“Still, you are a daring man.”
“But not a stupid one,” said Running Fox, turning impatient. “How many days have we been sounding each other out, you and I?”
“It is time we spoke openly,” Answerer agreed. “You think to go there, I daresay to that very Aryuk whom she holds especially dear, and wring the truth out of him.”
“I need a companion.”
“I am not a man of weapons.”
“I can do that work. You, for your part, understand spells, demons, ghosts.” Running Fox peered at the shaman. “But can you make the journey?”
Answerer’s response came stiff. “I am no weakling.” He was in fact wiry and, while missing several teeth and seeing poorly, could walk long distances or run quite fast.
“I should have asked, do you wish to make the journey?” Running Fox amended.
Mollified, Answerer signed assent. “We will have a freeze in the next day or two,” he forecast. “This softened snow will become like stone, easy to move upon.”
Eagerness leaped behind Running Fox’s eyes, but he kept his face blank and spoke thoughtfully. “Best we leave by dark. I will say I want to go scouting by myself for a while, to learn this territory better and to think.” Folk would believe that of him.
“I will say I want to raise spirits in my house, and must not be disturbed for days and nights until I am ready to come forth,” Answerer decided.
“At that time you may indeed have mighty tidings.”
“And you may win much honor.”
“I do this for the Cloud People.”
“For all the Cloud People,” Answerer said, “now and always.”
VI
Like a hawk upon a lemming, there the invaders were. A shout pierced Aryuk’s winter drowse. He groped through its heaviness. Another cry tore it from him. That was the call of a woman and small children in fear.
His own woman, Tseshu, clutched at him. “Wait here,” he told her. Through the blindness of the den his hand found a weaponstone. He scrambled out of the skins, grass, and boughs in which they had rested, sharing warmth. Fear tore at him, but rage overwhelmed it. A beast, vexing his kin? On hands and knees, he shoved the windbreak aside and scuttled through the doorway. Rising to a crouch, he confronted what had come.
The courage spilled from him like water from a cupped hand flung open.
Cold seared his nakedness. Low in the south, the sun turned day to a blaze, hard blue sky, hard blue shadows, brilliant white over ground and alder branches. Ice gleamed duller on the stream, swept clean of snow by winds. Where the ravine ended, the stones of the beach lay rimed, and the sea itself had frozen a long ways out. Surf growled afar, as if the Bear Spirit spoke in anger.
Before him stood two men. Leather and fur covered them. One held a spear in his right hand, a hatchet in his left. Aryuk had met him before, yes, he knew that thin glittery-eyed face, they called him Running Fox in their tongue. The other was old, wrinkled, gaunt, though not much wearied by his traveling. He gripped a bone carved with signs. Both had painted their brows and cheeks, marks that must be powerful too. Tracks showed how they had come down the slope—quietly, so quietly, until they were here and yelled their summons.
Barakyn and Oltas had gone off to walk the trap lines. They would not return till tomorrow. Did these two watch and wait for my strong helpers to leave me? flashed through Aryuk. Barakyn’s woman Seset huddled at the entrance of their dwelling. Aryuk’s third living son, Dzuryan, hardly more than a boy, shuddered in front of the hut he shared with Oltas, where he had been tending the fire and otherwise dozing.
“What… what do you want?” faltered Aryuk. Though dread clogged his mouth, he could not bring himself to wish these newcomers well as one should for any visitor.
Running Fox replied, colder than the cloudlets that puffed from between his lips. He had learned Our speech better than any other Cloud man—in how many times with Daraku? “I talk to you. You talk to me.”
That, yes, of course, Aryuk thought. Talk. What else have we left? Unless they want to mount Seset. She is young and toothsome. No, I must not let myself know wrath. Besides, they do not look at her. “Come inside,” he said reluctantly.
“No,” spat Running Fox—half in scorn, half in wariness, Aryuk guessed. Crammed into a Tula shelter, he would have no room to wield those beautiful, deathful weapons. “We talk here.”
“Then I must cover me,” Aryuk said. His feet and fingertips were already numb.
Running Fox made a brusque gesture of agreement. Tseshu crept forth. She had put on shoes and a skin cloak, which she held tight as if afraid or ashamed to have strangers behold sagging breasts and slack belly. She brought the same garb for her man. Dzuryan and Seset slipped back and outfitted themselves likewise. They returned to the entrances, very quiet. Meanwhile Tseshu helped Aryuk dress.
That comforted him mightily, as belittling as it was to do this while Running Fox flung his questions. “What walks… between you … and Sun Hair?”
Aryuk gaped. “Sun Hair? Who?”
“Woman. Tall. Hair like sun. Eyes like—” Running Fox pointed at the sky.
“She Who Knows—We, we were friends.” Are we yet? She abides in your place.
“What else? Talk!”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Ho! Nothing? Why she give tribute for you?”
Aryuk stiffened. Tseshu finished tying on the moss-stuffed bags that were his shoes. “She did? What?” Joy rushed over him. “Yes, she promised she would save us!”
Tseshu straightened and took stance at his side. So had her way ever been.
His moment’s happiness blew off across the ice. “What kuyok in knife?” Running Fox snarled.
“Kuyok? Knife? I do not understand.” Was the man working a spell? Aryuk raised his free hand and made a sign against it.
The intruders tensed. Running Fox spoke to his companion. The elder man pointed his carven bone at Aryuk and uttered a short, shrill chant.
“No tricks,” Running Fox rasped. His hatchet waved toward the elder. “Here is Aakinninen—you say ‘Answerer.’ He kuyokolaia. Got kuyok much more strong than yours.”
The word must mean “magic,” Aryuk knew. His heart shook his ribs. The cold slid through cloak and flesh. “I meant you no harm,” he whispered.
Running Fox brought his spearhead near Aryuk’s throat. “My strength much more strong than yours.”
“It is, it is.”
“You see Wanayimo strength at Bubbling Springs.”
Aryuk clutched his hand ax tight, as if its weight could hold him from being whirled up by a gust of forbidden fury. Should I go flat in the snow?
“Do what I say!” Running Fox shouted.
Aryuk glimpsed Dzuryan and Seset, how they quailed. Somehow he stood fast, and Tseshu beside him. “What must we do?” he asked in bewilderment.
“You say what is with you and the tall ones. What they want? What they do?”
“Nothing, we know nothing.”
Running Fox slanted his spear downward. The stone-edged head sliced across Aryuk’s calf. A shallow cut reddened behind it. “Talk!”
The pain was little, the menace bigger than heaven. When at last he meets the lion, a man stops being afraid. Aryuk squared his shoulders. “You can kill me,” he said low, “but then this mouth cannot speak. Instead, my ghost will.”
Running Fox’s eyes widened. Either he knew the word for ghost or he guessed its meaning. He turned to Answerer. They conferred fast and harshly. But always Running Fox stayed mindful of where each of Us was. Aryuk’s free hand found Tseshu’s.