There was much commotion in camp as the women dropped what they were doing and hurried to the sides of their men.
'You are well?' asked Veltran as his eyes sought evidence of injury on his son's body.
'Yes, Father, I am well,' sighed Mika-oba as he clasped the older man's fragile shoulder, taking in the sight of his tiny shrunken body, draped as always in the heavy wolf headdress and pelt.
Veltran's eyes, though blue, were faded and dull, and wrinkles criss-crossed his face in a cruel map of his years. Mika saw the weariness and pain that he carried with him like a visible burden. His father had become an old man without his even noticing.
Suddenly, he felt shamed and he realized for the first time how hard the death of his mother, sister, and brother had affected his father, how precious he himself had become.
'I'm fine, Father,' he said gently, as they walked along the line of wagons that had entered the camp and creaked to a halt.
'There are many wounded to be tended to. I will help you as best as I am able.'
'You are not hurt?' asked his father, placing a thin hand lined with prominent veins on Mika's tanned arm.
'Just tired and stiff,' replied Mika. 'It was a long ride and I will welcome my bed tonight.' Or Celia's, he thought to himself.
'What casualties?' asked his father, walking quickly toward the lead wagon and fumbling for the large pouch of healing herbs that he always carried at his waist.
'Ten dead, all told. Only two from our camp. But many are wounded; they are all in the first three wagons.'
'I am glad you are unharmed,' Veltran said, pausing beside one of the wagons. 'u are all that the gods have left to me, and my heart falters at the thought of losing you. I will not rest easy until you wear the robes of the high shaman as I do and put the danger of war aside. Promise me that you will not do this again. Promise me!'
Veltran gripped Mika-oba's wrist with surprising strength and his rheumy eyes stared intently into those of his son.
Mika squirmed under the intensity of his father's gaze, wanting to please the old man, but unwilling to commit his life to the gathering of smelly weeds and the memorization of reams of confusing spells.
'Promise me,' urged his father while Mika hesitated, trying to think of some reply that would satisfy his father without binding him to some awful vow. On the other hand, there were definite advantages to curing beautiful maidens. And there was the gratitude of young wives and the comforting of grieving widows to consider.
'Promise me!' insisted his father, leaning closer.
Mika opened his mouth, still not knowing what he would say, when suddenly the cowhide covering of the wagon they were standing alongside ripped open and a spear thrust through the opening and rammed deep into his father's side, emerging between the ribs on the opposite side of Veltran's body, the black obsidian blade dripping with dark arterial blood.
Veltran opened his mouth, but no sound came out and he collapsed in a crumpled heap on the trampled grass.
Mika reacted instantly, ripping his sword from its sheath. He slashed the cowhide coverings from the wagon frame, revealing the kobold, a pale dingy beige from the loss of blood from a dozen wounds, laughing up at Mika- oba. Ocher blood ran from the corner of its mouth, and its filed teeth were bared in a grimace of hatred.
Mika plunged his sword through the chest of the kobold, skewering it on the razor-sharp blade, then pulled the blade down through the body, slicing it in two.
Black blood poured from the body, staining the sides of the wagon as Mika wrenched the horrible creature out onto the grass and hacked off its head which still bore the hateful leer, knowing that it had paid its death dues with the life of a human shaman.
Mika continued to slash at the kobold long after it was dead, hacking and slicing it into tiny bits of bloody flesh and bone.
Then, tossing his sword aside, he dropped to his knees beside his father and tenderly lifted the man in his arms.
'Father, Father, I promise! I give you my word!' he cried. 'I will be the man you wish me to be! Please don't die!'
There was a terrible roaring in his ears and his vision clouded, shutting out everything else in the world.
'Mika! Mika-oba!' said the voices, falling on his ears like incessant rain. 'Mika! Mika!' and he felt the hands pulling on his arms, taking his father away from him.
His eyes filled with tears and he lashed out at the hands, feeling satisfaction as he struck them aside and heard the gasp of their breath. Suddenly he was filled with rage and the need to cause pain. He threw back his head and howled. Falling to his knees, he screamed out his anger and his pain till his voice was ragged and his throat was raw. TamTur crouched beside him as he knelt on the grass, and head thrown back, the wolf joined his voice to Mika's. Together their howls careened up and down, mournful cries of grief that keened and shivered on the wind.
At last there was no more left inside of him. He was drained. Empty. Hands led him away, took him to his own hearth and covered him with blankets. But soon he rose and with unseeing eyes, withdrew into the forest with TamTur at his heels to do his grieving and sing his death songs alone.
Chapter 4
Filled with grief that was deeper than he would have imagined himself capable of, Mika-oba plunged into the forest and tried to lose himself in its vastness. Like a wounded animal he sought out its darkest corner and lay there hoarding his pain, all that was left of the man who had been his father.
Voices were heard dimly on the first day, and torches flitted through the forest like giant fireflies during the night. The voices grew louder on the second day, calling his name like a relentless echo. But Mika did not answer, unwilling to share his grief with others who did not matter. Somehow he felt that to accept their kind words and soft glances, to allow them to ease the pain, would somehow diminish the reality of his grief, and would put his father firmly into the land of the spirits.
Mika knew that by now the body would be placed atop a pyre of roanwood and that his presence was both required and expected. It was one of the most sacred rituals of the Wolf Nomads, the burying of a shaman. But he was not ready to appear, to watch the flames consume the small body. The man that had been his father still lived as long as he remained silent, remembering.
On the fourth day, his body rebelled and his mind was sluggish and would not focus. TamTur had renewed his efforts to cause him to rise, pawing at him, raking his sides with long claws. The memories of his father faded and refused to be recaptured. His stomach growled and his throat ached with lack of moisture. TamTur watched anxiously as Mika stumbled slowly to his feet, knowing that it was time to go. His grieving was done. He would return to camp and become the man his father had wanted him to be. He would don the cloak of shaman which had been in his family for generations. He would study his father's works until he knew them by heart. He would collect every green stuff known to man and learn its uses. He would become a tribute to the memory of his father.
The new resolve lasted all of a mile before he remembered how much he disliked gathering weeds and how they made him sneeze.
He pulled himself up short, lecturing himself sternly as he walked. 'I will do it. I will! I know I can do it!'
'But you don't want to,' whispered a tiny voice, filling his mind with visions of stinking weeds and dusty scrolls that unfolded to his knees covered with tiny printing, all to be memorized.
He pressed his hands over his ears to shut out the tiny voice inside him and tried to think noble thoughts.
He pictured how pleased Enor would be, as well as Celia. Perhaps… yes! Now was the time. He and Celia would be married and would have children, all boys, of course, whom he could train to follow in his footsteps. None
