itself. Heckram scowled at the lush, crushed leaves and petals of a ranunculus. Kerlew had stood squarely atop that plant, not stepped on it in passing.
Why? What had held his attention so?
Then, as he stepped back from Kerlew's marks and glanced up, Heckram felt a sudden wave of dizziness sweep over him. The hand-print was red, the wolf's track below it black. Like a pledge marked together, like an agreement sealed with the gripping of hands. He swayed where he stood, denying it. Someone else had done it, he told himself, in some ancient time, and he had remembered it from his childhood in a bizarre dream. But another part of him laughed wildly inside his skull, demanding who else would have a handspan that wide and would set his mark so casually high. Who else would have been drawn, through a dream and across an impossible distance to Wolf and the Seite, to strike a bargain: Heckram's loyalty to Wolf, if Wolf would bring justice to Elsa's killer?
Without will he lifted his hand and spread the fingers wide, held it before him to compare it to the mark. It would fit. It was on a level with his eyes, an easy touch for him, but a difficult reach for almost anyone else. He didn't need to fit his hand in that print to know it for his own. But like an insect drawn to a flame, he took the steps that carried him into the seite's cool gray shadow. He set his hand in the print, saw the precision of the mark. Ice and fire in the touch of his flesh against the stone, and when he drew his hand back to himself with a cry, he was surprised to find the familiar calluses and lines of his palm intact. Yes, the hand-print was his.
Whose, then, the wolf-print?
Every hair on his body hackled, and he stumbled away from the seite's shadow, back into the sunlight and soft wind of the tundra day. But for long moments the warmth of the day couldn't reach him, and it took even longer before he recalled his present errand. He let his eyes scan the earth again, and his belly churned at the multitude of wolf-tracks that arched around Kerlew's track. There he had stood at bay, then, while the wolves circled round him. And then? And then any wolves he had ever known would have pulled down their cornered prey and torn each his share of flesh and bone.
But there were no signs of a grisly feast. Instead, there were the marks of the wolves packing up and moving off again. And among their tracks and on top of them, the bare prints of a young boy's feet.
Heckram let out a shuddering breath. What manner of boy ran with wolves by night? And what manner of wolves allowed it? His eyes strayed once more to his handprint, and the wolf print below it. The sudden kinship he felt for Kerlew astounded and overwhelmed him. He set out in the wake of the pack's tracks, suddenly certain the boy would be alive and well when he found him. That he never need have worried at all.
He trotted along, the wind and sunlight fresh against his face and hair. And there was Kerlew, tousled but whole, rising suddenly from a hollow in the earth. The boy's eyes were wide, pale as a wolf's, and the greeting he called to Heckram chilled his bones: 'Brother Wolf, I knew you would come for me!'
But Heckram found no surprise in himself at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
She did not sleep, but morning came anyway, and with it a semblance of normalcy that chafed Tillu's nerves. She and Kari rose, they ate, and Lasse came for the harkar.
They spoke very little and of Kerlew and Heckram not at all. Heckram had not returned, Kerlew hadn't wandered in. If Kari and Lasse knew of Heckram's plan, they did not betray it. The only sign was that Ristin's rajd had grown. She passed them with a solemn nod. Carp sat astride the last harke in her rajd. Tillu stared at him as he rode past, hating his unperturbed manner. She didn't blame Ristin for putting him on the last harke; from there he couldn't speak to her.
The harkar and their loads were gone, the fire burned to embers, and still they lingered. Families and rajds moved past them as the temporary camp broke up and resumed the migration. Tillu wandered aimlessly in the trodden circle that had been their camp last night. The place held her; leaving this spot and moving on would be abandoning Kerlew. Surrendering him to death.
'I thought you would come to ask for word of your son. I see you were not as worried as you seemed.' Cool words, edged words. Tillu turned her head slowly.
Joboam stood at the edge of their camp, his fists on his hips. His jerkin was open halfway down his chest, displaying hair. His arms were bare and muscle bulged on them. She found the sight repellent.
'I never thought to seek you out,' Tillu said softly, truthfully. 'I thought you would come to tell me if you had found anything.'
He shrugged. 'Well, if you're interested. I found bones spread about, still red with clinging flesh. At least a dozen wolves had nosed and pawed through them.'
Tillu's throat clenched. Kari's voice was shrill and raw in the chill air. 'And?' she demanded.
'And I suppose they must have found a calf that straggled away from the main herd.
It was probably half-starved by the time they pulled it down. There is a kindness in the savagery of wolves, making sure a lost calf does not suffer too long.'
'But Kerlew? Did you find any sign of him?' Either Kari's voice shook, or the humming in Tillu's cars made her think it did. She hated Joboam and his ghastly teasing. He smiled so kindly as he sliced her with words.
'The boy? No, I saw no sign of the boy. I called, but he neither answered nor came.'
Tillu looked at him dumbly, unable to reply. His eyes met hers, and for an instant the anger and mockery in his died away, to be replaced with pitying condescension. 'It seems hard, I know. But only the strongest are favored on the tundra. Life is for the strongest. But mercy's teeth are sharp and swift.'
'Perhaps. But not all strength is easily seen,' Tillu found herself answering. Her voice was surprisingly steady and she lifted her chin as she spoke. He stared down at her, and she saw his determination to master her grow. What had he imagined last night?
That she would come to him in tears and pain, and he would comfort and distract her?
Did he believe that with Kerlew gone, she would forget her son, and accept Joboam?
'You had better get started, if you are to keep up with the caravan today. Capiam would be very angry if he had to send me back to look for you also.' The words were formed as a suggestion, but spoken as a command. Tillu and Kari stood insolently still, staring up at him.
'And Carp told me last night that if you ignored his summons again, there would be little he could do to help you.' Bright color dotted Kari's cheeks as she suddenly flung the words at him. Tillu wondered what she was talking about.
With a snort of disdain and anger, he spun away from them. He yanked the lead harke's head around, and dragged the rajd off at a lagging trot, hastening up the moving line of folk and beasts to take the place his status required.
'What does Carp want with Joboam?' Tillu asked distractedly.
Kari looked at her for a long moment, the secrets behind her eyes looming large. Her eyes were black as she said, 'All my life, Joboam has been making me do things. Things I did not want to do. Just once, I should like to be able to make him do something he didn't want to do. When I was small and he came to drag me back to Ketla, I used to scream and scratch at him. I remember screeching, 'You can't make me do it. You can't make me.' But of course he could. And did. He has been the biggest for so long, he has come to believe that gives him the right to command. My father does not see it, but I do.
It chafes him that he is not herdlord, but he dares not dispute it yet. One day he will, in the meantime, he does not tolerate any defiance.'
Kari turned to Tillu, a sad warning in her eyes. 'Don't defy him, Tillu. Give in to him, for awhile. And then, after a time when you do not resist, he will think he has mastered you. Then he will leave you alone. Pretending to give up is the only way to win with Joboam. Giving in is easier and hurts less than fighting him. You can't win.'
'Kari,' Tillu began wonderingly, but the girl only shook her head angrily and turned away. She snatched up her gathering bag from the ground and set out after the caravan.
Tillu followed silently, a dreadful suspicion gnawing at her heart.
Tillu tried to focus her mind on the plants she passed. Her pharmacopia was complete now, or nearly so.
