Lord Zee
MarshalSolgriev
urukhai
Alby47
Crispy OctopusThe Helping Spirits
When Witale's pregnancy became known, the ensuing quarrel spread from the woman-tribe of the River Bivyech to their brother-band in the woods, and nearly tore apart both. The correct rites of gift-giving had gone ignored, and so the old mothers of the tribe had been given no opportunity to approve or condemn the union. Those old mothers had been alive since the days of Lansa, and their words were old and sacred: Learn honour, know honour, strive ever for honour; This is the highest tenet, the greatest knowledge, the way of living. Do not tread the path of despair. Do not go the way of greed.
Anger had flared among the Childan youths, who had already partnered in their hearts, the men according to the secret rules of the forest, the girls whispering and giggling around the fire as they accepted the gifts that came every season. Hasty Witale, unruly Witale, who did not listen to her mother! How could she cheat her sisters so? How much hotter would the char of longing burn in her nieces and cousins, knowing that they must wait when she had already taken? Who else would be inspired to steal?
Such distrust and hurt was death to the Childan women. On the morning after the weeping, when the girls had slept in separate corners of the huts and sobbed and seethed on the knife-point insults that had been thrown that night, the Spirit Father's curse was awakened and felt for the first time. No logs were hauled that morning, no stones knapped, no roots dug out. They had abandoned each other in spirit, and their strength had been taken from them, as surely as by plague.
Worse still were the sounds from the forest. Strength and leadership had been vested in the women of that race, and their grief-hatred was great. But violence was the domain of men.
The old mothers had met that day with the new leader of the brother-band, Dosho, who was now Dosho the Punisher, and the old, Lawivawan Copper-Bearer, his powerful body beaten and swollen, his hand broken by the force of his own blows.
Witale could not stay. She had been whipped with the birch, as was proper, yet still her presence divided the giantesses and made them weak. She could not be cast out, for then their abandonment would only seal the curse upon them further. Nor could she go among the men. To have a single woman among a band of men spells ruin. So Lawivawan Copper-Bearer and his ill-gotten bride were to be sent out together.
Several of the brothers went with them. Some went at once, for the same reason that they had followed him their whole lives, that the Flamekeepers had gifted him the spear of copper that Dosho the Punisher now held, the same reason that Witale had gone with him and started this sorry business. There was something strong in Lawivawan, chief among hunters, something wild and sacred in his smile.
Others broke away and followed later. Shason was among them.
The autumn berries had already been taken by the time Shason made it to the river, and he had no more food, nor a spear. He was too far now to go back to Dosho and beg for either. He had no axe to cut down staves and whittle new spears from the staves. He was too hungry to knap an axe.
The scent of the meat lured him down to the river. He could taste it on the air: fresh blood, rich and salty, and fat, prime flesh. His heart roared and warmed with the taste of distant butchery. It was not the smell of death, to Shason. To him it was life.
He seized the thickest muscle from the stone where it lay and ate it raw and cold. His teeth ripped at it, little Homuran fangs, but fangs nonetheless. He lit a fire with the flint and tinder in his pouch, still chewing. Only when he began to be sated did he notice the blood, bone, and feathers marking the trees, and the man now watching him.
"Lawivawan!"
Laviwavan laughed, spread his arms, and embraced his young cousin, slapping his back, kissing his forehead. His bruises were still visible, his fingers still bent in an awkward clutch, but he bore a new spear, smooth and tall with a fine bone point, and his smile was hot and wide. "My boy! I can't stand to look at you like this! Eat up, Shason. Eat everything. You need your strength."
"I was so hungry! I didn't notice the shrine-"
"Take it. The beavers left it here as an offering to the Masked Spirit. Their shamans hunt, even though they cannot eat! They risk their lives just for horn and fur... Take it, they abhor waste. When I travelled among them, they offered me their meat. Some of the older ones were sorry to see the tradition of flesh-offering overturned for my sake, so I always left the entrails at the shrine, for the Spirit."
Shason swallowed meat from the skewer and looked at him wide-eyed. "You've travelled with the shamans?" He was answered with a wild laugh.
"Yes! I've travelled with the shamans. The old ones, the Bijjiork-shamans, not our shamans. I've been with the dam-dwellers too, many times! They call this place the River Bivyech- that's as close as I can speak to their language, anyway. There's a wide dam not far downstream from here, where there are dozens of them, tucked under a big, fine wooden house in the water. Truly, Shason, you've never seen anything like it. If you were to follow the river all the way up to the mountains, you would meet hundreds." Lawivawan laughed and chattered on like a cockerel, then deflated.
"Listen, Shason, if ever you leave us and are hungry again, you must go to the river. Sometimes they will feed you, if they are at peace with their neighbour clans, and trusting. If not, offer to stand watch over them while they work, or at night. Many beasts prey on them that would never harm a Childan man- eagles and bobcats and wolverines, and even a wolf will take more pause for you than a beaver. They will feed you then. It's all leaves, of course, mustard and chicory and sorrel, and that's if they even know how to feed a Childa stomach. Else you get ferns and reeds and expected to thank them for it. Still, they'll feed you. They keep the berries for themselves. Wait until late, then ask for a cup of the drink they make from it. It has some beaverish name. Mighty good stuff."
Shason looked up. "Do they not hunt, Lawivawan?"
The hunter cackled, stamping the dirt with the butt of his spear. "The dam-dwellers? They don't even fish! They only use their spears for fighting. Sometimes wolverines, sometimes each other. Besides-" he rested the spear in his elbow and held his hands out a little distance apart. "Their arms are only this long! You should have seen them gawking the first time I showed one how we Childa men throw a javelin, really swing it, with the whole body..." He stretched out his arms and made the familiar motion, long arm spinning all the way over his torso, then burst once more into laughter. "The old shamans have bloody good aim, but I could see her big flat bottom teeth shining in the sun, so wide was her mouth! Their legs are short too, so they can't chase what they hunt and stick it, not like we can. Not that they really need to. They've the appetite of a goat and the gut to match. Oh, and they swim, I give 'em that. They can swim like a damn fish."
At this point, Shason was gulping down the last of the rare, glistening meat. It was hard to tell if he was listening. Lawivawan hooted a laugh, pinched his ear, and tousled his hair. "Oh, whatever, little man. Come on. The other boys have a hut between the trees round the next bend, there's more food there. Come on- we're trying to decide if we should be shamans next year."
Autumn quickly became winter, and soon there was no promise that any of Lawivawan's little band would survive that long.
Grey earth turned white. The green world disappeared. The Shepherd called his flocks to sleep, and only cold, thin, hungry animals remained to keep watch in the long night. The fox and hare and ermine shed their summer colours and disappeared into the blinding blankness of snow, leaving only their little black eyes and noses. The great aviary of the Giantland trees disappeared for warmer and wetter countries beyond the horizon. Even the seabirds departed their cliffs.
It was time for the North to slumber.
The Childan women huddled in their simple cabins under furs their men had brought them and prayed to the fire, to Lansa, to the Spirit of Heat, and to the Spirit Father, that he might not test them more harshly than they could withstand. Earnest and urgent was their prayer, which they sang in unison every dawn, waiting away the meagre hours before the winter night returned. The winds were harsh this year.
It wasn't the cold they were afraid of. It wasn't the snow that kept them inside.
The roots and greens were gone. There were no more truffles to dig up. The deer and muskox were growing leaner and leaner, and jealously guarded by wolves. The Dwami had sealed their caves with stone, and would not be seen until spring. The Bijjiork had no more leaves to offer.
In the women's camp, there were still acorns, and grains, buried in stores, dug up in small rations. Lawivawan's boys could do nothing but fish through a hole in the ice. It was good eating, but most of it went to feed Witale's growing belly, and the long hours in between soon taught them that grass and bark were meagre fare.
One day Lawivawan vanished. By the time he returned, the clouded night was black as pitch.
"Here."
The smell was unmistakeable. His meat was under a small fur in a grass basket. It was still warm. The Childans tore into it with no less savagery than the beasts howling outside their shelter. He disappeared to his hidden fire without a sound, without a word. There was more meat when he returned, heavy and dripping with fat. The boys scratched marrow out of bone with stone knives. They said nothing, even when Witale slept, better-fed than she had been for months, even when the last bones were brought in and the source of the meat became clear.
No laughter was heard in that camp.
"I met Onki out tracking today while we were looking for you," said Shason. "He says Dosho is dead. His wound festered after the bison hunt. The copper spear has no master." Lawivawan stared into their little fire, his face stone, eyes reflecting the flame like glass.
"There are pregnant women in the camp," said another boy. "They needed that bison. They can't just live on nuts and grass."
Silence.
"Do not dwell in starvation," intoned Lawivawan, quoting the ancient rhyme they had heard from their grandmothers. "Feed yourselves and all who hunger. Do not fall into the ways of sameness, uniformity breeds stagnation. The tools are given to you by the Spirits. Your hands alone can move them."
Dozens. If you were to follow the river- hundreds.
"Be thankful," said Lawivawan Copper-Bearer. "Our Father brought them to us in the shape of an eagle. They are our helpers."
Shason shuffled closer to their little fire. The smooth staff of his new spear stood out in the light. He was already thinking of the girl he would hold in his arms when the season of rites came to pass. The smiles he would see. The feasts they would have.
As always, the Bijjiork were a gift from the Great Spirits.
