The Reindeer People (24 page)

Skewering the chunk, she put it across the spit supports to roast over the low flames. Drops of blood fell from it to sizzle on the fire below. The rich smell made her remember that she had not eaten yet, either. But she could wait. She had mastered the control of her appetites. She turned the meat, searing it on all sides, and then left it to cook through while she made a quick check of Joboam.

He lay on his back, his injured forearm cradled on his chest. His eyes were only half open. He was not asleep; he was in that dreaming state before sleep, where wakefulness has lost its importance. Taking his arm at the wrist and elbow, she eased it off his chest and out from his body. She arranged it, palm down, atop a clean piece of scraped hide. Joboam dreamed on, staring at the peak of the tent poles. Tillu laid out clean moss, a damp pack of the herbs that would control bleeding, and finally her knife. She wished it was sharper. She should have told Joboam that she would heal him for a sharp knife. Maybe when he awoke, he would agree to such a trade. Kerlew always carried the knife that Heckram had given him. And he was still adamant that she must not touch nor use it. But the hilt of Joboam's own knife showed above his belt. Why not? He didn't move as she eased it free and examined it.

She had not expected the bone haft to clasp a bronze blade. She stared at it, entranced. The metal was cold and sharper than any blade of bone. Decision tightened her grip on it. She would use it. She set it down beside her own and leaned once more over Joboam. She touched his cheek. He didn't stir. She pinched it, lightly, and then harder. He grumbled, his eyes still not turning to her. After a few moments, he turned his head aside, pulling his face from her hand. He was ready.

'Mother?'

Tillu turned. 'There's meat on the spit on the fire. Don't burn yourself. Take it outside and eat it.'

'Good!' Kerlew bounced in. His nose and cheeks were red from being outside, but his hood had been pushed back, so he was not all that cold. He knelt by the fire, took one end of the spit in each hand, and bore his prize away. He was already trying his mouth against it before he even reached the door, exclaiming as it burnt his lips, but not ceasing in his efforts to eat. Tillu said nothing. He'd learn. She added a few dry sticks of wood to the fire for better light, then took out a stone lamp. She had little fat for it, but it would not have to burn long. She knelt carefully by Joboam. She was just lifting one knee to set it firmly on the back of his wrist when she heard the voices outside.

'Give it back!' Kerlew, outraged, angry, already close to tears.

'In a moment. Did you tell her I was here?' A superior, taunting tone.

'Tell her yourself. I'm hungry. Give it back or I'll kill you!' Kerlew, already pushed to making wild threats. Tillu sighed.

'And you such a mighty warrior. I tremble. I think I shall eat it while you go inside and tell her I am here. Stop that!'

She had risen at the first sound, but the struggle had already begun before she was out of the tent. An older boy held the skewered meat out of Kerlew's reach. His other hand gripped Kerlew by the hair on top of his head and held him at arm's length as he struggled and swung and yelped. At the edge of the clearing, a reindeer still harnessed to a pulkor stared at the struggle with round, brown eyes.

'Let him go!'

Neither heard her. Tillu stepped resolutely in, to grip the older boy's wrist. Her competent fingers squeezed down on the tender spot between hand and wrist bone. 'Let him go!' she repeated, and the stranger quickly did. She found herself eye to eye with a youth she suddenly recognized as Capiam's son. She still remembered that look, both sullen and avid. His tunic and hat were gaudy with bright braid and beads. The amount of it went beyond decoration to braggery. He met her stare boldly.

'So here you are, healer. I asked the boy to tell you I was waiting.'

She wasn't going to be sidetracked. 'Give him the meat back. Now.'

He refused to be cowed, 'I didn't want it. I was just keeping it from him until he did as I told him. Here, boy, take it and stop your sniveling.' He flipped the skewer at Kerlew as he spoke. He did not intend that the boy should catch it, and Kerlew didn't. The meat sizzled as it hit the snow and sank from sight. Kerlew howled as if he had been kicked and ran to dig after it like a little dog.

The older youth smiled snidely at the sight. He twitched his wrist free of Tillu's grip and straightened his tunic, 'I am Rolke,' he announced grandly. 'And I bring you a message from my father, Capiam, herdlord of the herdfolk.'

He found he was speaking to Tillu's back. Kerlew had already retrieved his meat from the snow and was brushing the icy particles from it, sobbing as he did so. She stepped to his side and bent to speak to him. She would not humiliate him further by hugging him in front of this stranger, though she longed to. She knew from past experience that Kerlew would only pull quickly away. She was the one who wanted comfort. He only wanted his meat back, as it had been, hot and dripping. 'Take it inside,' she told him softly. 'And put it over the fire again. In a minute or two, if will be just as hot as it was. Do it!' she warned him, stepping in front of the glare he was giving Rolke, 'I will see to him.'

As Kerlew vanished into the tent, she turned to Rolke. She drew herself up to her full height. It was not enough to allow her to look down on him. She doubted that he would have been impressed anyway. There was very little respect for anything in this young man. But she would teach him some.

'Do you want the message from the herdlord, or don't you?' Rolke demanded.

'I want nothing from you.' Tillu set her jaw, hoping she wasn't turning aside a plea for healing. But surely one sending such a message wouldn't choose so rude a messenger.

Rolke was speechless. Tillu turned and lifted her tent flap. He hiccuped as he caught his breath, and then seemed even angrier because of it. 'Then I shall not give it. I shall tell my father that you and your brat turned me away! You are not fit to join our people anyway. But my father will be angry that you have not heard my words. Very angry. You will be sorry if he sends Joboam to deal with you.'

'Will he send someone who is already here?' Tillu asked in an innocently curious voice. She turned away from the youth's reddening face. Over her shoulder, she observed, 'If the herdlord wishes to send me a message, it must come by a courteous messenger.' She entered her tent. She stood just inside, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness after the brightness of the snow. In a moment she heard Rolke berating his poor animal. She pitied any beast that belonged to such a master. Somehow she did not think the boy would improve with age.

Kerlew crouched by the fire like a small beaten animal. His hands were curled at the ends of his wrists as he held them before his chest. He stared at his meat as the higher flames licked against it, blackening the bottom of it.

Tillu sighed lightly, but said nothing. Any other boy his age would have known better. She stepped forward, to take the rewarmed meat from the fire and hand it back to him. He took it, gripping it like a squirrel, and looked up at her with pleading eyes.

'All right,' she said softly. 'You can eat it here. But be silent, and don't get in my way. Don't come asking me questions in the middle of this healing. Do you understand?'

He nodded silently, already trying to nibble at the meat. Another question occurred to her. 'Why didn't you come and tell me there was someone to see me, when Rolke first got here?'

Kerlew's forehead wrinkled with concentration, 'I did. But you gave me the meat and told me to go outside, so I did.'

'Must one thing chase another out of your head? Next time, give the message first. Anytime you have a message for me, give the message first. From now on.'

'I didn't know,' he complained as he went back to his meat. 'You never told me that before. It wasn't my fault.'

She gave him a warning look and went back to Joboam. As she knelt beside him and put his wrist back in position, his lashes fluttered. He rolled his head toward her, to ask in a thick voice, it's done?'

'Nearly,' she lied. The interruption had occurred at the worst possible time. He was already rousing from the medicine and she dared not give him any more. She moved the oil lamp into position, poking at the wick for a taller flame. She placed one of her knees on his wrist and the other on the inside of his elbow. She let most of her weight rest on her buttocks atop her heels, but was ready to rock forward and pin the arm still if he struggled. She took up his knife and set the blade tip into the wound at the deepest point. Something had dug in there and stayed. She probed with the tip, lightly at first, but when she encountered nothing, she pressed it gently down. Joboam groaned, but did not twitch. Deeper. The blade touched something hard that moved. As it did so, Joboam gave a deep grunt and lifted his head. Tillu rocked her weight forward to pin his arm down. 'Steady,' she told him. 'Lie still.' Again she put the tip of the knife against the object. Joboam's fist clenched suddenly and he took a shuddering breath. She slid her thumb down the knife blade. Bright blood was welling up in the wound; she could not see what she reached for, but went after it by touch. Her thumbnail found it and she clenched it down, pinning it against the blade. She pulled at it. It was stubborn, half grown into the flesh. Joboam was panting now and she smelled pain in his sweat. Quickly. She gripped hard and tugged.

Joboam gave a wordless cry as it came free. Blood gushed up to fill the wound. Tillu dropped the knife and object onto the skins and pinched the wound closed with a blood-slippery hand, it's out now. It's out!' she assured him. She rocked her full weight onto his arm as he writhed. 'The worst is done.' In a reflex action, Joboam had gripped his injured arm, clutching it above the elbow as if to pull it out from under her. 'That's it, now, hold it tight. Grip as tight as you can,' she encouraged him.

She freed his arm, to grab the herb poultice she had laid out. Joboam lay half on his side now, gripping his arm and staring at the welling blood. She arranged the poultice on his arm, pressed it gently against his flesh. His breath hissed out, but he held steady. The flow of blood was slowing. He was strong and in good health. He would heal well, she thought. 'Keep it tight,' she encouraged him as she wrapped the arm. Her fingers were slick with his blood and the bandages were stained before she had them in place. But she wrapped it firmly, the wound held closed. 'This time it will heal and stay healed,' she reassured him. She rose to rinse her hands off. She glanced at the salt in the trough, glad she had not needed to soak the arm a second time. She knelt beside him again.

'Better now?'

'I don't know.' His eyes were shiny, his breathing shallow and fast, 'I feel dizzy. Weak.' His voice trailed off. Tillu eased him back flat on her pallet. She set the injured arm on top of his chest and covered him warmly.

'Rest, then,' she told him needlessly. His eyes were already closing. She pulled another skin over him and snugged it down around him. There had been more pain for him than she had planned. Sometimes pain could disable a man more than the injury itself. Only rest healed that.

She rubbed her face, feeling suddenly tired. And hungry. But the habits of tidiness were strong. She wiped the knife and set it aside. Herbs and salt were stowed away neatly, the dish lamp extinguished and set away. It was when she was taking up the piece of skin that his arm had rested on that the small object fell to the dirt floor. Stooping, she took it up and turned it curiously in her hand. This was what she had taken from his arm. She wiped it on the piece of skin and stared at it curiously, 'I know that I know what this is,' she murmured to herself, 'I just can't remember what it is.' It was shaped bone. A line had been etched into it and stained black, perhaps as a decoration. Something Joboam had been working on that had shattered?

She set it down by the knife and with a sigh rose to her feet. Now she could eat.

Now he had come back to awareness of himself and his surroundings. A shiver ran over him, and he wondered what had drawn him back. He flared his nostrils, taking in the smells of the tent. There. Joboam. He bared his teeth in the dark.

He turned softly on his skins, but the birch twigs still cracked beneath his bedding. It did not matter. The big man slept deeply. Kerlew smiled thinly, remembering the man's pain when Tillu had healed his arm. He had been tight and silent, even when the blood flowed red. It was only later, when he had become feverish, that he had cursed and roared. His head had tossed about, and his undecipherable words had been full of fury. Kerlew had giggled to hear him, and Tillu had gotten angry and told him to go to bed. So he had, but he had still enjoyed Joboam's pain. He had giggled until Tillu had threatened to beat him. Then he had felt angry with her, so he had gone away with the smoke. And now he was back. And Joboam was still here.

By day, Kerlew feared the big man with the cruel hands. Joboam's eyes were hard and mean, angry that Kerlew existed. He was one of the ones who looked and struck. Kerlew knew and kept clear of his hands. But, in the clear darkness of a shamanic night, Kerlew had only hatred for Joboam. No fear at all. He slipped silently from his bedding.

This was a power time. Carp had spoken with relish of the times when the night opened itself to shamans and the spirit world merged with the day one. Kerlew had never known one until now. Now he could not doubt it. The night surrounded him and intensified him. He felt engorged with its darkness, immune to the daylight world. Cold did not touch his skin and his body knew no hungers. Another shiver ran over him, erecting every hair on his body. Something called him this night. What?

For a long moment, he stood listening. Then he turned back to his bedding, knelt, and gently pushed aside the birch twigs that cushioned his skins from the cold earth. From the hollow he had scratched there, he took his shaman's pouch. Carefully he lifted the pouch and set his ear against the side. He listened. Knife. Knife was calling him.

Reverently he untied his pouch, reached in with blind fingers. Knife touched them. He drew it out slowly and returned the bag and other talismans to the hollow. Then he stood again. 'Knife?' he breathed questioningly. He held it in two hands, pointed it toward the dying embers of the fire. He held it a long time, until he felt it grow heavy in his hands. Knife was ready. Slowly he drew the sheath off.

The pale bone blade gleamed even in the dying firelight. It would lead him. It would not be the first time he had followed it. But the first time, he had stumbled frightened and cold in the blackness of the woods, with Owl-spirit peering from every shadow and branch. Then he had wept and pleaded with Knife, and Knife had heard. Knife had led him to the herdfolk's village, to the very hut where his mother slept.

Only one had been awake in that place. In the dimness of the hut, he had stood over her. She who had shaped Knife was there, breathing her pain out in a soundless sigh. She did not rant and roar as Joboam did. Her pain was silent, sealed into her. Heckram held her hand. He shivered, remembering. Her eyes had been closed and she had been still, but the pain vibrated out from her, like ripples in a still pond. Her pain washed over Heckram and put lines in his face. The Knife in his hand had shivered with her pain. He had known she wanted to rest.

He knew the black ladle of the sleeping potion. He had used the back of the knife to hold her lips open while he trickled the sleeping tea in. A last word had bubbled up through the tea, broken against the back of Knife's blade. Some secret or word had been passed between she who made Knife and Knife. Knife had trembled with it, and then he had felt the ebbing of all her pain.

And now Knife had awakened him. There would be a reason, and Knife would lead him to it. He held the tool at arm's length in front of him. His arms ached with holding it still, but finally he felt the tug of the blade. It drew him forward and down. He followed it.

The blade did not hesitate or wait for Kerlew's stumbling feet. It pulled him through the fire, so that Kerlew felt the brief lick of unbearable heat against his bare legs, the bite of a small coal on his callused heel. He barked his shins against his mother's chest of herbs, clattered over it and on. Despite the noise, no one stirred. He alone felt the power of his night and moved through it.

Two more steps and he stood over Joboam. Knife halted and hovered, dragging on Kerlew's arms.

The man was heavy in his sleep, bigger in his laxness. He lay on his back. One arm was flung wide, hanging over the side of the pallet, the back of his wrist resting on the ground. Sleep held him like a thick fog around him. Kerlew smelled it, a fog of blood stench and sweat and the odor of his morning's food that he breathed out of his sagging mouth. His hair clung in damp locks to his forehead and cheeks. In his fevered sleep, he had pushed aside the hides meant to warm him. His chest was wide and gleaming, his bandaged arm cradled protectively against it.

The darkness swirled sweetly around Kerlew as he stood over the man. Knife's hilt was rough and sweaty in his hands. The blade turned slightly in his grip, catching and cradling the wan light that filtered in from the smoke hole. Light ran down the blade in wavering forms that shifted and changed, reminding him of a dark stain on clean snow. Knife soaked up the light and the dark, taking power into itself. It smiled.

Then it plunged down swiftly, dragging him to his knees with the force of its descent. It passed narrowly between Joboam's chest and outflung arm, to sink haft-deep in the earth of the tent's floor.

Kerlew dragged himself up from his bruised knees. No one stirred. His heart thundered inside the cage of his ribs, leaping in its struggle to be free. He rubbed his sweaty hands across his face and looked down at the floor. The hilt of Knife stuck up from the cold dirt, but a portion of the blade lay beside it. Knife was broken.

He sat down flat in astonishment. He scooted himself closer, stared woefully at the fragment of blade that lay atop the earth by Knife's upright hilt. Wolves of despair devoured his heart. Slowly he picked up the fragment of bone and stared at it. Even in the dim starlight and rusty glow of the dying coals, there was no mistaking it. Half of a swirl and one flying hoof were on the shattered blade. He lifted the piece, held it sorrowfully against his cheek. It was cold. Cold and broken and angry with him. As angry as Carp and the Blood Stone. In his eagerness, he had failed again. Tears flooded his eyes.

With a trembling hand he took hold of the hilt and drew Knife from the earth. It dangled between his forefinger and thumb as he stared at it. It was whole.

He brought it close to his deep-set eyes and studied it. Whole. Not a splinter out of it, not a nick. One reindeer still galloped, the other grazed with her calf at her side. The swirls still spun like stars. His slow gaze traveled from Knife to the fragment of bone. Gradually his two hands brought them together. For long silent moments he studied them side by side. Here was the hoof of the galloping reindeer; here was the hoof alone. Here were the swirls spinning on the blade; here was one swirl and part of another. Here was ...

He stopped. His mind leaped the gap, and the knowledge swelled in him. This knife from the knife-making woman. This piece of a knife from Joboam's arm. Kerlew smiled. Shifting his weight carefully, he knelt by Joboam, leaned over the sleeping man. He held the fragment of blade before the closed eyes and grinned down. A prickling chill ran over his body as he felt the power that coursed though the broken blade. Yes, it was cold and angry. But not with Kerlew. No. It was angry with Joboam. And in its anger, the fragment of blade offered much power to Kerlew. Much power.

He curled his fist around his own Knife, held it close to his chest as he knelt over Joboam. He leaned very close, studying Joboam's closed eyes to be sure he really slept. The man's breath was hot and rank against his face. Slowly Kerlew lifted the knife chip. He touched it softly to Joboam's forehead, then to each of his closed eyelids. He carefully traced the outline of Joboam's sagging mouth with the tip of the broken piece. The man twitched, closed his lips.

Kerlew held up Knife and the fragment side by side. He turned them slowly, letting them catch the light and then grow black as old blood in the shadows. He leaned very close over the man, his eyes wide and fixed on Joboam's for any sign of wakefulness as Knife and the fragment wove a slow pattern over his bare chest. He could feel the power the fragment was drawing out of the man. He felt almost dizzy in the great clarity of the night and of the forces that whispered through it.

He gave voice to them. 'Joboam.' Softly he called him by name, the word no more than a shaping of his exhalation. No one could come to such a call, except for a spirit. His spirit would hear Kerlew's words. 'Joboam. It has soaked in your blood, Joboam. You cannot deny it. It knows the inside of your flesh. It has tasted your life, and longs to taste your death. Feel the knife that failed, Joboam.' He drew the fragment lightly down the man's bare chest. 'The knife hated to fail, Joboam. It wished to be true. So it has called out to its brother Knife. And its brother Knife has called to me. And I have made it a promise, to give it what it wants.'

He leaned closer over the sleeping man. Ridges divided Joboam's brows and his breath was becoming uneven. Joboam's spirit was uneasy. Kerlew fixed his wide eyes on Joboam's closed ones, breathed his breath into his face as he said softly, 'You know what the Knife wants, Joboam.'

The big man's eyes flickered open wide.