In the same long instant, Joboam was stepping in, his bronze knife was travelling down in a ripping arc. She heard the solid thud as it sank into Heckram, felt the impact of the blade as if in her own flesh.
'He's dead,' she said softly, watching him fall, seeing Joboam's knife jerk clear of his body and the bright gout of blood that followed it. It was the way he fell, bonelessly, making no effort to catch himself, that told her he would not get up again. His heart might still beat, he might take a few more breaths, but there was nothing left in him to fight. He landed badly, his legs crumpled, his head turned to one side so that for an instant he seemed to be staring right into her eyes. His back was wide and exposed, and Joboam was moving in, coming swiftly, stooping like a hawk with talons of bronze, and all gasped, knowing he was as unstoppable as a falling tree.
'Heckram!' Tillu screamed, and still he did not stir.
And then he blinked, his eyes widening afterwards, his jaws opening in a snarl that displayed his teeth. An inhuman sound roared from his throat, and Tillu believed he finally saw his own death coming. She cried aloud, a sound that echoed his.
She knew that what happened next was not possible. Heckram flipped onto his back, and all saw the bone knife gripped in both his hands. He thrust it up before him, as if hoping Joboam might fall upon it, and then, incredibly, followed the knife up. It seemed to jerk him to his feet as if he gripped a lasso around a wild sarva instead of a knife carved from reindeer bone. Joboam's eyes went wide as Heckram rose to meet him.
Perhaps for the first time in his life he experienced pure terror. His mouth gaped in disbelief as Heckram met his blow and stood before it. Joboam's knife skipped suddenly over Heckram's leather jerkin, finding no place to bite.
Terror still reigned on Joboam's face as he winced at the impact of Heckram's blow.
All saw the thin blade slip sweetly into his chest, all felt the rush of red warmth that leaped out around it as it slid into his flesh. Joboam jerked spasmodically, his knife flung wide, and then his fists were hammering Heckram's back like the flapping of a desperate bird's wings. They fell together, embraced like lovers, to roll on the floor skins. From that tangle, Joboam pulled himself up, crawled a staggering reach of his arms, and fell again. His hands came up and curled around the bone handle that jutted from his chest. He looked down at it, swallowed convulsively, and died, his eyes open and full of disbelief. Heckram lay as he had fallen.
Pain opened his eyes again. No more than a moment could have passed. He rolled his head on the rich pelts that floored Capiam's tent. Joboam, he remembered suddenly, Joboam was coming to kill him. But Joboam was gone. Someone had stopped him.
Someone had put an end to their fight. He blinked stupidly, wondering what had happened, why all was so silent. Folk still stood awe-stricken, frozen from watching the unimaginable: two herdfolk battling to the death. Horror transformed their faces, outlined skull bones, and aged them. Heckram lifted his head, feeling bloody fur cling stickily to his cheek. He tried to sit up, but found he could do no more than hold up his head. His head swayed on his neck as he gazed around the circle, trying to decide what had happened.
Joboam lay on his side, curled up, his hands clutching at the slender knife that had slipped so neatly between his ribs. He was still, and the puddling blood was still spreading. Heckram felt ill. Pain surged through him in waves, but could not distract him from the warm stickiness that coated his hand. It dirtied him. He lifted his head slowly, then gave it up, letting his cheek sink down on the bloodied furs. He wondered why the ring of people were so still, why the silence was so deafening. He had killed.
Were they gathered to witness him dying of his wounds? Would they turn away now and walk off, leaving him to his punishment? 'Tillu?' he asked softly, his lips moving painfully, and found her suddenly kneeling beside him, heard the mutter of folk begin.
'He lives!' a woman screamed suddenly. Heckram rolled his head toward the sound, saw the pointing finger that marked not him, but Kerlew. The boy staggered upright, his hand pressed tightly to his ribs and the sheen of blood across them. Tillu stiffened, her eyes going wide. Her hands, that had begun to touch his wounds, fell to her sides.
'Go to the boy,' Heckram croaked at her. But, 'Stay as you are!' Kerlew commanded in a voice high with pain. 'Stay, and see!'
Voices rose, but over them Capiam's panted shout, 'Obey him!' Stillness followed, people shifting awkwardly but no one daring to step forward. Capiam, pale and sweating, staggered forward, seated himself atop a chest. He curled forward around the pain in his belly. 'Listen to him,' he gasped. He looked around the circle of gathered folk challengingly. 'The herdlord commands it.'
The boy staggered toward Joboam. He fell to his knees beside the body. With an effort that made the crowd groan he rolled the big man onto his back. 'See this!' he panted, pointing to the protruding hilt. 'Remember this. Heckram did not kill Joboam.
Elsa's Knife did!' He lifted Joboam's hands from the knife-haft, held one palm out to the crowd. Two swollen abscesses dotted it. 'The mark of treachery,' Kerlew intoned, letting the hand fall, palm up, onto the skins. Boldly the boy seized the pale knife handle, jerked it from Joboam's chest. A last leap of bright blood followed it.
'Blade ... calls to brother ... blade.' Kerlew panted out the words, his strength rapidly failing. Tillu tried to rise, but Heckram's frail grip on her wrist held her. The boy spoke on, his faltering words paced to his labored breathing. 'This sign Elsa gives you. The mark ... she left ... Behold!' A woman cried out as he pressed the bone blade against the cut he had earlier scored in Joboam's forearm. 'From this scar.' He was gasping now, each word coming with an effort. Pain bobbed his head. 'Elsa's Knife calls ...' He pressed his cupped hand against the wound. 'This!' He rose jerkily. In the hand he lifted, shining white and red, a fragment of worked bone. He lifted it high, hand shaking with the effort. 'The broken edge of Elsa's blade, where she left it to tell on her killer. Where Pirtsi saw her put it, though he dared not tell.' Pirtsi's head was nodding, his eyes wide, too fear-stricken to deny anything now. Kerlew was sinking, going back to his knees beside Joboam's body. 'Because then Joboam would tell that Pirtsi had accidentally shot Lasse, with Joboam's bow. Shot him, and in his terror, ran away, instead of offering aid.'
Pirtsi whimpered his assent.
Kerlew's head fell forward onto his chest, his child's face twisting with pain. He slipped to the skins, panting suddenly from lack of breath. He turned his face to Heckram, and as their eyes met, Heckram heard him say, very softly, 'And I am herdfolk, Wolf.' The words followed him down as he slowly spun into a darkness filled with a pack's wise howling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was dark in the tent. She listened to them breathing, often holding her own breath to be sure she could hear them both. She was horribly tired, with a tiredness that was a pain in her back and head, but still she could not sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw blood. Blood on blades of bone and bronze, blood trickling down Kerlew's ribs, blood that flowed from Heckram's wounds as if spewed forth by small gaping mouths.
Yet again she held her breath, listening for his breathing close beside her. It was still there, hoarse and rasping, but steady. As was Kerlew's lighter breath an armspan away on the other side of her. They both still lived.
This, she thought, is what other women have felt, as I knelt over their men and put my hands in their blood. This helplessness.
She put a hand out in the darkness, rested it gently atop his chest. She felt the stiffness of her bandages, and through them the warmth of his life. His breath ebbed and flowed in him still. The wavering slash of Joboam's knife down his ribs had not been so bad; it had been the puncture wounds that had frightened her, the deep stabs in hip and back that looked so small on the outside, but had done damage within. What damage neither she nor any other healer would ever be able to tell. All one could do with such an injury was to bind it closed and hope against fever. As she did now.
If only he would open his eyes, she thought to herself. As Kerlew had. He had been conscious, but silent as she bound up his chest. He had watched her, his eyes a stranger's, and made no sound as she washed and bound his wound. Stina, Lasse's old grandmother, had been right at her elbow, already waiting with a bowl of warm broth for 'the young najd.' In the darkness, Tillu shook her head suddenly. It was what he was, now. And ever would be. He was not her child anymore; that much she knew. But she also suspected that he was not what Carp had hoped
