Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains
Breakaway (Book 1: Clan of the Ice Mountains)
Enjoy the following excerpt from... | Blooded Ground
Breakaway
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Book One: Clan of the Ice Mountains
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by C. S. Bills
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Highest Hope Publishing LLC
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his is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book. Breakaway, Book One: Clan of the Ice Mountains. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2012 C.S Bills.
Edited by Bethany Eicher.
Cover and formatting by Jeff Bennington.
Published by Highest Hope Publishing LLC.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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To my students at Hahn Intermediate School.
You are amazing!
C
loudless sky laced with stars met the endless expanse of ice on the horizon, then stretched itself up into an infinite black. The sparkling pinpricks of light beckoned to the twelve men and women who sat below, each on a large rock flattened and polished by countless generations of those who had sat as they sat now, mountains to their backs, rotting ice over an endless ocean stretching out before them.
Motionless since the sun disappeared below the horizon, they stared out over the ocean’s Expanse, each seeming to see something that was not there, something important, something dangerous.
Now the wind, warm and carrying the scent of open water, whipped around them, blowing hair out of hoods and jangling the ornaments on the sticks positioned across their laps, long implements of gnarled wood decorated with shells, feathers, and curiously carved dangling charms. Theirs was the only movement, the only sound.
Until one of the watchers spoke.
“I have finally found the one from the Ice Mountain Clan who will heed the call,” the man said, and he turned, grunting as his old bones complained about sitting still for so long. The female watcher beside him turned as well, her fiercely red hair gleaming dark in the starlight, flashing occasionally like fire in the light of the rising moon.
The two faced each other; the rest, seemingly oblivious, continued to stare out over the ice. This would be the last clan called, if their plans worked out as all hoped. The other clans were already well on their way to safety.
“So, most Ancient One, who will it be?” the red-haired woman asked, pulling her hood up over her flaming hair and tucking her bare hands more firmly into the long sleeves of the woven outer garment she wore. “Their leader? Or his brother?”
“Neither,” said the first, and pulled a strand of long white hair back into his cloak. He fixed his eyes on the woman, and she caught a twinkle of amusement in their blue depths. “It is the young hunter, the son of the one who can no longer lead, who has heard the Call. He is restless. He will listen. He will come.”
“But how can he do this thing?” The red-headed woman protested. “Why will the clan follow such a young hunter?”
“Because he has the Gift,” replied the first. “And their healer is believed to be the embodiment of Shuantuan. She also has the Gift. She will encourage him. Others will listen to her.”
The female watcher turned back toward the Expanse, her eyes unfocused, her head tilted, as if she were listening to something. Then she nodded, slightly at first then more earnestly.
“Yes, it will be so,” she agreed. “But the dangers... they are so many, and his chance to succeed, so small.”
“I have tried all others who could lead more easily. None will listen. It must be him. We must cause him to find help, when he needs it,” the blue-eyed watcher said. “And I know just who to send to our young hunter. Together, they will bring two clans to us, if the Great Spirit wills it, before it is too late.”
“Who?”
“The young woman of the Great Expanse clan. She has dreamed, and although she does not yet believe, she will when the time is right.”
“Perhaps. But you see what they will face, do you not, oh Ancient One? Disaster on the ice, attacks from both animal and man, and worst of all, betrayal by one of their own. Their clans seem bent on destroying themselves. Certainly their chances of success are slim?”
“You are right, Young One,” the blue-eyed Ancient agreed. “Do you sense another choice?”
The woman’s shoulders sagged. “No,” she answered, her voice edged with both reluctance and resignation.
“Then let us do this now. We must travel soon, back to the Rock and its safety. We have many days of journeying ahead of us to reach the final place of Guidance.”
The blue-eyed man stood and threw his hood back. White hair blew behind him as he faced the now gale-force wind coming off the ice, warm on his face.
“The time has come!” The man shouted above the wind, and shaking the long stick in front of him, he began to chant. The others on the rock stirred at his words. They stood as well and each chanted. They called the clans, called to the people scattered across the great Expanse of melting ice to race for the safety of land and be saved.
A
ttu and Suka strode across the vast expanse of hardened snow over ice, a bitter wind cutting through their fur-lined miks and hoods. They were cold and tired, but the hunt had been good and two large snow otters hung across Attu’s pack and one across Suka’s.
“I’m not taking one of your otters, so quit trying to give it to me.” Suka scowled and walked faster. “It won’t make a difference, anyway.”
Suka tightened his hood against the cold and the glaring sunlight reflecting off the flat endless white around them.
“I’m just saying-”
“My father isn’t like yours, even though they’re brothers,” Suka said, thrusting his spear butt out before him, testing the ice as he walked. “Haven’t you figured that out by now? I could come home with ten snow otters and still whatever game Kinak gets will be better, just because he’s the oldest son. It’s always been that way. ‘Kinak the broad shouldered, Kinak the wise. Suka the weak, Suka the stupid one.’ Nothing I do changes how my father feels about me.”
Attu shook his head, sorry for his cousin. Ubantu, Attu’s father, was so different from his younger brother, Moolnik, Suka’s father.
It’s hard to believe we’re part of the same family...
Suka picked up his pace. He was long-legged for a Nuvik, narrow in the body and tall for his age. Like Attu, he wore bone goggles, slitted to keep out the constant glare of the ice around them, carved to fit snugly against his dusky skin around deep set brown eyes. The long trim on Suka’s parka hood hid his round face with its high cheek bones and flat wide nose, but Attu didn’t have to see Suka’s face to tell his cousin was angry as he strode toward the distant dark rocks that jutted up behind a thin strip of grey and tumbled ice.
“Careful,” Attu said. “We’re nearing the shore.”
Suka and Attu struck the ice in front of them with every step, using the butt of their spears. No Nuvik walked on the Expanse anymore without testing ahead. Full of death traps set by Attuanin, the Spirit of the Deep, the thin ice waited for them to take one wrong step and plunge into the frigid water beneath. In their heavy fur clothing, they would sink like stones.
“Do you think the stories about Attuanin are true?” Suka asked, as the young hunters approached the rocky outcropping of land.
“My father says more hunters have been lost since you and I were born than ever before. Attuanin must need men for his water kingdom,” Attu replied.
Lomkut and Shrantik, two hunters from their clan, had fallen through the ice and drowned within the last twenty moons. They’d left women and children behind. Some of those were near starving now. The clan women shared the meat from their own hunters, but there was never enough.
“It wouldn’t be such a loss for my family if I fell through the ice,” Suka grumbled. “But since your father’s accident six moons ago, with his injured leg-”
“That’s why I’m careful,” Attu interrupted. He paused, listening to the sounds of the ice. Satisfied, he moved on.
Attu had been named after Attuanin, but he didn’t think that would keep him safer on the ice than anyone else. In his two hundredth moon, at his final naming ceremony, Attu’s name had been changed from Neetook, which meant “quiet one,” because he was almost as good as his father at sneaking up on game without a sound, to the name of the water spirit, Attuanin, the greatest of all hunters.
His father, Ubantu, had braided Attu’s black hair down his back in the single braid worn by men, chopping the bottom off below the rawhide tie, and setting that hair aside to be burned at the ceremony. His mother, Yural, rubbed grease into his upper body until his bronze skin shone, careful not to touch his upper arms with their still healing clan tattoos, the ice mountain for his clan on his right arm, and the down facing line under the flat ice of the Expanse, the symbol for Attuanin, on the other. It rippled over his left bicep whenever he flexed his arm.
Mother smeared blood from Attu’s latest kill on her weathered palm and pressed it over Attu’s heart. Meavu, his little sister, did the same, although Father had to lift her up to make her tall enough to reach. She placed her small blood-stained hand over the imprint of her mother’s on Attu’s chest. Thus Yural and Meavu were bound to Attu and he to them, sworn to hunt for his mother and sister until the day he took a woman of his own.
Attu stood amongst the clan, stripped to the waist, the bloody handprints on his chest, his body gleaming in the light of the nuknuk lamps, while all around him the clan danced. Elder Nuanu, the clan’s healer and spiritual leader, spoke the words and shook the bone rattle. And then he was a man, a hunter, Attuanin.
“You must call him Attu. It is profane to call someone their full spirit name,” Attu’s mother had scolded Meavu when she danced around the shelter later that night, smiling and singing, “Attuanin, mighty hunter, my brother, Attuanin.”
Attu heard a soft groaning sound, and both hunters froze. But no crack raced across the ice.
Attu looked to Suka.
“I think it’s safe,” Suka said, and as if to prove it, he forced his spear butt roughly into the ice in front of him, testing his next step. Suka’s spear plunged through the ice, and his weight threw him forward after it.
“No!” yelled Attu, and he grabbed for Suka, latched onto the snow otter tied to Suka’s pack, and pulled.
Attu yanked Suka backward several steps, dragging him by the snow otter. Then both turned and ran away from the rotted ice, opening up a space between them for added safety. Once on solid ice, the two hunters stopped running and looked back.
A hole just big enough to drop a man through,
Attu thought as he gazed toward the place where Suka had almost fallen through the ice.
“It’s an old nuknuk breathing hole,” Attu said as he walked back to where Suka now stood, far away from the hole. The huge seal-like animals were the main meat of the Nuvik, and their fat was burned in long soft stone bowls, the nuknuk lamps that lit and heated every Nuvik snow house or hide shelter.
“That hole in the ice was almost my grave,” Suka whispered after a moment. “Thank you.” He clasped Attu in a fierce embrace.
“Just trying to save a good snow otter,” Attu teased. He pulled away from his cousin and punched his arm.
“You just about strangled me with it.” Suka grinned back. His eyes were mere slits in his face as he tried to join in the joking, but Attu could still see his fear.