Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains (8 page)

“One night, one day, and now it is the second night,” Rika replied.

Lit from behind by the lamp, Rika’s face was deep in shadow; only her hair, outlining her form, shimmered around her as she moved, and the dark strands caught the light. The rest fell loose across her face as if she were trying to hide herself behind it.

Rika finished spreading the salve and taking a soft hide, bandaged his hand in a few deft movements.

“Next time I will,” Attu said.

“Will what?” Rika asked. She looked into his eyes.

Attu realized his hand was still in hers as he gazed at her in return, and before she could remove her hand from his he gripped it, wincing a bit from the pain, but holding on to her still.

“Your hand,” Rika protested.

“I’ll take your advice,” Attu said, trying not to smile. “Next time. I’ll bite the bone instead.”

Rika laughed and pulled her hand away.

He let her go.

“Do you think you can sit up now?” Rika asked. “You need to eat.”

Pain flared across Attu’s back as he struggled to sit up, but he was ravenous, and the nausea caused by moving seemed to be overridden by his hunger. He watched Rika scoop up some nuknuk meat from a stone platter over the lamp onto a bone plate and arrange a few thin slices of raw tooth fish on the side. He reached out to grasp the plate, wincing as his back protested the movement.

Rika turned away again to fetch him a small pouch of water. “You need to eat and drink as much as you can,” she said as she sat down beside him on the furs. “You haven’t eaten in days, and the meat will give you strength to heal.”

“And the fever?” Attu asked through a mouthful of nuknuk meat.

“It never came,” Rika replied. “I think we got the fever spirits out in time. You’ll be fine.”

Attu grimaced as a wave of pain spasmed through his shoulders when he lifted the water pouch to his lips.

“In a moon or so,” Rika added. She stared at him with interest while he ate. “Is it true what they are saying about your dream? That you dreamed about a mound of snow attacking you before the ice bear went after your sister and cousin?”

“Yes. I didn’t know what the beast was, in the dream. Where I come from there are no ice bears. I thought it was a spirit warning, not a warning of something real, about to happen.”

“That makes sense. Ice bears only live where there is ample game, and from what your mother tells me, far to the west and north there would not be enough meat for such large hunters as the ice bear. They also need some areas of ice thin enough for them to break through easily. They also swim, hunting nuknuks under the ice. They couldn’t do that where the ice is frozen thick everywhere.”

Attu nodded. It did make sense. He shuddered as he thought of that huge beast falling on him...

“Have you dreamed before?” Rika asked him, interrupting his thoughts. “Other warnings, other-”

Attu’s mother opened the tent flap. She rushed in when she saw Attu sitting up, eating.

“This is good,” she declared, and placed her palm on Attu’s forehead. “It’s cool,” she said, as if she needed to reassure herself that Attu was indeed healing without having to fight the spirits of burning flesh.

“We got the salve on and the wounds stitched up in time,” Rika said softly. “And your pleas to Yuralria were answered.”

“Yes, they were.” Yural nodded and added, her voice now strained as she spoke, “Paven wants you.”

“Thank you,” Rika said. She jumped up, slipped into her fur parka, and was gone before Attu could even say goodbye.

“Who is Paven?” Attu asked. “And who’s Rika? Where did they come from? Are there more, a clan? Do they live on the land we were headed toward when the ice bear attacked us?” His mind tumbled with questions.

His mother put up a hand to silence him. “You’ve just had your first meal after many days. You need to lie down now and rest, let the strength from the meat begin healing your body. We can talk about Rika and her clan later.”

Attu started to protest but yawned instead. He was tired, and he was no longer hungry, even though food remained on his plate. Attu allowed his mother to take it from him and to help him ease down onto the furs again. He groaned with pain as the stitches Rika had sewn into his back pulled. He thought of Rika, her sharp bone needle entering his flesh, and was grateful he had passed out before she’d stitched his wounds. Attu shuddered, thinking of the pain he would have had to endure.

Yural, looking concerned, carefully covered him with another fur. “Once you’ve rested more, we’ll talk, and I’ll answer all your questions,” his mother reassured him. “Meavu wants to see you; Suka and the others do too, but I’ve told them they must wait. Your father will come in and sit with you soon. Rest now.”

The last thing Attu felt before he slipped into sleep was his mother’s cool hand brushing loose hair away from his forehead.

A
ttu awoke to the sounds of many men arguing outside the shelter. He started to roll over onto his back, but a sharp stab of pain stopped him, and he remembered his wounds and rolled carefully to his uninjured side to sit up.

Sunlight lit the interior of the tent through the open flap. Attu saw many foot miks of men who were standing just a few feet from the tent’s opening.

“I’m not leaving this land!”

Attu recognized Moolnik’s voice.

“We’ve traveled a great distance, and Elder Nuanu is sure this is the place where our clan has stayed before. I walked up to the heights and found at least three burial sites, all with our clan’s marking etched into the stone slabs. That’s proof enough for me. It’s our land, and we’re staying on it.”

“Don’t be a fool, man,” another voice said. Attu didn’t recognize the man speaking,
but he must not realize Moolnik has a quick temper or he wouldn’t be speaking to him like that
.

Sparks of light shot around Attu’s vision as he struggled to pull himself up by one of the tent poles. He gained his feet and stayed upright, breathing quickly until his head cleared. Ignoring the cold, Attu stepped to the door of the tent.

Attu couldn’t believe what he saw. There were at least twenty men gathered before the shelters. He recognized the six lead hunters of his own clan, his father among them, as well as Suka and his brother Kinak and the other younger hunters, all standing to one side. Moolnik was in the front as usual. They had their weapons balanced in their hands, as they challenged a larger group of hunters, all strangers to Attu, who also stood with raised spears. The man who had apparently been the one to call Moolnik a fool stood in front, his weapon also at the ready.

“So, I’m a fool?” Moolnik said, his voice suddenly quiet as he glared at the other hunter. Moolnik began to move forward.

“Wait, brother,” Ubantu said, and Attu watched as his father grabbed Moolnik’s shoulder and tried to pull him away from the stranger.

Moolnik’s going to get our hunters killed, and for what? What are they fighting about?

“I said,” the stranger continued, as if Moolnik hadn’t threatened him, “that if you stay you are a fool. You are welcome to this land. We are leaving. We have lost two children, one woman, and two hunters to the ice bears in a single attack. You almost lost three of your clan, if it hadn’t been for your strong young hunter, fast on his feet and quick of mind.”

The stranger gestured toward Attu’s shelter, turning as he did, and a look of surprise crossed his face when he saw Attu standing in the doorway, bare to the waist in the freezing cold.

Attu stared back at the man’s face. Clearly he’d been attacked by something himself, by the looks of his scars. The hunter had two deep lines across his face, from forehead to chin and possibly down onto his neck and chest, Attu realized, but the man’s parka hid any further scarring. The skin around the scars was puckered in places, as if the wound had not healed easily.

Attu knew this man had been attacked by an ice bear. Only an ice bear’s claws could have torn the man’s face like that. The memory of the ice bear’s huge claws swiping at him just a few days ago caused Attu’s knees to weaken at the sight.

The hunter smiled at him, or gave what appeared to be an attempt at a smile. He bared his teeth and the left side of his lips went up, but the right side no longer seemed able to move, and his eyelid stayed half-shut on that side of his face as well. Attu looked away, embarrassed to be caught staring.

The man moved away from Moolnik, as if a battle had not been seconds away from erupting between the two groups. He walked toward Attu, and when he reached him, thrust his hand up in the sign of greeting. Attu noticed, however, that his spear never left its ready position in his other hand.

“I am Paven, leader of the Great Frozen clan,” he said, and Attu returned the greeting, letting go of the tent and holding up both hands. He winced at the pain his movement caused. “I am Attu, son of Ubantu and Yural and brother of Meavu, Ice Mountain Clan.”

Attu slowly lowered his hands and reached for the shelter’s door pole to steady himself. The objects around him spun.

“Attu,” his mother cried suddenly, and in a flurry of parka fur, Yural was beside him, trying to push him back into the tent. “It’s too soon for you to be up. You invite the spirits of fever to come upon you, my son.” And ignoring Paven, she pushed at him again.

“I’m all right, Mother,” Attu said, embarrassed by his mother’s actions in front of this clan leader. “Get me my parka,” he ordered her, a bit too loudly.

Yural, suddenly realizing what she was doing, stopped trying to get Attu back into the shelter. “Yes, my son,” she said quietly, and brushed past him, returning in a moment with his over shirt and parka, which she proceeded to help him put on in front of everyone.

Attu tried to ignore the men who now surrounded their shelter. He thought he saw an amused look flick across Paven’s face, but it was hard to tell with the man’s scars.
Surely he must think me a child, being ordered about by my mother,
Attu thought, and he was tempted to scold Yural in front of the men, put her in her place. But, he didn’t. She was his mother, after all.

Attu struggled into his clothing, forcing himself not to let out a cry when the weight of his heavy fur parka settled on his wounded back, pulling at the stitches and sending tremors down his arms.

Attu glanced into his mother’s eyes, and his anger vanished at the look of love and concern he saw there. “Thank you, Mother,” he said to Yural and briefly touched her shoulder as she stepped away.

“A mighty hunter and a good son,” Paven remarked, and Attu flashed a look at him. He saw no sarcasm in the man’s scarred face. Looking past him for a moment, Attu saw Moolnik scowl and his father smile. Suka, standing a bit behind his father, gave Attu a broad wink.

“You are a strong one,” Paven said, and he held out an arm for Attu. “Walk with me, and we will talk of ice bears and swap stories of how we both survived killing one.”

Turning away from the cluster of angry men, Paven steered Attu out across the rocky edge of the land they were camped on.

Attu looked back to see Moolnik kick a loose stone and stomp away with his sons, a few other hunters following behind him. Men on the other side wandered away as well. Ubantu didn’t follow the other men, but limped slowly toward the shelter and Yural.

“Don’t be concerned, young hunter,” Paven said as Attu turned back. “We’ll not come to blows over land, not this time. My clan isn’t staying on this trysta-forsaken place any longer. It’s the dwelling of the ice bears, and there’s no question they are the strongest among us. Their claim will not be taken from them. Eventually Moolnik will see this truth, hopefully before any of your clan are killed.”

Attu said nothing. He wanted to tell Paven that Moolnik was a stubborn fool and would probably not leave until several of his clan had died, victims of the ice bears. All Moolnik could see was the plentiful supply of nuknuks. That was, of course, what the ice bears saw as well. As hunters they would require large amounts of meat to sustain themselves. And to the ice bears, Attu’s clan was simply more game, easier to catch and kill than the nuknuks because the humans couldn’t escape under the ice.
Except here, the ice bears can get under the ice also, it’s so thin everywhere. What if they chased hunters onto thin ice, just to let them fall through and kill them under water?

Attu shuddered at the thought of ice bears hunting and feasting on his people. At the same time, he felt the old frustration toward Moolnik’s rivalry with his father rising up in his spirit. Right now he was so weak he couldn’t possibly confront Moolnik if his father wouldn’t, and no one else in their clan would even try. It shamed Attu to think his people would follow such a leader.
How has it come to this? What is it about Moolnik that others seem drawn to him? And why hasn’t my father done something about his brother? It’s as if Moolnik has some spirit power over them all.

Meanwhile I can barely lift my arms, let alone wield a weapon. What if I don’t heal? What if I don’t grow strong enough to hunt again?

Attu was exhausted just from the short distance the two of them had walked. He glanced at Paven, but the man seemed set on getting them as far away from camp as possible. Rounding a bend in the rocky path, Paven motioned to a large rock a spear throw ahead of them. “You can sit there, and we’ll talk,” he said.

Attu headed for the rock. When he reached it, he sat down heavily, wincing at the pain the movement caused.

“I’ve been told how you got your wounds, my young hunter, but I’d be glad to hear the story from you, if you’re ready to tell it.”

Attu stared at the rocky ground in front of him. He didn’t want to think about the attack, but flashes of the fight came unbidden, flooding his mind as his thoughts turned to where he had refused to let them go until now. Against his will, it was as if he were there again, and he reeled with the terror of the attack. His heart began to race, his face broke out in a sweat, and he felt like he was going to throw up...

The claws were coming for him, the teeth. The monster was huge. Surely it was going to kill him this time. Attu felt the ice bear’s claws rip open his back again as he sliced into the bear’s throat. He felt the blood of the bear pour over his bare hand and his own blood flow down his body as if his back were bare also. The pain, the pain...