The Messenger

6

Tuskers! I saw a whole tribe of them on the beach!” Little Mouse came sprinting up, his voice breaking with excitement. He was panting and staggering by the time he halted before Moreen and Bruni.

“Where on the beach?” asked the chieftain’s daughter. “How far away?”

“Two miles, maybe more,” gasped the youth. He pointed to the north, toward the rim of coastal hills that stood between the little band of Arktos and the blue waters of the White Bear Sea.

“What were you doing over there?” Garta demanded, coming up behind the other two women. “You told me you were looking for berries in the marsh downstream!”

“I didn’t find any,” the lad said defiantly. “And, well, I just kept walking and looking. I wanted to see where the stream went, and maybe I hoped I’d find some berries farther down. So I went to the shore.”

“All the way to the beach?” Garta’s stern face was locked into a ferocious scowl. “If you remember, one of the reasons Moreen took us inland was so that we could scout these upcountry marshes for food! Why, if your father was here-”

Little Mouse still had that defiant look, but suddenly he blinked and sniffled, looking down. “I’m sorry,” he said, to no one in particular. “I know it was careless-”

“Also pretty brave,” Bruni said, clapping a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “In truth you did us a favor, finding those brutes before we wandered past them-or right into them. Your father”-she cast an accusing glance at Garta-“would be proud.”

“Did they see you?” Moreen asked.

“No-I don’t think … I’m sure they didn’t,” Mouse replied, his swagger returning. “I saw them from the cut where the stream flowed out of the hills, but I stayed up on top. I did try to get a little closer to count them and see what they were doing.”

“What did you find out?” asked Bruni.

“There are a dozen of them-big ones. They look like warriors-they have spears and axes. They were cutting up a whale that they had pulled up onto the beach. They just got started. Mostly it still has the skin on. I think it will take them a few days to finish.”

“Good work,” replied the big woman, while Moreen nodded in confirmation.

The chieftain’s daughter was trying to absorb the news, remembering Dinekki’s prophecy-which had warned of tuskers. She turned to look at her people, who were going about the business of preparing the evening meal. Several small fires, kindled from the brush in the nearby marshes, glowed in shallow pits, and the old women were stringing pieces of seal meat onto sticks for roasting. Augmented by a few fish, meat from a big turtle, and some berries, they were preparing the same meal that had sustained the Arktos every day for a month, since the day Moreen had sent the Highlander emissary retreating back to his “king.”

She knew that she would have to kill dozens more seals before she could come close to the amount of meat they could strip from a single whale. Of course, under their own devices, lacking kayaks and many skilled hunters, they had no way of even looking for a whale, much less bringing one to shore. But now, perhaps, Chislev had seen that someone else had taken care of the first part of that job.

“There were tuskers with the ogres that sacked Bayguard.” Bruni pointed out, although the thought that had already occurred to Moreen. “I would like the chance for revenge.”

“I would too,” agreed Tildey, who had come forward to join the trio.

“I can show you where they are!” Little Mouse offered enthusiastically. “We can sneak up really close on the hill, and charge down to take them by surprise!”

“A dozen of them?” The chieftain’s daughter tried to be realistic. “We have barely that many spears among us and not many people who are strong enough to throw one and to fight.” Privately, she doubted the warrior abilities of any of the women, save perhaps Bruni and herself. A full-grown thanoi warrior was a formidable opponent. Surely the safest, the sanest, thing was to pack up their camp and move deeper inland, giving the walrus-men a wide berth.

But Moreen was surprised to realize how badly she desired that whale and how much she hated the thought of barbaric thanoi on this, the Arktos’ shore.

Dinekki, her wobbly legs aided by the support of a slender staff, came up to them. Moreen was acutely conscious of the rest of the tribe, the women and the elders and the children, all watching the group of leaders with interested, concerned eyes. She recounted what Little Mouse had seen when the shaman cut off further words with a sharp gesture.

“Tuskers, eh?” she grunted, with a smack of her toothless gums. “I thought so-could smell that fishy stink from clear over here. So what’re you going to do about ’em?”

She asked the question directly of Moreen, and in that instant the chieftain’s daughter understood: It really was her decision to make. The tribe, those who survived, looked to her. A glance at grim-faced Bruni and Tildey told her that they wanted to follow her into a fight. What would the others think? How would they fare?

She thought of the winter that was drawing inevitably closer, the lightless, implacable Sturmfrost that would roar out of the south as the sun vanished for the season. Already it was autumn. The nights were as long as the days, the hours of darkness characterized by a penetrating chill. Her dream of Brackenrock had kept her going, driving her people on toward the north, but they remained woefully unprepared for winter. What would happen if they bypassed the tuskers, and the walrus-men, some time later, came upon the Arktos, surprised them as they had the option to do now.

“We don’t have any choice,” she declared curtly. “We’ll attack them. Tonight.”

She lay on the crest of the hill, staring with unblinking intensity at the beach below. Bruni, Tildey, and Little Mouse were beside her, while another score of tribeswomen, burdened with their unfamiliar spears and harpoons, waited farther down the slope in the shelter of a narrow ravine.

Despite the busy presence of the menacing walrus-men, Moreen’s eyes were drawn irresistibly toward the carcass of the whale. It was a medium-sized gray, but it dwarfed the tusked warriors. Not even half skinned, the giant mammal presented a flank of gory blood and fresh, sumptuous meat. The tuskers had apparently spent the day cutting back the skin, and had not yet begun to carve away the actual flesh.

“Bah-they don’t even know how to dry the hide,” Tildey whispered contemptuously. “We’ve got to get down there soon before it starts to rot.”

“I think the tuskers themselves are a more immediate problem,” Moreen said wryly, trying to cover up her nervousness with an air of calm.

She looked out to sea, toward the northwestern horizon. The sun was low, only a handspan above the world’s rim, but during these days of early autumn it would descend at a gradual angle, moving farther west as it finally set. Even after it disappeared from view, a bright twilight would linger for a long time, leaving another three hours before full darkness.

Moreen tried to think. Counting three women from the Goosepond tribe and Little Mouse, there were twenty-four in her battle troop-twice as many humans as tuskers. However, as she watched a monstrous figure stroll around the whale’s head, she was reminded of the strength and fierceness of their foes.

The brutes were each as tall as a huge human and walked upright with long, clawed toes on webbed feet. Their arms were muscular and dangled almost to the knees. The only clothing on their streamlined bodies were strips of whaleskin around the loins. Most hideous of all were their bestial faces. Even from her distant vantage Moreen shuddered as she noted their broad nostrils, sloped foreheads, and beady, shadowed eyes. She could see clearly their vicious tusks, twin prongs of ivory that curled down and forward from the beasts’ upper jaws.

“There are their weapons,” Little Mouse whispered, pointing to a patch of beach ten paces inland from the whale’s body. They could see a bundle of sticks, tipped with stone heads, that were the tusker spears. Next to those were several axes, also headed with stone, mounted on stout handles.

Moreen nodded. Already she had considered and rejected several plans, and now she had seen everything she needed to see. “All right,” she replied softly. “Let’s get back to the ravine.”

“Are we going wait to attack them until it’s darker?” asked Tildey.

“No.” Moreen shook her head, noting the disappointment on her companion’s faces. She explained further. “No. We’re going to start this fight just as soon as we possibly can.”

A half hour later, Dinekki finished dabbing ritual paint on the faces of the warrior women.

“How many arrows do you have?” the chieftain’s daughter asked Tildey.

“A full score,” she replied, “but it will take a lucky shot to kill one of those creatures, at least from the hilltop.”

“You don’t have to kill them, at least not at first,” Moreen explained. “The important thing is that you get their attention.”

“That, I can do,” agreed the archer.

“Now, does everyone have a weapon-a spear or a club?” asked the chieftain’s daughter.

“I don’t,” Little Mouse piped up, “but that’s okay-I’ll just grab a spear from the first dead tusker.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” snapped Garta, who looked decidedly unmotherly with a great, knobbed club clutched in her plump hands. “You’ll do as we discussed and wait back here until we’re finished.”

“How is that fair? I’m the one who found the tuskers!” Mouse protested.

“Who said life had to be fair?” retorted Moreen, thinking that she suddenly sounded very much like her father. “Garta is right-you can’t be up close where you might get hurt.”

“Well, at least let me come to the hilltop,” pleaded the youth, his black hair hanging almost in his dark eyes. “I can keep a lookout behind you-and I’d be just as safe there as hiding back in this stupid ravine.”

Garta looked at Moreen, and again the cheiftain’s daughter made the decision. “All right, you can come that far with us. No closer, and don’t you dare get in the way.”

“I promise!” agreed Mouse.

“I’ll keep an eye on the boy,” Dinekki said curtly. “Now, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Yes, Grandmother,” Moreen said gratefully. “Will you ask for the blessing of Chislev Wilder upon our endeavor?”

“That is the purpose of the paint,” explained the shaman, who by now had daubed each of the women with a band of red coloring under each eye and across the forehead. “Now, take each other’s hand in a circle, all of you-and let me in, too!” she snapped.

“Chislev Wilder we beseech you … give us strength, to see our need through.” Dinekki chanted the words, creating a strange, choppy rhythm Moreen found entrancing and exhilarating. “Grant your skill, give weapons might … honor courage, in the fight.”

Moreen felt a buzzing in her arms, a lightness in her feet, an energizing power. Chislev was all around them, their goddess was smiling up at them from the green grass, could be heard in the buzz of the hive-bound bees, the splashing of the fish in the nearby stream. For Chislev Wilder was a deity of nature, and her power and beauty lay in all of nature’s aspects, including blood and death.

“The goddess will steady your aim and lend strength to your blows. Now, go and do battle in her name.”

With Moreen and Tildey in the lead, the Arktos she-warriors filed up the steep chute and, staying low, emerged onto the crest of the coastal hill. The blessing of Chislev felt like a warm blanket around them. With the sun still visible, low in the northwest, the women, in their brown leather vests and tan leggings crouched and did a reasonable job of blending into the brush-covered ground. As they came over the hilltop, Moreen motioned to them to get down, and as a band they dropped to their hands and knees and began creeping forward.

“See that rocky outcrop?” the chieftain’s daughter whispered, pointing. The promontory jutted above the beach, looming over the tuskers and the carcass of the whale. “We’ve got to crawl out there without being seen.”

The others nodded grimly. Moreen saw the fire of determination in Tildey’s expression as the archer bent and strung her bow, the scowl of anger that burned across Bruni’s brow, the tremulous fear blinking in Garta’s eyes, and the faces of Nangrid and Hilgrid and Darna and so many others. They all looked to her with hope and at least a show of confidence, and she was determined not to let them down.

She had gone over the plan in detail, and there was no need for further discussion. Pointing to Little Mouse, she held up her hand in silent command for him to stay, then started along the narrow ridge of land. Crawling, staying low, she was able to remain out of the line of sight. Soon she had reached the shelter of the rocks and looked to see that the women of the band were following, one after another, along the elevation. Little Mouse was a small blur against the hilltop a long stone’s throw away.

Moreen herself carried three harpoons. Her sinewy cord was looped around her wrist, ready if she needed it, but for now she would not tie it to any of the weapons. She laid two of the harpoons behind a rock and hefted the third, as Tildey leaned forward and nocked an arrow into the string of her bow. On the other side of the archer Bruni crouched expectantly, the heavy, stone-headed club balanced in her hands. The rest of the warriors crowded around them, all of them keeping low and out of sight of the thanoi.

Moreen saw that the tuskers seemed to be finishing up their labors with the whale carcass, at least for the night. A few of them had flopped onto the ground to rest, while others were seated up the beach, busily gnawing on great, crimson strips of raw meat.

Tildey looked at Moreen, who nodded and pulled back until she could barely see their enemies through a crack between two boulders. The others remained still and hidden.

Standing up, drawing the butt of an arrow back to her cheek, Tildey took careful aim. She released the string with a soft twang, and the feathered missile hurtled toward the beach.

The nearest thanoi, a great brute sitting with its back toward the humans, lurched forward with a grunt, dropped the piece of meat it had been holding, and sprawled onto the ground. The shaft of Tildey’s arrow jutted squarely from its broad back, right at the base of the neck.

“Nice shot,” whispered Moreen, impressed. Her hand closed tightly around the haft of her harpoon as she watched the nearby thanoi leap to their feet with a chorus of barking and growling.

The archer was already preparing a second arrow, drawing a careful bead and shooting in one smooth motion. This missile punctured the thigh of a standing tusker, spinning the creature fully around before it dropped to the ground with a howl of outrage.

Now Tildey had been seen, and the thanoi rushed toward the base of the rocky knob where she was positioned, snatching up stout spears, heavy clubs, and wicked bone knives lying on the beach.

Moreen saw Garta and Nangrid look at her, wide-eyed and tense, but she shook her head vehemently, pleading for them to remain hidden. Obviously nervous, they nevertheless stayed low, fingers clenched around their unfamiliar weapons. With another glance through the crack in the rocks, the chieftain’s daughter saw that the tuskers had started up the hill, though-as she had planned-they found the going tough on the steep and boulder-strewn slope.

A third walrus-man grunted in pain as Tildey shot again. This tusker was caught full in the chest and rolled backward to lie still at the bottom of the hill.

“Here they are,” Tildey said coolly as she set another arrow against her string. Moreen saw a brutal face looming just on the other side of her rock, dull eyes glaring balefully, wicked tusks swaying back and forth.

“Now!” she cried, leaping to her feet, the harpoon steady in her hand as she drew back for a throw.

The barbed head of the harpoon pierced the thanoi right in the throat and its wide jaws gaped soundlessly as the brute dropped its spear to claw desperately at the weapon. With a frantic, lashing twist the tusker spun around and tumbled away, knocking down one of its still-climbing fellows from the force of its fall.

Moreen heard whoops and screams as the other women also rose and launched their attack, bashing and poking and shouting in the face of the stunned tuskers. Bruni smashed her stone hammer hard into the broad snout of a walrus-man, and the beast fell, clasping both hands to its bleeding maw. The big woman smashed downward again, killing the creature. Nangrid also pierced one, driving the metal point of her spear clear through its sinewy torso, then shaking her weapon free. The tusker, groaning and bleeding, flopped helplessly on the ground at her feet.

Other women hurled rocks. Several good-sized boulders clattered down among the thanoi, knocking them backward or bouncing down the slope, forcing the other thanoi to dodge out of the way. The sudden onslaught caught the monsters by surprise, and those that weren’t struck down immediately hesitated in their ascent, piglike eyes flashing as they confronted this horde of screaming, wild-looking attackers. Moreen had encouraged the Arktos to make a lot of noise, and-whether because of her instructions, or the fierce, panicked energy that seized them at the moment of battle-the tribeswomen were whooping it up like a crazed band of berserk warriors.

One of the walrus-men, a huge beast with long, curling tusks and an ornately feathered spear, shouted something Moreen could not understand. It was obviously a command, and the surviving tuskers wasted no time in scrambling back down the hillside, slipping and stumbling in their haste.

“After them!” cried the chieftain’s daughter, snatching up her second harpoon. Tildey’s bowstring twanged again, as Moreen cast her weapon, and the twin missiles took the tusker leader through the belly and shoulder.

Garta was shouting something unintelligible as she lunged after a particularly slow thanoi, snapping off one of its tusks with a wild sweep of her club. The creature jabbed back with its spear and the Arktos woman cried out, falling backward, blood running from her stomach. The walrus-man lunged, jabbing a tusk toward her heart-but Garta, kicking frantically, managed to hold the monster at bay until Bruni kicked it away, then crushed its skull with a hard blow of her club.

Moreen hefted her last harpoon and started picking her way down the steep slope.

“Remember-none can escape!” she shouted, as the other tribeswomen, too, started in pursuit. Spears flew, most of the weapons clattering harmlessly across the rocks, though at least one other tusker fell, pierced through the leg. Nangrid stepped on the squirming thanoi and, with a quick flick of her skinning knife plunged deftly between the tusks, slicing its throat.

A trio of the tusked brutes had reached the beach, with a few more, badly wounded, limping along behind, or still working their way down the hillside. The thanoi wasted no time in starting for the surf, two dozen paces away, though one fell before it took two steps, punctured by another of Tildey’s lethal arrows. A few Arktos cast spears, and a second tusker tumbled and thrashed, pierced in the hamstring by a lucky throw.

Moreen was on the beach now, sprinting past bleeding, dying walrus-men as she raced in pursuit. One thanoi moved with surprising speed, flat feet slapping across the stones as it lunged toward the water and plunged into a breaking wave with a smooth dive. The chieftain’s daughter halted at the water’s edge. With a practiced movement she took the end of the cord from her wrist and slipped in through the eyehole in the weapon’s haft. Then she pulled it back, held the shaft beside her head, and squinted into the sun-brightened surf.

All around her she heard the groans and shrieks of wounded thanoi, the beasts grunting and snarling as the women raced among them, using their sharp bone knives to finish the work they had begun with spear, club, and stone.

There! The rounded head of the beast broke the surface, two dozen paces from shore.

“Just like killing a seal,” Moreen told herself, and let fly. She didn’t aim for the head, but sought to hit the muscular body.

The sleek harpoon shot into the water, and the thanoi bellowed in pain and instantly dove under. Planting her feet, Moreen grasped the cord and set her weight in anticipation of the creature’s power. Even so, the tug on the line pulled her off of her feet, and she was dragged across the rough stones of the beach. An icy wave washed over her as she was pulled into the sea.

Bruni was beside her, her strong arms wrapped around Moreen’s waist, pulling her-and the wounded tusker-back to land. The chieftain’s daughter climbed to her feet, and they both tugged, hand over hand, reeling in the monster. Soon it was in the shallows, rolling in the surf, then suddenly, surprisingly, it sprang upward, lunging toward the women, wet, slick tusks jabbing like spears.

Tildey was standing nearby, with one more arrow pulled back, and her aim was true. The walrus-man froze, an arrow suddenly protruding from the middle of its face. With a sputtering groan it wobbled, then flopped downward. Blood washed into the water lapping at Moreen’s feet.

“You did it, Moreen, Chieftain’s Daughter!” Little Mouse was at her side, jumping up and down in excitement. “You led us into battle, and we won!”

She looked around numbly. “Garta?” she asked, looking back at the rocky knoll.

“Dinekki’s helping her-she’s going to be all right,” the boy assured her.

“Mouse is right,” Bruni said, placing a big arm around Moreen’s shoulders, steadying her as her legs suddenly grew weak. “Except perhaps we shouldn’t call you ‘chieftain’s daughter’ any more.”

“No,” Tildey said, nudging the floating, bleeding tusker with her toe. “I think you are Moreen, Chiefwoman, now.”