Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains (22 page)

“I’ll just have to stay behind with her,” Rika said. “You can come back and get us once the clan is safely on land. Elder Nuanu will probably be-”

“No!” Paven, Banek, and Attu cut her off all at the same time. Apparently surprised, Paven stared first at Attu, then back at his daughter. Banek just stared at them both.

Attu studied Banek’s face. But Banek just stood there, his bearded face impassive, his eyes cold, staring at Attu and Rika as if he were seeing them for the first time.

“I can’t move her like this,” Rika said, her voice stubborn.

Banek just stared at her. Paven moved closer to Banek, but said nothing.

“I won’t let you stay behind,” Attu said finally, when no one else spoke. He moved toward Rika, but his father put out a hand to stop him from reaching her.

“I WILL stay with Elder Nuanu if I want to,” Rika said through gritted teeth. “It’s my choice as healer of this clan.”

Attu wanted to shake Rika. She was so stubborn. He opened his mouth to continue the argument, but Paven cut him off.

“It is NOT your choice, daughter,” Paven said. His voice was low and full of a leader’s power. “It’s mine. Until you are given to BANEK,” and he shot a glance at Attu, “I decide.”

Realization struck Attu. What had he been thinking? He had no right to tell Rika what to do. He’d been so angry with her, he’d forgotten. Now, it was too late.

I have to get out of here.

Attu took a quick step backward toward the shelter door, but Ubantu put a firm hand on his shoulder, stopping him from rushing out.

“We’re all going,” Paven said, and he stepped between Banek and Attu. “Together.”

Attu looked up. Both Paven and Ubantu were watching Banek. Banek had his spear raised, slightly, and as Attu looked at him, Banek glared back, first at him, then at Paven. Banek’s face was a mask of hatred, and at that moment Attu didn’t know which of them Banek might spear first, himself, or Paven.

Attu saw Paven’s arm move, touching the knife at his belt. Paven’s eyes locked with Banek’s.

Banek lowered his spear again.

Attu let out his breath, slowly, and turned away from Banek, back toward Rika and Elder Nuanu. He tried to steady himself, but his knees were shaking.

“Elder Nuanu can’t travel,” Rika said, her voice now small. She had been staring down at her hands, but now she looked at Attu for help, tears streaming down her face.

Y
our father is using you and pushing Banek to his limit, and all you can see is that Elder Nuanu needs you.
“We can use the sled,” Attu suggested. He carefully looked away from Rika again while avoiding looking at anyone else in the shelter
.
“Tulnu doesn’t need it anymore. I heard Elder Nuanu tell her while she was wrapping her ankle.”

And,
a belligerent voice inside his head reminded him,
just before the man’s voice spoke through her, just when you were going to ask her about the dreams... just before you made Banek furious with you and with Paven.

Attu found a spot on the floor of the shelter and stared at it, trying to calm himself, to slow his heartbeat like he did while waiting over a nuknuk breathing hole.

The silence in the shelter was deafening.

After what seemed like forever, Paven turned to Banek. The older man waited until Banek lowered his spear to his side. Finally, Paven spoke. “Banek, get the sled from Moolnik. Have the women re-ice it, thick. We don’t want to have to stop on the way to do it again. You’ll be first puller, and when you’re not pulling, I want you to stay with Rika in case she needs your help with Elder Nuanu.”

At Paven’s order, Banek glared at Rika. Rika looked away immediately, turning back to Elder Nuanu. Attu saw her shoulders sag.

Paven cleared his throat and glanced toward Rika before he spoke. “I want you to guard the rear of the clans, Attu, along with Moolnik.”

Attu said nothing.

“This close to land, the chances we might be attacked by an ice bear are great. You may get to use that new spear sooner than we thought, Attu.” Paven looked at Attu, his scarred face set.

“So, what are you waiting for, Banek?” Paven asked, turning again toward the bearded man. “Go!”

Attu felt Banek’s eyes boring into him before Banek turned and stalked out of the shelter.

Ubantu let out a deep breath and limped to the shelter wall. He began dismantling Elder Nuanu’s shelter again, stripping off the hides on the inside. Attu stepped up to help his father. The first hide he touched was brittle. It ripped in his hands. Looking to his father, Attu saw Ubantu touch his forehead then his lips. They were turned away from Paven and Rika so the others couldn’t see Ubantu’s signal.

Attu moved his head, the slight sideways motion of hunters. His father saw it and let out another long slow breath.

No, I won’t endanger myself, or you, any more,
Attu thought.
I’ll use my head. I’ll keep my mouth shut.
He continued working to take down the hides, more carefully this time.

Rika began packing the healer’s tools and potions she’d brought with her to treat Elder Nuanu. The old woman didn’t stir, not even when Rika, apparently deciding Elder Nuanu still wasn’t wrapped warmly enough, rolled her on her side to place another large fur beneath her.

Ubantu turned from pulling hides off the shelter and said, “Paven and I will lead the clans across the last piece of ice.”

Ubantu looked to Paven, who apparently lost in thought, had stopped giving orders and stood fingering the knife at his belt, his eyes still locked on the doorway.

“Yes. We will lead,” Paven agreed, and he shook his head as if to clear it from what he’d been thinking. “We’ll begin now. You follow as soon as you can,” Paven added, catching Rika’s eyes. She nodded.

“And you, Attu, go now to tell Moolnik to bring up the rear guard with you,” Paven concluded. “I’ll get others to finish taking down Elder Nuanu’s shelter, then Ubantu and I will get the people moving out.”

Attu grabbed his spear and left the shelter. He didn’t even risk a last glance back at Rika or his father.

W
hat can I do?
Attu thought as he walked toward the group of hunters standing near the front of the clans. Moolnik would probably be with them. Attu knew he’d be angry at being asked to guard the back of the clan with Attu, but Moolnik would come. Attu couldn’t care less how Moolnik reacted. He almost hoped his uncle would yell at him. It was clear to Attu now that neither Paven nor Banek cared if their posturing hurt Rika; neither treated her with respect, but had he figured out a way to stand up for her himself? Get her out from between them? Fight for her? No, instead he’d made a fool of himself
. I deserve to be yelled at.

Attu stepped behind one of the last shelters still standing, cutting across the now empty camp, when suddenly, a hand reached around his neck, his arms were pinned to his sides and a knife came to rest against his throat.

Banek.

Attu felt the sharpness of the knife pressing against him and fought back the urge to swallow. He felt the stiff hair of Banek’s beard tickling the nape of his neck where his own hair was drawn aside in its braid.

“I AM Rika’s man,” Banek said into Attu’s ear, his voice a menacing growl. “I have waited many moons for her, and YOU will not take her from me.”

Attu felt the bone knife knick his throat and a trickle of blood, warm against his skin, began sliding down his neck and into his parka.

“Do you understand, boy-hunter who tries to take what is not his?”

“I have not-” Attu began to protest, but Banek pressed the knife further into his throat. Attu smelled the sweat of fear. His own.

“No excuses, boy,” Banek hissed into his ear. “I asked you a question. Answer me. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Attu replied. He was terrified and furious at the same time. Part of him wanted to run, to flee across the ice and never return. Part of him wanted to turn and rip Banek’s throat out with his bare hands. He could do neither. Banek was older than he was, stronger than he was, and he had the knife. Attu was helpless in Banek’s grip.

“Good,” Banek said. He slowly began lowering the knife from Attu’s throat. Suddenly Banek punched him, hard, right in the old wound in his back, and pain shot through Attu. He fell to the ground face first as Banek spun away, his knife at the ready in case Attu tried to strike back.

But Attu didn’t try. He landed on his chest and didn’t move. Not even when Banek spat on the back of his head and kicked him in the side on his way past, walking around the shelter where he’d been laying in wait for Attu. Attu heard Banek start whistling as he headed toward the women’s group to get the sled.

Still, Attu lay on the ice where he’d fallen.
One swipe of that knife and Banek could have left me bleeding out like a dying nuknuk.
It would’ve been that simple. He’d stepped over the line Banek had drawn around Rika, and if he did anything to make Banek think he’d stepped over it again, Banek would kill him.

Attu wished the ice would open up at that moment and swallow him.
How could I have been so stupid? There is nothing I can do to save Rika.
Pain radiated from his old wound across his whole back and around to his sides. The cold was beginning to numb his face and his chest where he lay.

Attu rolled over on his back and felt the cold begin to seep into the place Banek’s fist had sunk just a short while before. His back pain lessened as it was replaced with the numbing cold. But the ice didn’t lessen the pain Attu felt when he thought about how he’d spoken out in the shelter, allowing everyone to see him for the fool he was.

Rolling back onto his stomach, Attu pushed himself up, groaning a bit from the pain, and walked slowly toward the other hunters. He had to tell Moolnik what Paven had ordered. He’d have to face Banek when he and Moolnik walked past to guard the rear of the clans. He’d have to make sure he gave no indication to Rika, or his father, or Paven that anything had happened between himself and Banek. Banek had not murdered him. He was being given a second chance because Banek saw him as a boy and not a real threat. He must remain silent now until the clans reached land and Attu could convince his father to separate their clan from the Great Frozen Clan and head out on their own again.
There is nothing else I can do.
That thought felt like another kick in his ribs.

Attu sighed as he saw Moolnik up ahead. He worked to make sure his face was impassive as he approached Moolnik to tell him Paven’s order. Moolnik complained, as Attu knew he would, but in the end he headed back to the rear of the group with Attu, spear at the ready. They passed Banek, pulling Elder Nuanu on the sled. Rika walked beside Banek, her face lowered. Attu carefully ignored them both as he and Moolnik headed to the back of the group.

“You take this side, I’ll take the other,” Moolnik said and walked off to Attu’s right without waiting for an answer.

Attu trod carefully in the tracks of the two clans, the leading edge of the group almost out of sight ahead of them. He turned and scanned the way they had come, watching for anything unusual. Moolnik did the same on his side. They walked in silence until a call from the front echoed back to them. The clan was celebrating. They’d seen the end of the chasm and the land. Soon the nightmare of their journey across the Expanse would be over.

––––––––

A
while later, Attu watched with Moolnik as the clans slowly made their way, a few at a time, across the ice and onto a rocky stretch of shoreline in the distance. The people moved silently, as they always did on the ice, listening for the sound of cracking, the moaning warning that ice was about to give way under them.

As the first people crossed the last few feet to shore, Attu saw several break through the shoreline ice, falling into water, some knee deep, some chest deep. They scrambled out, or were pulled, and soon several lamps were lit, over which drying foot miks and other clothing dangled from some of the bone frame supports used for making shelters.

“Look, they’ve found a safer path,” Moolnik said and pointed further south to where the new arrivals seemed to be heading.

“It’s rougher; looks like jagged ice mounds where the ice meets land,” Attu replied.

“But it’ll be thicker there, too.”

The line of people straggled across the ice. Now everyone was going towards the thicker ice, scrambling over the huge chunks near the shore. Once there, they turned to watch the rest coming, and soon most of the people were on the shoreline, with only a few remaining on the ice.

Attu looked and saw a person Meavu’s size waving in his direction. He recognized his father’s slight limping gait as he joined the smaller waving figure and a taller one, Yural. His family. They were safe. Attu sighed with relief and kept walking.

“I’m not waiting any longer, no matter what Paven told us to do,” Moolnik decided. “I see Tulnu and Shunut on the land. I’m joining them.” He trotted off, leaving Attu alone to guard the last few people, mostly from Paven’s clan, including Rika, still walking beside Banek as he pulled Elder Nuanu’s sled.

Attu was glad to see Moolnik go. There were obviously no ice bears on the Expanse behind them. Now that the clans had reached land, Attu should be with the other hunters there, too. Any threat to the clan would come from the surrounding hills just off the shoreline where they now stood. But nobody seemed to be thinking about that right now; they were too busy waiting to welcome the rest coming off the ice. Attu knew the women would be anxiously awaiting Elder Nuanu’s arrival also, watching the sled as it moved across the ice.

Attu came up behind Banek, still pulling the sled with Rika at his side. Attu slowed down and concentrated at looking anywhere but the pair as he brought up the rear.

Banek apparently saw him out of the corner of his eye and turned. “Attu?”

Attu looked up. A slow smile spread across Banek’s bushy face.

Attu’s stomach clenched.

Rika jerked her head up from where she’d been studying the ice in front of her foot miks ever since they’d started walking. Her face was tear streaked, and a welt of bright red, the size and shape of a man’s open hand, burned on her left cheek. Seeing it, Attu felt a surge of fury.
Had Banek struck Rika? Or had it been Paven?