'Unwrap the wolf masks then, and sing the death song! Kill me if you can! I've yet to see a man or woman in this village bear a sword! By the Teeth of Kozah, what's happened to my people?'
The elders didn't answer, only turned back to the fire. Knucklebones cleared her throat, an explosion in the awesome silence. She noted that once Sunbright had set foot in the camp, he walked taller and spoke more boldly, blood and thunder in his voice, but boldness seemed lost on this lost race. It was as if they'd invaded a graveyard full of tired ghosts.
'Sunbright,' came a mild reproof.
The barbarian whirled, hand over his shoulder to snatch Harvester, then froze. A wizened woman peeked from the doorway.
'Mother!'
In three steps the warrior-shaman became a small boy, stumbling as he hugged his mother. Barbarian emotions never lay deep, so he wept openly, tears streaming onto her gray hair. The woman curled arthritic fingers around his massive, scarred arms and patted his back like a baby's, cooing, 'My boy. My man-child.'
Sniffling, Monkberry led the pair from the common house to her own abode. It stood on the edge of the camp, a heap of stones roofed with branches, but round like the ancestral yurts of reindeer hide. The roof was so low they sat, Sunbright's head brushing dead leaves, the room so tiny their knees touched. A bed of rags was the only furniture. A fire pit let smoke through a hole in the roof.
Once seated, no one knew what to say. Monkberry's face was seamed as a prune, her eyes deep-set but bright blue, like her son's. Her hair was long and gray, but neatly combed. She wore a simple smock of deer hide, almost worn through at the shoulders. As the awkward silence dragged, she nodded at Knucklebones. Flustered, Sunbright said, 'Uh, this is Knucklebones of Karsus. She's a-rogue. Good with her hands. Clever, I mean. She's a friend.' When Knucklebones shook her dark head, he amended, 'I mean, I love her.'
Monkberry took the thief's small hands, touched her scarred cheek with crooked hands, and said, 'She's lovely. Elven blood so becomes a woman.'
'I'm not,' Knucklebones stammered. For the first time in her life, she felt shy. 'I'm just an old, scarred alley cat. A sewer rat too contrary to die.'
The old woman caressed her tousled dark curls, and said, 'Scars are a badge of honor in our tribe, dear. You carry enough to sit at the elder fire.' Then she sighed at painful memories.
'Mother,' Sunbright began. 'What's happened? How came you here? Where is everyone? Why don't you leave this awful place?'
Another sigh. 'I prayed you'd return, Sunbright,' his mother said. 'In my heart and dreams I knew you'd come back. I could feel your eyes on me, hear your voice, grown so deep and manly. And it's time, for the tribe needs you desperately. Needs a miracle, or else we die out. Far worse than the gods forsaking us, we've forsaken our own heritage. But ask not, and let me speak…
'I don't know if you've been north, but the tundra is dying. Or sleeping. We don't know which. Perhaps it's some cycle that runs centuries, beyond the memory of our tribe. Howsoever, the Earthmother could no longer sustain us. The reindeer were scrawny, calves dropped stillborn, salmon ran thin…' She went on, listing small disasters that Sunbright already knew. Finally she came to,'… We knew we couldn't remain, so we moved south, to the edge of the tundra. But immediately the cycle of our lives was broken, and we felt uprooted. With nothing to hunt or gather, we were bereft of work, lacking any way to make a living.
'Owldark did not help. He recounted dream after dream, led us hither and yon along the southern shore, aimlessly. We were not welcome in the villages of south-men, so many mouths to feed and nothing to trade, and their harvests have been poor.
'Blown by the winds, whipped from place to place, we finally stopped here, where Owldark commanded. His next dream would lead us on, but food ran low. Our reindeer could not walk many miles over stone and sand, so were eaten. With nothing to feed the dogs, we had to eat them, and carry our belongings on our backs. After a while, the strongest men and women went to Scourge, seeking work. They found a few jobs, the vilest chores southmen refused: shoveling fish too rotted to salt, breaking up old ships for firewood, wrestling and knife-fighting for sport. The townsfolk hate us, hate everyone, and mocked our barbarous accents and superstitions.
'Yet we've survived so far: no children have died of hunger. Yet none are born either, for our women's wombs shrivel, like our spirits. And so have we languished for too long.' She laid her hand on the rim of a redware bowl as she said, 'Even the water is brackish, half salt, not fit for cattle.'
Sunbright listened, stone-faced, through this sorry history, then he asked, 'What of the council? Why do they allow this?'
Monkberry sighed and turned to the door, as if expecting someone, but there was only salt wind. 'The council argued with Owldark, and each other,' she told him. 'Some thought we must remain. The gods drove us from the tundra, they said: our own faults and sins brought it on. So we must linger in hell on earth as punishment. Others urge we go elsewhere, but cannot agree. Even our ancestral summer lands lie empty and fallow. Others would have us return to the tundra to die, like lemmings in the sea, or whales on the beach. Others brood over wine fetched in the village. Some wandered and didn't return, we know not whence. Destroyed in spirit, some women married town men and no longer visit. Some youngsters have joined the emperor's ranks as soldiers and been sent far away. Perhaps that is right, for nothing lies here for anyone.'
Frustrated and raging, Sunbright raised his hands, his fingertips brushing thatch. 'What of Owldark?' he asked. 'If the gods haunt his dreams, surely even he can find our true destiny!'
'Owldark tried. Despite the pains in his head, he trekked the wastes, fasting, scourging himself with thorns, beseeching the gods for an answer. Any answer. Then he didn't return, and the hunters searched. They found his bones in a ravine. Wolves had eaten him, probably after he fell. So we lost our homelands and traditions and work, and now we have no shaman to guide us.'
'Not true,' stated Sunbright. His mother's eyes peered. 'See.'
Gently, he laid his hand atop the clouded, rank water in the redware bowl by his mother's knee. Quietly, crooning an ancient winding air with a steady beat, he dipped his fingers one by one, sending ripples through the bowl. At each tap the cloudiness receded, until the water was clear.
'Mother of Magic!' wheezed Monkberry. She dipped a crooked finger in the water, tasted it. 'It's sweet! You are a shaman!'
'After my father and my forebears,' Sunbright smiled. 'Actually, the salt is not gone, merely sunk with other minerals to the bottom of the bowl. You'll have to scoop the sweet water before the salt dissolves again.'
'How?…'
Sunbright softened the truth by saying, 'I came near death, and left my body, and descended into the earth and learned her secrets. Some. How to sort things into proper order, like separating salt from water. It's a blessing and a curse, for my dreams are haunted like your husband's.
'But I have the strength of spirit to face them. If necessary, I will brave the gods themselves and learn our fate.'
'Mind your own fate!' boomed a voice at the door. Sunbright saw a familiar face. The broad, craggy features of Blinddrum, his old sword instructor.
'Sunbright Steelshanks,' he said, 'leave our village!'
Sunbright exploded to his feet and almost bashed his head through the thatch roof. Clambering to free Harvester's pommel, he shoved past Knucklebones and outside. Blinddrum was a huge man, taller even than Sunbright, but fell back before the warrior. Unbeknownst, other folk had gathered, returned from meager jobs in the town now that the late-summer day was ending, so the tribe looked almost populous, a couple hundred at least. Most were dressed in tall, battered boots and long shirts of either deer hide or faded cloth, and fighters still sported the distinctive roach and horsetail of the Rengarth Barbarians.
But many men looked like strangers, townsmen, with full heads of hair grown out and scruffy beards soiling their faces. Yet all were familiar. Sunbright recognized Thornwing, the other sword instructor, and his cousin Rattlewater; and Leafrebel, Forestvictory, Archloft, Rightdove, Goodbell, Mightylaugh, Magichunger, and Starrabbit.
Emotions churned within Sunbright. A wave of homesickness and relief made him want to embrace the lot, laughing and crying. Yet their stony faces chilled his heart. Some wouldn't even look at him, as if he brought shame to the village.
Blinddrum stated, 'You were pronounced dead when banished, Sunbright. Leave this place of the living. None
