“The way… it must be,” he said hoarsely. His eyes closed and he slept again: he had been at the brink of death and it is most difficult to return once you have come that close. Ortnar stirred and made a sound and Armun brought water to him as well.
It was almost dark when the Paramutan returned, shouting and calling out to her. “Look at this tiny thing I bring,” Kalaleq called out as he pushed into the cave — holding up a great, ugly fish covered with plates, its mouth bristling with teeth. “This will give them the strength they need. Now they eat.”
“They are still unconscious—”
“Too long, not good. Need meat now. I show you.”
Two of them lifted Ortnar until he was sitting up, then Kalaleq, moved the hunter’s head gently, pinched his cheeks, whispered in his ear — then clapped his hands loudly. Everyone shouted encouragement when Ortnar’s eyes opened slightly and he groaned. One held his mouth open while Kalaleq hacked off chunks of fish, then squeezed the juice from this into the hunter’s mouth. He spluttered, coughed, and swallowed and there was more excited cheering. When he came blurrily awake they pushed bits of raw fish in between his lips and encouraged him to chew and swallow.
“Tell him in your Erqigdlit tongue, he must eat. Chew, chew, that is it.”
She fed Kerrick herself, would let no other near him, tried to give him her strength as she held him tightly against her breasts.
It was two days before Ortnar was fit to travel. He bit his lip until there was blood upon it when they cut more black flesh from his feet.
“But we are alive,” Kerrick told him when the ordeal was finished.
“Part of me isn’t,” Ortnar gasped, the beads of moisture standing out on his face. “But we have found them — or they have found us — and that is what is important.”
Kerrick had to lean most of his weight on Armun when they went down to the boat: Ortnar was carried on a litter of branches. He was in too much pain to take much notice of his surroundings, but Kerrick was wide-eyed and appreciative when he looked about him at the boat as he climbed in.
“Made of skins, light and strong. And all the oars! These Paramutan can build as well as the Sasku.”
“Some of what they make is even better,” Armun said, pleased at his interest. “Look at this — do you know what it is?”
She handed him the length of carved bone and he turned it over and over in his hands.
“It is from some large beast, I don’t know what kind. And it has been hollowed out — but what is this?” He shook the dangling leather tube, put his eye to the hole on top of the bone, pulled the knob next to it and discovered that a length of round wood, the thickness of an arrow, was attached to it. “It is wonderfully made, that is all I know.”
Armun smiled, her split lip revealing the evenness of her teeth, as she poked the end of the tube down into the water that was sloshing at their feet. When she pulled up on the knob there was a sucking sound, and when she pulled a second time a thin gush of water shot from the top opening and over the side of the boat. He gaped — then they both laughed at his astonishment. Kerrick took it from her hands again.
“It is like something that the Yilanè have grown — but this was made, not grown. I like this kind of thing.” He turned it over and over with admiration, tracing the carvings on its length that pictured a fish spitting out a great stream of water.
The return to the paukaruts was a great triumph with the women pushing each other, screaming with laughter, for the privilege of carrying the litter with the blond giant on it. Ortnar looked at them with amazement as they fought to touch his hair, barking at each other all the time in their strange language.
Arnwheet stared at his father in wonder; he had very little memory of any Tanu hunters. Kerrick knelt in the snow to look at him more closely, a solid, wide-eyed boy with little resemblance to the baby he had left. “You are Arnwheet,” he said and the boy nodded gravely — but shied back when Kerrick put his hand out to touch him.
“He is your father,” Armun said, “and you must not be afraid of him.” But the child clung to her leg at the strangeness of it all.
Kerrick stood up, the word bringing up long buried memories. Father. He dug into his furs and found the two knives that hung about his neck, his fingers touched the smaller one and pulled it free. This time when he knelt down the child did not pull back. Kerrick held out the shining metal blade, glinting in the sunlight.
“As my father gave this to me — so do I give it to you.”
Arnwheet reached out hesitantly and touched it, looked up at Kerrick and smiled. “Father,” he said.
Before winter ended Ortnar was on the mend. He had lost flesh, was still in pain, but his great strength had pulled him through. There had been more black flesh on his feet, pus and an awful smell, but the Paramutan knew how to treat this as well. As the days grew longer the flesh healed and scars formed. With fur padding in his boots he hobbled out of the paukarut each day and learned to walk again. The foot without the toes made this difficult, but he learned nevertheless. He was walking far out along the edge of the ice one day when he saw the boat approaching from the distance. It was one of the larger ones with a large skin tied to a pole and did not look familiar. Nor was it. When he stumbled back to the paukaruts he found that everyone had turned out, were shouting and waving as the boat came close.
“What is it?” he asked Armun, for he had learned only a word or two of the strange tongue.
“Newcomers, they are not from our paukaruts. It is very exciting.”
“What’s happening now — all the loud talking and arm waving? They seem very worked up about something.”
“I can’t tell, they are all shouting at once. You have been walking too long. Go to the paukarut and I will find out what is happening and meet you there and tell you.”
Ortnar was alone in the paukarut for the Paramutan — Kerrick, Arnwheet, and Harl as well — were all at the boats. He sat down heavily and groaned aloud, since there was none there to hear, at the pain in his feet. He chewed on a piece of meat, grateful for the rest, as he waited for Armun to come.
“Something very good seems to have happened,” she said when she returned. “It is about the ularuaq. They talked about how bad it was all winter, how there were less and less. Now they seem to have found them again. It is very important.”
“What are ularuaq?” Ortnar asked.
“They hunt them, in the sea. I have never seen one but they must be very large, larger even than a mastodon.” She pointed at the arched ribs above. “Those are from the ularuaq. And the skin cover as well — all in one piece. Most of the meat we eat, the blubber too, comes from the ularuaq. The Paramutan will eat any kind of meat, anything at all.” She indicated the seabird hanging by its legs from the ribs above, rotting nicely. “But almost all of their food, the boats, everything comes from the ularuaq. They say that it is the weather, the long winters, that have been driving them away. The ice comes further south every year and something in the water, I don’t understand all of it, has changed. So the ularuaq have been harder and harder to kill and this is the worst thing that could happen to the Paramutan. We’ll have to wait to find out what has happened now.”
It was some time before anyone else returned to the paukarut. Kalaleq was first, crawling in through the entrance and pushing a lattice of thin bones before him, while the others followed. He waved it happily, an intricate array, tied by gut and secured in angles and curves. Armun made him talk slowly as he pointed out the importance of it, translating into Marbak as he spoke.
It was Kerrick who finally understood what Kalaleq was talking about.