by R Magnusholm
Gnorrk and Moorgs lounged in the grass on the bank, watching the water flow by. Dragonflies flitted above the verdant shores where last year’s reeds had been largely superseded by new growth. Since starting on their march, Gnorrk had seen only three salmon swimming upstream. All had been promptly caught and devoured by the host of bears.
Three fish all morning was nothing; there should have been three hundred or more. That was how many they used to have when Gnorrk was a cub. He seethed with righteous indignation.
Moorgs nursed a private grievance too—two summers ago, the Salmon Clan had raided his village, killed several of his grandsons, and carried off a number of his granddaughters.
After a midday rest, the two warbands resumed their northward march. In the evening, the leading scouts came across a large foraging party of the Salmoners.
“Move to cut off the enemy retreat,” Gnorrk ordered the scout leader. “Wait, take ten more warriors with you.” He turned to his lieutenants. “You two, take your bands and flank them. Stay out of sight until the main force engages. And if you run into strong opposition, retreat. No heroics.”
Chapter 50
Meet The Salmoners
Gnorrk watched in silence as the three small detachments jogged off into the woods. As an experienced commander, he was well aware that splitting his forces was fraught with risk. But he also knew that fortune favors the brave.
“What do we do?” Moorgs asked.
“We wait until the others get into position.”
“And den what?”
“Then we strike.”
The main force spread out into an attack formation, making a semicircle with the flanks pushed forward. The Woodlanders were on the right and the Sunrisers on the left—on the other side of the shallow brook. They waited. The river burbled over the rocks, and birds piped in the trees. Sunbeams danced on the water. The scent of pines, waxy and green, filled the still, warm air. Standing in the center of the line, Gnorrk gripped his club tighter. Soon, someone would die. Someone always did. It had always been thus and would always be thus.
He raised his club above his head, swept it in a circle, then pointed it forward.
The line began to advance, crushing blueberry shrubs and ferns underfoot. After two hundred yards, Gnorrk parted alder branches and came face to face with a Salmon Clan member. A male. He addressed Gnorrk in the incomprehensible local lingo. Probably some challenge, or how-do-you-do.
Gnorrk shrugged and bopped the salmon thief over the head. Pushing the falling body aside, he stepped into the clearing. Not ten paces beyond, a group of females and juveniles were splashing in the shallows, playing. Fish scales glinted in the grass by the brook, and salmon heads decorated overhanging willow branches.
Evidently, the fish thieves had eaten well.
A dry twig snapped under Gnorrk’s foot, and the salmon thieves turned and stared.
He lifted his bloodied club, grinning. “Nice day, neighbors.”
With much squealing and splashing, the group fled downstream. Gnorrk and his posse gave chase, letting out wild whoops. They tore through a screen of bushes and ran into more of the fish thieves, catching some in the act of thievery. One female actually held a huge salmon that she flung in Gnorrk’s face, before fleeing. Scores of fish lay on the bank. A few enemy warriors tried to stand their ground, but outnumbered ten to one they were quickly overcome.
A Woodlander battle cry sounded far ahead as the scout team sprang their ambush. The terrified Salmoners scattered in all directions. But only a few got away. Gnorrk’s flanking teams stepped out of the trees, driving the escapees back. Soon the Salmoner foraging party were driven into a huddle—warriors on the outside, females and young pressed in the center. They stood partially in the stream, and partially on the bank, surrounded by the leering attackers.
An almost preternatural calm prevailed for a few heartbeats. Then the Woodlanders and Sunrisers fell upon the Salmoners with gusto. Clubs clashed with clubs in a series of dry thunderclaps. Meaty thuds of weapons striking flesh were followed by yelps of pain. Groans of agony mingled with roars of triumph. Bodies started to pile up, and the churned waters of the Crooked Brook ran red.
As the defenders were badly outnumbered, the battle was largely one-sided, and soon every Salmoner warrior was beaten to a pulp and trampled underfoot.
When the last defender fell, the victors had their wicked way with the captured females. The victims squealed and complained at first, but after a few turns became docile. Gnorrk assumed they started to like it. Well, some liked it rough, he knew from experience. After having a go a couple of times, he had enough (he was an old bear after all) and sat down by the pile of liberated salmon and began eating.
It was at this point that a young scout burst into the clearing, yelling, “Salmoners are coming!” He pointed back the way he came.
Gnorrk rose slowly, pleased that he’d been wise enough to post advanced pickets. He beckoned to Chief Moorgs. “Their main force is counterattacking. Stop rutting and eating. Rally your troops.”
After trussing up the captured females with rawhide thongs to stop them from bolting and leaving a small detachment to guard them, Gnorrk organized a welcoming party for the Salmoner warband. He hid most of his troops in the bushes on both sides of the long and narrow meadow through which the Crooked Brook flowed.
The remaining warriors formed a line across the clearing. They didn’t have to wait long.
The enraged Salmoners, their chief in front of them, appeared out of the trees at the far end of the meadow. Evidently assuming that Gnorrk’s army was weak, the fools charged in a wild gaggle. As some bears were faster runners than others, the attacking Salmoners reached Gnorrk’s defensive line in ones and twos. They were easily beaten back.
When the main body of the Salmoners, some fifty strong, arrived, the battle commenced in earnest. Club cracked on club along the line. Solid thumps and guttural oaths. Cries of pain and fury. Gnorrk and Moorgs’ hardened veterans fought with might and main, blunting the enemy onrush, then slowly retreated, drawing the Salmoners deeper into the trap.
Gnorrk parried a wild chop by the Salmoner chief. He struck back, but the other bear dodged. Two Salmoner warriors sprang at Gnorrk, and he leaped back, blocked one club, and ducked under another, retreating all the time. He was thoroughly enjoying himself until he tripped over a root and went sprawling on his back. With savage glee, the enemy chief sprung forward and swung a club down. But Gnorrk was already rolling aside, and the weapon thudded harmlessly into the loamy soil.
The Salmoner chief yelled something. An unknown word. Probably a local obscenity. He swung again. One of Gnorrk’s warriors interposed his own club and blocked the hit.
At that moment, a commotion started in the enemy rear. They peered over their shoulders in surprise, then in fear. The trap had sprung its implacable jaws. The Salmoners began retreating. Then they ran. Too late. The Woodlander and Sunriser warriors surrounded the enemy on all sides, outnumbering them four to one.
Gnorrk stood up, smirking. He watched as the Salmoner chief collapsed under a rain of blows.
From then on, it was a long and methodical massacre. Twice the Salmoners tried to break out, but that only resulted in them dying faster. As the sun began to set, the battle continued. It would have been all over, and the last Salmoner warrior would have died, if not for the attackers becoming exhausted. They could barely lift their clubs, and when they hit, it was no longer hard enough to kill.
It was then that Salmoner reinforcements arrived. It wasn’t a strong force, and it consisted largely of half-grown cubs and elderly males, but their arrival caused enough commotion to let their surrounded comrades break out and run.
Gnorrk’s tired troops pursued the enemy all the way to where the Crooked Brook emptied its waters into the Big Salmon River and for a mile downstream to the Salmoner village that stood on an island. The branch of the river separating it from the mainland was only chest-deep, and the escaping Salmoners waded
across and stood on the bank, dripping and staring at their pursuers. The bank of the island was steep and slippery with clay, and Gnorrk immediately recognized a strong defensive position. Not that the enemy was in any shape to hold it. With their chief and most of their warriors fallen, they wouldn’t be able to resist for long. Still, the attackers were fatigued too, and Gnorrk himself swayed on his feet.
Time to negotiate.
He stepped forward and declared. “I am King Gnorrk the Mighty. Who’s in charge of your fish-stealing clan?”
The Salmoners gawked at him.
Moorgs said, “I don’t reckon dey understand thou.”
“Does anybody speak my tongue?” Gnorrk called.
Silence.
He lifted his club threateningly. “If you don’t talk, I’ll come over, and it will be the worse for you.”
A female voice shouted from the island in the mushy Sunriser dialect. “I speak thy language.”
“Dat’s my granddaughter, Grau,” Moorgs cried. “Dey carried her off three summers ago.”
“Grau, can you translate for me?” Gnorrk asked.
“Aye.”
“Now, tell them that I am Gnorrk the Mighty, and I demand to know who’s in charge.”
She turned to the Salmoners and spoke in their language. For a while, they were engaged in animated conversation that involved much gesticulation and stomping of feet.
Gnorrk supposed they might not have a new chief so soon, but every clan had a shaman and a few respected elders. He was right. Three ancient-looking bears stepped forward, with gestures indicating their willingness to talk.
With Grau translating, Gnorrk dictated the peace terms: The Salmoners must swear allegiance to him; no raiding of the Sunrisers is permitted; no fishing in the Crooked Brook for three years, and henceforth they are to take no more than a quarter of the passing fish. In return, Gnorrk would provide protection against external enemies. The Salmoners were to contribute troops to future military operations.
After the thoroughly humbled Salmoners agreed to peace terms and swore loyalty, the Woodlander and Sunriser warbands marched off, leading the captured females with them.
As they walked by the Crooked Brook, Gnorrk was pleased to see it filling up with salmon. More fish than he’d seen in years. Two days later, he arrived home to a hero’s welcome.
Chapter 51
A Line for Captain Ahab
Forty miles to the south, John sat on a log, shaping a three-barbed harpoon out of a long straight stave. The wood he’d chosen was seasoned oak, which was incredibly tough, and the work was slow going. Spot lounged on the young grass, watching him with his yellow eyes. Liz pottered inside the stockade and around the wigwam.
He lifted the weapon’s point to his eye level and examined it critically. Still too rough. He sighed and began polishing it on a rough stone. Dry oak was almost as hard as iron. It produced an amazingly sharp edge, but working with it was a nightmare. It wasn’t so much carving or whittling as it was a filing job. And no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the gaps between the backward-pointing barbs deep enough.
Should he spear a salmon, the poor fish might wriggle off, escape and die for no reason. Liz would give him grief if he wasted any fish needlessly, and he had no interest in provoking her ire.
He picked up a square chunk of granite and started filing. After a while, his hands grew numb. He turned the point in his callused fingers this way and that, marveling at how amazingly strong and grimy his fingers had become. His nails were stained mahogany from the tannin solution, and ingrained soot etched every line and crease. He imagined that no detergent on earth could make his hands clean again. As he contemplated the soot-etched creases, his mind went off on a tangent and came up with an elegant solution to working tough wood.
Soot. Char. Fire.
He didn’t have to file out the gaps between the barbs. He could burn them out like he’d burned out the wooden bowls and the trough. Why didn’t he think of this earlier?
Eager to try the new woodworking method, he climbed the ladder into their log fort. Liz looked up from sweeping the trampled earthen floor of their wigwam with a reed broom and declared, “We can’t live like in a pigsty.”
“No, of course not.”
She swept the bits of crushed reeds, dry pine needles, and various detritus into the fire pit and dusted her hands. “What’ve you got there, John?”
“A harpoon.”
“Looks more like a sharpened stick to me.”
“That’s what it is. But when I burn out the gaps between the barbs, it’ll be a harpoon.”
He pushed a long thin branch into the flames, waited for a glowing ember to form, then applied it to the harpoon’s point. The tough oak wood began smoking, but it wouldn’t char much. He propped the weapon on hearthstones and picked up the hollow stem he used as a blowpipe. With its aid, he burned out nice indentations between the barbs in no time.
He showed it to Liz, grinning. “Now, it’s got proper barbs, hasn’t it?” He filed the indents out with a long stone. Bits of char and wood dust fell down.
“You’re messing up my floor.”
“Liz, it’s a wigwam, not the Savoy Hotel.”
Silently, she swept the debris into the fire pit, then propped the broom against the wall. The bright sunshine flooding through the open entrance cast golden gleams over her hair. With her pregnancy clearly showing, she waddled like a duck. John imagined a tiny baby, ensconced upside down in her womb, listening to their voices, and to her heartbeat and breathing. A great tide of love rushed through him, an ache that nearly took his breath away and made his eyes water.
He wiped a tear, muttering about damned smoke stinging his eyes. He’d been getting sentimental of late. Even maudlin. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing. While sentimentality gave him an extra impetus to fight harder for their survival, it also abraded his sharp corners, and now looking at his unfinished harpoon he suddenly felt ashamed of its murderous purpose.
Liz sat down and stroked her belly.
He put his hand on her knee. “How long now?”
“A week. Maybe two.”
“Can I do anything more to help?”
She glanced at the basket lined with hay they had gathered for the baby. Another basket was filled with clumps of sphagnum moss they planned to use as a sponge to clean up the baby and Liz. And the four-foot-long trough outside held clean spring water that he would warm up with hot rocks when the time came. They had also prepared soft deerskins to wrap the baby in and more dried moss for diapers.
Liz smiled serenely and shook her head.
Even though she’d claimed that sphagnum moss contained a natural antiseptic, and this type of moss had been used in WWII for bandages, John was terrified that an infection or bleeding would kill her. But Liz had an unshakable conviction that everything would be all right. Hadn’t ancient people given birth in dingy caves and bacteria-infested woods for millennia?
Sure they had, he thought. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now. But how many of them died in the process?
Ten percent? More?
Of course, the power that had given Liz a new womb, replaced her missing molar, rejuvenated them, and made him able to talk with wolves wouldn’t have brought them here only for Liz to die in childbirth.
Still, as he tested the sharpness of the harpoon’s point and barbs, he fretted. Had they forgotten anything? Could they have done more to prepare? He racked his brain but could think of nothing more. Shelter, water, food. Those they had. What they needed now was luck. He had to take his mind off it, and a salmon hunt would help.
He said, “How do you feel about grilled fish for dinner?”
“Em . . .” She lifted her eyes to the hams hanging in the smoke under the rafters. “I suppose we can take one fish.”
She rummaged in the corner and fetched a handful of leftover scraps of bearskins that remained after making two parkas. With the help of scissors, she cut several long strips. “You’ll
need a line for your harpoon, Captain Ahab.”
“It’s only salmon, Liz. No Moby Dick in the Fleet.”
“Those fish looked pretty big.”
They sat side by side to tie the strips into a line, double-checking every knot. Once the line reached some twelve feet in length, he tied it to the harpoon’s haft, fitting it behind a bump in the stave to prevent the line from slipping off. He then wrapped a strip of soaked rawhide over the knot and tied it securely. He put the harpoon on warm hearthstones to dry out the rawhide and shrink it.
“Should be ready in an hour,” he said.
“Might as well take a nap.”
She stretched out on the tiger skin and closed her eyes.
He considered taking a nap too, but they already had their midday sleep today, so he decided to fletch some arrows instead.
He split two crow feathers lengthwise and fit the halves to a new arrow shaft, which he’d furnished with a flint point earlier. With a rubber band temporarily holding them in place at the nock end, he chewed two strips of sinew, then wrapped one at the front end of the fletching. He slipped off the rubber band and secured the nock end, too. Once the sinew bindings dried, the wrapping would shrink and bond with itself.
He laid the arrow next to the harpoon and picked up another.
As John worked, he marveled at his dexterity, and how knowledgeable about woodcraft he’d become. He had learned all about curing leather and how rawhide or sinew shrank and became as hard as wood when dry. He knew the properties of various types of wood. Fir was light, soft, and non-brittle: great for whittling spoons but useless for making harpoons. Pine was similar, but denser and more fragile. Birch was an inferior version of oak: hard to work with and brittle. Oak was the king of timber and had to be treated with respect. A seasoned oak was virtually unworkable, other than by very slow burning and filing.
But it was ash wood that he found the most useful for weapon-making due to the abundance of long straight shoots that were both flexible and durable. And he’d learned all about straightening kinks in shafts by heating them and then bending them in the opposite direction.