People - People of the Wolf Part 6

"Runs In Light?" a sweet voice said from behind him.

His stomach muscles went rigid. He knew her voice-would recognize it a thousand Long Darks from now in his Dreams among the Star People. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, muttering, "You came to say goodbye?"

She stepped around to stand before him. He felt her presence, strong and warm, and opened his eyes. Despite the cadaverous thinness of her face, she looked beautiful, her waist-length black hair dancing around the edges of her hood.He met her gaze. Her gentle expression remained unchanged, but something in her eyes seemed to grow still, as if balanced on a knife's edge, awaiting death's final heartbeat.

"You could come," he murmured lamely.

He thought she was going to respond, but after a sharp inhale, she halted. Grief and fear mixed in her eyes before she lowered them to stare uncomfortably at the creeping snow. "He'd kill me. He has .. .

parts of my body. Things that give him my soul. Being with you, I could destroy you all. He could send a bad spirit out of the Long Dark."

"I'll take that chance. Come with me now, Dancing Fox. I can protect you. Wolf won't--"

"I ate some of wolf," she breathed.

"You--" "Even if I can't come, I wanted to be part of your Dream. And I want you to know ..." She looked up and he felt his heart rise into his throat.

She's made her choice. His guts fell, like intestines out of a belly-slit mammoth.

"Don't say it," he whispered harshly. "It won't do either one of us any good."

She took three quick steps forward, tears in her eyes, and before he knew it, wrapped her arms around his waist, pillowing her face against his chest. "Will you mark a trail for me? Maybe if I can--"

"I'll mark a trail." Futility swept him; Crow Caller would never let her get away. He crushed her frail body against him. Through the heavy layers of hide, he felt her uneven breathing.

Gently, she pushed back, staring feverishly past him to the top of the drift. "I must go. He'll be looking for me."

Reluctantly, he released her. She stepped backward, eyes going over him as if for the last time. She worked her fingers nervously in the tattered greasy mittens.

"If you can get away .. . come."

"I will." She nodded hurriedly, throwing him a final look as she raced over the drift.

He stared at her footprints for a long moment, before muttering to himself, "Stop being a fool. You know she can't." Shaking his head, he whispered, "And I'm not sure I really want her to. What if my Dream isn't ..." He couldn't finish it. He sucked in a deep breath and looked out over the waves of frozen snow. Streaks of dark brown reared where Wind Woman had scoured the ridge tops clear. Those rocky ridges would be his trail to the south, ever higher along the wind worried' Touching Runs In Light whirled, seeing Raven Hunter rising to his feet. "Why, I thought for a moment she'd break, take a chance that Crow Caller's vengeance was weaker than her love for you."

"What do you want?" Runs In Light demanded."Why ..." Raven Hunter spread his arms. "I'm saying farewell, idiot brother. That's a family right, isn't it? To make a final act of charity and goodwill toward a brother."

"Why?"

"I don't know myself," Raven Hunter said, c.o.c.king his head. "You were always the strange one. I never understood why Seal Paw and Seagull fawned over you when I did so much better, learned tracking, could repeat the stories. But they always admired you."

Runs In Light swallowed, an unease taking him. He staggered as if dizzy.

Involuntary words choked his throat as the world hazed s.h.i.+mmery before his eyes.

"You .. . you and me, brother. We're the future. Don't do what you're planning. Or in the end, one of us will have to destroy the other."

Raven Hunter's hard laugh broke the spell, shattering it like a sheet of ice dropped on jagged rock. "Are you threatening me?" "The fight will tear the world in two."

"You'd best hope it never comes to that, brother." Raven Hunter smirked, leaning forward so his hard hot eyes bored into Runs In Light's. "I'm stronger, meaner, and don't suffer your flaws of mercy and compa.s.sion.

Threaten me? You're crazier than I thought you were!"

"I--I'm not crazy," he whispered uncertainly. "It's in my head, the visions--"

"I won't forget your little warning, brother. Someday, you'll wish you hadn't threatened. Indeed, you will. I'll take something of yours for that and maybe even toss you a bone when I leave you behind. Hmm?"

He turned, laughing again as he climbed the drift, tramping over Dancing Fox's footprints, leaving them nothing more than gouged holes in the snow.

Drowning his fear in the Wolf Dream, Runs In Light closed his eyes and heard again the spirit's words "This is the way, man of the People. I show you A p.r.i.c.kle ran up his spine He squinted at the circling ravens, then out across the undulating whiteness, eyes searching. "I hear you, Wolf."

Turning, he climbed over the top to where his own group gathered. Broken Branch waved to him. grinning. From across camp, Crow Caller shouted, "Come on!" to his small band.

Runs In Light's eyes drifted over his own group. "So many?"

"Ha-heee! Wolf Dream!" Broken Branch chortled, waddling to the south, pack hanging down her back from a tump line that dented her ancient forehead. Her rickety legs pumped ferociously as she took the lead.

A bittersweet smile touched his lips. They believe I can save them. Can I? His eyes sought Dancing Fox where she gathered things together for her journey northward. Emptiness filled him. A hard fist landed against his shoulder, making him stumble backward. "Quit that," Green Water reprimanded."What?"

"Looking like she's lost," she whispered. "Unless Grandfather White Bear gets her, you'll see her again."

He opened his mouth to ask how she knew but stopped himself. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and asked, "Are you having Dreams, too?"

"Yes, you young fool. You've got compet.i.tion. Remember that." She winked at him, then grabbed his sleeve and flung him forward into a shambling trot."

Chapter 7.

Rising smoke from dung fires caught the first tints of morning as it twisted upward in the bare breeze. Cold blue shadows crept back, clinging against the drifts. Crow Caller's band hustled through camp, chattering about the trek north, watching Runs In Light lead his people southward.

Dancing Fox laced her parka tighter and secured the pack on her back, the tump line from which the pack hung biting into her forehead. She secretly followed Light with her eyes. When he reached the top of the ridge, he turned, looking back, sunlight gleaming from the wolf hide over his shoulders. He bent and placed a rock atop another.

The trail.

She straightened, stomach tingling in fear. Did she have the courage to defy' Take your eyes off him," Crow Caller demanded from behind her. "If you want your eyes to stay in your head."

She whirled to face him. "I didn't do anything!"

"And you'd better not." He grinned without humor and reached in his pocket to retrieve a small tan sack. She recognized it: his collection of hair and personal articles through which he controlled her soul. He swung it ominously before her wide eyes, glancing to Runs In Light, then back, withered face hardening. "Keep your thoughts on me, woman!"

Jerking away, she said shakily, "I'll think whatever thoughts I want, husband. You may control my soul but not my mind."

He gripped her arm tightly, shaking her so hard she thought her neck would snap. "You like punishment, eh?"

"No, I--"

"Well, you're heading for more!" He shoved her backward and strode haughtily away.

Dancing Fox secured her tump line again and followed slowly as he weaved through the tangle of people to the front of the procession. She kept her eyes down to avoid seeing the curious looks, the stolid expressions masking thoughts.

They climbed up to the wind-blasted ridge in single file, a weary people with nowhere to go. Ragged, hungry, their tattered caribou-hide clothing worn thin, they marched into the wind. Some looked over their shoulders, peering uneasily at Runs In Light's band where they threaded into the distance.

Dancing Fox shot one last look at Mammoth Camp, the place where her world had changed. Her love had gone cold when she'd been given to Crow Caller. Her father had thrown her to him for services rendered like an old blanket. When he'd died, she hadn't mourned.

So much of her life had been twisted like a hare from its hole. So many hopes and desires smashed and broken there under the white-patched brown hides of mammoth. Now she walked away; married, possessed by Crow Caller, who crawled onto her each night, spreading her legs, thrusting and going limp. Thank the Blessed Star People he was brief about it.Shame burned up her cheeks.

Behind, Mammoth Camp would slowly sink into the ground. The shelters would rot away, the bits of bone desiccating and splintering in the Long Light. The body wastes of the People would become fodder for beetles and bugs. The dead, their souls glistening above, would not only house insects, but feed the crows and gulls. Maybe a pa.s.sing wolf would chew on them. The bones would be scattered, mice crawling through the hollow skulls. Some of the debris left behind would wash away, the rest would be slowly buried until nothing but tussock gra.s.ses, sedge, and wormwood remained.

"Only my pain will last forever," she whispered.

She winced at the burning that lanced through her with each step. She swung her legs wide to avoid chafing the places her husband had torn the night before. The bites on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hurt where the caribou-fawn hair of her skins rubbed.

She cast a hard glance at Crow Caller's straight back where he marched at the lead. Hatred blocked her pain for a moment. You want me to think of you, old man? Yes, I will. She concentrated on filling her mind with so much hate, she could barely think at all. Her aches receded into nothingness. I hate you, she chanted silently over and over.

For hours they walked until they reached a rocky ridge they had to climb on hands and knees. Panting to the top, Fox stood for a moment surveying the land. Father Sun hung low on the distant horizon, wavering through clouds to dapple the white windswept wilderness in irregular patterns.

"Let's go," Crow Caller commanded as he pa.s.sed her, slapping her arm.

She sighed and struggled down the slippery rocks onto a flat plain. Huge boulder outcrops dotted the expanse, drifts piled twenty feet high at their bases. Sunlight reflected so brilliantly from the snow, it almost blinded. She pulled her leather snow blinders from her pack and strung the slitted goggles over her head.

Raven Hunter roamed wide, his black shape like a fly on fat as he climbed each drift in search of mammoth or Grandfather White Bear.

Broken Branch had warned them not to club their bear dogs to death, but hunger had overcome sense. Now, without the dogs to warn them, they were in constant danger of predators. In this hunger-bleak Long Dark, not even their numbers would long deter a hungry bear.

A hollow chasm grew in Dancing Fox's chest, yawning wider with each step. Her ties with Runs In Light strained to the breaking point as she tramped farther and farther from him. At least when they'd been in camp together, she could talk to him occasionally--touch him guardedly. But now she'd have nothing, no solace from her husband's brutality.

For hours they trudged, Cloud Mother gradually pulling a roiling charcoal gray blanket over them. At first Wind Woman tugged gently at Fox's clothing, but by the time Father Sun had walked halfway across the southern heavens, howling gusts lashed her. Snow blew in chattering streams from the drifts, stinging her face like icy bone splinters.

Her hatred burned, thoughts drifting to Runs In Light and back to Crow Caller. He owns my soul.I can protect you! Light's desperate voice promised in her memory. She felt her tender b.r.e.a.s.t.s, knowing the bruises Crow Caller had left. The memory of his flesh against hers made her stomach heave.

Ahead, the old shaman bent into the wind, hawking to spit phlegm from his lungs.

"I can't, " she whispered, soul crying within. "I can't stay with you, old man. I can't stand the thought of your filthy mouth on me. Can't stand the thought of your wasted flesh rubbing mine. I'd rather die...."

She looked around, heart like a rock in her chest. She bit her lip, thinking.

The storm raged down on them in hazy crystalline sheets, obscuring the plain, but still they strode on. When they were well out into the flats, Dancing Fox slowed her pace, falling back to the end of the procession.

She fell out of line, squatting down as if to relieve herself. Her heart pounded sickeningly. People averted their eyes from her, as was proper.

She crouched there in the swirling snow, knees trembling. The band dimmed to a slithering ashen slash, finally disappearing into the squall. Only their rapidly filling tracks graved the snow.

Mustering her courage, she ran headlong for the lee of a drift, pressing her back against it as she angled away from the People. She doubled back along an ice-packed ridge, throwing terrified glances over her shoulder.

Would they be looking yet?

Shuddering, she turned her face into the frigid gale, praying, "Wind Woman, please, cover my trail. I must get away."

Faintly, as if the spirit carried it to her deliberately, she heard Crow Caller shouting. Fragments of curses shot through the storm, one word clear in its repet.i.tion, "Death .. . death."

Stumbling forward, she ran with all her heart, lungs heaving as she scrambled over another ridge and headed along the spiny backbone, hiding behind each up-thrust rock to stop and listen. Fora long time she ran, heedless of anything more than direction and her hunger-starved weakness.

"Wolf?" she whispered to the darkening gray of day. "Wolf, you promised your Power would be strong. Protect me."

She could find Light's trail, even in the brunt of the storm. Memories of his warm eyes and gentle touch soothed her.

She threaded down the ridge, hair darting wildly before her eyes, then skirted an eerily sculpted bank of ice; it stretched like a series of mammoths lumbering along in single file. Through the haze, she thought she glimpsed their old shelters, the black hides frosted with snow.

"Could I be this close so soon?" she murmured, brow furrowing in thought. It didn't make sense that she'd come so far, but time seemed to stop in the midst of a storm.

Her eyes darted along the ice wall, roving blue hollows and swirling mounds. Snow fell harder, draining color from the arctic landscape until nothing but white existed. Sliding slowly along the wall, her fumblingoutstretched hand sank suddenly back into the bank.

"What ..." she murmured unsteadily, bending cautiously down to peer into the small ice cave. Kneeling, she crawled inside out of the wind.

Her sanctuary stretched barely five by eight feet, the ceiling only a foot over her head. Duck-walking to the rear of the cave, she removed her pack, shoving it into a darkened corner, and sagged wearily against the wall. "Wolf?" Her voice echoed from the irregular walls. "They'll be looking for me as soon as the storm dies down."

As she huddled, trembling from exhaustion, she closed her eyes, trying to feel her soul, to feel if Crow Caller had taken any part of it. But the lightness of hunger obscured any other feelings.

Whirling silver wreaths swept by beyond the mouth of the cave, Wind Woman's undulating shrieks piercing the day. Fox rested, mittened hands shoved deep in her pockets, watching.

Despite her fear, sleep came quickly, drifting warmly down her exhausted limbs, wrapping softly around her reeling brain. Runs In Light grew out of a s.h.i.+ning column of light. He stood out from the darkness, weeping.

Behind him, the Star People glistened brilliantly over a series of jagged ridges. Each tear that dripped from his chin froze before it hit the ground, landing with a soft clink. Was he crying for her? No, she felt it was something much deeper, a soul wound no one but he himself could heal. Still, her heart ached for him. She wanted to go to him, to'Ah yes. Dancing Fox. Here you are," a smooth voice cooed, intruding on the dream.

She gasped, starting as she opened her eyes. It all came back, Crow Caller, the flight, the storm .. . fear.

"Raven Hunter," she said in a quivering voice, tears welling. The old man must have sent him to find her. "What do you want?"

He laughed and sat down beside her, amused by the way she cowered, holding his own hands high in a gesture of truce. She watched him intently, expecting foul play--waiting her chance to scramble out into the storm.

"Then you're not lost, I take it?" She kept quiet, closing her eyes, a yawning emptiness growing under her heart.

"Oh, come," he chided. "I'm not here to hurt you. Let's say it's curiosity." His straight nose and high cheekbones shone red with cold, his full lips curled in a grin. Only his black eyes burned dark and impenetrable.

"Curiosity?"

"Yes," he said lightly, pus.h.i.+ng back his fur hood and shaking out his long hair. "I didn't expect to see you out here. It's not a day to--"

"Stop it," she commanded quietly. "You followed me.

He sent you."

"No," he defended flatly. "I haven't been back to the band. The storm came on so quickly, I didn't have a chance. And when I saw you running back toward Mammoth Camp, I had to come see why."She glared coldly at him.