Runestone (64 page)

A
t long last the days began to lengthen. It was by only a few moments at first, hardly distinguishable unless one really paid attention. Before many days had passed, however, the change was becoming apparent. The Moon of Long Nights was over. Sun had turned the course of the battle once more, and would now drive Cold Maker back to his retreat in the icy mountains somewhere in the north.

It was such a welcome thing that it was easy to forget what lay ahead—The Moon of Hunger.

During the few years in which the Norsemen had been with the People, there had not been a really severe winter. This had been discussed around the fires during the social “smokes,” but only casually. There were some, mostly the elders,
who advised caution, but beyond that, little concern. What is not an immediate problem can be dealt with later, no?

Each bright and sunny day lent optimism, and a careless attitude. It was easy, then, when trouble came, to think that there was no hint of warning. It should have been apparent, in retrospect, that the Moon of Hunger had been given such a name for good reason.

The morning dawned warm and sunny on that unforgettable day. Children played and adults greeted each other happily in the promising warmth. The color of the sunlight was changing, it was noted, recovering from the watery yellow of winter, to return to the rich golden tones of Sun’s renewed torch.

The breeze was gentle, and came from the southwest. By noon, however, there came a stillness in the air. A vague anxiety crept through the encampment. It was noted that the birds, singing their mating and territorial songs a short while earlier, were now silent. People who were observant also saw a change in their behavior.

Nils had been talking and smoking with Clay when the change occurred. The old man gestured casually toward a brilliant male cardinal. The bird had been singing from the top of a nearby cedar a little earlier. Now it was on the ground beneath the tree, searching for any of its blue fruit that might have fallen there unnoticed.

“Look,” the old holy man pointed. “Does Red Bird know something?”

Nils watched for a moment. Even after he had been with the People for these several years, sometimes he remained puzzled over such an enigmatic remark.

“What is it, Uncle?” Nils asked. He had now come to the point where he was no longer embarrassed to reveal that he did not know. His respect for the wisdom of the People had grown. It was different from that of the Norse, but wisdom is wisdom anywhere, he had decided.

The old man watched the bird a little longer before he answered. A gray bird of about the same size, with a white breast and rusty sides jumped from the cedar’s lower branches to join the scarlet forager. The cardinal struck out at the newcomer
threateningly, and the towhee retreated, but only a little way. There were more important things to do than fight.

“They are searching for food … eating,” Clay explained. “There must be a time coming soon when they cannot.”

Clay moved from his comfortable position against the wall of the longhouse, out into the open to observe the horizon. He looked first to the southwest, then to the west. These were the likeliest directions from which a storm might come at this season. Turning on, he surveyed the northern sky, his gaze sweeping on toward the east. Rarely would weather breed in the east, though, at any season. He stopped suddenly, and his eyes returned toward the northwest.

“There!” he said simply, pointing.

Nils studied the horizon. There were a few high clouds, a thin veil that seemed no threat. Sunshine could filter through those to help warm the earth. Then he saw what had attracted the holy man’s attention. A dirty gray-blue line stretched across the far horizon. It appeared to offer no immediate threat, but as a sailor, Nils knew that this was the sort of sign to take seriously.

“There …” the old man repeated.

Even as he spoke, there was a stirring in the still air, a mere breath, as if now discovered, Cold Maker must move quickly.

“Cold Maker comes,” said Clay.

“How long, Uncle?”

“By evening, maybe.”

The stirring of the warm air now began to chill. Nils turned back to glance at the dirty gray cloud bank again. Was it possible that it had grown in the few moments since Clay had noted it? It seemed so.

“He moves quickly,” Clay noted, verifying Nils’s impression. “We will need firewood tonight.”

   It was not long before the People noted the chill in the air, and the growing darkness to the north and west. There was a scurrying to bring fuel into the lodges. It was made more difficult by the fact that the winter had depleted the available supply. With warm weather, it had appeared that the necessity
was past for the season. There had been no urgency. Now, there was.

People cast anxious glances over their shoulders as they hurried back from hasty foraging up and down the river. The dark blue-gray mass of cloud was now growing rapidly. Nils was reminded of some of the stories they had heard around the campfires of other tribes and nations in the past few seasons. A great monster, who could swallow the sun, the earth, the sky itself … It was easy today to understand the origins of such tales. To watch the rapidly approaching storm front was frightening. It seemed a living thing, evil beyond compare, writhing in hideous shapelessness with the threat of unspeakable danger.

The camp was still bathed in thin sunlight when the first flakes of snow began to fall. These were not the fat moist flakes that foretell a quiet snowstorm. They were small and dry, buffeted on a nervous wind that curled and buffeted and changed direction every few heartbeats. Nils thought of the Norse tales of earth’s destruction, the terrible Fimbul-winter when snows came “from all four directions at once.”

The People cast last anxious glances outside, and drew the skin curtains behind them to settle in while the storm ran its course.

They could tell when the main force of the invasion struck. The winds rose to a howling, shrieking terror, buffeting the longhouse. Hungry demons blew frosty breath through cracks and crevices that had gone unnoticed until now. Little piles of dusty-dry snow began to form along the inside of the north wall, making miniature drifts on the floor. Anxiously, people hung skins over the worst of the cracks to defend against the icy winds of Cold Maker’s assault.

When darkness fell, the storm was still raging. Actually, it was difficult to tell when night did come, so dark had it become outside. For a while the smoke hole in the roof revealed a dark blue-gray sky with hard-driven snow whipping horizontally across it. Then that background changed gradually to black, laced with the continuing sweep of dry white powder.

The People slept, wakened, replenished the fire, and slept again. Morning came, they rose, ate a little, and watched the square of the sky become gradually lighter. The blowing snow
was diminishing, and the howl of the wind was less frightening. Shortly after noon they ventured out, into a heavily drifted world bathed in sparkling sunlight.

Hawk Woman stepped into the open and raised a hand to the north in an obscene gesture.

“We have beaten you, Cold Maker!” she shouted.

There was general laughter, but Nils noticed that there was no happiness in the face of Clay.

“What is it, Uncle?” he asked, aside.

“I do not know, Wolf. It is good to see the sun, no? But the cold is still here. I am made to think that maybe this is only a trick of Cold Maker’s. Was that only the first feint of the battle?”

The chill that struck through the heart of the Norseman was not entirely from the weather. Clay, he had noted, had an instinctive feel for such things. If the old man was voicing this sort of caution, he must feel something that was not readily apparent to others. And now that it had been called to his attention, Nils realized that it was actually no warmer. It only seemed so, now that the wind had died.

Clay proved right. Within a day, another wave of cold swept down, worse than before. If the first sortie had seemed like the dreadful Fimbul-winter, this was doubly terrifying. There was much complaining about the drafty quarters of the longhouse. It would not be so uncomfortable in an earth-lodge, many noted.

Some went even further. “Why are we traveling anyway?” demanded an old woman. “We have left good places, where we could have built real lodges, and for
this?”

A certain amount of grumbling was to be expected. Nothing could be done immediately, so they bundled up more tightly and listened to the howl of the demons outside. The storm lasted longer this time, and the snow grew deeper and more drifted.

Firewood had been seriously depleted, and there was a concerted effort to stockpile more as soon as the storm lessened. It was even more difficult now, because of the deep and drifted snow. Much of the wood being brought into the long-houses now was that which had already been rejected as too rotten or too green.

The respite was shorter this time, too. The storm seemed to turn, even as it passed. There was a brief time of calm, but it was soon shattered by another blast. Even those who had not become very apprehensive until now showed faces lined with anxiety. When would it stop?

It was after the third onslaught that Calling Dove approached her husband to tell him of a threat he had not even considered.

“Food is running low.”

“But … Dove, there are packs of corn, beans …”

She nodded. “But those are for planting. If we eat those, we starve
next
winter, because we have no crops.”

He began to see the problem that they faced. It might approach the point where some would starve, with the food that could have saved them right before their eyes.

“This is the Moon of Hunger, in most winters,” Dove told him. “This time, it is the Moon of Starvation.”

The women began to ration the remaining supplies more carefully. Many of the adults almost ceased eating altogether, to save more food for the children.

“They are the future of the People,” explained Red Fawn.

Still the vicious weather continued. Day after day, the cold remained, and wave after wave of storm and snow swept down from the north. Nils wondered how long this could go on, and looked for old Clay, without success.

“He is gone,” said a little girl.

“Gone where? When?”

“Before Cold Maker’s last visit.”

“Where did he go?”

The child shrugged and waved a hand vaguely to the north.

“To fight Cold Maker,” she said. “He was singing.”

“Singing?”

“Yes, Uncle. The Death Song.”

The song with which a warrior of the People enters into a battle to the death … Nils realized that what the child said
was true. Clay would battle to the death with Cold Maker. Whether the old holy man could make a difference in the course of the storm was in question, though Nils had seen some amazing evidence of the power of Clay’s gift.

What could not be denied was that Clay had given life to a child. One who could survive on the food that it would have taken to feed the aging holy man.

A
s quickly as Cold Maker’s last dying thrust of winter came, it was gone. From one day to the next, the sun shone, mild southern breezes warmed the earth, and the People moved out into the sunshine.

There was mourning for those who had succumbed. Two in one of the big longhouses, one old woman in another, a sickly child who had never been quite right. There were others. … In most of these cases old people had simply stopped using the food that would feed the coming generation. Cold Maker, with his devious ways, had attacked some quietly, smothering their last breaths from inside their very bodies as their lungs filled with fluids that could not be coughed out. Even some children fell to this sneak attack. In those cases the loss was most pitiful, that a child should be taken before it had a chance to grow and live.

Nils remembered something that Singing Moose had once said about the death-dealing congestion of the lungs.

“It is the enemy of the young, but the friend of the old,” Moose had pointed out.

Nils now thought about that, even as the high-pitched wails of public mourning hovered over the camp. The enemy cold had struck down some young children. He was only
thankful that none had been of the immediate families of those he loved.

The other thing that he was beginning to understand, though, was the attitude of the old. Most of those who had recently died
had
seemed to welcome it quietly, as a friend. The fact that they had stopped eating surely hastened the process, but there was something else at work. Somehow the will to die seemed to
cause
it. It usually happened quietly, with no fear or anxiety apparent at all. In this respect, the attitude toward death was much like that of his own people, and he admired it. Of course, a Norseman would prefer to go out bravely, with a weapon in his hand, fighting with his last breath. Quiet submission was a less acceptable mode.

Old Clay …
There
was a man! Nils could visualize how it must have been, the old holy man striding into the teeth of the gale to challenge Cold Maker’s power on his own terms. Surely there was a place in Asgard’s great hall of fallen heroes for such a man!