People of the Wolf (2 page)

signs, now faded from time and abrasion, etched the burnt sienna of her tailored hide clothing. Staring into the red shifting eye of the fire, she chanted softly, hands tracing ancient symbols of Spirit Power in the air before her. She plucked a handful of dried willow bark and dipped it in a skin water bag hung from a tripod to her right. Shaking the bark, she threw it onto the flames. Steam exploded, wood sizzling. Four times she repeated the process, warm wet smoke billowing upward to the draft hole high above.

"There," she whispered, eyes probing beyond the orange-tinged walls. "I've heard you calling. I'll find you."

Huddling over the flames, she closed her eyes, the traces of her legendary beauty barely obscured by time's hand. Through her straight nose, she inhaled four times, allowing peace and tranquility to flow through her like morning mist in the valleys. The pungent odor of willow smoke filled her senses.

Four days she had fasted, singing, bathing in the warm waters that bubbled up from the earth, steaming in the frigid air beyond the shelter. She had sung, prayed, and purged her body of the ills of bad thoughts and wrong deeds.

But in the haze of smoky steam, still no vision appeared.

"Well . . ." she groaned. "This isn't working. I'd better try something else."

She hesitated, frightened, feeling the call. Slowly, she filled her lungs, exhaling, as she looked at the fox-hide bundle. "Yes," she whispered. "I fear your Power. Power is knowing . . . and death." Her tongue ran pinkly over tan lips.

The call came again, urgent, tugging her soul. Heron made her decision.

With trembling fingers, she lifted a second bundle from beside her and undid the layers of tanned fox hide, displaying four thin sections of precious mushroom. Each of these she passed four times through the warm willow smoke, once for each of the directions of the world. East for the coming of the Long Dark. North for the depth of the Long Dark. West for the rebirth of the world. And finally south for the Long Light and the life it brought.

Chanting, she forced her soul into the One, careful to keep from the nothingness that lay on the other side, beckoning, terrifying.

One by one, she purified the mushrooms and lifted them to her lips, slowly chewing. Bitterness stung her tongue. She swallowed and leaned back, palms propped on knees.

Before her, the smoke swirled like fog rolling in from the big salt water. Ghostly images twisted and turned, shimmering in a whirling dance.

Heron squinted her ancient brown eyes to focus in the haze. Minutes passed as she peered, forehead furrowed with the effort.

"Who ..."

An image grew in the mist—breakers, smashing furiously against craggy black rocks. Spume hurled high to the gray skies. There, along the ebb and flow of the shore, a woman hunched, heedless of the power of the waves. With a stick, she pried mussels from the rock, dropping them into a hide sack. Overhead, gulls wheeled and dove. The woman scuttled to the side, avoiding a foamy wash of water as the surf rushed in. A crab darted away, disturbed by her movements. The woman—rich with the grace of full youth—leapt nimbly, cornering the crab, teasing it with the stick until she could artfully grasp it with long thin fingers and drop it into the bag.

Behind a towering bastion of black rock, a man crouched, watching. When the woman scurried along the retreating tide, filling her bag with the bounty of the sea, he followed.

A thick mammoth-hide belt bound his waist. From either side of a thin eagle's beak of a nose, gleaming black eyes stared. A cloak of white fox hide hung over his shoulders. Through the vision, Heron sensed the strength of his soul, throbbing, intense—a man of Power, of visions. "He Dreams—even now.''

The scene shimmered, emotions billowing through the images: pain, loss of love, a longing from the very depths of his soul tangled about her. Heron reached for him, a chord from her own sorrow touched by his anguish. As she projected, something snapped, crackling along the edges of the vision like dry leaves. A feeling of parting trembled in the mists. Awed at what she'd done, Heron pulled back.

The woman on the beach stopped, head tilted, black hair blowing in the sea breeze. As a hare drawn to the gaze of a

fox, she jerked around, eyes widening as the man approached, face anxious, arms spread as if to embrace her.

Fear contorted the woman's features. Desperately, she ran, seeking to dart past him, feet leaving white pocks in coarse gray sand.

He feinted and grabbed her, laughing rapturously as she screamed and beat at him with futile fists. With the hardened thews of the hunter, he threw her down, pinning her hands.

"Fight, girl!
Fight him!"
Heron spat frantically, knotting her fists.

Lost in his Dream, he avoided her thrashing legs, overpowering her until she lay under him, shivering with fear and panting. He worked her parka up over her long boots while she cried and twisted. The struggle was brief, the woman no match for the hunter's strength.

Heron shook her head as he took the woman on the sand, Power spinning out of balance in the vision.

Spent, the man stood, an absent look on his face. His fingers shook as he refastened the bindings of his long boots. Almost by chance, his eyes met Heron's as she peered through the mist. He stiffened, whispering under his breath. He looked back at the woman on the sand, horror melting his expression. Dazed, he shook his head, backing away.

As suddenly, he turned, staring into Heron's eyes with hot anger. A clenched fist raised. His handsome face twisted as he cried out, an impassioned plea in his voice, tears streaking his cheeks. Then he turned, running away, leaping rocks in his flight. His voice echoed hollowly, a howl in the fog.

Mist swirled as the vision faded into dusky obscurity.

The call came again, loud now, insistent. Heron rubbed a callused hand over her face. "It wasn't him. No ... not him at all. Who then? Who ,

Reaching for willow bark, she threw a handful on the glowing coals, following the path of the call through the One.

Another vision grew in the billowing steam. The woman from the beach lay naked, her stomach child-swollen, navel protruding. Around her, other women watched, eyes gleaming in the light of a birch and willow fire. Sweat dampened the woman's brow and trickled down from between her breasts to stain the hide she rested on. She contorted, legs wide, as the other women leaned close, peering intently.

The woman gasped and cried out, breasts heaving as her water broke and pooled dark on the umber hides. One of the old ones nodded. The birth came with difficulty. The fetus emerged, red, blue, and streaked with the fluids of the womb. A striking woman bent down and bit the umbilical in two while others took the child, rubbing it dry with grasses. Heron's heart tightened with hurt as she recognized the beauty:
Broken Branch.
Clenching fists, she prayed fervently that Father Sun would curse her enemy to be buried at death, her soul locked beneath the dirt for all eternity.

Heron focused on the baby again. A shaft of sunlight filtering through a rent in the roof above danced on the child. ~

The woman, stomach still distended, writhed again, pushing, crying, legs twisting while two of the others held her ankles. A second child emerged, feet protruding. A crone moved to crouch over the mother, head cocked as she watched. The young woman wailed as gnarled hands reached, parting the tissues, and worked the child. The old one muttered and shook her head. Wincing, she pulled, turning the baby. The woman screamed jaggedly as the child came, gouts of blood following in a flood.

"Too much." Heron mouthed the words silently, knowing the signs. Something had torn inside. Bright blood welled over the infant as its head cleared the pelvis. Such a big child, he shrieked angrily into the new world, heedless of his mother's lifeblood where it trickled into his toothless mouth.

"Bad blood . . . bad," Heron murmured passionately, fear for the woman building in her breast.

Heron blinked as the mother's bleeding saturated the hides and her breathing stilled despite the healing songs of the old women. A slack look replaced the fevered glow in her eyes. Her legs kicked limply and stopped as her color drained with the endless crimson rush.

Boys, both of them. Hunters for the People. Careful hands stroked the second child, seeking unsuccessfully to wipe away the clinging gore, as the umbilical was bitten in two and the child placed by the first. From somewhere above, a black feather wafted down, settling beside the infant. As he squalled, his tiny fist grabbed it, twisting it in rage.

Heron studied them where they lay, side by side. One bawled angrily, blood-streaked, a raven feather in its tiny fist.

The other wiggled and kicked in the shaft of sunlight, eyes unfocused as if lost in a Dream. He blinked, wailing softly, and for a brief second, his eyes seemed to sharpen . . . seeking her beyond the mists of the vision.

"You? It was you who called?" Heron nodded, leaning back, tongue running over the gaps in her worn teeth. "Yes, you Dream, child. I see Power in your eyes. And now that I know you, I'll be waiting."

The vision broke, wisps of smoke carrying it up through the rock to the chill night beyond. Heron clenched her hands into fists, reeling from the effects of the mushroom. She staggered to her feet and wobbled past the caribou-hide hangings. Frigid night air gripped her, causing her to sink to her knees. The thick sulfur odor of the hot springs clogged her nose. She bent and vomited violently.

The voices of the mushrooms whispered in her blood, death hanging in their sultry tones as she struggled to keep the One, to allow the mushroom to fade in her veins.

As she blinked and rubbed her mouth, a wolf howled in the night, loud, piercing, tying itself to the vision.

The Long Dark continued, unending, eating their souls.

Wind Woman whipped across the frozen drifts, whirling wreaths of snow into the arctic night. In her fury, she blasted the mammoth-hide shelters of the People with a gust that battered the frozen skins over the head of the one called Runs In Light.

Blinking awake, he listened to the howling gale. Around him, the others of the People huddled in their thick robes, deep asleep. Someone snored softly. Cold, so cold ... An uncontrollable shiver made him wish they had more fat to burn in the fire hole, but it was gone. Seventeen Long Darks hadn't put much muscle on his skinny bones to start with— and famine had wasted the rest.

Even old Broken Branch muttered that she'd never seen a winter like this.

Carried on the wind, a faint whimpering came from behind the shelters. Some animal scratched for food scraps the People had long since chipped from the ice. Wolf?

Heart pounding with hope, Runs In Light traced chill-stiff fingers over his atlatl—the ornately carved throwing stick used by the People to catapult stone-tipped darts. He squirmed out

from under frosty hides. Creeping tendrils of cold stroked the last warm places on his body as, bent low, he stepped silently over fur-wrapped sleepers. Even in the icy air, the stink of the shelter—occupied for months—came to his nose.

Buried under the hides, Laughing Sunshine's baby squeaked its hunger. A spear of sound, its pain reflected in Runs In Light's pinched expression.

"Where are you, Father Sun?" he demanded harshly, tightening his grip on the atlatl until his fingers ached. Then, like a seal through an ice hole, he wiggled under the crawl flap. Wind Woman rushed down from the black northwest, shoving him backward. He steadied himself against the shelter, squinting into the lighter darkness beyond. Snow crystals chittered mutedly on the packed ice.

Wolf's muffled sounds came again, claws scratching at something buried in the snow.

Runs In Light circled, following the lee of a drift, hoping Wind Woman would keep his scent from wolf's keen nose. On hands and knees, he crawled to the top of the drift and slithered over the crest on his belly. Dark against the stained snow, wolf struggled to dig Flies Like A Seagull's body from the clinging ice.

He bowed his head in sorrow.

He'd found his mother frozen in her robes a week before. Echoes of her stories would haunt his mind forever, voice warm as she told him the ways of the People. He smiled wistfully, remembering the light in her eyes as she chanted of the great Dreamers: of Heron and Sun Walker and other legendary heroes of the People. How soft and caring her hand had been as it resettled the furs around a younger and happier Runs In Light's cold face.

A bitter chill touched his soul as he saw a more recent visage of her toothless death rictus—her frost-grayed eyes.

So many had starved.

Too weak to do more than stumble out of the shelters, the People had carried Flies Like A Seagull's corpse only this far. Here, on the ice, they'd left her to stare at the skies, praying and singing her soul up to the Blessed Star People. Wind Woman had blown her stiff corpse over, snow drifting softly to bury her—until wolf came to chew her frozen flesh.