by Dan Davis
“Follow me,” he shouted and led his people away from the village, across a shallow stream, and north again across another pasture where a herd of cows stared in dumb confusion.
Most of the horses kept after him, though a few of the riderless ones stopped to drink from the stream or graze its banks, and he made for another woodland on the other side of the pasture. A look over his shoulder showed a glimpse of distant warriors still pursuing and though he was not surprised he still cursed them.
On they went, heading further north and veering west until the way ahead was blocked by a wide, lazy river. The ground grew softer as they approached the riverbank and the horses slowed until they all were walking parallel to the bank and looking out across to water to the far bank.
“What do we do?” Sunhus asked, looking behind them for sign of pursuit. “Lord?”
Herkuhlos shook his head and looked downstream across the flat land and the stunted trees growing above the scrub all the way to the horizon. “We can go north.”
“No, lord,” Wetelos said, wrestling his horse about as he spoke. “The river spreads across the land here and it is all flooded to the north. We will sink in the mud.”
“The river, then. Can it be crossed?” Herkuhlos asked Wetelos.
Wetelos nodded. “It is shallow but though it looks slow the current is strong.”
“We shall have to do it,” Herkuhlos said and rode his horse toward the bank and looked down at the water flowing past and across at the other side.
“Yes, lord.”
On both sides of him the horses lined the bank and most stepped into the shallows and dipped their heads to drink.
Again, Sunhus looked behind them nervously. “Bad place to get caught, lord. They will be on us soon.”
“You see them?”
“Not yet, lord.”
Herkuhlos knew they would have to cross. There was no choice. With the patches of grass and sandbanks poking above the surface, it looked shallow enough to wade through. The horses were already tired and swimming them across might be too much for them, as would forcing them into cold water right after a hard run but there was nothing else for it.
“We will cross here, you see?” He called to Sunhus and Wetelos and gestured to draw their attention. “From this bank to that small island and then across the other channel.” Feigning a confidence he did not feel, he pointed upstream. “If it’s too deep to wade we will have to swim and if that happens we shall aim up there, do you see, and the river shall carry us back down but never stop swimming and you will reach the other side. Hold on to your horse’s mane and kick your legs, keep your head above water. Trust to your horse’s strength.”
“What about him?” Wetelos said, gesturing at Pehur, still slumped over the horse’s back. Amra was holding the horse steady, her face twisted in fright and streaks of tears down her ashy cheeks.
“He’s dead,” Sunhus said. “Leave him.”
Herkuhlos directed his mare across to Amra, dismounted and reached across to Pehur and felt the back of his neck. Still warm. He could not be certain Pehur was alive but if he was then how could he get him across the river without drowning him? There was no obvious answer so he would just have to do it and he dragged Pehur from Amra’s horse and slung him over his own shoulder.
“Kolnos, give me strength,” Herkuhlos muttered but immediately felt ashamed, for he did not deserve to invoke the name of the Wolf God.
“They will catch us soon,” Sunhus said, close to panic. “Don’t want to be in the water with them shooting us.”
“Then hurry,” Herkuhlos said and urged his mare forward with one hand on her mane and the other holding Pehur over his shoulder.
The horses pawed at the water as they followed her into it, splashing hard and tossing their heads but Herkuhlos forced his mare deeper into the flow, his feet and his mare’s hooves sinking alarmingly into the soft, muddy sand. The others led their horses down and though they pawed at the water and tossed their heads they did as they were asked to do and they stepped out into the current. The lead mare was crossing and so the rest of the herd would do it, too.
It was too brown and murky to see the bottom and they had to trust with each step that it would be there and it shifted and sank beneath their feet as they got deeper. Herkuhlos shifted Pehur so that his head was higher, resting on his lion pelt on his shoulder. As the cold water soaked them he thought he heard Pehur gasp but with the sound of the rushing water all around he could not be sure.
He struggled on, wading against the steady current. Though he could walk the others had to swim through the deepest part and they were taken downstream but they all eventually dragged themselves out onto the far bank. Amra, it seemed, was a better swimmer than Sunhus and he was the last of them to stagger up the bank onto the grasses beyond.
Once the horses cleared the water they charged up to the flatter land a little way beyond and most of them immediately threw themselves down into the grasses and began rolling on the ground while kicking their legs in the air.
“What are they doing?” Wetelos cried, soaked and shivering. “How do we stop them? We need to flee, lord.”
Amra too, looked frightened by the mad behaviour and came closer to him, peering at Pehur.
“Don’t know why they do it,” Herkuhlos admitted, walking closer to the horses with one hand out to get the horses’ attention. “But they often do it after they cross a—”
A sling shot slammed into the bank and bounced off a stone with an almighty crack and they all flinched, the horses included, stopping their rolling to get to their feet.
It was only a handful of warriors standing on the distant bank, most of them bent over with their hands on their knees trying to catch their breath after their prolonged, hard running but two of them had slings in hand and were preparing more shots.
“Get back,” Herkuhlos shouted and they fled from the bank and grabbed the horses, dragging themselves, soaking wet, onto the backs of the soaking wet animals.
After throwing Pehur across its neck, Herkuhlos directed his tired mare west, away from the river bank across the scrubland toward a distant wood.
There did not seem to be any villages nearby nor any camps or pasture either. It was low lying and there was no cover but the distant trees and so he headed for them. The sun was beyond its zenith and they were heading into the evening now. Had they really been fleeing without pause for more than half of the day already? No wonder the horses were now so tired and no wonder he suddenly felt such fatigue. His armour was heavy and the strap holding his club was biting into his shoulder and the cold was suddenly intense as they rode into the dappled shadows of the trees.
The horses were breathing hard when they reached the hazel and hawthorn at the edge of the woodland and once they got deeper into the trees he slid from the back of his mare. She had done well but now she was spent and stood still with her head hanging low. He knew a little how she felt and wished he could rest also but he could not.
“I will carry Pehur,” he said, lifting the motionless youth onto his shoulder once more. Whether he was dead he did not know but he could not spare a moment to examine him and nor could he consider abandoning Pehur while there was a chance he yet lived. “We must go on.”
“Where?” Sunhus asked, shivering and with wild eyes. “For how long, lord?”
“She is exhausted, lord,” Wetelos said, one arm around Amra’s shoulders. The woman looked suddenly small and young beside him. “She must have rest.”
Herkuhlos looked back toward the river. Soon, the enemy would be across, if they were not already, and then they would follow the tracks of the horses into these woods and then when they found them the Heryos would kill them all. Not without a fight, Herkuhlos thought, and perhaps the raiders were waiting for greater numbers to arrive before pursuing him into these trees. Surely, he was still a mighty foe that they would fear to face.
“We must send the horses away,” Herkuhlos said. “And we will go in another di
rection. If the gods are with us, the enemy will follow the trail of the horses and we will get away.”
“Get away where, lord?” Sunhus asked. They all looked at him and they were shivering and tired and teetering on the edge of despair.
He had no notion of where he was let alone where they should go. Looking about him, he tried to think which way to send the horses, which way the horses would run so that there would be a trail to follow, and which way he should lead his pitiful band. A servant near death who was nothing but a burden and a woman amongst them. They had no food and they could not make a fire to get dry and warm. If they were not killed by the enemy they would starve or die from the cold. It was hopeless, he realised and the depths of his failure struck him like a thunderclap. He stared and had no thought in his head but defeat and shame.
“We should go north, lord,” Wetelos said, his tone steady and certain. “If we drive the horses on west, they’ll come out to a green grassland that goes on for a day or more. While we can go north.”
“To the north the land is a bog, you said.”
“On the other side of the river, yes. Here we can go north all the way to the sea.”
“Why would we go there?”
Wetelos turned away and looked through the trees. “There is food there. Shellfish on the sands. Streams running into the sea with fresh water to drink and with fish in them to catch.”
“And you know how to get there?”
“I do.”
“Very well,” Herkuhlos said, enormously grateful to Wetelos. He pushed the lead mare away, pointing her through the trees to the west and slapped her rump and started the others after her. Tired as they were, they trotted off, sensing perhaps the doom that now surrounded the people who had ridden and driven them so far. Herkuhlos turned to Wetelos. “Lead on.”
If we can survive the rest of the day and find shelter to keep us through the night then there is perhaps a sliver of hope yet to be found, Herkuhlos thought as the pitiful, battered remnants of his great warband trod wearily north toward the distant coast.
22. Hunting
She was too hungry to stay away much longer and when she returned to the village she was relieved to find that the canoes were gone. The men were hunting and so she would not have to face Alef and the others.
While she ate the fish soup old Alara made for her she sat on her heels watching the others as they worked. Alara’s daughter At’ara had been born in the same year as Sif, just two moons apart, and yet she had a son stomping around and playing with the stack of hazel wands while At’ara sat weaving baskets with the others. And she noted that At’ara’s breasts had swelled since last she had seen her. Indeed, she could hardly avoid noticing, for At’ara sat in only her skirts despite the cold wind coming off the sea and Sif suspected the young mother was flaunting the fact that she would this year bear another child. No one knew who the father of the first child was, for At’ara had always enjoyed flaunting herself and inviting the hunters to lust after her but all suspected that Alef had fathered the child and it was likely then that their rutting had resulted in another now growing inside At’ara.
It annoyed Sif to see her sitting there so proudly, her nipples hard from the cold and dark against the skin still pale from winter. Not because Sif wanted it for herself but because her flaunting was so petty. Since they had been children, At’ara had always seen herself as living in a kind of competition with Sif, with Alef as the prize, and what was worse was that At’ara always seemed to think she was winning it. Leaning forward and stretching out to reach a distant stick for her basket, At’ara turned suddenly, her bright blue eyes flashing as they locked with hers.
Sif looked away but not before she had seen the triumphant expression.
“Thank you for the herring,” Sif said to old Alara as she got to her feet.
“Now you have eaten,” Alara said without looking up from her work, “you should know the chief needs healing again.”
“So soon?”
“Is it soon?” Alara asked mildly. “Where have you been, girl?”
“Looking for Zani.”
“You find her?”
“Not yet.”
“That man of yours has been looking for you?”
“Alef?”
Alara snorted a laugh. “Satara.”
“He’s no man of mine,” Sif snapped and turned on her heel to stomp up the beach, through the dunes and into the village.
Satara is looking for me, is he? Because he wants to join with me? Or because he means to murder me, too? I will not be caught out like Sama was. I shall not sleep here tonight, she promised herself. It will not be safe here until I find a way to deal with Satara.
At the chief’s house she stood outside the doorway listening and took a moment to calm herself as it would not do to bring bad spirits into the house with her lest they do great harm to the chief. Once she was cleansed she ducked inside, pushing back the leather door covering.
He was alone again, lying sweating while the fire died to coals beside him. She crossed to the hearth and built the fire, shaking her head. They were afraid of the bad spirits clinging to the chief and they resented S’tef his lingering sickness but even so one of them should have been with him. She soaked a cloth of soft buckskin and wiped his face as he muttered for the Mother.
“If she is kind you will go to her soon,” she whispered. “Or if the spirits wish perhaps you will grow strong once more.”
By the flickering light of the growing fire she saw his cheeks had sunk further and his face had gone grey. Lifting the edge of the furs she found him naked beneath and his skin was clean. Someone had been here today to wash him, then, she thought with relief. It would not do to have him lying in his own filth. Although, to judge by his protruding ribs and sunken belly, he had probably not eaten enough to be capable of fouling himself.
“Is that you?” he asked, his eyes closed.
“Yes,” she said softly.
He smiled and muttered. “N’tara. Sweet N’tara.”
One of your daughters who died when I was a young child, Sif thought. N’tara is here, speaking to him, perhaps to guide him to the other side.
“All is well,” Sif said, wiping his face with the buckskin again. “All is well. Your people are strong. Your sons bring home many seals and your daughters are bearing strong children.”
He sighed and a smile touched his lips. Then he frowned and his eyes flicked open. “Sif?” he said, his voice growing strong. “I was dreaming.”
“Yes,” she said. “Your spirit was close to the otherworld.”
“It was good.”
She smiled. “Of course.”
“You are sad.”
All the old ones are passing, she thought. You, Zani, and Sama were the only ones who were kind to me after I lost Z’ta.
“I am well,” she said, hoping the spirits would forgive her the lie.
“No, no, you are not.” He reached out a bony hand and touched the back of hers with his cold fingers. “Speak of your burdens, child.”
“Zani is gone and I cannot find her but she left me something and I don’t know what it means. Here.” She thrust her hand into one of her bags and pulled out Zani’s leather pouch before plucking out a single seed. She held it before his face and moved aside so that the light of the fire fell on it. “Do you know what this is from? It looks familiar but it’s not from any plant around here, I’m sure.”
The chief’s eyes struggled to focus but then he smiled. “Why, yes,” he breathed. “By the Mother, where did you find one of them? I haven’t seen the fruit for years.”
“Fruit?” she asked. “What fruit?”
“What are you doing?” The loud voice behind her made her start so violently she dropped the seed and lost it on the dark, shadowed floor.
She whipped about to see Alef leaning inside, filling the doorway and it annoyed her deeply. “What are you doing? You cannot enter when I am calling on the spirits. Get out!”
“I he
ard no singing and no drumming,” Alef protested. “What are you showing him?”
Getting to her feet, she turned with her hands balled into fists at her side. “The spirits will curse your manhood if you do not leave at once!” Zani had said that one always worked with men and so it proved as Alef retreated outside, scowling but obedient.
Sif dropped to her knees and looked to the chief while fishing in the pouch for another seed to show him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.
She sat back and rubbed her face. He had recognised it. Not seen it in years, he had said. It was from a fruit. What fruit? It was so frustrating that she wanted to scream but she had already brought the bad spirits into the house with her anger at Alef and so she had to leave now and take them with her.
Outside, Alef lurked, leaning on another house with Karu, N’fal, and P’nu. They all stopped talking and looked at her with their expressions flat. Gulls called overhead. Down on the beach, there were no canoes to be seen so these hunters at least could not have been out at sea after all.
“What were you asking him?” Alef asked, coming closer.
“That is what you ask? Do you care nothing for your father?”
He started as if he had been slapped. “I care too much,” he said, flushed with anger. “If I were not cursed with his weakness I would have ended his life already so we can be free of this lingering on the edge of passing. Why do the spirits not take him?”
She sighed, seeing his pain and her own anger faded. “The spirits are hard to understand. They will take him across when it is his time.”
“It is his time now.”
“Perhaps he has more to do in this world before they will take him to the next.”
“Like what? He cannot do anything but lie there like a dying seal.”
“It may be something we cannot see. Something within himself. Only the spirits can know.”
He scoffed. “A poor spirit walker you make,” he muttered.