(no subject)
Written as I go.
The waters of Tuurrapa threw back the faint reflections of the stars and, when the canoe gently rocked with the shift of a numb leg or a wary spearhand, the pale, distant light of the Ikika fires. Inakka held her harpoon loosely in her right hand and chanted the watch-song under her breath with the other warriors; she watched the still, black Tuurrapa waters with her pupils wide and black to catch the faintest gleam of pale Pojokeppa flesh under the dark waters. Ine, Ine, Kekketa hostoi, Ine, Ine, Paulletaa mienni. Ine, Ine, Kekketa hostoi, Ine, Ine, Paulletaa mienni.
Gods of the water, preserve us, preserve us, Hunter-gods spear-laden, preserve us, preserve us.
Ipaara had sighted a liar-fish three canoe-lengths distant, but that had been just after the first bell of nightfall, and the night had stretched by now well past the third--the Ikika warriors crouched now in the moonless darkness and chewed green wood to silence their chattering teeth. The cold found every tear in fur-lined jackets and fish-skin trousers and made all but the wariest of them press hands into armpits to keep them warm; Inakka clenched and unclenched her fingers in her thick, well-knit mittens and knew that, if no more Pojokeppa were sighted before the fifth bell, they would have to give up tonight's hunt.
Just as Inakka passed her harpoon from her right hand to her left to try to work some feeling into her spear-hand, she saw the first glimmer of white from the far end of Tuurrapa.
The other canoe had raised the flag that meant that they had sighted the liar-fish.
Now the four Ikika warriors gripped their paddles with their poor hands and their spears with their good, dipping lengths of wood into the flat, black surface of Tuurrapa and disturbing the stars therein. Inakka watched the other canoe for the signals that were sure to follow--how many Pojokeppa, where, what destination? The far-off village fires reflected only dimly from the fish-skin cloaks that so many Ikika warriors wore to show their prowess . . ..
The ones in the other canoe hadn't worn fish-skin cloaks.
+ + + + +
Inakka woke from the memory with her heart pounding and the feeling of needle-sharp Pojakeppa teeth still in her arm. Uri and Seyah lay still asleep beside her on the skin rug of Kargoth's floor, and Takka and Riiri were--
--floundering in the water, their heavy furs weighing them down and their spears ungainly--
--were still searching the devastated valleys for survivors of the flood. Three wolves had been lost, two of them just children . . . five humans, too, and the search for them had left Inakka, Uri, and Seyah drained and carved raw like the valleys themselves.
They had found a man and a woman today, but neither one had been a survivor.
As Inakka stood from the rug by the hearth, though, her dream stayed with her. The Ikika had lost five that night, the warriors in the other canoe ambushed while they were too far distant to be seen and killed silently by the liar-fish who had taken their shape to lure in more prey.
Inakka and her two oldest brothers had been thrown into the water by these man-shaped Pojokeppa, sharp-eyed Ipaara throwing herself to the floor of the canoe to escape the lunge meant for her. If it had not been for Ipaara's ready spear and the Haaparis' sheer tenacity, all of them would have died in those choking black Tuurrapa waters.
Like the man and the woman had died.
Kargoth would have known what to do--Kargoth would have used his power and his mind and his money to draw the pack together and rebuild the lost houses, replant the lost fields, and revive the lost loved ones. He would have given aid just when it was needed most, and the price that he would have exacted would only have made the fight to restore order less costly.
Kargoth had been dead when Inakka had run, shaking, to his door.
She thought, in the shameful parts of her mind that were not made of iron, that she would have been a good alpha if only she had been able to stand beside Kargoth instead of alone. Their temporary residence in his home was only a poor echo.
There is no reason to dwell on my failure, Inakka told herself savagely. She took the kettle from its habitual place beside the hearth and took it outside to dip in the rain barrel, then hung the heavy pot from the hook over the fireplace and fed the dying fire another mostly-dry log.
She had just opened the hand-carved box in which Kargoth had kept his tea leaves when she remembered what had come next in the dream-memory--
"No!" Inakka buried her nose in the dried leaves and clung to their sharp, musty scent as though it were the scent of a lover. Kargoth had always told her with a little smile that his tea was his only luxury, that it had been a gift from the city alpha who bought his pelts.
That city wolves had their faults, but that they were still wolves nonetheless.
As she stood there entranced, smelling Kargoth's expensive tea in its humble box, Inakka let this world and all of its new sorrows fade away. She drew in the quiet, moonless night like a net full of stars, and she drew in the cold water and the smell of blood, the ache of needle-teeth in her arm.
She drew in the dream, the memory, and accepted the terror of it.
She accepted the terror because here, today, she knew what had come last of all.
Ipaara had pulled them up and into the canoe, her slim arms straining with Takka's waterlogged bulk as Inakka had tried to help her raise her brothers from the depths. The Pojokeppa lay bleeding in the waters, attended by the teeth of their fellows, and Inakka had held her spear as a child holds a favorite doll--too afraid to let go, lest the world fall to pieces and sink unnoticed into that abyss of darkness and blood and stars.
Ipaara had turned to her, terror making her pale face paler in the faint light, and whispered, "Help me. Please--help me."
And when they had rowed back to the village, torn and full of grief, the Ikika had gathered gravely around the few returning warriors and brought them to be healed.
She put the tea-box back on the shelf.
"What did you dream?"
If it had been any other voice but her youngest brother's, Inakka would have leapt out of her skin, but instead she only turned to Uri where he sat splay-legged on the rug and smiled.
The scent of Kargoth's tea remained when she said, "I dreamed an answer."
+ + + + +
The pack rebuilt.
The families of the river valley, crushed by the sudden devastation of everything that they knew and loved, drew lines in the dirt to sketch the furthest extent of the floodwaters and rebuilt their houses beyond them with two dozen helping hands to raise the timbers. The Haaparis devoted themselves to selling Kargoth's new, expensive pelts for seed money; they made the dead alpha's former home a shelter for the displaced and a base of operations as they remade their drowned world. They shared the last of their winter stores, blessedly spared by the flooding, with the families of their pack, and on the day that they had raised the roof of the first rebuilt house, Takka and Seyah had come back to Kargoth's house with a pair of children laughing on their shoulders and a grey-eyed mother crying with gratitude as she brought up the rear.
Kargoth was dead, and Inakka was the alpha now. The only alpha. And as such, it was her duty to do something that filled her with revulsion and a faint touch of fear.
On a clear morning ghosted with pale, white flowers on the roadside, Inakka put on her good dress, combed her hair with the lousing comb, gritted her teeth, and went to beg the city alphas for seed money.
The waters of Tuurrapa threw back the faint reflections of the stars and, when the canoe gently rocked with the shift of a numb leg or a wary spearhand, the pale, distant light of the Ikika fires. Inakka held her harpoon loosely in her right hand and chanted the watch-song under her breath with the other warriors; she watched the still, black Tuurrapa waters with her pupils wide and black to catch the faintest gleam of pale Pojokeppa flesh under the dark waters. Ine, Ine, Kekketa hostoi, Ine, Ine, Paulletaa mienni. Ine, Ine, Kekketa hostoi, Ine, Ine, Paulletaa mienni.
Gods of the water, preserve us, preserve us, Hunter-gods spear-laden, preserve us, preserve us.
Ipaara had sighted a liar-fish three canoe-lengths distant, but that had been just after the first bell of nightfall, and the night had stretched by now well past the third--the Ikika warriors crouched now in the moonless darkness and chewed green wood to silence their chattering teeth. The cold found every tear in fur-lined jackets and fish-skin trousers and made all but the wariest of them press hands into armpits to keep them warm; Inakka clenched and unclenched her fingers in her thick, well-knit mittens and knew that, if no more Pojokeppa were sighted before the fifth bell, they would have to give up tonight's hunt.
Just as Inakka passed her harpoon from her right hand to her left to try to work some feeling into her spear-hand, she saw the first glimmer of white from the far end of Tuurrapa.
The other canoe had raised the flag that meant that they had sighted the liar-fish.
Now the four Ikika warriors gripped their paddles with their poor hands and their spears with their good, dipping lengths of wood into the flat, black surface of Tuurrapa and disturbing the stars therein. Inakka watched the other canoe for the signals that were sure to follow--how many Pojokeppa, where, what destination? The far-off village fires reflected only dimly from the fish-skin cloaks that so many Ikika warriors wore to show their prowess . . ..
The ones in the other canoe hadn't worn fish-skin cloaks.
+ + + + +
Inakka woke from the memory with her heart pounding and the feeling of needle-sharp Pojakeppa teeth still in her arm. Uri and Seyah lay still asleep beside her on the skin rug of Kargoth's floor, and Takka and Riiri were--
--floundering in the water, their heavy furs weighing them down and their spears ungainly--
--were still searching the devastated valleys for survivors of the flood. Three wolves had been lost, two of them just children . . . five humans, too, and the search for them had left Inakka, Uri, and Seyah drained and carved raw like the valleys themselves.
They had found a man and a woman today, but neither one had been a survivor.
As Inakka stood from the rug by the hearth, though, her dream stayed with her. The Ikika had lost five that night, the warriors in the other canoe ambushed while they were too far distant to be seen and killed silently by the liar-fish who had taken their shape to lure in more prey.
Inakka and her two oldest brothers had been thrown into the water by these man-shaped Pojokeppa, sharp-eyed Ipaara throwing herself to the floor of the canoe to escape the lunge meant for her. If it had not been for Ipaara's ready spear and the Haaparis' sheer tenacity, all of them would have died in those choking black Tuurrapa waters.
Like the man and the woman had died.
Kargoth would have known what to do--Kargoth would have used his power and his mind and his money to draw the pack together and rebuild the lost houses, replant the lost fields, and revive the lost loved ones. He would have given aid just when it was needed most, and the price that he would have exacted would only have made the fight to restore order less costly.
Kargoth had been dead when Inakka had run, shaking, to his door.
She thought, in the shameful parts of her mind that were not made of iron, that she would have been a good alpha if only she had been able to stand beside Kargoth instead of alone. Their temporary residence in his home was only a poor echo.
There is no reason to dwell on my failure, Inakka told herself savagely. She took the kettle from its habitual place beside the hearth and took it outside to dip in the rain barrel, then hung the heavy pot from the hook over the fireplace and fed the dying fire another mostly-dry log.
She had just opened the hand-carved box in which Kargoth had kept his tea leaves when she remembered what had come next in the dream-memory--
"No!" Inakka buried her nose in the dried leaves and clung to their sharp, musty scent as though it were the scent of a lover. Kargoth had always told her with a little smile that his tea was his only luxury, that it had been a gift from the city alpha who bought his pelts.
That city wolves had their faults, but that they were still wolves nonetheless.
As she stood there entranced, smelling Kargoth's expensive tea in its humble box, Inakka let this world and all of its new sorrows fade away. She drew in the quiet, moonless night like a net full of stars, and she drew in the cold water and the smell of blood, the ache of needle-teeth in her arm.
She drew in the dream, the memory, and accepted the terror of it.
She accepted the terror because here, today, she knew what had come last of all.
Ipaara had pulled them up and into the canoe, her slim arms straining with Takka's waterlogged bulk as Inakka had tried to help her raise her brothers from the depths. The Pojokeppa lay bleeding in the waters, attended by the teeth of their fellows, and Inakka had held her spear as a child holds a favorite doll--too afraid to let go, lest the world fall to pieces and sink unnoticed into that abyss of darkness and blood and stars.
Ipaara had turned to her, terror making her pale face paler in the faint light, and whispered, "Help me. Please--help me."
And when they had rowed back to the village, torn and full of grief, the Ikika had gathered gravely around the few returning warriors and brought them to be healed.
She put the tea-box back on the shelf.
"What did you dream?"
If it had been any other voice but her youngest brother's, Inakka would have leapt out of her skin, but instead she only turned to Uri where he sat splay-legged on the rug and smiled.
The scent of Kargoth's tea remained when she said, "I dreamed an answer."
+ + + + +
The pack rebuilt.
The families of the river valley, crushed by the sudden devastation of everything that they knew and loved, drew lines in the dirt to sketch the furthest extent of the floodwaters and rebuilt their houses beyond them with two dozen helping hands to raise the timbers. The Haaparis devoted themselves to selling Kargoth's new, expensive pelts for seed money; they made the dead alpha's former home a shelter for the displaced and a base of operations as they remade their drowned world. They shared the last of their winter stores, blessedly spared by the flooding, with the families of their pack, and on the day that they had raised the roof of the first rebuilt house, Takka and Seyah had come back to Kargoth's house with a pair of children laughing on their shoulders and a grey-eyed mother crying with gratitude as she brought up the rear.
Kargoth was dead, and Inakka was the alpha now. The only alpha. And as such, it was her duty to do something that filled her with revulsion and a faint touch of fear.
On a clear morning ghosted with pale, white flowers on the roadside, Inakka put on her good dress, combed her hair with the lousing comb, gritted her teeth, and went to beg the city alphas for seed money.