Broken Rock Bay (Clan of the Ice Mountains Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Broken Rock Bay (Book 3: Clan of the Ice Mountains)

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Word from the author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Broken Rock Bay

  Book Three: Clan of the Ice Mountain Series

  By C.S. Bills

  Highest Hope Publishing

  Copyright

  This 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. Blooded Ground, Book Two: Clan of the Ice Mountains. All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 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.

  Dedication

  To my sister Jacqualine.

  Thanks for your encouragement and support!

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks again to Bethany Eicher, my invaluable editor and mentor.

  Word from the author

  You can find me on amazon.com. Visit my Amazon author page to see my other books, and use the comment section to ask a question or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

  Chapter 1

  Attu came awake with a cry. He sat up, his sleeping furs falling from his shoulders. He struggled to come back to the Here and Now, his mind reeling in horror from what he’d just seen in the dream.

  Rika stirred beside him.

  My cry must not have been as loud as it seemed in my dream, Attu thought as he realized Rika still slept. As he sat there, his heart racing, Rika rolled over and began snoring softly.

  Attu wanted to leap up and out of the shelter, as if by doing so he could get away from what he’d just seen in the Between of sleep. But Attu knew this dream would never fade. He calmed himself as best he could, and after a few moments longer, stood and slipped out of the shelter.

  The night was clear, the stars bright. He sat on a nearby stump and listened to the ocean waves. He turned toward the water, toward his name spirit Attuanin, ruler of all that lay under the surface of the Great Ocean, and felt his mind spinning back into the memory of the dream...

  A tuskie was standing in a billowing cloud of dust from its fall. Kinak screamed as he dangled, impaled on one of the animal’s tusks. The tuskie shook its head, trumpeting as Kinak flew off and across to the opposite side of the narrow, gravel-strewn ravine. He hit the ravine’s rock wall with a sickening thud and dropped to the ground.

  It was the tuskie hunters’ way to kill the huge animals by driving them over a cliff. But this one was still very much alive. It trumpeted again and lunged forward, ignoring the other hunters as they stabbed it with their spears. Blood streamed from the animal’s wounds as the beast moved toward Kinak, murder in its eyes. Attu knew that when the tuskie reached the spot where Kinak lay, it would stomp his cousin into the ground.

  But it would just be a last show of dominance for the animal. Kinak was already dead. Attu could see Kinak’s eyes, open and glazed, and his body, impossibly twisted where it lay against the side of the ravine.

  Attu willed his mind to move away from the memory of the nightmare and to consider what he must do next. I know Kinak has gone Between. Do I wake Suka now to tell him, or do I wait until morning? What would I want Suka to do for me if it was someone I loved and he dreamed that person had died?

  Kinak is so far away. Unless we arrange to meet in the future to exchange women, we may never see Kinak’s people again. Suka may never know for sure his brother has died.

  Attu wiped cold sweat off his forehead. But I’m sure.

  Kinak, along with the Seer Clan and some of both Paven’s and Attu’s Clans, was at least two moons’ walk to the east, but the mountains that separated the Clans made the distance seem even greater. Kinak’s group hunted the tuskies on the grassy flatlands east of the mountains, while Attu and his new Clan had stayed behind, preferring to move north along the coast, back to a place where ice would form on the ocean in the winter and melt in the summer. Attu thought of it as the best of all worlds, a chance to live the old life in the winter, with snow houses and the nuknuk hunt, and a chance to fly across the water in their slim skin boats in the summer, hunting and fishing in both the ocean and the large rivers that flowed into it.

  Attu sat and allowed his mind to empty, listening only to the sound of the waves and the wind blowing through the trees. As his body relaxed from his reaction to the horrific dream, Attu made his decision.

  “I have to tell Suka now.” Attu took one more deep breath to steady his mind, then stood and headed toward Suka’s shelter. I hope I can wake him without disturbing Farnook.

  Attu knew it was normal for a woman in the first few moons of carrying a child to be tired and sometimes stomach sick, and every bonded woman of their new Clan was with child. It was a gift Attuanin had given them, a priceless treasure of children to come into the Here and Now from the spirit world within the next seven moons.

  Farnook had been struck with sick stomach first, and paddling on the rolling waves had worsened her symptoms. Then some of the other women had gotten sick. Attu had slowed their pace, taking more breaks throughout the next few days and checking with each woman to see if she felt they could continue. All had said yes, even Farnook. And after a few days, the women had seemed to grow used to the movement of the skin boats. Farnook’s color returned, and when Attu questioned Suka, he agreed his woman was not just trying to be as strong as the other women with child, but was feeling better and could continue.

  Then Rika started sickening. She was so ill that Attu called a halt the day she threw up over the side of the skin boat three times before the sun was halfway up in the sky. When Rika refused to admit she needed to stop traveling, he’d asked for the women’s help. They gathered around Rika, and after some discussion, Yural told Attu that it would be best to remain encamped for a few days before heading north again. Rika had reluctantly agreed.

  Rika looked a pale shade of green most days now, and when she wasn’t feeling too sick, she was tending to other women who had become ill. Every evening she collapsed in their shelter to sleep like an exhausted poolik.

  Attu thought about what his sister had said the first time she’d brought food to their shelter. Meavu had smiled at him as she handed him two bowls of hot fish stew. “Just bring me the meat from your hunt, and I’ll take care of it until Rika feels like cooking again.”

  “You don’t need to do th
at.” Attu looked around their shelter, with its cold fire and his latest kill sitting untouched on the cutting stone. He laughed. “Well, maybe we do need help. But you have enough work to do already.”

  “Soon it will be me who needs Rika’s help. I will probably become sick soon enough.” Meavu’s lips turned up in a small smile.

  “You are with child?” Attu asked. “Are you sure?” Rovek and Meavu had been bonded just a few days after their escape from the Ravens. He hadn’t even considered that Meavu would also be with child already.

  “Yes.” Meavu stirred the ashes of Rika’s fire, and finding a few glowing coals, added some dried grass and a few pieces of wood, blowing gently on it to bring it to life again. “Rika said the spirits must have blessed us the first moon after Rovek and I were bonded. But I’m feeling fine still. So let me do this. For both of you.”

  As Attu smiled at the thought of Meavu with her first child, he realized his thoughts had moved away from the pain of Kinak’s death, shielding him from it for a moment. The grief came rushing back as he reached out to open Suka’s door flap, but he moved back as it flipped open from the inside and Farnook came out.

  “Kinak is dead,” Farnook whispered. “I was just coming to tell you.”

  She looked up into Attu’s eyes. Her own filled with tears as she saw his shared knowledge in them. “You dreamed it, too.”

  “I was just coming to tell Suka.”

  “Tell me what?” Suka stumbled out of the shelter, brushing the sleep from his eyes. “What are you two doing out here? It’s the middle of the–”

  “We both dreamed,” Farnook said. She looked up into her man’s eyes.

  Suka, seeing her tears, was instantly alert. “What is it? Is it about our child? Is something going to happen to harm either of you? I won’t let it. I won’t let anything–”

  “No, man of my heart,” Farnook interrupted, reaching up to place her small hand on Suka’s chest. “But Attu and I both dreamed this night of Kinak.”

  Farnook brushed Suka’s cheek with her other hand, like Nuvik mothers did to calm and show affection to their children. “Kinak has been killed by a tuskie.”

  “Are you sure?” Suka stepped back. He alternately studied Attu and Farnook’s faces as if somehow, if he looked hard enough, he would see they were playing a cruel joke on him and not speaking truth.

  “We are as sure as one can be in this Seeing,” Attu said. “Farnook and I haven’t had a chance to talk about what we dreamed; I came moments before you woke. But I know I’m sure. Kinak is dead.”

  “I’m sure as well.” Farnook covered her eyes. She stood silently for a moment, then bent over, struck by a surge of grief.

  Suka reached out for her and pulled her to himself.

  Attu rested his hand on Suka’s back. He felt Farnook’s sobs resonating through his cousin as Suka stood, stoic even in this moment of pain, but allowing his woman to cry for him as he bit his lip and stared off into the darkness, his own eyes threatening to overflow as he struggled to hold back his grief.

  Attu, however, let his own tears fall silently down his face. He knew from experience that crying was not a sign of weakness in a man or a woman. Tears cleansed the spirit and made the mind free to think clearly again once they’d passed. Men never crying was one tradition Attu had refused to carry to this new land. And right now, he needed to cry. He’d loved Kinak like a brother.

  The pines whispered along the edges of the path, and Farnook quieted as Suka held her and Attu stood nearby. The darkness seemed a welcome calming presence among them. The soft breeze, tangy with ocean salt, brushed past them as if the spirits themselves encircled them in condolence.

  Attu prayed to his name spirit, Attuanin, that Kinak would find his place among the stars in the sky, forever lighting the night for his people. He considered how much Suka had loved his older brother, and how difficult it had been for Kinak to go. He’d thought life on the grasslands would be safer and better for his woman, Suanu, his mother, Tulnu, and his youngest brother, Shunut. They’d gone during the last summer season, as the Seers called the now changing cycles of weather. Now it was summer again. Suanu was far along with child when they’d left. Kinak’s son or daughter must be almost a full cycle of seasons old by now.

  How will Suanu survive the death of her man? Could I survive, if childbirth took Rika Between?

  “What’s wrong?” Meavu was coming up the path toward them, her man, Rovek, Rika’s younger brother, at her side. “Something is wrong. Something woke me up. Is it you?” Meavu reached out for Farnook, but Suka held tightly to his woman. “Are you all right? Is the baby within all right?” Meavu pulled back as she looked between the two of them. Suka said nothing, his lips a thin line in his grief-stricken face.

  Farnook replied, “I am well. But Attu and I dreamed this night, and what we saw is very sad.”

  Meavu swayed as Farnook explained that Kinak was dead. This time, Farnook reached out for Meavu, and Suka let his woman go, turning away from them all as Farnook and Meavu held tightly to each other. When Meavu pulled away, Attu saw pain in her eyes. And yet he saw no surprise on his sister’s face.

  She also knew something bad had happened, Attu thought. Her Gifts are not as mine, but she senses things. If only we could have sensed that Kinak should not have taken his family with the Seer Clan into the grasslands. But how could we have known he’d die there when summer came again?

  “You are sure?” Ubantu asked. Attu and Farnook stood with Ubantu and Yural outside their shelters in the cool of the morning.

  “Yes, Father,” Attu said. “Kinak is dead.”

  “We both saw exactly the same thing. The dream was vivid, Uncle, but it’s hard to explain.” Farnook met Attu’s eyes, her slight back straight, her hair glistening in the slant of the early morning light.

  “Sometimes Seeing dreams and visions are vague, messages in fleeting images that occur repeatedly until the events unfold and you finally make sense of what you Saw,” Attu explained, letting his eyes drift over the ocean, with its water sparkling in the morning light. “Others, like this one, are like standing nearby when the event happens. You are there; you see and hear it all, and the dream is burned into your spirit like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. This dream was that kind of Seeing.”

  Rika’s hand slipped into his, and Attu turned to her. He was happy to see his woman looking better today.

  Suka came down the path and stepped up to Attu’s other side. Attu explained to Rika about the dream.

  After her initial shock, Rika grew thoughtful. “But I don’t understand why we would need to know this. Suanu and the others are so far away. I feel so bad for Suanu and her child and for Kinak’s mother and younger brother. But we can’t help them from here. So why the dream?”

  “If Attu and Farnook dreamed it, then it’s important for us to know,” Yural said.

  Ubantu nodded in agreement. “At some point it will become clear. Until then, we wait. We trust in the spirits.”

  Suka rested his hand on Attu’s shoulder and cleared his throat. “You loved my brother as if he were your own.” Attu felt Suka’s pain in his words, as his cousin gripped his shoulder so tightly it hurt. “I believe you, and in the Gifts both you and Farnook have. I believe in what you’ve Seen. For some reason, the spirits wanted me to know of my brother’s death. So they made you dream. That is enough for me.”

  But it’s not enough for me, Attu thought. There must be something more to this dream. But what?

  “Are you all right?” Rika sat beside Attu around the central fire that evening. She brushed his forearm gently.

  “I will be. Once we start north again.”

  “And get farther away from that evil place.” Rika shuddered.

  “Attuanin saved us that day... but I still want to put as much distance between us and the Raven settlement as possible, even if the only ones left could do us no real harm.”

  “I wonder if the Raven women and children left behind will be able
to survive,” Rika said, taking a bite of her stew, then grimacing and setting it aside. She looked queasy again.

  “Sometimes, I think we should have gone back for them.”

  Chapter 2

  Attu’s Clan stayed in their camp for another moon, fishing, hunting, and watching over the women. Rika felt better when she was not moving around too much, and soon it became the women’s habit to gather around Rika’s cooking fire for a while each day to share what they knew about childbearing and rearing, the older women teaching the younger.

  Sometimes their laughter would erupt, filling the whole camp, and Attu would smile with the other hunters to see the joy on their women’s faces. Other times it grew very quiet in the group, and Attu would see the women, their attention rapt on Rika, or Yural, or Elder Nuka as she explained something important to the others.

  “I think we can leave now,” Rika announced at the large fire one evening. “The women have each agreed with me. We’re ready to try traveling again.” She looked around, catching the gaze of the women and men surrounding her. “I don’t think the sickness would have hit us so hard if we’d been on solid ground when it started. It was the constant rocking...” Rika’s voice trailed away, and Attu thought he saw her pale just talking about it.

  Perhaps you’re still not ready.

  I am. We are. Rika mentally reassured him. We want to get moving north again as much as you hunters do.

  Attu arched an eyebrow at her.

  Well, almost.

  “We’ll begin preparations next sun,” Attu announced.

  Rika sighed and lay back on the furs surrounding the fire, and a collective look of relief moved among the hunters. The smaller children clapped their hands and ran around the outer edge of the firelight in excitement.

  There are so few young ones, Attu thought, remembering how, when he was a child, the Clan gatherings had swarmed with children. It was good, his people said, when there was a child for every hunter and woman in a Clan. Children made a Clan strong.