Finally her intended prey laid down its head once again to bask in the warmth of the midsummer sun. The huntress resumed her cautious approach, watching the tundra before her, careful not to scrape a rock or crush a brittle willow twig. The soft wind came off the sea, safely carrying her scent away from her quarry.
Inch by inch, foot by foot, she wormed her way closer … forty, now thirty feet. The flat coastal ground was so wet that water soaked right through her leather pants, and her knees felt cold and sodden. Her neck grew stiff from holding her head upright, but her alertness paid off. She froze just in time as the seal again lifted its head. This time, when the animal settled into its drowsy repose, she was ready to act.
Gradually, she rose up to a kneeling position, until her back was straight, her throwing hand cocked. The smooth stretch of the harpoon, with its keen ivory tip floating almost weightless before her, was parallel to the ground, at the same height as her ear.
Now all of her care, all of her skill, her hunger, her desperation, came into sharp focus. The target seemed to grow before her, a warm heart pulsing beneath that black, shiny coat, and for just a moment she felt a powerful connection, almost as if the seal’s blood was flowing through her body. She made a soundless prayer to Chislev, a whisper of gratitude for this opportunity, and a plea for steadiness and true aim.
She let fly. The harpoon sailed through the air even as the animal, alerted by the sound of her throw, flipped toward the water. The ivory head pierced the wriggling body, and Moreen sprang to her feet and hauled on the thin line wrapped around her wrist, the sturdy cord attached to the barbed head of the harpoon.
The seal was gone by the time she reached the rock, but when she looked in the water she saw that her aim had been true. The animal floated, lifeless, in a murk of blood. Quickly she pulled upward, wincing as the animal’s dead weight came free from the sea.
“Eighty pounds, I’ll bet you are,” Moreen said. “Thanks be to Chislev Wilder. The Arktos will eat well tonight.”
Only then did her eyes fall on the beach exposed behind this seal’s rocky perch. She was not surprised to see dozens of seals there-the sounds of their barking had suggested as much to her already. Surprisingly, though, several of them were very close to her vantagepoint. This seal had been killed cleanly and had died without barking a warning.
Swiftly she lowered herself to the ground, out of sight of the animals. Methodically she started to coil the cord. Taking only the time to clean the head of her harpoon, she started crawling forward again.
“Five more seals?” Bruni’s broad face split into a disbelieving grin. “Praise to Moreen Seal-Slayer!”
“They’re all gutted-about a half a mile up the coast, behind a big flat rock,” Moreen said, staggering under the load of the one animal she had carried back with her. Exhausted, she dropped the cleaned carcass and collapsed to the ground, suddenly feeling weak in every limb, every muscle.
“Rest yourself-we’ll get the others,” Bruni said cheerfully. “I’ll carry two. C’mon Tildey, Garta, Little Mouse. Let’s go get dinner.” The big woman pushed herself to her feet. Accompanied by her three willing helpers, she started up the shore at quick pace. From her waist, hung the heavy stone hammer she had found in the rubble of the village after the ogre attack. Since that day Bruni was never seen without her favorite weapon close to reach.
“Did you really get six seals?” asked Feathertail, wide-eyed, as she came up to stare at the gutted animal.
Moreen nodded tiredly. “Would you like to learn how to skin it?”
A cluck of sound drew Moreen’s attention. Dinekki was hobbling toward her, shaking her head and making a
“She has to learn sometime,” Moreen said, wondering what the elderly shaman wanted.
“Well, of
“Can I learn how to skin the seal?” Feathertail asked tentatively.
“Didn’t I just say you could?” snapped Dinekki, though an affectionate light in her eye softened the rebuke. “Hilgrid, you have a sharp knife, don’t you?”
Hilgrid, who was stretching out a pelt from the seal Moreen had killed yesterday, smiled and nodded. “Just a minute, Feather. I’ll show you how to do it. You know, if Moreen keeps hunting with so much success, I’m going to need to teach someone how to preserve these pelts also.”
“You,” Dinekki said, glaring down at Moreen, who wanted only to close her eyes and loll on the soft tundra for the last hour of daylight. “You must come with me.”
Knowing better than to argue, the huntress pushed herself to her feet and followed the shaman up a gentle slope, toward the small niche in a cliff wall, where the Arktos had collected the few meager belongings they had brought with them away from ravaged Bayguard.
Moreen sighed as she entered the scant shelter beneath the overhanging rock. She saw a pile of straight sticks off to the side, next to a stack of sealskin pelts, the few that had been overlooked by the ogre raiders. There were some skins full of fresh water, a couple of clay pots containing whale oil, a pile of ivory harpoon and spearheads that the survivors had scavenged from the broken weapons left behind by the attackers.
Just outside the shelter, three sealskins were drying on racks, pelts that had been cleaned and mounted by Hilgrid from animals that Moreen had stalked during the past two weeks. During that time, ever since the tribe had abandoned their ancestral home and moved to this rocky enclave ten miles up the coast, they had managed to increase their reserve of food supplies. Moreen’s hunting prowess, Tildey’s skill with the bow, and the wealth of bounty from the sea and beach, had yielded perhaps twice as much provender as the tribe needed for the short term, but it was still not enough for the long, hard winter ahead.
“How are we ever going to last the winter!” Moreen declared, trying unsuccessfully to keep the despair out of her voice.
“There are some who say we should go back to Bayguard, try and make shelter from the ruins of our houses,” Dinekki said, neutrally. “Or go live in the Hiding Hole.”
Moreen’s face flushed, and she shook her head violently. Her mind burned with the memory of her mother, staked to the ground by an ogre spear, and of her father whimpering and thrashing and dying.
“That place is cursed forever!” she snapped. “The ghosts of our ancestors will stalk the winter night there!”
Dinekki nodded, still noncommittal. “Truly, the ogres left us so little that I can see no benefit to returning there, even if the ghosts choose to leave us alone.”
Moreen turned to look outward, her gaze falling across the Arktos who were gathered across the flowered hillside below. The blue water of the gulf sparkled beyond. Here and there young children played, while several women stood along the banks of a nearby creek, fishing spears raised. A few of the elders scoured the beach, collecting such clams and crabs as they could, protein-rich morsels that would add variety and nourishment to the tribe’s diet.
“We’re finding enough to eat, day by day,” she said quietly. “Now we’ll have some extra seal-meat-some to smoke and preserve for winter. But I would have to kill six seals
“Yes, we know these things, and other things as well,” replied the shaman. “We know that it was a very good thing that Redfist Bayguard taught his daughter how to hunt. We know that we were fortunate that you were up on the hill, that you saw the ogre ship in time to for many of us to reach the Hiding Hole-”
“Time for what?” demanded Moreen. “So that we can starve and freeze in the cold season, instead of perishing swiftly under ogre spears?” She saw the old woman stiffen and she immediately regretted her harsh tone. “I’m sorry, Grandmother,” she said meekly. “I do not rebuke you, I rebuke myself.”
“A good thing that is,” clucked Dinekki, “else I should be tempted to rebuke you back, and I am getting too old for such foolish exertion.”
“You asked me to come up here. What did you want?” Moreen said, feeling weariness wash over her again.
“Fill this bowl with water, clean water,” Dinekki said, gesturing toward one of the ceramic vessels, “and bring it over to me.”
