People - People of the Wolf Part 2

The Enemy lay there. The Enemy whose land they now hunted. The Enemy who never fought--but abandoned their possessions and fled ever south. He sniffed. Where did a warrior find honor in such as them? How would the White Tusk Clan ever gain the distinction of cherishing and protecting the Sacred White Hide, his tribe's power totem, while war raged among the other clans in the far west?

"We must force these cowards to fight us."

Ice Fire rubbed an ice-encrusted mitten across his nose, leaning his head back to look up at the snow-misted stars. The Hide was the most valued sacred object of the Mammoth People. It had been taken long ago: the skin of a white mammoth calf, carefully tanned. The history of the clans, the symbolism of the directions, and the ways of earth and air and water and light had been delicately drawn around the Hide's symbolic heart area. The picture had been drawn with bjood ritually poured from the heart of a freshly killed mammoth. Without the Hide, the people would starve; Mammoth would no longer hear them. They would die, blown away like so much down from a snow goose's breast.

Weary, Ice Fire let himself relax, warm in his robes, comfortable but for the cramp in his aging knees and the rock gouging his back.

As always on lonely nights such as this, the memory of the woman on the beach returned to haunt him. Such a beauty. He'd been so sure she'd called him to that lonely place--part of the vision, of the Dream ofpain left by the death of his wife. Perhaps she had. In the vision, she'd given herself to him, led him to love her, to lose himself in the embrace of her soul. Then the Watcher had interfered, changed it all.

The vision had been jerked away--leaving him to stare in horror at what he'd done. Power had been misused. Future and past sundered. What might have been good had changed into something terrible. The Watcher had been there, her presence as tangible as hunger or thirst ... or pain.

He'd run then, appalled at what he'd done to the woman he'd sought to love. In vain, he'd climbed the high places, seeking the Great Mystery's explanation, calling angrily into the night to confront the Watcher--all to no end.

"I am only your tool!" he hissed to the sky. "Why have you used me so, Great Mystery above? What am I to you, when I would only be a man? Why have you cursed me? Left me childless when all I wanted were sons?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. The wind lulled him, the snow settling in the crevices of his parka, lining the breath-frosted fur of his hood. The pull of the new land strengthened, and in his exhaustion, he allowed himself to be drawn, southward, ever southward. Like smoke from a green dung fire, he drifted over the land, seeing, feeling, hearing the spirit and soul breathed up from the rock, dirt, and tundra steppe below. For a time he exalted in a total freedom, a light airy joy of broken bonds and unrestricted bliss. Then a young man stood before him, blocking him. He rose from the rocky hills, feet braced, dressed in the manner of the Enemy, wearing a White Bear's hide, glowing eyes of a Dreamer.

"Move, man!" Ice Fire ordered. "You're in the way of the White Tusk Clan. In the way of my people."

"What do you seek?"

"What I was destined to find. The way for my people. The sons I would have borne."

The young man c.o.c.ked his head. "You already have sons. Your destiny awaits--if you'll take it. Your sons are your destiny. Which will you choose? Light or Dark?" He lifted his hand. The vision of a beautiful woman molded in the clouds, her hair blowing in the wind.

The tall youth spoke. "She is Light. Choose her and you and yours will pa.s.s this way." He lifted his hand, blowing across his open palm, and from it sprang a rainbow, arching across the sky, dimming even the colorful bands of Light that the Great Mystery played over the northern heavens. The young man pointed to a dark cloud. "Choose Darkness, and you will all die."

"I said, move! We'll crush you beneath us, despite your magic," Ice Fire gasped to hide his fear. "We won't tolerate this Dreaming, this magic of your kind. The Great Mystery will see to that. Our darts are stronger than your Dreams-your Watchers. Don't play with us, man of the Enemy.

We'll break your people like a dry willow twig."

The young man smiled. "Is that what you seek? To destroy? That is your choice?" "No," Ice Fire rasped, a desperate tingle of fright winding up his spine. "I seek my sons, the destiny of my people, possession of the Sacred Hide.""And what would you give?" The youth's eyes twirled like lights in his head.

Ice Fire swallowed. "I ... anything."

"Give me your son? I will pay you back in kind. A son for a son. A victory for defeat. Life for death."

"But I--"

"Do you agree? Will you trade what is yours for what is mine?"

Confused, Ice Fire opened his mouth. Involuntarily, he mumbled, "I would ... if it--"

"Then it shall be." And the young man turned, shimmering, dropping to all fours, arms and legs multiplying until he'd become a red spider.

Turning, the beast raced up the rainbow, slowing near the top. There, it turned, spreading its legs, spinning the colors of the rainbow across the heavens until they wove themselves into a web connecting the dewdrops of stars.

Ice Fire jerked awake, squinting into the darkness, windblown snow still streaming by in endless wreaths. He winced, legs numb from sitting so long. Gasping, he stood, feeling the sting of blood revitalizing his numbed limbs.

As he looked up at the snow-glazed stars, he found the shape of the spider there, hanging, waiting, watching.

"Then it shall be," he whispered, still seeing the vision. A pain settled under his heart. "A son for a son?" The old lines of misery resettled around his mouth. "I have no son to begin with. Great Mystery?

Am I your toy again? To be thrown about like a fish-bone doll? Have you no other man to soak in sorrow?"

Limping from the blood tingles in his leg, Ice Fire climbed out of the cairn, hobbling slowly down the hill to the conical mammoth-hide shelters dotting the plain below.

Far to the south, Runs In Light blinked frosty lashes, wondering at the strange elder of the Others, the man he'd talked so blithely to in his Dream.

Where had his words come from? What did it mean? He wouldn't speak so to an elder. A frown etched his brow. And this business of peoples .. . and sons?

He shuffled in the blackness, hearing his parka scuff on snow, startled for a moment until he remembered where he was ... the Dream Hunt.

Curiously, he reached out, feeling the rea.s.suring touch of Wolf's hide.

So many Dreams. Frightened, he stared into the darkness. "I'll go south with you, Wolf. But, man of the Others, who are you? Why did you seek me? How can I, Runs In Light, trade you a son?"

Chapter 3.

Dancing Fox pulled the last sc.r.a.ps of leather tightly around Laughing Sunshine's dead baby, covering the tiny colorless face for the last time. She exhaled slowly. She was a beautiful woman with an oval face, high cheekbones, and flashing black eyes as wide and round as an owl's.

She gritted her teeth in a mixture of anger and hurt as she fumbled stiffly to shove a bone awl through frozen leather.

"Curse this--"

"What?" Sunshine asked shakily.

"I was talking to the hide. It's frozen so solid I can hear the ice crystals crunching as the awl wiggles through them."

"Hurry, please," said Laughing Sunshine, "I can't bear this."

Laying the baby in her lap, Dancing Fox quickly pulled her hand up into her sleeve and used the hide cuff as a cushion beneath her fist as she forced the awl through the leather. A dull crackling sounded as the hide gave way. Placing the awl in her teeth, she worked the last segment of sinew through the hole and drew it tight, sealing the tiny face in the hide sack.

So many dead. Has the Long Dark eaten all our souls? Have light and life left the whole world? She rubbed her gaunt belly, fearing Crow Caller's seed might have taken root in her womb. Her bleeding hadn't come in the last two moons--but then hunger did that to a woman.

Across from her, Laughing Sunshine moaned to herself, rocking back and forth on her heels, a grimace tightening her triangular face and beaked nose. With a flake of stone she'd struck off one of Singing Wolf's cores, she cut at the skin of her gaunt cheeks until blood ran hotly.

Then she turned the sharp edge on her hair, cutting it short to the collar, letting long black strands fall onto the frozen, stained ground.

"Sunshine?" Dancing Fox called softly, tying the death knot on the baby's sack. The child's haunted blue face hung heavy in her mind, like oil smoke on a cold morning. She held the sack out for the mother to take, but Sunshine only shook her head bitterly.

Dancing Fox laid the baby in the crook of her left arm and with her right reached out to squeeze Sunshine's shoulder. "Stop this," she ordered softly. "You're using up strength you need to live."

"Maybe I don't want to live," Sunshine whimpered, dropping her bloodied face into her hands. "All my children have died this Long Dark.

I--" "Hush! Of course you want to live. There can be other babies. You aren't so old you can't--"

"Doesn't anyone Dream anymore?" Sunshine wailed hysterically, slamming her fists repeatedly into the frozen floor. The dull thudding stabbed bitterly at Fox's heart. "What's happened to us? What are we doing here, starving to death? Has Father Sun abandoned us to the spirits of the Long Dark?"

"It may be," Dancing Fox said bitterly. "But I plan to go on living just to spite Him. And I'm going to drag you along with me. Now stoptorturing yourself. We have duties to perform."

Sunshine wiped her eyes, whispering, "Is your heart as empty as your belly, Fox? What has Crow Caller done--"

"Done?" she asked reflectively, pain smoldering in her breast at the mention of her husband's name. She lowered her eyes to scowl at the floor. "He's made me stronger."

"You mean half-human. You used to be kind and--"

"Kindness is for the living," she said, pushing the door flap open. Cold splashed into the shelter, wind flapping their fur hoods. "The dead don't need it anymore." Sunshine c.o.c.ked her head curiously. "But my little girl's spirit can still hear--"

"There aren't any spirits."

"You .. . Of course, there are. What do you think makes--"

Fox shook her head vehemently. "No, there aren't. I've been praying to Father Sun and the Monster Children for two moons to--"

"Since you married Crow Caller?"

Fox let the flap drop closed and nodded tightly. "They haven't answered a single prayer."

Sunshine blinked away her tears, swallowing hard. "Maybe his Power prevents them from hearing you."

"Maybe."

"So they might still exist," she said pleadingly. "And my little girl can hear."

"Of course." Dancing Fox nodded, shame at her insensitivity reddening her cheeks. She fumbled with the death sack, stroking the covered head.

What did she think she was doing, undermining her friend's last hope? "I didn't mean it, Sunshine. Of course she can hear."

"I know you didn't." Sunshine smiled consolingly, patting Fox's arm.

"You're just hungry and tired--like the rest of us."

They exchanged a tender smile and crawled beneath the flap out into the faint gray light. Dancing Fox's legs quivered weakly as she got to her feet. Straining, she helped pull Laughing Sunshine up.

Crow Caller stood a short distance away, his withered features contorted with irritation. His aged flesh hung in sagging wrinkles. On one side of his hawk nose glittered a deadly black eye--the other stared white-blind, lifeless. His thin lipped mouth held no humor--no feeling for another tragedy of death. Lifting his hands, he immediately began singing, ancient voice wavering up and down the scale as he sang the death song by rote, calling the Blessed Star People to accept this baby among them--even if it had no name.

Of course they hadn't named it. The People wouldn't name a baby until it pa.s.sed five Long Darks to prove it would live. Until that time, a baby was an animal anyway. It didn't turn human until it learned to talk, andthink, and began to become one of the People. That's when a human soul would come--during a Dream--and find a home in a child.

Singing Wolf, Laughing Sunshine's husband, strode forward to embrace his wife and take the child from Fox's arms. He laid the baby in Sunshine's reluctant hands. One by one the People lifted the frozen flaps of their shelters and stumbled awkwardly to their feet. Some swayed, dizzy from hunger. The People were tall and straight, their skin browned in the snowy glare. Squint lines had been etched tight around their eyes and mouths, a legacy of sun, wind, and storm. Wide lips meant for laughter had grown thin, futility gleaming behind pain-sharpened eyes. Wind Woman's fingers caught their tailored furs, old grease stains shining blackly in the grayness. Against the subdued light, they looked soft and rounded in their mounds of hides, a people as worn as the polished glacial cobbles they camped on.

In a solemn line, they walked, all singing, following Sunshine as she plodded unsteadily around the ice-packed sheltters to the drifts beyond.

She started up a slope, kicking footholds in the white crust. Stumbling, she nearly dropped her child. Hugging it to her breast, she took a deep breath, and continued.

Following haltingly in her footsteps, the People crossed to the other side. Here and there the dead lay visible, parts of their bodies twisting gruesomely from the snow. The old had died first. In the early days they had quietly wandered out into the vast wind-ripped wilderness to die alone, as was their right. Later, as strength failed, the elderly had frozen in their robes, refusing to eat.

Sunshine placed the baby on the top of the drift, dropping to her knees, sobbing her anguish. Around and below her, the People sang, voices raised in the song of death, hoping to send the nameless infant to the Star People.

Crow Caller raised his hands, turning to look at them. "It was only a girl!" he shouted. "Let's get this over with quickly so we can get back to the shelters."

Sunshine's cries halted abruptly as she turned her swollen eyes to stare imploringly at the old shaman.

Dancing Fox lifted a brow, anger searing her breast when she saw the devastated look in Sunshine's eyes. "Shut up, husband," she murmured in a low voice that shook. "Any child is precious."

"Are you so anxious to have me fill you that you'll take any result?

Keep your mouth--"

"Hardly."

He jerked around to glare at her. "Brave, eh? I ought to curse your womb so you'll never give birth."

"Would you?" she responded spitefully. "I'd be grateful."

A low murmuring eddied through the gathering, people frowning at Fox's defiance. A young woman didn't speak so to an elder--especially if he was her husband. As Fox glanced at the condemning eyes, a tingling invaded her stomach. She'd tried all her life to obey the rules. Why could she never quite manage?Crow Caller lifted his chin slowly, rage gleaming in his one black eye.

He stabbed a mittened hand toward her. "You see? Evidence that women are less than nothing--dirt useful only for growing a man's seed." "It's true," the youth, Eagle Cries, wailed from the back of the gathering.

"Everyone knows it. Let's hurry and get back to the shelters!"

"Listen--" Crow Caller began.

"You fools," a fragile old voice interrupted, resounding from the last shelter. "Who do you think wiped your b.u.t.ts when you were babes? Who wiped your tears when you were frightened? Eh, your fathers?"

People turned, watching pensively as Broken Branch, the oldest member of the band, struggled from beneath the heavy hide flap to hobble forward.

Brittle gray hair stuck out at odd angles from beneath her arctic fox hood. The nostrils of her preposterously sharp nose flared; her ancient brown eyes squinted in what everyone recognized as utter disdain. The People faded back, clearing a path for her.

When she reached the top of the hill, she gazed down at the crowd menacingly, pinning each man with an evil stare. A few puffed out their chests defiantly, most dropped their gazes to show respect. She waved a hand as though dismissing all of them. "What are you doing arguing when a member of our clan is dead?" Wind Woman accented her words by gusting ferociously over the drifts. People grabbed each other to steady themselves. "You ought to be thinking about how we can keep anyone else from dying!"

"Yes," Crow Caller spat, eyeing her askance. "We must leave here. Death stalks each of us--"

"Don't agree with me, you old fake," Broken Branch accused.

Crow Caller's eyes lit with rage. "I have the greatest Spirit Power among the People!" he yelled, shaking a fist in her face.

"So you keep telling me."

Dancing Fox took a step backward as her husband bellowed like a wounded caribou bull. "Don't challenge me, you old witch! I'll curse your soul so it never reaches the Star People. I'll see you buried--locked in the ground forever-to rot in darkness."

The people backed away from Broken Branch.