Answerer’s withered face hardened. He barked something. His companion clearly agreed. Aryuk waited to learn the fate of his family.
“You not make kuyok against us,” Running Fox said. “We take one along. She talk.”
He stuck his spear upright in the snow, made a long stride forward, seized Tseshu by the arm. He hauled her from her man’s clasp. She wailed.
Daraku!
A wind roared over Aryuk. He himself screamed as he sprang.
Running Fox chopped with his hatchet. Caught off balance, he missed Aryuk’s head but struck him on the left shoulder. Aryuk neither saw nor felt the blow. He was in against the Cloud man. His right arm swung. The hand ax crashed on Running Fox’s temple. The hunter crumpled.
Aryuk stood above him. Pain smote. He dropped the hand ax and went to his knees, pawing at the hurt shoulder. Dzuryan boiled toward him. A weaponstone of his own, hurled, barely went by Answerer. The old one whirled about and ran off, in among the trees, up the slope. Dzuryan joined Tseshu where Aryuk was. Seset silenced the children.
Aryuk’s soul returned as the darkness ebbed from him. Helped by both women, he regained his feet. Blood ran, a red flame amidst the snow, from his shoulder. That arm hung useless. When he tried moving it, the pain was so vast that the night rolled over him again. Tseshu drew his cloak aside to look at the wound. It wasn’t deep, the edge had hit bone, but surely that bone was broken.
“Father, shall I catch the other man and kill him?”
Dzuryan asked. Did his boy-voice waver, or was that how Aryuk heard it?
“No,” said Tseshu. “He is too far ahead of you now. You are too young.”
“But he, he will tell the Red Wolf what happened.”
Dimly surprised, Aryuk found he could think. “That is best,” he muttered. “We must not make this thing worse … for all of Us.”
He stared downward. Running Fox sprawled limp. The blood that had gushed from the man’s nose flowed no more, only trickled, slower and slower as the cold thickened it. The open mouth had gone dry, the open eyes had filmed over, the open bowels had emptied. A snowbank into which he had fallen hid the smashed part of his head.
“I forgot myself,” Aryuk whispered at him. “You should not have laid hand on my woman. Not after my daughter. We were both unwise, you and I.”
“Come in by the fire,” Tseshu said.
He shambled obediently along. The women tended him as best they could, stanching the cut with moss, binding arm to side with thongs. Dzuryan built the fire up and fetched a frozen rabbit from a small cairn nearby. Tseshu laid it in the coals.
Hot meat gave heart, and Aryuk drew more strength from the bodies pressed against his. At last he could tell them: “In the morning I must leave you.”
“No!” moaned Tseshu. He knew that she knew what he intended. Nonetheless she protested. “Where can you go?”
“Away,” he said. “They will come after their dead man when they hear, and after me. If they found us together, it would go very badly with you. When Barakyn and Oltas return, everybody must go different ways, seeking shelter and help among friends. The Cloud men will know that I and I alone killed him. I think, if they do not see you where he lies, they will be content with my death. Tracking me down will use up most of their anger.”
Seset hugged herself, rocked to and fro, wept aloud. Tseshu sat moveless, excépt for taking her man’s good hand in hers.
“Say no more now,” Aryuk ordered. “I am weary. I need a night’s rest.”
He and Tseshu sought their hut. Lying beside her, he found he could sleep—lightly, skimming above pain, dreams flickering like bits of rainbow. I have lived longer than many, he thought once, half wakeful. It must be time for me to go find our children who died. They have been lonely.
At dawn he ate again, let her clothe him, and went out. The ravine reached shadowy, its alders hunched into their own dreams. A few stars still glimmered overhead. Breath smoked into the chill. From the sea rumbled sounds of waves and of ice grinding ice. His wound throbbed, hot, but if he moved with care the pain seldom bit too hard.
His woman, son, and first son’s woman gathered about him. He pointed at the corpse. “Bring this inside and close the entrance before you leave,” he told them. “The Mammoth Slayers may feel milder if gulls and foxes have not eaten of their friend. But first—” He tried to stoop. His wound forbade. “Dzuryan, you are the man now, until your brothers come home. Dig those eyeballs out. If I carry them away, his ghost should follow me and leave you alone.” The youth hung back, lips fluttering in the twilit blur of his face. “Do it!”
When the things rested safe in his pouch, Aryuk, one-armed, drew Tseshu to him. “Had I grown old and feeble, I must go into the wilderness,” he said. “I leave a little sooner, only a little sooner.”
From Dzuryan he took a hand ax. He wasn’t sure why. He had refused a food ration, and was in no shape to knock down an animal or even make a trap. Well, the stone was something to hold. He nodded, turned, and trudged off, toward the easiest path up the slope and out of sight.
Surely you never wanted this for me, You Who Know Strangeness, he thought. When you learn of it, will you come help? Better if you help my children and grandchildren. I do not matter anymore. He sent the memory of her elsewhere and gave himself to his wandering.
VII
Throughout winter, the Tulat were as little active as possible, to conserve energy for survival. They collected what food they were able to; by daylight they did what work came to hand; but mainly they stayed in their dens, and for most of that time they slept or sat in a self-induced, daydreamy trance. It was no wonder that so many, especially infants, took fatally sick. Yet what choice had they?
The Paleo-Indians were different, busy the year round, even during the long nights. They had the skills and the means to keep themselves well fed in all seasons. While some animals, such as the caribou, migrated, others, such as the mammoth, did not. That was the reason they settled on the steppe, though their hunters ranged into the northern highlands and the southern woods. Only the sea daunted them. Their descendants would master it. Meanwhile these, the Cloud People, had the Tulat to glean along its shores for them.
Thus Ralph Corwin grew accustomed to movement and noise after dark. An optical pickup secretly planted in the till enabled him to watch on a screen in his dome, magnifying the view at will. If things got interesting, or if he simply felt like it, he would stroll over and mingle. The folk had long since accepted him as human—enigmatic, potentially dangerous, but fascinating and, it seemed, well-disposed. You could enjoy his company, the mystery adding salt to the pleasure. Girls smiled, and some were quite pretty. Too bad that taking advantage would mean a degree of involvement compromising his mission. The Tulat were easygoing but … grubby; nor had he time to spare for them. The Patrol didn’t want its too few agents spending more lifespan than necessary on any single job.
How grand it would be if Wanda Tamberly, who otherwise fitted what he’d heard about outdoorsy California girls of the later twentieth century, were forthcoming. No matter, he often scolded himself.
On this night he forgot about her. Tumult was rising in the village. He dressed warmly and left.
The air lay still, as if wind had congealed in the cold. Passing through his nostrils, it felt liquid. A moon just past the full made his breath a phantom akin to the hills north and south. Snow glistened and crunched underfoot. He had no need of a flashlight, nor did torches flare among the houses ahead. It was an extravagance the Wanayimo could have afforded, thanks to their tributaries. A fire was being built at the cairn of the skulls. Folk milled about, talking, gesticulating, sometimes howling. When the flames were high, they would bring drums and dance.