People - People of the Wolf Part 37

"Must be farther." She sighed and caught her breath before trudging on.

"Fox?" she hollered into the snow glaze. "Are you there?"

Nothing came but the whisper of snow blowing over the rippling sastrugi.

Green Water checked the slant of Father Sun in the sky. The baby shifted inside. Her legs had begun to ache. How long to get back? An hour and a half? Two? She hesitated, torn.

"Did you really see anyone out here?" she wondered aloud.

Racked by indecision, she found it easier to continue, fear eating at her for every step she took beyond the relative safety of the camp.

"And what if it was one of the Others you saw? What if Dancing Fox is long dead and you're walking right into a thrown dart point? What then?"

she growled to herself, striding on, wishing she'd waited for One Who Cries. Wind Woman blew harder, the landmarks on the horizon obscured in the shifting curtain of wind-driven snow.

"Fox? Anyone?" She cupped her hands, calling again and again. "Who's there?"

Nervously, she ran her tongue around her mouth, shaking her head. Father Sun cast angling shadows through the ground blizzard, Wind Woman's temperamental gusts coming ever stronger.

Green Water stared over her back trail seeing her tracks filled in as she walked. Hunger tightened. Pregnancy did that. It chafed at the belly constantly, drained her of energy.

She called again into the wind and looked around. "No way I'll make it back before dark," she mumbled. The tiny irritation of fear fed on her hopelessness.

She turned, circling.

Faint, a slight mew caught her ear. She c.o.c.ked her head. "Dancing Fox?"

Nothing. She started back, the ache of overstressed leg muscles leaving a trembling in her hips. She stopped, turning again into the north, walking back over her tracks. Indecision tormented her. She had heard that faint sound.

"You're killing your baby--and yourself," she spat hoa.r.s.ely. "Go home."

But she shouted into the wind again. "Fox?"

"Here."

Faint, ever so faint. Green Water shuffled forward hurriedly, heart leaping. "Where?"

"Here. " The voice came from upwind.

A faint brown form emerged from the restless snow only to be obscured by another gust. Green Water hurried forward, panting, awkward with her distended belly. "Fox?""Green Water?" Dancing Fox blinked up at her from sunken features. Snow crusted around her hood. She shook her head weakly. "Are you real? Not part of .. . of a Dream, or something?"

Green Water smiled and dropped to her knees, taking Fox's hand, squeezing it hard. "There, you feel that? Would a Dream squeeze you like that?"

Dancing Fox's forehead lined with confusion as she looked at her snow-caked mittens. "I ... I don't know. I don't understand much anymore. Can't think too good. Get confused. Just go south, that's all.

Lost the trail."

Green Water patted her on the shoulder. "Well, I saw you. You're almost there. Come on, One Who Cries will have everyone out looking. It's almost dark and I'm not home. He's a worrier when I'm in trouble."

Dancing Fox nodded loosely, head bobbing. "You have any food? Can't hardly walk anymore." Green Water helped her up only to have Fox crumble in a heap, crying in pain.

"What's wrong?" She bent down, staring into Dancing Fox's lined face.

"Forgot for a moment." She stared up stupidly. "Hurt my ankle. Slipped on a rock a week ago. Hurts. Hurts worse than anything I've ever done to myself. Aches when I try and sleep. Like lances of fire when I walk."

"A week ago? And you're still traveling?"

For a moment, a sharp look filled Fox's face. "Cursed right, I am. You see a lot of choice out here?" Then her eyes lost focus.

"How long since you've eaten?"

Fox's brow lined again as she stared into the snow, thinking hard. "I don't know. Found a dead caribou. Nothing but bones .. . about two weeks ago, maybe. Ate the marrow. Then there was nothing .. . but snow .. .

and wind. You know how Wind Woman is ... mad, blowing .. . always .

blowing.. .." Her voice drifted away.

"Come on, lean on me. Another couple of hours won't kill you if you've made it this far." "Ought to rest, sleep." Green Water pulled her mitten off, reaching down the front of Dancing Fox's parka, feeling the skin of her chest, reaching around to an armpit. "No, you're walking, girl. You rest now, you won't get up. You're too cold. Lost too much heat. Come on, up."

Green Water grunted, struggling with Fox's weight.

"Where's your other snowshoe? Why's this one tied to your pack?"

"Other one broke. When I fell. Tough to walk on one snowshoe. Other ankle hurts like a rock-smashed thumb."

"Here, hold on to me. I'll tie this on your good foot. You lean on me.

Three feet is better than one, huh?"

Together, they turned, the last of the gray twilight fading in the southwest.Teeth gritted, Green Water took the woman's weight. "You'll make it. You can do it."

Dancing Fox mumbled under her breath, "Nothing left. Only me."

"That's right. Keep going."

"Blessed Star People, that ankle hurts!" Fox groaned. "Why do we do this? Huh? Why do we suffer so? What's the reason? What's in living but hurt and pain and misery. People shouldn't have to ... to live ... in this kind of--"

"Hush," Green Water chided. "Save your energy for walking. That's it, one step at a time."

Even as she spoke, the breath grated in and out of her throat. Fire burned up her trembling legs, but they continued, Green Water reading the way from the stars. How long? How many lifetimes did she spend out there?

Vaguely, she remembered One Who Cries calling. A dismembered recollection of him emerging out of the darkness, grabbing her up, hugging her gently and bending over Dancing Fox before bellowing into the storm. Then came hands, more walking, and finally the rocky descent to their shelter in the bottom of the valley. As she huddled next to the fire, they brought Dancing Fox in, removing her ice-caked parka, rubbing her limbs and trunk, ma.s.saging her in the warm heat of the shelter before Singing Wolf cut the long boot from her left leg.

Green Water caught her breath at the size of Dancing Fox's ankle.

Mottled and swollen; it hurt just to look at it.

"And she walked a week on that?" One Who Cries was astonished. "Tough woman." Green Water sighed. "I don't know anyone else who could have done it."

Dancing Fox groaned and turned her head. "I didn't have any choice.

There was only me out there .. . only me." And she closed her eyes tightly.

Chapter 44.

Raven Hunter watched Three Falls as he looked away. The older hunters always looked away, even Three Falls, who had lost so many of his kin.

The younger men, however, watched eagerly as the newest of the warriors of the People bent over the captive Other, leaning down as the man struggled, the skin of his chest gleaming in the firelight.

Crow Caller stroked a bone wand up and down a grooved caribou antler, singing his Dream of Power into the gathering. He chanted to the hollow zizzing of the bone. The warriors swayed back and forth, carried away by the Power of the moment, feeling the strength of their souls.

Raven Hunter smiled to himself, then leaned over the naked man, glaring into the captive's eyes.

"Kill me!" the Other demanded. "You hear? Kill me!"

"You'll die, but not just yet." Raven Hunter nodded his approval to an eager young warrior who'd shown exceptional bravery on the war trail, Crow Foot. The youth trotted forward. "He's yours," Raven Hunter cooed in praise.

Crow Foot smiled suddenly, gazing hungrily at the captive.

"Take him."

Bending down, the boy traced an obsidian blade along the Other's chest, watching him writhe as blood streamed hotly. Stifled whimpers escaped the man's clamped teeth. A tear crept past the Other's eyes to trickle down his cheek as Crow Foot moved the sharp edge lower, tracing it around the man's genitals. "No Other should breed children to fight against us," the boy blurted violently.

Muscles knotting and sliding under sweat-shiny skin, the warrior thrashed and shrieked as the gla.s.s edge cut his manhood from his body. A roar of approval erupted from the watching warriors. The youth held the garish prize high, heedless of the blood that trickled down his arm.

Three Falls backed away in disgust, elbowing through the press, ducking through the door flap and into the darkness.

Raven Hunter followed patiently, ducking under behind Three Falls.

"I hate this!" the old warrior gritted through clenched teeth.

"It gives our young men heart." Raven Hunter walked to stand before him, wishing the light was better so he could see Three Falls' eyes. "Such rituals bind us more tightly than if we'd used mammoth sinew. It's a sharing of honor in there."

Three Falls stuck his chin forward, face masked in shadow, breath a white cloud before him. "A sharing of horror, you mean." The Other screamed shrilly, as if to make the point. Three Falls winced.

"To bind a people together when they've been weak and fragmented is never easy," Raven Hunter reminded. "Think back at how the Others harried us, chased us like caribou. We weren't men to them, no more than I want Others to be men in the eyes of my warriors. Think back, remember those first raids we fought? Hmra? Remember how poorly we did? Look now,outnumbered, we kill many more of them than they kill of us. Why?

Because of the courage, the spirit. Just like I'm building in there. You think that young boy won't fight? After I gave him the honor of cutting that Other apart, he'll fight until his heart bursts." Raven Hunter smacked his fist into a palm.

Three Falls lifted a shoulder. "Yes, we fight better. We're meaner--like a dog that's been baited, tortured, and abused with a bear hide. Is that what we're to become, Raven Hunter? Bear dogs? Creatures made berserk at the sight of an Other? A bear dog is less than a dog .. . less than .. .

than--"

"Does a bear dog have any choice?" Raven Hunter asked. "Do we? By becoming meaner, berserk, as you say, we keep our land. So I ask you, what's better? Living as a berserk bear dog? Or dying at the hands of the Others?"

"I .. .1 chose to live." He glared nervously as he pushed past Raven Hunter, stalking across the camp, hide-bound feet crunching in the snow.

Raven Hunter shivered, following him with his eyes, stroking his chin thoughtfully as the sharp wind chilled his skin. A deep-seated unease stirring in his chest, he wavered as a particularly fierce gust of wind battered the camp. Eyes si it ted against the knives of cold, he ducked back through the flap to the warmth within.

Young warriors cackled joyously before a row of captive Others, eyes gleaming in hatred. The Others, faces like masks, awaited their turn, sweat beading on tight faces. Their eyes reflected the horror.

"So many have left, fleeing south to Runs In Light," he whispered to himself. "But I have the youth bound to me. And with the youth, a man can take a people anywhere."

He pushed into the crowd, enjoying the pride and awe in the warriors'

eyes as they looked at him.

The Other had become a b.l.o.o.d.y whimpering pile of meat. Crow Foot pranced around, stepping high, exhibiting a long section of thigh muscle he'd just stripped from the man's leg. Flinging it into the crowd, he dropped on the man's abdomen, slicing it open to reach within, drawing out a ropy handful of blue-gray intestines.

The warriors whooped and shrilled. Raven Hunter smiled, observing the raptorial faces around him. Indeed, here were warriors--his warriors.

The hope of survival.

The next morning, Three Falls was gone.

Bowed under loads of frozen meat, the People struggled up the last rise, the trail familiar now. Breath puffing in the dark, coating the chests of their parkas in frosty white, they shuffled across the crest of the ridge.

"Careful," One Who Cries panted. "Trail's solid ice. Got to go down the side."

Singing Wolf grunted agreement, too tired to do anything else, following on trembling legs as his friend picked his path through the rocks.

Behind, Jumping Hare, Curlew Song, and others staggered under theirburdens while a long line of dogs shuffled in their trail, backs bent under packs of frozen meat.

Step-by-step they worked down into the valley, the snow melting as if by magic as they walked onto the ground warmed rock.

"Wonderful thing, these geysers." One Who Cries sighed.

A dog barked, then another, before all the curs in the camp exploded in howls and yips, dashing out to confront the intruders.

Jumping Hare laid into the camp dogs with his dart shafts, keeping them from jumping the pack animals.

"h.e.l.lo!" Singing Wolf called. "Hey, people. We're here!" He swung the heavy pack from his shoulders, dropping wearily on a rock, head hanging as he fumbled with cold-stiff fingers to undo his webbed snowshoes.

Beside him, One Who Cries sighed as he deposited his burden. People emerged from the shelters to come scrambling across the dark rock.

"Singing Wolf?"

"Here." He stood to hug his wife, delighted at the feel of her bulging belly against his. Wouldn't be long now and they'd have a family again.

The thought warmed him deep inside.

"We got a mammoth cow. Meat enough for everyone here. Some will have to move up there, though. Too much carrying. Not only that, but we saw sign of musk ox," One Who Cries said.