Blooded Ground (Clan of the Ice Mountains Book 2) Read online

  Paven was the first to see them. Unable to sleep, he had pushed open the flap of his shelter and was gazing out toward the water. The next thing Attu knew, a long stick was prodding at his shelter, the signal Paven needed help.

  “Some large animals are lurking around the camp,” he whispered as Attu opened the flap on his own shelter. “Grab your weapon.”

  Attu reached for his spear and ran outside, alerting other hunters quietly as he ran from one shelter to another. They gathered near Paven.

  “I saw two of them,” Paven said. “Each was taller than a man, all white, but standing on two legs like men. Their pelts looked soft in the moonlight, like they might have long fur.

  “What were they doing?” asked Kinak.

  “Standing on the edge of the rocks, by the water, looking at us,” Paven said. “When I opened the flap to my shelter, I saw them. They were standing side by side. As I watched them, they grew smaller. Then, they disappeared. I think they dropped behind the rocks.”

  Paven led the hunters around the rocks, but in the moonlight they could see nothing. There was no trace of the strange creatures.

  “Have you seen such creatures before?” Attu asked Tingiyok as the hunters gathered.

  “I have heard of them, but never seen one for myself,” Tingiyok said. “The stories speak of a white-furred creature, like a man, but really a spirit. They are seen only at night, or when a person is alone. Some people believe these creatures are ghosts of those hunters who died alone, and their bodies were never recovered and given the proper burial. So they wander the earth, looking for a way into the Between.”

  “But some say they are spirits of animals in human form,” Ashukat said. “You said there were two of them?”

  Paven nodded. Then he wiped his eyes and leaned heavily on his shelter pole. “There were two, I think.” He wiped his face with his free hand.

  “You have a fever again, Father,” Rika said, alarmed as she saw the sweat on her father’s face.

  “No, I’m just hot,” Paven said. “And I did see them. I saw something...” His voice faded and he suddenly looked confused.

  “Come inside,” Rika said and led her father back to his bed in the shelter.

  “We’ll post guards at night again,” Ubantu said, “we need to know if these are spirit creatures or some new predator moving in.”

  Chapter 15

  Rovek stood in the firelight, his skin shiny with oil and his hair braided. The people stood around the twin fires built this night in the largest clearing. Ubantu had spoken with Paven, and although he would not tell Attu what the two men had talked about, Paven had relented and begun preparing Rovek for his hunter’s ceremony. He stood now, admiring his son, as if finally having the ceremony had been his own idea.

  Fresh tattoos Paven had given Rovek gleamed dark against the young hunter’s wiry arms as he stood before the fire. Paven had cut his son’s hair and braided it into the single braid worn by men. Rika had oiled his skin, and Rovek now stood alone in the center, between the two fires, while the others encircled him. Everyone chanted the words and when it was time, Attu danced with the other hunters.

  The night was clear and cold, but the men of the Clan were soon covered in sweat as they danced. Attu was stripped to the waist like the others, clad only in a hide strip drawn up in the front and back and held tightly around his waist with a sinew cord. He leaped in and out of the shadows with his spear poised to strike as they danced the dance of first nuknuk strike, and then slid into a new dance, one Tingiyok had created, the dance of the seal hunt by skin boat.

  The Clan shouted and called out as the dancers paddled through the imaginary water across the ocean and into a group of seals. They flung their arms as if throwing spears, and balanced on one foot as if balancing in the skin boats as they reeled in the speared seals. They leaped back and forth as if fighting to keep their small boats from tipping as the large seals were lifted into the boat and shouted in triumph as they paddled back to their Clan. Paven shouted with the rest, although he could not dance with his wound and had never been on a seal hunt. Attu found the dance exhilarating.

  Rovek stepped forward. He had grown at least two hands taller since Attu had first seen him and had begun to fill out, his shoulders broadening, his voice deepening. It was past time for him to take his place among the hunters. He had proven himself agile in the skin boats and good with a spear, bringing home both seals and otters, as well as many fish to Paven’s shelter.

  Since Paven had no woman and Rovek’s sister was already bonded, the eldest woman of Attu’s Clan, Nuka, whose man had passed into the Between long ago, stood in for her. Nuka’s wrinkled hands were bloodstained from Rovek’s latest kill. She stood before him, and he spoke the words. “I will protect all the unbonded women of this Clan as mothers. I will hunt for you until I take a woman of my own.”

  Attu looked toward Paven. By allowing Rovek to speak those words, Paven was giving Rovek his choice, to stay with the Ice Mountain Clan, to hunt for them, and not to follow his father into the grasslands again.

  Paven stood steady, his eyes clear, and his stance in the firelight almost as strong as before he’d been gored by the tuskie.

  Meavu stood off to the side, beside Yural and Ubantu. Her face shown with pride and hope.

  Rovek will soon be my brother, Attu thought. He’ll make a fine hunter for Meavu-

  Nuka was speaking. “You are our hunter. Our fires are your fires; our food, your food. We will prepare the food for you and will keep your shelter, until you are bonded to a woman of your own.”

  Rovek stood, the flickering shadows deepening the red of the blood on his chest. He turned to his father, and Paven took the hair he had cut from his son’s braid. All were silent, watching, as Paven cast the oiled hunk of hair into the fire. As the hair passed into the flames, a shower of sparks swirled up, surprising them all. Many popped their lips and all looked with new respect on Rovek, including his father, for it was said only the greatest of hunters would cause the feminine spirits of fire to bless them with such a display.

  Paven grinned.

  Rovek beat his chest with the shaft of his spear three times.

  Everyone whooped, and Rovek was surrounded by people of both Clans, touching him, wishing him well, and giving him small gifts. Attu noticed Rovek was wearing a new woven spirit necklace, made with sinew and long strands of black hair.

  Rika caught his eye. “From Meavu.”

  Attu glanced at his sister, who was sitting on a fur away from the fire, looking everywhere but at Rovek. He looked at Rika, her face bright in the firelight, her own hair gleaming. She reached for him, but Attu turned away. His heart burned within him as he walked into the coolness of the darkness and the shelter of the trees, away from the small crowd of people.

  So much has happened to us in such a short time. I want to keep my people safe. I need to move us north. I need to help Suka get Farnook. I need to help Rovek get Meavu, and not let Paven change his mind and try to take his son with him when he returns to the grasslands. I need Paven to heal quickly so he can leave us. I need to get out of the shadow of these Ravens. I need to understand why Ashukat has failed so quickly, becoming a confused old man in such a short time. Why did he return? What help can he give now? What does it all mean? And how can I keep my people together, safe, and my woman from heartbreak if once Meavu and Rovek are bonded, the spirits bless them with a child before we have one?

  “Mighty Attuanin, I don’t know what to do,” Attu whispered as he walked along the rocky beach. “Each day we stay I feel I’ve somehow made the wrong decision by doing so. Keep us safe through the fires we travel in my dreams. Keep Rika safe from the spirits that may wish to harm our child to be. Heal Paven so he may leave us and we can travel again. Keep those strange predators that Paven saw – if he did indeed see something – away from us, and guide me concerning Kagit. Show me the truth I need to know about this Raven spirit and the man who claims to be the living embodiment of it.”


  Attu walked back among the trees surrounding the camp, up along the narrow river again, and down along the rocky beach, circling the camp for most of the night. But his spirit would not still within him. Near dawn, he finally returned to his shelter and collapsed on the furs, too exhausted to walk any more.

  “Limoot showed me some other ways of treating tooth rot today,” Rika said to Attu as he entered the shelter.

  “I know you promised to be careful, but after the warning through Farnook, and Paven seeing those white figures, why did you go to the Raven camp alone?”

  “You were fishing in your skin boat. Everyone else was busy.” Rika held her arms out in the ritual position, palms up, to take the fish from him. “May the spirit of this sunset fish be thanked for the offering of its body to you, mighty hunter of the Nuvikuan.”

  Attu inclined his head to Rika and replied, “Indeed may it be thanked, and live again in the body of another to grow and be given to our people yet again.”

  Rika turned away to prepare the fish on the wooden cooking slab. She dripped water into the fish’s mouth, to give it a drink before sending its spirit back to the Between.

  Attu sat near the fire, warming himself, listening to Rika’s high clear voice chanting over the fish. He loved listening to his woman singing, preparing the food. He just wished she’d be more careful. He didn’t feel it was safe for her to walk to the Raven camp alone.

  Rika slit the fish in half, removed its entrails, and pegged it on a cooking board. She propped the board on a rock near the coals of the fire. It sizzled. “Meavu and Yural are always busy with the other women,” Rika said as she continued arranging things for their meal. “They’re preserving the food they have gathered. As you can see,” and Rika turned to the pegs and racks and skins of food that took up half of their shelter now, “we have plenty, and I’m tired of gathering. Father is getting stronger, but he’s still not able to take more than a few steps. The muscles in his leg are healing, and he needs to walk more. He is, but walking causes him great pain. If I’m nearby, he pesters me to give him more potion for the pain than he should be taking. If I don’t, he yells and throws things.”

  “Best to stay away from him.”

  “He doesn’t need my skills any more. He just needs more time to heal. I’ve learned to swim, and I’ve gathered a huge supply of medicinal plants... and there’s only so many mats to weave and skins to cure. Life here is easy and the work is done quickly.” Rika’s voice caught and she turned away from him.

  Attu reached for Rika and wrapped her in his arms, where she cried for a while. They held each other for a long time. They would not speak of it, for fear of the spirits hearing them, but both knew the reasons for Rika’s frustration and sadness were much greater than her struggle with her father’s moods. Rika was desperate for something to do, rather than stay in their empty shelter when Attu was gone. The shelter that could, by now, be filled with a baby’s smiles.

  “Everything will be all right. In time,” Attu tried to reassure Rika.

  “What about the dream?” Rika moved away from Attu and started putting some fish on a rock slab for him to eat. “What if the fiery woman holding the newborn boy who had gone to the Between means-”

  “You are to be the mother of sons and daughters, Rika. We are trusting in that prophecy. Everything else connected with it has come true. This will, too.”

  “But will they be living when I bear them? Will they live to grow and have children of their own? Or am I to bear them, only to have my heart broken again and again as they slip into the Between...” Rika turned away from Attu.

  He reached for her again, his own heart like fragile ice, ready to shatter at a single strike. Attu held Rika fiercely, as if he would never let her go.

  Suka, Attu, and Ubantu stood alone at the edge of the beach in the Raven Clan’s camp. They’d come by boat, bringing the skin boat Suka would use for trade, as well as Ubantu’s large craft, loaded down with the tuskie skins and other items Suka had gathered. The precious ice bear claws and teeth had been worked into a magnificent necklace by Ubantu, and it gleamed in the sunlight on Suka’s chest. Suka’s father being dead, Ubantu, as Moolnik’s brother, would stand in his place. Ubantu would negotiate the trade, and Attu would act as runner, bringing the items to Kagit as the trade progressed throughout the often Drawn-out Nuvik ritual of trading for a woman.

  Ashukat had started out with them as well, but just a few spear throws from their camp, he suddenly became ill, holding his head and mumbling of a pain so fierce he needed to return. Attu begged the old man to see Rika for something to help him, and the Seer walked off toward their shelter as the group started off again.

  It’s as if he can no longer move away from the camp at all, Attu mused. As soon as he gets out of sight of the shelters, he becomes confused, or has a pain, or simply wanders back. I wish I knew what was wrong with him. I wish he’d speak of it. But Ashukat merely stared at Attu and walked away whenever Attu tried to speak with him about his strange behavior.

  Rika had tried to find out what the Raven Clan’s bonding tradition was, but when she mentioned it to Limoot, the old woman looked at her as if she were crazy. One of the other women had snorted an answer. “Ravens do not trade for woman. They take.”

  “But why don’t the hunters of that woman’s Clan object?” Rika asked.

  “Quiet, stupid woman,” Limoot hissed at the other woman, and the woman wouldn’t speak to Rika any more after that. The other women began avoiding her as well, even though some had been quite friendly once she’d been welcomed by Limoot.

  Now, Farnook appeared at the edge of one of the cedar houses closest to them. Attu saw her stop and look in their direction. She froze as she saw their boats and trading goods and the way they were dressed, each in his best finery, new fur clothing and spirit necklaces. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she disappeared around the corner of the cedar house again.

  Kagit came out of the house a few moments later. Farnook was not with him.

  “We have come to trade,” Ubantu said carefully in the language of the Ravens. Attu knew Ubantu had been practicing. Attu was proud of his father for learning as much as he could of the Raven Clan’s tongue to help them all. Today it would help Suka.

  Kagit nodded, and several Raven hunters left their boats and the large fish nets they were repairing and came to stand beside him.

  Kagit looked amused as he stood with his fierce-looking hunters in front of Suka’s group. Kagit’s face, as he regarded them, looked like a father’s watching his small boy playing at throwing a spear. Indulgent. Pleased. But not impressed by his child’s attempts to mimic a hunter.

  “What you trade for?” Kagit asked in Nuvik.

  So, you have also been learning our tongue. Yet until now you’ve always had Farnook translate. Did you do that just to humiliate her?

  Attu thought of all that had been spoken in front of the Raven leader. What if Kagit has always understood us? His Clan traded with many others in the south, he said. Perhaps he picked up more of our language than he’s been leading us to believe. If so, why would he hide that knowledge from us?

  “I have come to trade for Farnook,” Suka said.

  “All Raven’s people mine.” Kagit grinned broadly at them as if to include them in his understanding of what Raven owned, “but I give her to my third woman. Farnook work. Give woman much status. Trade for something else.”

  Kagit turned, ignoring the stricken look on Suka’s face.

  Suka took a step forward, but Ubantu put his hand out, stopping Suka. He moved his fingers, first to his lips, then his forehead. “Do not speak, think. Be careful,” his gesture said.

  “Would you like to trade for the canoe?” Kagit asked in his own language. He turned back to Suka and smiled, that predatory grin that made Attu’s neck hair rise.

  Ubantu answered in the Raven tongue. “Your canoes worthy of trade, Kagit, but we like trade for Farnook. Can we ask woman-”

  “Wom
en speak to no men but own hunter and father.” Kagit looked annoyed as he spoke slowly, in Raven tongue now as well, as if he were explaining to small boys who needed training in basic manners.

  So that’s why Kagit was angry with Ashukat when he tried to speak to Farnook directly and why he was angry at Rika for speaking directly to him. No wonder the men and women keep separate in this Clan. They aren’t allowed to speak to each other. Why didn’t they simply explain this to us earlier? And why didn’t we notice? At that feast on our first trip into the Raven camp, some men and women had seemed to interact. Those must have been family groups... And with Farnook speaking for everyone, male and female, I just never realized... But it still makes no sense.

  “Speak to her for if you willing to trade for Farnook.” Ubantu smoothly covered up his mistake.

  “If like,” Kagit said. He was no longer smiling. He motioned for a young girl standing off to the side to fetch his woman.

  She came.

  Attu had expected her to be carrying the wooden spoon she always had in her hand, ready to beat Farnook, but the woman’s hands were empty.

  “This Tuunti, Raven third woman.”

  Attu noticed the woman appeared none the worse for being knocked out the last time they’d seen her. She stood looking at them, waiting.

  Kagit turned aside and spoke to her in a quick sharp tone that was so fast and low, Attu couldn’t make out a word of it. She shook her head. He gripped her arm and spoke to her again, whispering between clenched teeth. Attu thought he saw a flicker of a smile pass across the woman’s face, but when he looked again, she was frowning.

  Kagit turned back to them. “She say show her what trade. She say yes or no.”

  Attu saw the hope in Suka’s eyes.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  One by one, Attu displayed the trade goods, as Suka asked for them. Each time he did, Kagit turned to Tuunti, who considered the items carefully. She fingered the tuskie hides. She examined the rabbit skins. She pondered over the intricate baskets Meavu and Yural had woven. She smiled at the flute with its stylized carving on the base and asked Kagit to ask what spirit it was.