered as he stooped and thrust the torch into the pile of dry grass and brushwood.
It whooshed as it caught, sending the shaman into a panicked flight. The brushwood crackled as it burned, and Gnorrk threw sticks and larger lumps of wood on top. Once the flames burned steadily, he ordered three warriors to look after it while he brought out the ceremonial drum. He had an important announcement to make to the clan. The birth of a new era.
***
That night Gnorrk slept fitfully, tossing and turning on a pile of pine fronds. When the moon had set, and the baleful Auroch Eye floated high above, flooding the village with orange light, he awoke with a start. From somewhere outside came a furtive rustle, then a dry twig cracked underfoot. A thump. A yelp of pain.
Treachery. His heart thudded in his chest, its hot beat pounding in his head.
Confused thoughts flew through his brain. Had there been betrayal while he slept? After the long march, the warriors guarding the bonfire were exhausted. Saboteurs might have killed them in their sleep and extinguished the sacred flames.
He blinked furiously to clear the cobwebs of slumber and raised himself on an elbow. He heard soft laughter and unhurried crunching of snow outside. That sounded peaceful enough. Gnorrk breathed out in relief. The disturbing noises he’d heard earlier were just the change of guard at midnight or a remnant of a dream. He stretched and began drifting off to sleep again.
But what if the tired warriors fell asleep and didn’t replenish the fuel? And if snow fell heavily, it might smother the flames.
He peered through the gap between branches forming the wall of the hut. From the dark sky, snowflakes drifted lazily, too few to threaten the fire. He struggled to his feet and shuffled toward the doorway, then pushed the bearskin entrance flap aside. The hide used to belong to a Salmon Clan interloper, and every time Gnorrk entered or exited, he gloated over that long-ago victory.
The fire flickered merrily, and six bears milled about, conversing in quiet voices. As he watched, three of them headed off to sleep, and the other three sat down. Yes, the change of guard. All was well, and there’d been no treachery.
Not yet, Gnorrk corrected himself.
As he approached the guards, two of them jumped up and lifted their clubs. “Who goes?”
“It is I, Gnorrk.”
“Sorry, Grandpaw.”
“No need for apologies.” He sat down among them. “I could’ve been one of those old fools demanding we put the fire out.”
While most of his warband were enthusiastic supporters of having fire in the village, the shaman and the elders had been outraged. Gnorrk was forced to kill one of the most outspoken dissenters to reassert his authority.
Gnorrk picked up a stick and poked it into the glowing embers, then dropped it into the flames. He imagined that after seeing how warm, cozy and controllable the fire was, there wouldn’t be anybody left opposing it, but for the time being the precious flames had to be closely guarded. He had tried to explain to the senile morons that fire was a piece of the sun, and if the sun was good, then fire was good, too. Never mind—in time they’ll get it. And if not, he’d bash their brains out and eat them.
He addressed the eldest guard. “Did the previous watch report any trouble?”
“Someone was peering from behind yonder hut.” The guard pointed. “But when they challenged him, he ran off.”
“Did anyone recognize him?”
“No.”
“Hmm . . .” Gnorrk peered around. “I’d better sleep right here then.”
The guards had brought a pile of pine fronds to sit on; he spread some of them on the snow and stretched out on top. “Wake me up if you see anyone prowling around.” He covered his eyes with his paw and drifted off. In his other paw, he held his club.
The night passed peacefully, and Gnorrk slept until dawn.
After a breakfast of frozen venison and rowanberries, he gathered the clan and allocated daily tasks. In addition to foraging and hunting parties, he expected them to collect deadwood for the fire. Some inane grumbling arose about that latest chore, but after seeing the village still standing, and the fire confined to its spot, there was much less resistance this morning. Even the shaman grudgingly agreed that fire wasn’t as dangerous as he’d first thought.
Chapter 46
The Winter Everlasting
Camp Bramble
Two months later, John opened his notebook and wrote: Day 210. Overcast, windy, and below freezing. Liz is getting heavier, and our baby is kicking. He paused and looked out the wigwam opening, pondering what else to write.
Although winter still ruled supreme, spring was in the air. He supposed it was something about the quality of light—a certain brightening. That and chirpier birdsong. The days had not yet become noticeably longer. Now, if they lived in the mountains, they could have marked the time when the sun sank behind a distant ridge over consecutive days and tracked the changing length of day. Hemmed in on all sides by dense forest, they had no such option.
He wrote: We are low on hazelnuts and ran out of dried mushrooms but have enough smoked bear meat to last a year. Or longer. We’re in good health but worry about scurvy. There is little greenery to be had.
“Liz, do you think we have a very late spring, or does the year last longer here?”
She looked up from stirring meat stew. “My guess is the year’s longer. Around 400 days, perhaps.”
“Why?”
“We left on the thirteenth of March and arrived into what seemed to be mid-September. Let’s say the thirteenth of September. 210 local days are 231 Old Earth days. So, by the Old Earth calendar today it should’ve been the first of May, but it feels more like early March.”
“Well, it’s still getting warmer.”
She dropped another hot stone into the cooking skin. “Nearly ready.”
He closed the writing pad and put it under an animal skin. Without mushrooms or any other vegetables, the stew tasted bland, and eating it every day became monotonous. Their days were dull and repetitious, too. They hauled in water and firewood, worked on curing and softening bearskins, and fashioned more arrows. They had nearly fifty with flint heads and twenty without. Spot would be sent on circular patrols around the locality, sniffing for ursines. When he traveled downriver, he sometimes smelled them in the distance—always when the wind blew from the northeast.
And every day they practiced archery for hours. John could now reliably hit the bundle of reeds from forty paces while Liz nailed it from a hundred with uncanny accuracy.
He had carved a crude bowl out of light and fragrant fir wood and whittled a large spoon that Liz used for stirring and ladling. He held this bowl out to her now, and she filled it with steaming stew. Previously, they had to eat directly from the cooking skin, but now they took turns to eat from a single bowl, like civilized people.
He ate mechanically, thinking he should make a second bowl, but even with twenty-five-hour days, there was little time for nonessentials. He had made that first bowl as an experiment in dug-out boat-building.
An infusion of pine needles simmered in a smaller cooking skin, adding its aroma to the smoky air inside.
Liz said, “My father told me that pine tea is all the rage if you’re stuck in wintry woods. Lots of vitamin C.” She dipped a teaspoon in and tasted the brew. “Mmm . . . nice. Except, pine tea is not recommended for expectant mothers.”
“I’ll dig out some blueberry leaves from under the snow. I remember there was a patch that way—” He pointed east, toward the Fleet.
“No need,” she said, blew at the spoon, then tipped it into her mouth.
“Should you be drinking that?”
“When I was expecting before, I couldn’t stand the smell of coffee and roasted garlic. Fancy that. Walking past all those cafes and restaurants was a minor ordeal. But this pine tea tastes nice. I feel like it’s doing me good.” She helped herself to another spoonful. Then another.
He watched her with rising alarm.
“What?” she said, catching his eye from across the hearth, then drank some more. “All things are good in moderation. Many herbal teas are potentially harmful to pregnant women. But scurvy is worse—there’s nothing potential about lack of vitamin C.”
He passed her the bowl of stew. “Here, have some.” Next, he sampled the piney infusion. “Hmm, not bad. Tastes like a boiled Christmas tree.”
“Christmases are good for you,” she said brightly.
“Gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery are good? Since when?”
“That’s a very one-sided view of Christmas.”
John filled up the Arsenal mug with the brew, added cold water, and sat back, sipping the warm bitter drink. As it suffused his body, he imagined all these vitamins buzzing through his veins. He was vaguely aware of Spot trotting over the hard-packed snow two miles to the west. “Never mind the festive season. Our wolf’s in Pimlico, not far from where we started. I’m going to spirit-walk for a while.” He closed his eyes and connected closer to the wolf.
Spot had easily avoided running into an auroch herd and smelled a tiger lying in ambush in a holly thicket from a safe distance. Presently, he was paralleling the Thames where it curved northward past Westminster.
As he approached the place where Big Ben would have stood on Old Earth, he came across ursine tracks. Two miles away, John choked and sputtered on his tea.
“What’s wrong?” Liz asked.
“Ursines.”
Liz gathered her bow and a quiver, left the wigwam, and climbed the inner ladder to the parapet. The external ladder had already been pulled in, as they always stowed it securely when preparing for midday naps. His own bow in hand, he climbed to the parapet at the other side of their little fort and peered over the clearing. No ursines. “See anything, Liz?”
“Nope. What did Spot find?”
“Ursine tracks leading our way. Two miles west.”
She remained silent, scanning the tree line on her side. Finally, she said. “You should bring Spot here pronto. If the enemy is prowling around, we need to know.”
“Uh-huh. Watch my side too.”
He sat down on the parapet walkway and leaned his cheek against the green-gray bark of an aspen log. Sometimes when he connected with the wolf, he’d feel faint, and the raised walkway wasn’t a good place to keel over. He closed his eyes, sensed th
e familiar greasy slide in the fabric of reality, and in the next instant he was running on all fours over the hard-packed snow, his long tongue hanging loose and vapor pluming around his furry muzzle.
The ursine trail meandered around holly thickets and bramble tangles. A half dozen of them had trudged through the snow a day ago, judging by the fading scent. Not a fresh spoor. Interesting. Should he feel relieved? He couldn’t tell. But if it was an old trail, where did the ursines go? Spot certainly hadn’t detected them near Camp Bramble yesterday.
He came to a small gully blocking the path. The opposite shore was covered in impassable brushwood. Here the ursines had stopped and camped for a while, left scratch marks on trees, and turned south to the riverbank. Spot followed the trail into the stand of whispering bulrushes that bobbed their heads in the wind.
Once within the reed bed, the trail turned west, upstream. Were the ursines going home? Their return trail continued upriver across tidal plains, closely following the riverbank.
The mystery of the vanishing ursines solved, John disconnected from the wolf and opened his eyes. “Stand down, Liz.”
She lowered her bow and raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“The damned ursines turned back about a mile from us,” he said. “They haven’t found where we live.” Yet, he added silently. The intruders must have been from a third ursine clan who lived upriver, and they were just marking their territory. There had been no malice in their action. Still, they’d come uncomfortably close.
Liz apparently had the same thought because she said, “It’s only a question of time before they find us.”
“Yes.”
“This is a good place, though.” She gazed about their bramble-ringed clearing, then checked the bark fastenings binding the logs of the palisade wall. “Two defensive layers. If we were a group of ten adults, we’d defeat any number of ursines. Even if there were four or five of us . . . But as it is . . .”
“Soon there’ll be three of us.”
She smiled sadly.