It made little sense at first and she stepped forward. Then stopped and looked more closely at the creature. There was a cower there, at least a clumsy attempt at a cower. But why was it moving from side to side like that? It made no sense. Then came realization — the thing of course had no tail so it could not do the lift correctly. But if that was really a tail lift, then it might be trying to communicate top-disgust-sensation as well as top-speech-volition. The bits and pieces were beginning to come together and in the end Vaintè cried aloud.
“Do you understand, Enge? See — it is doing it again.”
Clumsily, but clearly now, clear enough to understand, the ustuzou was speaking.
“I very much don’t want to die. I want very much to talk. Very long, very hard.”
“You did not kill it,” Enge said as they left the chamber and Stallan bolted the door behind them. “Yet you had no mercy at all for the other…”
“The other was worthless. You will now train this last one for it may be of use to us some day. Other packs of the creatures could be marauding out there. But you told me it never spoke?”
“Never. It must have been more intelligent than the other. It watched me all of the time, yet it never spoke.”
“You are a better teacher than you know, Enge.” Now sated, Vaintè was magnanimous. “Your only mistake was in teaching the wrong ustuzou.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Although the sky above was clear blue, fine snow was blowing fiercely up through the mountain pass. The biting north wind that tore across the mountains was picking it up from the slopes below, then sending it hurtling through the pass in great frigid waves.
Herilak struggled with its fury, almost leaning against it as he pushed the last stumbling steps through the heavy drifts. Part of his left snowshoe had broken and it slowed him down. Yet if he stopped to mend it he would be dead before he finished. So he pressed stumbling on, a large man made even bulkier by the layers of furs wrapped about him. He could feel the change in the slope now as he entered the pass, went through it, tripping and falling again and again, but rising each time to shake the snow from him, then staggering on. As he passed the rocky scarp, the gray bones of stone rising from the drifts and kept free by the wind, he felt that wind lessen. He was through. Just a few paces further on and he was out of the wind completely, shielded by the rock. He dropped down with a sigh, his back against the rough stone, for the climb had taxed even his great strength.
His outer mittens were glazed with ice and snow and he had to beat them together before they were supple enough to remove. With his warm inner glove he wiped the caked snow from his eyebrows and eyelashes and blinked down at the valley below.
It was a sheltered place where some greatdeer still wintered; he could see the dark specks of their herds further up the valley. Below him was a stand of tall trees that gave shelter to the meadow beside the stream. A stream that never froze at its source where it welled up from beneath the ground. It was a fine spot to camp and to winter, and was known as levrelag Amahast, the camping place of the sammad of Amahast. Amahast married to Aleth sister of Herilak.
But the valley below was empty.
Herilak had heard this from a hunter of his own sammad, who had met a hunter of sammad Ulfadan who swore that he had been here, and that he was speaking only the truth. Herilak knew that he had to see for himself. He had taken his spear and his bow and his arrows, rubbed his body thickly with goose grease, then put on the soft furs of the beaver with the fur against his body, then the suit of coarse fur of the greatdeer over that. With the snowshoes lashed to the heavy fur boots he was ready for the winter. He traveled light for he must travel fast, and the bag over his shoulder held little more than a supply of dried meat and some of the mashed nuts and berries of ekkotaz.
Now he had found that which he sought and he was very displeased. He sucked a mouthful of snow as he bent to repair the snowshoe. Every once in awhile he would look up from the work to the empty valley below, as though to remind himself of the unpleasant truth. It remained empty.
It was midday before he was finished. He chewed on some dried meat while he pondered on what to do next. He had no choice. When he had finished eating he climbed to his feet, a big man who stood a head taller than even the tallest in his sammad, rubbing grease from his flowing beard and looking down the valley in the direction he must go. South. He started that way, along the slope, and once he began walking he never looked back once at the empty camping place.
All that day he walked and only stopped when the first stars began to sparkle in the darkness. He rolled himself in his furs and stared up at the night sky before closing his eyes to sleep. But he had a thought then and opened them again and searched among the familiar patterns. The Mastodon charging at the Hunter who held his spear ready. The bent row of stars in the Hunter’s belt. Was there a new one there, next to the center star? Not as bright as the others, but just as clear in the cold transparency of the winter sky. He could not be sure. It would have to be the tharm of a strong warrior to be in that honored place, adding strength to the Hunter. He was not certain if it had been there before. While he thought about it he closed his eyes again and slept.
On the afternoon of the third day, three days of marching from first light to early darkness, Herilak came through the trees beside a fast-flowing river, the current so swift that it still had an open channel in its center. He went quietly as a hunter always does, once surprising a small herd of deer, sending them jumping away between the trees, bounding high with sprays of snow flying about them. One at least would have been easy prey — but he was not hunting now. Not for deer. Pushing through a thicket he stopped suddenly, then bent to look at the ground. At the gut rabbit snare strung between two boughs.
After that he chanted as he went and let his spear rattle against the low branches that he passed. This was a new thing that had started with the frozen winters. In none of the stories that the old ones told was there any mention of the need. There was the need now. Tanu had killed Tanu. The world was not the free place it once had been, where hunters did not fear hunters.
In a short time he could feel beneath his feet a path that had been trampled into the snow. When he came to the next clearing in the forest he stopped, plunged his spear into a drift like a standard and squatted on his haunches beside it. He did not have long to wait.
Silent as wreath of smoke a hunter appeared on the other side of the clearing. His spear was ready, but he lowered it when he saw Herilak’s sitting figure. Herilak climbed slowly to his feet as the other hunter also stabbed his spear into the snow and started forward. They met in the center of the clearing.
“I am here on your hunting grounds but I do not hunt,” Herilak said. “This is where the sammad of Ulfadan hunt. You are the sammadar.”
Ulfadan nodded agreement. Like his name, his blond beard was long, reaching almost to his waist. “You are Herilak,” he said. “My niece is married to Alkos of your sammad.” He chewed over the relationship, then pointed back over his shoulder with his hand. “We will take our spears and we will go to my tent. It is warmer than the snow.”
They walked side by side in silence for it is not a hunter’s way to chatter like a bird when on the trail. The river moved swiftly at their side as they followed the path along its frozen bank. They came to the place where the river swung out and back in a slow curve and in the curve was the winter camp of the sammad, twelve large and sturdy tents. In the meadow beyond the tents the mastodons dug into the snow with their tusks, their breaths rising up in drifts of vapor, to reach the dry grass hidden below. From each tent a thin plume of smoke also rose into the cloudless sky. There were shouts as children ran between the tents playing some game. It was a peaceful scene well familiar to Herilak; it could have been his own sammad. Ulfadan pulled the hide flap aside and led the way into the darkness of his tent.