Wolf’s Brother - Megan Lindholm

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of the emerging fireweed for a delectable green. She glimpsed a violet’s leaves, but could not leave her animals to investigate. She had to pass a patch of stink-lily with its nourishing starchy roots, for when she knelt to dig her fingers into the turfy soil, Joboam yelled to her to hurry. She hissed in frustration. There were drawbacks to having an animal carry one’s belongings and being part of such a great moving group. She took dried fish from her pocket and nibbled it as she walked. And walked, while the sun slipped slowly across the blue sky and toward its craggy resting place.

      She heard and smelled the river long before she saw it. The reindeer picked up the pace as they scented the water. Her hips and lower back complained as she stretched her stride, and her buttocks ached as if she had been kicked. The sinking sun glinted off the wide swatch of moving water, rainbowing over its rocky rapids. Tillu saw the line ahead of her pause and drink, but then rise and follow the noisy river and its trimming of trees. Her heart sank. Surely, they must stop soon! She paused at the river to let her beasts drink and take a long draught of the icy water herself. The cold made her teeth hum. Wiping her mouth, she rose to follow Joboam and his string of harkar. They wended through trees, naked birches and willows and oak hazed with green buds, following the river. Shadows lengthened and the day began to cool as the earth gave up its harvested heat to the naked skies. And then, far down the line of animals and men, she glimpsed a sheen of silver through the screening trees.

      Abruptly they emerged on the shore of the lake. With relief Tillu saw the red glow and rising smoke of fires. Hasty shelters went up, a mushroom village sprang up from the warm earth. Unladen animals grazed on the open hillside above the lake. Gray boulders, rounded and bearded with lichen, poked their shaggy heads out of the deep grass of the slope. Children raced and shrieked among them or splashed and threw stones along the water’s edge, enlivened rather than wearied by the day’s travel. Dogs barked and bounded with them. Tillu envied them their energy. She would have liked nothing better than to sink down and rest. She watched Joboam glance about the scene, and then move surely into it, his campsite already selected. A child and a dog playing tug with a leather strap scrabbled hastily from his path. Tillu hesitated, wishing she could settle in a less central area of this hive of activity. But she couldn’t risk offending some custom of theirs. She would camp where Joboam told her. She began to lead her harkar after him.

      From the shadow of a boulder, Kari rose, startling Tillu and spooking even the stolid harkar. But as it jerked the rein from Tillu’s hand, Kari caught it and turned to Tillu with her narrow smile. “Come!” she said, and put up a swift hand to cover a giggle. Her eyes were bright. Without another word, she led them off up the hill.

      One boulder, larger than a sod hut, jutted from the earth halfway up the hillside. To this Kari led her, and then around and above it. On the high side of the boulder, facing away from the camp by the lake, was a shelter of pegged and propped hides. A small fire already burned and a pot of water was warming. A jumble of hides was spread inside the shelter, and Kari’s harkar grazed outside it. Kari grinned at Tillu. “In the talvsit, I live in my father’s and mother’s hut. But here, in the arrotak, I have my own shelter, and invite my own guests. You will stay with me? You and Kerlew,” she added hastily when Tillu hesitated.

      Tillu did not relish the idea of company this weary night. But the fire was bright, the sky already darkening, the shelter welcoming and Kari so pleased with herself that Tillu could not refuse. She nodded. With a glad cry Kari sprang to unloading the harkar. Tillu moved to assist her, her weary fingers fumbling at the unfamiliar harness. Kari’s experience showed as she capably stripped one animal, led it to grass, and hobbled it before Tillu could unload the other. Soon both beasts were grazing. Kari stepped into the shelter, sat down on the hides, and patted the place next to her invitingly. Tillu sank down beside her with a sigh. The new aches of sitting down were a relief from the old ones of walking. Tillu slowly pulled off her boots, pressed her weary feet into the cool new grass.

      “I should find Kerlew,” she reminded herself reluctantly. “Heckram must be sick of him by now.”

      “He will be here soon,” Kari assured her. She leaned back on the hides and rolled onto her side to watch the hillside above her as the night stole its colors.

      “It is kind of you to invite me to stay with you,” Tillu observed belatedly, but Kari only shrugged.

      “You are someone to talk to, and as you have shared your tent and tea with me, I would do the same for you. Besides, if you are here it will be less problems.”

      The last remark puzzled her until Lasse rounded the boulder and dropped an armload of firewood. “I told you I’d find plenty,” he said, and ducked into the shelter with a pleased smile. It faded abruptly, to be replaced with an abashed grin as he found himself face to face with Tillu. She guessed instantly that he had hoped to find Kari alone. She glanced at Kari, but the girl seemed immune to Lasse’s disappointment.

      “I wouldn’t call it plenty, but it’s enough,” Kari observed heartlessly. “Lasse, go and find Tillu’s son now, please. He was walking with Heckram. They should be at the lake by now. Bring them here. We may as well all eat together.” When Lasse hesitated, Tillu saw Kari tip her head back and, after a cool silence, suddenly smile at him with such melting warmth that the boy all but staggered with the impact. He nodded quickly, and left, face flushed, to obey her. As soon as he was gone, Kari’s smile faded, to be replaced with her usual pensive frown. “I want to show you something,” she said suddenly. She swiftly unlaced the leather jerkin she wore. She tugged it open and turned to Tillu, a smile of anticipation on her face.

      Tillu recoiled. Kari had a long, lovely neck, and proud young breasts jutted high on her chest. But incised into the soft rise of each breast were Kari’s four-stroked symbols, as if indeed an owl with fiery talons had rested upon them. “Carp told me about the soot,” Kari said proudly. “Now the cuts may heal, but the mark will remain.” She looked up from her handiwork to Tillu’s averted eyes and sickened expression. The girl’s smile vanished. “What’s the matter with you? I thought you’d be happy to see that they didn’t get infected!”

      “Carp.” Tillu said the word with loathing. “Yes, he’d be glad to tell you how to scar yourself.” And she had left Kerlew with the old man for the whole day. What had she been thinking of? If this was what Kari had learned from him, what grisly marvels was he teaching Kerlew?

      “Yes, Carp. Last night he ate at my father’s hut. He spoke of the people he used to live among. At birth, the baby’s spirit guide is found, and the mark of it is sliced into the baby’s thigh, and soot rubbed in. It binds the guardian to the child. Now Owl is bound to me as I am to him.”

      “Yes. All will know now.” Tillu’s voice was flat. It was done, there was no sense in rebukes, in making her miserable over what could not be undone.

      “Yes!” The hard pride in Kari’s voice challenged Tillu’s regret. Tillu chose silence, letting the challenge pass in the darkening evening. After a moment, Kari laced up her jerkin again. Tillu watched her covertly, marvelled at the intensity of her features. Life roared in the girl, like a torrent of water in a narrow chasm. She was never at peace, for even when she sat still, as now, with her eyes fixed on some distant place and her lips parted over her white teeth, she seemed to be moving. One sensed her mind traveled far and swift while her forgotten body poised here. Tillu could understand how her impassivity would distance many folk. Yes, and intrigue a young man like Lasse.

      “It was kind of Lasse to bring firewood all the way up here,” she ventured.

      Animation snapped back to Kari’s face. “He is a kind person,” she said softly, and then, with more vehemence, “with most peculiar ideas.” She sat up straight, then crawled out of the shelter. “I am going to cook for us,” she announced, and went to the packs and began to dig through them.

      Tillu rose, feeling uncomfortable watching someone work. “I wish I’d had more time to myself today. I could have gathered fresh greens for us, and replenished some of my healing supplies.”

      “I suppose you look for your healing herbs in far and strange places?” Kari’s voice had a strange, sly note.

      “No. Most of

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