Wolf's Brother

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Tillu did sleep, her dreams were of cold dark places, where wolverines snarled at her from cracks in shattered cliffs and moldering bones pushed greenly from the earth. Tillu wandered in a long ravine she could not climb out of, her feet sinking into freezing mud. The passage was narrow, and she could barely avoid the wolverines as they lunged at her from their lairs. She tried to run, but terror folded her legs limply beneath her. She dragged herself on, moving so slowly that she knew she would never escape. Far away, someone called her name.

Then someone took her shoulder and tugged at her, pulling her free. She awoke to cold hands on her arms, and Kerlew tugging at her. She clutched at him wordlessly.

Only now, when the pain of loss stopped, could she comprehend how bad it had been.

The boy yelped as she hugged him and struggled against her, but she didn't care. His skin was so cold, his clothing soaked with dew.

'Oh, it's warm in here!' he suddenly exclaimed, and burrowed into her sleeping hides and pulled them around himself. The cold night slapped Tillu, but she laughed. As she reached for another hide one fell over her. Heckram knelt down stiffly beside them, to tuck the hides more closely around Kerlew.

'Are you asleep already?' he asked softly, but the boy didn't answer. He chuckled quietly. 'I guess he'll be fine.'

Tillu reached up to grip his cold hand. He looked down and swayed slightly where he knelt. 'I'm so tired,' he said, as if it were all the explanation she needed.

'And cold.' She sat up as she spoke and wrapped her sleeping hide around his shoulders. He sank down beside Kerlew. 'Do you want something hot to drink?' she asked.

He nodded, rubbing his face with both hands. 'I haven't slept since the last time I saw you.' His voice was hollow with weariness. He spoke softly, and the others in the shelter never stirred. Tillu moved to the fire, to poke up the embers and add a little water to the soup left in the pot.

'I went back over the trail. At first I didn't call, because I didn't want to alert Joboam.

I don't mind trouble with Joboam, but I didn't want it to delay me just then. So I went back a long ways through the dark as quietly as I could. I figured that if Kerlew were in sight of the campfires, he would find his way to the camp. When I couldn't see the fires anymore, I began to call. No answer and no sign of the boy.' He paused for a tremendous yawn, and to scratch at his tousled hair. Tillu stirred the soup and waited impatiently for it to heat.

'I went all the way back, to where I had last seen him. I thought that he would be somewhere between there and the camp. But I was wrong.'

'What?'

'I had to wait for dawn, but as soon as there was light. I looked for his trail. There wasn't much to go on, so many had passed that way. I decided to watch both sides of the trail for signs of anyone leaving it. I didn't have hope of finding much. A barefoot boy doesn't leave much mark on the land.' Heckram's voice ran down. Silence fell.

'Are you asleep?' Tillu asked softly.

'Mmm? Oh. No. Thinking. I'm too cold to sleep yet. No. Kerlew didn't leave much of a trail. All I could do was guess which tracks were his. They seemed to follow the trail.

Then I came to where a laden rajd had left the caravan and stood for awhile. Their tracks were sunk deep in the moss. And a big man had been leading them. His sign was plain, also.'

'Joboam.' Tillu wasn't asking.

'So I guessed, and so Kerlew told me when I found him. He had been hurrying up the caravan, and had come to Joboam relieving himself. And he told Kerlew that if he was looking for you, he was going the wrong way. He said you and Kari were off the trail looking for plants. So Kerlew looked where he pointed, and set off that way. To nowhere.'

Tillu felt cold. 'Maybe Joboam had seen us off the trail. Kari and I walk well to either side of it, to get plants that have not been grazed or trampled.' Her voice faltered to a halt. She glanced over at Heckram. He lay on his side, staring at her with red-rimmed eyes.

'You, too,' he said in soft accusation. 'I don't know why everyone refuses the truth about Joboam. He tried to kill your son, Tillu. Just as surely as if he had beaten him to death.'

She dipped a spoon into the soup and tested it against her lip. It was warm enough.

She scooped up a mugful and crossed softly among the sleeping folk. Heckram leaned up on one elbow to take it from her. He wrapped his cold fingers around the mug, glad of the warmth, and drank it down as if it were not hot at all. He set the empty mug off the spread skins, and then rolled back to face Tillu. She knelt between him and Kerlew, one hand resting on the boy as he slept. It was so good to touch him, to know where and how he was. Heckram gave a sudden shudder of cold. Without thinking about it, she took a hide from the floor and tucked it closely around him. She sat between the two, touching her boy and staring at the man.

'Perhaps,' she said, 'we are all afraid that if we believe these things about Joboam, we will have to do something about him. And what we might do might make us no better than he.'

'Capiam should act,' Heckram muttered. 'We call him herdlord. Why doesn't he behave as one?'

'Perhaps he doesn't want to believe he could have a man like that among his folk.'

'Whether he wants to believe it or not, it's true. I told him what I knew when Elsa was killed. Instead of looking into it, he became angry with me. As if I were the cause of it. Joboam could not stand that Elsa had chosen me over him. He hamstrung Bruk. He battered Elsa. And now he has tried to do away with Kerlew. What will it take to convince Capiam?'

Tillu had no answer. Despite his anger, Heckram's eyes were sagging shut. 'I'm so tired,' he muttered. 'I wanted to get here sooner. When Kerlew gave out, I carried him until he could walk again. He's a game little man. He never complained of being cold or hungry.' His eyes were closed now, his words slurred so that she could barely understand them. 'When I found him,' he said, and she leaned close to hear, 'he was hunkered down in a little hollow, like an abandoned nestling. He wasn't looking for the trail or calling or crying. He was just sitting with his legs folded and his arms wrapped around himself. He was shaking with cold. He looked up and saw me and said, 'I knew you'd come for me, brother wolf.' He wasn't surprised at all.'

'Thank you.' The words seemed small. She wanted to say more, but didn't know what it was she needed to say. He was sleeping now, anyway. Wasn't he? 'Heckram?'

His eyes didn't open. But he lifted the edge of the sleeping hide and held it open for her. She hesitated. But he did not clutch at her. He only held it up and waited. Every muscle in her body was tense as she crawled in beside him. His heavy arm fell across her, drawing her close until she rested against him. He seemed not to notice her stiffness. 'I've been so cold,' he said. His beard was against her forehead. 'I thought I'd never feel warm again.'

She drew in a deep breath, and found she could relax. He smelled of sweat and reindeer and life. 'Me, too,' she said quietly. She settled against him and put her hand on his chest, feeling the steady movement of his breathing. Behind her, Kerlew muttered in his sleep and twitched deeper into his covers. He was safe, and she could rest now. They were all safe. She felt her eyes sagging shut and let them. Beside her, Heckram slept.

Tillu awoke to spring rain drumming on the shelter roof, and someone tugging her arm. Pirtsi had her elbow and was shaking it like a dog worrying a rabbit. She jerked her arm free of him and sat up groggily. She didn't want to be awake. Sleep had been a warm, deep place without problems. She was comfortable, her son was safe, and it was early yet. There was time to sleep a little longer, to savor the warmth of Heckram's body close to hers, to enjoy the peace of knowing Kerlew was safe.

'Ketla's sick!' Pirtsi hissed frantically. 'You've got to come right away. Now!'

Tillu rubbed her face, feeling her skin come alive again. She gazed around sleepily.

Everyone else still slept. Why was he bothering her? Pirtsi crouched by her. His eyes darted from Heckram to Kerlew, but his curiosity could not match his mission's importance. He only repeated, 'Ketla's sick!'

The meaning finally penetrated her mind. 'I'm coming,' she hissed back. It wasn't even dawn, only the long dark-gray false dawn of spring and summer. Heckram stirred as she took the warmth of her body from his. She had been pressed against the length of his side, and he muttered grumpily at the touch of cold. She pushed the cover down snugly to take her place and touched Kerlew briefly as she stepped over him. He slept deeply, unaware of her passage.

'Hurry!' Pirtsi whisper-screeched.

'Calm down!' Tillu commanded in a low voice. 'And tell me what's wrong so I know what to bring.'

'Capiam awoke me. Her moaning had wakened him. Her skin is hot, but she complains she is cold, no matter how we wrap her. She says her head aches; she weeps from the pain, and cries out if we make the least sound.'

Tillu sloshed water over her hands and face. She smoothed her damp hair away from her face. 'Does she vomit? Is her stomach tender?'

'No ... I don't think so. I don't know! I came away as quickly as I could to fetch you.'

'I will want a bucket of fresh, cold water. Run and fetch it and bring it to Capiam's shelter.'

She did not watch him race away. The boy was more human in his fear than she had ever seen him before. But even as she selected willow bark and root, and reindeer moss, dried goldenrod and yarrow, burdock roots from the dwindling supply gathered last autumn, and long dandelion roots still crisp and fresh, she wondered at Capiam's blindness. Who could look at that boy and see him as a mate for Kari? Kari would as soon take a dog. She shook her head and sighed as she stood. Half the problems she treated were brought on by the victim's own foolishness. Ketla had probably eaten too much, or perhaps eaten spoiled meat. The willow bark, and perhaps—she paused to dig through her herbs—some of the inner bark of the black spruce would take care of the fever and headache. A tonic of some of the other herbs would wash out whatever was troubling her. Or so Tillu hoped.

She arrived at Capiam's shelter just as Pirtsi did, his bare legs splashed with water where his hurry had sloshed it from his buckets. The panting boy followed her in.

The domed tent looked as if it had never been moved. The same rich hides coated the floor, the same tools and cheeses hung from the arching tent supports. The shelter was warm, but Capiam was putting more fuel on the fire. In one shadowed area, Rolke slept on, unmindful of his mother's distress. Tillu had no doubt of her discomfort. The smell of her labored sweat stained the air, and her low moans came and went with every breath. Blankets had been heaped atop her until her form was barely discernible.

Capiam rose as Tillu entered, and stepped hastily out of her way to allow her to kneel by the woman's side.

Setting down her pack, she asked abruptly, 'How long has she been this way?'

'I ... ' Capiam made a helpless gesture. 'At first, last night, when we lay down to sleep, she complained of the cold. So I covered her with an extra hide. But her body was giving off so much heat, I could not sleep beside her. And still she said she was cold, so I brought her more hides. And then she slept, for most of the night. I woke up, not long ago, when she started moaning. Her skin is so hot, but she keeps on shivering. ...' His words mired down in his helplessness, and he fixed Tillu with a pleading glance. She turned from him to Ketla.

She placed her chilled hand against the woman's hot, dry forehead. Ketla's eyes flickered open. 'My head hurts so,' she said weakly. Over her shoulder, Tillu ordered Pirtsi, 'Put some water to heat.' Turning back to Ketla, she firmly pressed the woman's temples. 'Does this help?' she asked.

'Aah. Yes. Some. But I'm still so cold.' She opened her eyes again, and recognized Tillu. Sympathy wandered across her pain-lined face. 'I'm sorry about your boy. So sorry.'

'Don't be sorry. He's found. Late last night, he wandered into camp. He's sleeping at Ristin's tent right now.' Just sharing the news made Tillu smile again. She trailed her fingers lightly over Ketla's brow, and watched the lines of pain smooth away. Touching could often ease pain, even if it could not erase it completely. 'Does your belly hurt?'

Tillu asked gently as she stroked Ketla's face. 'Do you feel like vomiting?'

'A ... little.' The woman panted the words. 'I'm just so cold.' Her eyes opened again.

'Kerlew's safe. So glad ... for you.' She tried to smile, but her pain pushed it away. 'Can't you help me?' she asked piteously.

'In a moment. Just a moment. As soon as the water is hot. Capiam?' Tillu glanced over her shoulder to find the herdlord standing anxiously over her. 'Can you do this?

Touch her face like this while I'm mixing the medicine? It helps the pain. See. You press gently on her temples, and then stroke your fingers across her brow. Like so.'

The man knelt awkwardly and reached with gentle hands for his wife's face. But his thickly calloused fingers rasped as they slid across her dry brow, and Ketla winced at the touch. 'I should have thought of it before,' Tillu said aloud, wondering at her own stupidity. 'I should have wakened Kari and brought her with me. Pirtsi! Fetch Kari. Tell her I need her right now.''

The boy looked at her, puzzled. He made no move to , obey her, but only turned questioning eyes to Capiam. It was the herdlord who asked, 'Why do you send for Kari?'

'To help me!' Tillu exclaimed impatiently. 'Do you think I can grind and mix herbs and rub your wife's face all at once? If Kari wants to be a healer, here is her beginning.

She has the mind for it. Now let her try her hands at the work.'

'No.' Capiam's voice was firm. 'I'll not have that girl becoming any stranger than she is already. You are the healer. You take care of Ketla.'

Tillu raised incredulous eyes to him. 'Stranger? How is becoming a healer going to make her stranger?'

Capiam shrugged uncomfortably, looking like a reindeer shuddering off stinging flies. 'It isn't what she needs. If she becomes a healer, she will use it as an excuse to be alone, to wander apart from everyone, to sit and stare and be idle. I won't have it. That's no life for a young woman. When we reach the Cataclysm this year, she will take Pirtsi for husband. A man and children—that's what she needs. A married woman can't always be wandering about with a strange look on her face, can't be saying rude and nonsensical things to her folk. She will learn to lead a rajd, to pitch her shelter and to sew clothes and cook and weave. She will be useful. And she will be happy.'

Too late Tillu recalled her promise not to speak of Kari's apprenticeship. Now she understood the reason for the promise. 'How can she be happy in a life she doesn't choose, with a man she doesn't love?' Tillu asked recklessly.

Capiam's eyes were cold. 'Choose? Haven't you lived with her? How can you talk of her choosing? She makes no sense, she runs about like a little child, she has no pride, no ambitions, none of the hopes a young woman should have. She would choose ridicule and poverty for herself. And so I choose for her. I chose Pirtsi for her, who will make her a woman and a mother. She will learn to be happy. She will.' He turned aside from Tillu's unbelieving face with a gesture of rejection. 'Do not talk about it. Don't ask me about what you cannot understand. She is my daughter, and I won't see her throw her life away.'

'Please. Please stop!' Ketla sobbed suddenly, clutching at her temples. It seemed to Tillu that it was not the pain in her head that grieved her now, but the pain in her heart.

The healer turned aside, dippered up boiling water from the pot, and set out her herbs and roots and grinding tools. She said no more of Kari. How could her parents be so blind? Kari would never be happy with Pirtsi. As she chopped roots and crumbled leaves into steaming water she tried to imagine Kari with children clinging to her, needing her attention. Would she suckle a babe at a breast marked with Owl's claw?

Tillu shook her head as she mixed and measured. They should let Kari go, let her be what she needed to be. She was not an animal to be broken and harnessed.

When the ingredients steeping in the hot water had released their benefits, Tillu dipped up a measure of the tonic.

'Help her sit up,' she told Capiam. Without a word he slid an arm under Ketla and wrestled her to a sitting position. She wailed in discomfort as the covers fell away from her fevered body. 'Come now. Drink this. It will help,' Tillu coaxed, and got her to sip at tonic. As Capiam eased her down Tillu added, 'Bring her an empty bucket. Just in case.'

He had barely handed it to her before it was needed. Ketla coughed, gagged, and rolled up suddenly onto her knees. Tillu thrust the bucket before her just in time to catch the spew of vomit. Gush after gush of foul liquid and chunks of half-digested food spewed from her nose and mouth. Tears rolled down her cheeks with the force of the paroxysms that wrenched her. Sweat burst out on her face. For a moment the spasms eased, and Ketla took great, shuddering breaths. Then, again, it hit her, and once more her body ejected gouts of vomit. This time she continued to gag long after her stomach was empty. Tillu damped a handful of moss in water and gently sponged her face.

She eased the quivering woman down. Pirtsi took the bucket away, his nose wrinkled with disgust. Ketla's eyes were already closed, her breathing deepening. Tillu touched her face. The fever was lessened. A few moments later Ketla pushed irritably at her burden of skins. Tillu took some away. In moments she was sleeping, her lips puffing in and out with each breath.

'She'll sleep now,' Tillu told Capiam. 'If she awakens and is feverish, come and get me right away. But I think she'll be fine now. Perhaps she ate something spoiled? Was there anything she ate last night that no one else shared?'

Capiam shook his head in bafflement, glancing from the healer to his peacefully sleeping wife. 'Nothing. Nothing I know of. She cooked some ducks that Pirtsi brought, and we shared those. Then later Joboam brought a dish of new greens and chopped meat that we shared. I did not care for it, but we all ate it, and juobmo and cheese.

Sometimes she eats again, later, after our meal, but I do not recall that she did last night.

She will be fine now?'

Tillu shrugged. 'After she rests. Whatever poisoned her, her body has thrown out. I will leave a packet of herbs with you. When she awakes, brew her a tea from them. It will cleanse her body, and renew her strength. And let her sleep, as long as she likes. All day, if she will.'

Capiam shook his head slowly. 'Soon, the folk will be waking, and preparing for the day's travel.'

'Cannot we stay one day in one spot, while she rests?' Tillu asked incredulously.

'What harm is there in one day's delay?' She held the packet of herbs out to him. He took it absently.

Then Capiam shook his head, his decision hardened. 'The stinging flies will come soon. I am surprised they have not come already. They come in clouds, they bite the reindeer and drive them mad. Many will die, or race away and be lost unless we are at the Cataclysm by then. We cannot delay, not even for a day.' Then, in a gentler voice,

'Did you think I would refuse to wait for your lost son, but halt the caravan for my sick wife? I know some speak against me, but no one would say I am as poor a herdlord as that.' He glanced over at Ketla, and worry creased his face deeply. 'If she cannot walk,'

he said, more to himself than to Tillu, 'I will make a drag for her to ride on. It won't be a pleasant journey for her, but she will not be left behind.'

There seemed nothing for Tillu to say. She nodded gravely, and crossed the tent to lift the door flap. Just as she ducked down to leave, Capiam's voice halted her. 'About Kari.'

Tillu paused, looking up at him blandly.

'I am glad she has had this time with you. Whatever you have taught her will not go to waste. You must understand that you cannot know her as her own father does. You may think me cruel, but I am not. It would be crueller to let her go as she has. I will die before her. I don't want to die knowing that she will grow old alone. Kari will always need a family to care for her. If not a father and mother, than a husband and children.

Ten years from now, she will not be able to imagine a different life. She will be happy!'

He spoke so fiercely that Tillu dared not dispute it. She only looked down at the trampled wild grasses that poked up between the skins flooring the hut. She heard him sigh. 'And I am glad that Kerlew was found. You might tell Heckram that a younger man than I might be angered by one who sidestepped the herdlord's authority. I am not.'

Just as Tillu softened toward Capiam, the man added, 'I will take his willfulness as a warning. Such sly dealings do not restore my trust in him. They make a leader wonder if he has not judged him too gently in the past. I must be wary of him now. I regret that, for his father I would have trusted with my life.'

She lifted her eyes, to stare at him without speaking. Finally, she took a deep breath.

'I did not know his father. But I would trust my life, and my son's, to his son.' She let the door-flap fall behind her.

Outside, in the still, cool air, the world teetered on the brink of true dawn. A misty rain was settling on everything. The clustered tents and shelters of the herdfolk created a sense of closeness that the wide gray sky above her denied. Beyond the immediacy of the temporary village, the tundra rolled away in a merciless wave of flat land. A low gray smudge, perhaps clouds, marked the edge of the sky. She stared at the far horizon; the edge of the world fled away from her. The hills and forests of the winter had faded to a dark green smear along the edge of the sky. The world flowed vast around her, and she was in the center of it. If she chose to leave the herd now, she thought, she would go alone into all that openness. She thought of herself and Kerlew trekking across the flat vastness, like two tiny water-bugs on the surface of a wide pond. She shivered.

As she hugged herself against the chill, she caught a furtive movement from the corner of her eye. She clutched herself tighter, and hurried away from the herdlord's tent. She did not look back, but she wondered why Joboam loitered outside Capiam's tent so early in the day. Had he heard of Ketla's sickness? Then why did he not go in?

She shrugged the question away and hastened through the wet grasses. She should be grateful he had not seized the chance to bother her. The rain fell harder and Tillu shivered in its chill touchings.

At Ristin's shelter, Heckram and Kerlew slept on. Of Kari and Carp there were no signs except their rumpled bedding abandoned in the shelter. Tillu wondered with distaste if they were together. Little she could do about it if they were. Ristin sat by the fire, poking at coals that sent up a thread of white smoke into the damp air. She looked up at Tillu's light step. Their eyes met, two mothers whose sons had come home from the cold and the dark. What they felt was bigger than a smile, and Tillu found herself dropping her bag to embrace the older woman. They stepped back from each other, and both glanced over to where Heckram and Kerlew slept. The heaviness of their sleep was almost tangible. Tillu wanted to go and kneel by them, to touch them both, to feel the reality of their safety. She sighed away her impulse, knowing how much they needed whatever rest they could steal.

'Find a bit of fuel for us,' Ristin suggested, 'and we'll have a quiet meal.'

'That sounds nice,' Tillu agreed, and set out to scavenge fuel for the fire. The tundra did not offer trees and fallen branches, but here were handfuls of twigs, clumps of dead moss and grasses and dry pellets of reindeer dung to burn. Tillu built up the fire while Ristin sorted through her food supplies. She set six goose eggs in a pot of water on the fire.

'I found a new nest yesterday, by that lake,' Ristin said. 'There's nothing I like better than a fresh egg or two.' She added small cakes of the moss-bread to the meal, warming them on a flat stone near the fire. 'Where did you go, so early this morning?' she asked casually.

'Ketla was sick. Spoiled food, I think. She vomited, and I think she will be better now.

But her fever was high. Capiam would be wise to let her rest for a day or so.'

Ristin slapped at a mite buzzing in her face. 'He can't. In another day or so, we'll be at the Cataclysm. Then she can rest all she wants, to the end of summer if she desires it.

But if we stopped here, we'd soon be sorry.'

'So Capiam said,' Tillu confirmed softly. 'But I thought he was just being stubborn.'

'There's a lot about Capiam I don't like,' Ristin said bluntly. 'But he has reasons for what he does. Good ones, usually.'

'What is it, this Cataclysm that everyone speaks of?'

Ristin looked at her, startled, and then gave a snort of laughter. 'Strange, to think that there are folk that do not know the Cataclysm. And then, I have to think, 'well, of course, she doesn't know.' Come here. Come over here, and look over there. A little more east. There. See it?'

Tillu nodded uncertainly, staring in the direction Ristin pointed. The rain dotted her face and clung to her lashes. All she saw was a bluish shadow on the horizon, vague in the drizzle.

'That's it. That's the Cataclysm. It doesn't look like much from here. But as we get closer, you'll be surprised. It's as if the giants of the earth crumbled and stacked the tundra. Like a smooth hide suddenly pushed together so it wrinkles up.' Ristin watched Tillu's face for understanding as she made vague gestures. 'Or the ice of a stream, when it thaws and breaks and floats downstream to pile up in jagged layers.'

'You mean it's frozen?' Tillu asked hesitantly.

'Yes. That's part of it. There are great sheets of ice trapped in the upheaval of the Cataclysm. The reindeer go up onto the sheets of ice to escape the insects. But it is more than that. There are steep cliffs, tall as the sky, of bare gray and black stone. Cracked pieces of the world, stood on end ...' Ristin's voice trailed off and she gestured helplessly. 'You will have to see it. There is no other place like it in the world, I think.

And it is a place of power. All the najds have always said so. It is a place for beginning and endings. A lucky thing to birth a baby in its shadow, and a good place for an old one to set aside life. A place for joinings, too.' Her voice broke suddenly. She leaned forward to poke at the fire.

'Capiam says that Kari and Pirtsi will be joined there.'

'Does he? Of course. I had nearly forgotten, for they do not act like a couple anxious to be joined.'

'They aren't. Not Kari, anyway,' Tillu said softly.

For long moments, Ristin stared into the fire. Sighing, she roused herself, and took the bubbling pot of eggs from the coals. She set it on a stone to finish cooking. 'The things we do to our children, all with loving hearts.' She glanced at Tillu. 'It can't be helped. If you try to intervene, you will make it worse. Pirtsi will go through with it, to be husband of the herdlord's daughter. They will be joined, and for some short time, he will have to share her tent. Maybe even father a child. But he hasn't the strength to stand up to her for long. She'll drive him out. What will happen then, I don't know.'

Tillu nodded slowly. Ristin dippered up the eggs from the hot water and set them to cool on the moss. She paid no attention at all to the drizzling rain. She scooted the moss-cakes away from the fire before they scorched. She looked up suddenly at Tillu. 'We mothers can be so anxious for our children to be safe that we don't consider what will really endanger them. The wrong mate can be as dangerous to a person as a cornered wolverine.' Tillu had the uneasy feeling that she was no longer speaking of Kari.

'Sometimes,' Ristin said awkwardly, 'we should allow them to make their own choices, and then welcome whoever they choose. No matter how strange that choice might seem.' She turned aside abruptly. She tested the eggs' shells with her fingertip, then passed one to Tillu.

They were shelling the eggs when Carp and Kari returned to the shelter. 'Bring me two eggs and two of the cakes,' Carp told Kari as they passed the fire. He retreated from the rain into the shelter. Seating himself, he tugged one hide up to cover his crossed legs, and pulled another around his shoulders. Kari hastened to fetch food for him, while Ristin sat silently with compressed lips. When the old man was settled and casually dropping fragments of shell on the hides that floored the shelter, Kari came to sit with them. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement, and her leggings were damp to the knee. She took the moss-cake that Ristin offered, but shook her head to the egg. 'I may no longer eat eggs,' she said, blushing with pride. Tillu and Ristin exchanged puzzled glances. Kari looked from one confused face to the other, and unleashed a laugh of pure joy. 'Oh, Tillu!' she exclaimed, leaning forward to clutch her shoulder fondly. 'I would tell you if I could. I really wish it were a thing I could share. But it is forbidden, so I can only say that today I am happy and complete. As you should be, for has not Kerlew returned from a long and dangerous journey?'

'That he has,' she agreed, unable to keep from smiling as she glanced over to her boy.

But as she looked back to Kari, her smile became more fragile. 'I do not know what has brought you such happiness,' she said carefully. 'I only hope it is something that will last more than a day or two.'

'Forever!' Kari promised her, glowing. 'Forever.'

'Forever is a long time,' Ristin said in a pragmatic voice. 'I'm afraid all I know of it is today, and the day that will follow it. But only if we get this day started. I hate to wake them, but I must, unless we wish to be last in the caravan.'

She tossed her eggshells into the fire, and rose stiffly. Tillu jumped up to follow her.

She felt almost shy as she knelt beside Kerlew and shook him gently. He stirred and complained, and opened his eyes. For a long instant he regarded her sleepily, his long silky lashes framing his odd, deeply set eyes, reminding her of a wondering babe. Then his eyes widened, he sat up, and flung his thin arms around her neck. Tears stung her eyes as he choked her with his hug. She held him tightly, feeling his thinness, the warmth of his small body through his light shirt. How close she had come to never holding him again. Her son. She loosened her grip when he released her neck, and leaned back to look into his face. Like Kari, he glowed with suppressed amazement.

'Mother, I have seen so much! I know so much more now, I have been so far! And I have come back, alive! He said I would, and I have done it! Carp, where is Carp? I have so much to tell him, there is so much he must explain now.' And in one wrenching instant he scrabbled clear of her, crawling across the hides to fling himself on the old man with cries of delight. Tillu looked after him in disbelief. She felt gutted. She stared at them, watched the old man's heavily veined hands pat her son's back as they embraced. Then he was sitting at Carp's side, taking the food that Kari offered, stuffing it into his mouth without thanks or hesitation, and talking to Carp, heedless of the food that muffled his words. He spoke in a rapid, excited whisper she could not decipher, his thin hands waving egg and bread in wild gestures. His eyes never left the old shaman's face.

But Carp's eyes strayed. His gaze lifted over Kerlew's head in a flash of vindictive triumph. Tillu recoiled as from a physical blow. For one brief instant she had held her son in her arms. Now he was gone. She could see him, she could touch him, but they no longer walked in the same world. He was Carp's now. She stared at him with hungry eyes, unable to turn away even though she knew Carp gloated at her. It was no comfort to see Kari sitting patiently, close enough to hear any request of Carp's but not so close that she intruded on the najd and his apprentice.

Strong hands fell on her shoulders, pulling her to her feet and turning her to face him. She had to tilt her head back to look into Heckram's eyes. They mirrored her loss.

'Why don't you walk with me today?' he invited her quietly. She nodded dumbly.