by Claudia King
Even so, it was not good for Netya and Vaya to be in the same place. The overt hostility between the two might have thawed, but that had not stopped Vaya from throwing down challenge after challenge every time Netya gave her an excuse. When they were alone it was not so bad. Netya seemed a woman of almost otherworldly patience, never rising to Vaya's bait nor provoking her out of hand. While Kiren might have taken her mentor's actions for cowardice in the past, she had begun to question those assumptions since the night of Koura's storytelling. The past had taught her, had it not, that people could be very different than they first appeared. If Netya held the power to slay alphas, perhaps it was kindness that held her back. Pity, maybe? Or could it be concern for Kiren?
These were confusing thoughts to dwell on. Why, also, did Netya keep her past glories hidden rather than embracing them? She could have enthralled Kiren from the day they met if she boasted of these things openly.
She could have, and yet she had not. Perhaps that, more than the grandeur of the tale itself, was what had settled Kiren's new foundation of respect for her mentor. She was not like Adel. While the den mother wielded her status like a weapon, Netya seemed almost burdened by hers. There was an honesty in that. Something that would never deceive or lie or misdirect the way other spirit-talkers did. At least that was what Kiren hoped.
Yet while there seemed little danger of Netya and Vaya coming to blows, the same could not be said of the rest of the clan. Narolen and his companions had been itching for a fight ever since the Rainfall Hunt. Every time Netya was tending one of them in the seers' cave Kiren had to try and leave with Vaya before the huntress lost her patience with them. With any luck spring would bring an end to the animosity, but spring proved to be a long time in coming.
Kiren was dragging her feet back through the snow one morning, a heavy fur wrapped around her shoulders and a bundle of firewood under one arm, when a trio of figures stepped out from one of the dilapidated huts to block her way. Too cold to care much for conversation, she kept her head down and tried to walk around them. That proved to be a poor choice. With a snarl of anger, the woman closest to her grabbed one of the sticks and yanked it out from beneath her arm, sending Kiren's entire bundle spilling into the snow.
“Stop and recognise your senior warriors,” the man next to her said.
Shooting the female a fierce glance, Kiren jerked her chin up at the speaker.
“I am no warrior. The witches are my seniors.”
“You are nothing since the den mother cast you out. Now hold your tongue and listen.”
Kiren shifted her feet uncomfortably as she realised that the female was Narolen's mate. The older woman began to pace around her, leering with obvious excitement as the male continued to talk.
“Why is your friend hiding?”
“Vaya doesn't hide,” Kiren said.
“I've not seen her in the cave with the rest of us. She used to sit there every day.”
“It's too cold for training.”
The male snorted. “Not for us.”
“Vaya only comes to watch me shoot, and there's no more grass for targets.”
“Sounds afraid,” Narolen's mate said.
“She won't come and fight you.”
The female stopped circling in front of Kiren. “What about you, then?” She leant forward, sniffing her with wolfish aggression. “They say you were born of a strong mother.”
“I'm not here to fight.”
Narolen's mate exchanged a glance with her companions. “What if we say you are?”
“What if Sister Netya heard you were trying to challenge her apprentice?” Kiren shot back, adding a smirk to the observation. That managed to stir a shuffle of unease from the trio. “Stop trying to make trouble for everyone.” She bent down to pick up her firewood, but Narolen's mate kicked away the stick she had been reaching for.
“This is our wood now,” she said.
“Kind of you to start collecting it for us every day,” the male added.
Kiren curled her outstretched fingers back into her palm. “You already have plenty.”
The male folded his arms and shrugged. “We share it with those who are worthy. Why don't you prove yourself?”
“Or bring your friend out to protect you next time,” Narolen's mate said. “She'd fight for her share, unless she's a coward.”
Kiren grimaced. The woman was right. If she brought Vaya out with her then there'd be no stopping fights like this. Perhaps she could go hunting for wood again after dark. Surely Narolen's companions couldn't stay out in the cold waiting to accost her all day? She could ask Netya to intervene, but the more favours she asked of her mentor the more obligated she would feel to stay when spring came. Besides which, she was not without her own sense of pride.
The creak of heavy footfalls compressing the snow saved Kiren from having to dwell on her predicament any further. She glanced up the ridge to see Alpha Orec approaching them, a frown on his lips and flecks of snow in his beard.
“Alpha.” She dipped her head respectfully before the others had the chance. Their scuffle to drop their bravado and show deference to the senior male cheered her up a little.
“Kiren.” He nodded. “What are you all doing standing here? Stay out in the cold too long and you'll only make more work for the witches. Sister Netya is already burdened enough tending our ills.”
“Nothing you need worry over, Alpha,” the male said. “The girl just dropped her firewood.”
“Don't insult my wits, Alder. Do you want to spend the rest of the night gathering my firewood?”
Alder looked down at the snow and mumbled an apology.
“I know you're hungry for a taste of her friend's blood, but leave Kiren out of your feuds,” Orec said. “Go on.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “I'll not warn you the next time.”
The trio slipped into single file and headed back up the ridge, but not before Narolen's mate could give Kiren one last dirty look.
“Do they trouble you like this often?” Orec asked once they were gone.
Kiren shook her head. “No, Alpha. Please, you don't have to,” she tried to object as he stooped to help pick up the scattered firewood.
“You're already shivering. Keep those hands out of the snow or they'll freeze off.” He had already gathered most of the sticks before Kiren managed to wrap her numb fingers around three of them.
“Thank you, Alpha.”
He gave her a grunt of acknowledgement, gesturing for her to head on up the slope. She was uncomfortable having the alpha himself help her with such a menial task, but she had gotten herself into trouble enough times to know that arguing with her seniors was rarely a wise choice.
That doesn't usually stop you though, does it?
“It might be better, you know, if Vaya fought them,” Orec said, surprising Kiren enough that she stopped in her tracks for a moment.
“I thought you did not approve of these challenges?”
“I don't,” the alpha huffed, “but only a fool thinks he can change the turn of the wind. I can try to keep my people quiet, point their attention toward other things, but the warrior's challenge is a part of who we are. It is not good, this discontent of theirs. The longer it simmers the worse it may be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Winter ends on the day of the Sunrise Hunt. If you thought the last competition was fierce, you have not seen what my people are like after a season in their caves. Try to imagine, if you can, what might happen when I turn them all loose into the forest with their greatest quarrels still unsettled.”
Kiren shrugged. “So they would fight then instead of now.”
“They would fight away from the eyes of their clan. Away from seers who can tend the wounded. When wolves do that,” Orec shook his head, “tempers win out over reason. I do not want any of my pack to lose their lives over this winter bitterness.”
While Kiren had no desire to throw Vaya into harm's way, an uncomfortable part of her recog
nised that she had seen the kind of behaviour the alpha was describing before. She had met a man on her way north who had made her skin crawl every time he was near. The kind of man who harboured grudges, waiting until he was away from the eyes of his leader before drawing his knife...
“I do not think it can happen,” she said. “The den mother would cast us out for good if she caught Vaya fighting.”
“Do not misunderstand my meaning, young Kiren.” Orec came to a halt a short distance from Pera's cave and handed the rest of the firewood back to her. “I am not encouraging Vaya to seek out trouble. But if Narolen and his companions continue hounding you, and a challenge is inevitable, then know that it has my blessing.”
“What about the den mother?”
“I will make sure she understands that whatever happens does so by my will. An alpha's warriors are his own responsibility.”
Kiren frowned, still unsure.
Orec took her by the shoulders. “If Adel's wrath must fall upon anyone, it will fall upon me.”
“Thank you, Alpha. You are very kind.”
“Even a wicked alpha would see the sense in keeping his warriors alive.” He let go of Kiren and gave her a hearty slap on the arm. Despite his dismissive response, she saw the smile in his eyes. Orec was a good man. Simple and honest, not like the witches he served.
With a parting bow of thanks she hurried back to Pera's cave, dumping the firewood outside next to the pair of windbreaks that shielded their hearth. While she appreciated Orec's support, she did not plan on sharing his words with Vaya. She was not even sure whether they had done anything to ease her own mind. Supposing the den mother did not get involved, that still left Vaya—or perhaps even herself—facing the prospect of a fierce challenge. In the past she would have been confident in her friend's ability to face down any foe, but ever since the fight with Great Rook Vaya's left arm had been weak and slow. If it was going to heal properly, surely it would have done so by now? And even if the fight was clean and fair, what then? A defeat would mean losing all of the status Vaya had fought so hard to obtain.
She sat awake tending the fire for a long time that night, listening to the sounds of her companions breathing as they huddled together in the shapes of their wolves. Winter was a cold season, yet the passions of Orec's clan still carried all the heat of summer.
From that point on Kiren felt a thin tension straining over her days, like the film on the surface of a bog that sat waiting for a large enough bubble to burst it. Every time she caught sight of another person outside her eyes snapped in their direction, expecting Narolen's companions to accost her again. More than once they made a try of it, even when she snuck out at night, but Kiren was fast and tricky, and while they no doubt saw her as a coward for dropping her firewood and darting away on the legs of her wolf, she considered every escape a victory. What was she going to do, challenge all of them? She was tough, but Orec's warriors—the men especially—were tougher. Fighting on their terms was not courageous, it was stupid.
Winter, as invariably as always, became a test of endurance, but this time she had the cold on one side and rival warriors on another. When Kiren left the cave in Vaya's company she had to try harder and harder to steer her friend out of harm's way when the goading of Narolen's companions reached their ears, and her trips to find firewood became longer and more exhausting every time.
She began to suspect that she was being followed out into the forest once she came across a series of pawprints alongside her tracks from the previous day. Upon reaching the clearing she had been picking clean of windfall, she found that every dry branch had been dragged off. By the time she had gone far enough to find a full bundle of firewood her hands were numb, quivering only slightly more from the cold than they were from her anger. Narolen and his friends could make gathering wood as difficult for her as they wanted, but they couldn't scavenge the whole forest.
Turning back in the direction of the den, her heart sank as she saw a dark front of cloud sweeping in through the grey heavens. The light had already begun to fade, and another heavy blizzard was coming with it. Her wolf prickled at the back of her neck, urging her to take to her feral form and run. Kiren only grimaced and clutched her wood bundle tighter. She had gone too far to drop it all now, and she wouldn't give Narolen or his mate the satisfaction of seeing her scamper home empty handed.
The wind picked up, drawing flecks of snow down through the skeletal tree branches as Kiren tried to follow her tracks back the way she had come. By the time she returned to the windfall clearing any trace of her footprints had vanished. She was so cold that her arm had clenched tight around the firewood bundle, numb and stiff, unable to feel even the dull pain of the twigs that had been digging into her elbow. She stumbled, scattering several loose branches from the end of the bundle. After staring at them for a few moments she realised she could not stoop to pick them back up. Her hands were too numb. The light was fading fast, stealing away her familiarity with the surrounding forest. She would need her wolf's night eyes and sense of smell soon, but could she even change shape any more? She had never been cold enough to feel so clumsy within her own body. Panic started to creep its way up her spine as she remembered the last time she had been frozen helpless in the forest, unable to move as a silent death stole up upon her.
Stomping her moccasins hard, she broke into a jog. Unseen foliage threatened to trip her up beneath the snow, but if she did not get back to the den soon the blizzard would bury her out here. It was as if the outer part of her body was no longer her own, a dull and icy shell, with only the warm bones inside keeping it moving. Twigs and tree trunks caught against her bundle as she shifted her grip to clutch it lengthways across her chest, pulling some of the smaller sticks free as she ran. Somewhere deep down an intense tiredness was beginning to work its way through her body, urging her to stop and rest, but she knew the rhythmic stomping of her moccasins was the only thing keeping her warm.
After what seemed like an age, the treeline broke. Kiren stumbled out into a bank of knee-deep snow, kicking up flurries of white as she tried to wade through it. It looked shallower on the other side. If she could just try to find a path where the snow had not thickened so much...
She put her right foot forward, waiting to feel her leg jolt when it hit solid ground. Instead, it plunged straight through the snow, deep down into the furrow she had mistaken for a shallower drift. Even though her face was numb, she still felt the sting of the snow as she tumbled headfirst into its cold embrace. For an instant she flailed her arms in desperation, clutching and kicking as if she had just plunged into deep water. The snow was thick, but not dangerously so. She had already walked past here on her way to the clearing, had she not? The blizzard could not have buried the land completely in so short a time.
Squeezing one of the fallen sticks between her mittens, she pushed down and levered herself back upright, shaking snow from her face and hair. This time it was even harder to force her limbs to move, but somehow she managed it. Leaning on the stick as hard as she could, she dragged herself up the opposite side of the furrow until the snow only came up to her calves again.
Then she felt a pair of hands beneath her shoulder, and the howling of the wind became a confusion of voices in her ears.
“Stand up, stand up! Can you walk?” It was Vaya. Another pair of hands gripped her from the opposite side, and something furry scampered between her legs. Relief flooded through Kiren's freezing soul. Vaya, Kin, Kale, Pera. They had all come looking for her. Even little Claw, though he was hardly little any longer.
“Put her on the back of my wolf,” she heard Kin saying. “She needs to get warm.”
Kiren shook her head groggily. “I don't think I could stay on. I can't feel my fingers.” Her voice sounded strange and stiff, as if her throat too had frozen. A moment later Kin had hefted her into his arms, the wind rushing in her ears as she bounced against his chest. She blinked hard, trying to stay awake. Through the flurry of snow she could make out a few g
lowing points of light—the fires of Orec's den shining through their screens. Pera and Kale's brown-furred wolves streaked ahead of them through the sea of white, but Vaya remained jogging at her side.
Kin was breathing heavily by the time they reached the light, stooping low through a rocky entrance, then setting her down upon something soft. The warm light of the seers' cave enveloped Kiren as Netya crouched over her, face fraught with concern.
She could hear the others talking in elevated tones nearby, but Netya's voice cut through the clamour as she bundled warm furs around her apprentice's body and rubbed her chest.
“Keep yourself moving. Don't try to sleep. Can you sit up? Here, drink this.”
Kiren felt a bowl of hot liquid pressed to her lips. She forced herself to swallow. It was only water, but the heat spilling down her throat was what mattered. Bit by bit, one sip at a time, she felt her skin beginning to prickle with sensation once more.
“Let me look at your toes,” Netya said. “Hold them by the fire, not too close.” Untying the bindings around Kiren's fur-wrapped moccasins, she slipped them off one at a time. “Can you move your feet at all?”
Much to her mentor's surprise, Kiren not only managed to swivel her ankles, but also wiggle her toes. With the returning feeling came a modest amount of pain, but it was preferable to the numbness she had felt before.
Netya smiled, giving a bemused shake of her head. “The Moon People weather the cold as well as any other ill, don't they? When I was a girl men who waded back to the village through snow like this would be lucky not to cripple themselves.”
“I can barely feel anything,” Kiren said.
“Feel it or not, it's all still there, and it all still moves. Sit and warm up for a while—and you're not going back to that freezing cave tonight.”