Table of Contents
title page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Moon Child
by
MARK LUCEK
Chapter One
Her dreams were filled with blood and fire and death. In a dark corner of the tent Iwa turned, reindeer skins wrapped tightly around her as if to draw in the warm sleepy smells of sweat and hides. Still she could not shake the dreams. Ill-formed visions crowded round as she slept fitfully, half-glimpsedfigures that melted into the night.
Am I a child to be so frightened by the dark? She scolded herself as, still only half-awake, she watched the breeze pick its way across the tent. Outside the air was cold, a wind cutting in from across the great river to ruffle the flames of the clan fire built in the ritual place along the shore. All was quiet, except for the occasional laughter of the last hunters gathered around the flames and the chatter of the reeds.
By her side, baby Tomaz kicked. ‘Hush now,’ she whispered as she cradled him. ‘There’s not long to go before we reach the summer camp and you will watch the sun dance across the great river and there’ll be fish to eat.’
Carefully she tucked the furs about him, remembering the taste of fresh-caught carp and loganberries. All winter long there’d been little more than smoked meat and roots. The hunters should have caught more meat but the herds were skittish, not keeping to their usual grazing places. Now the thaw had come and, with that, the clan turned from the deep forest and began their ritual journey as they followed the herds down through the forest to the great river.
Not that there was much in the way of fish, not yet. That would come when the clan moved further along the shore to the summer camp, where the best of the fishing would be had. If only the herds would hurry, but it would take more than a moon’s passing before they were ready to move along the shore.
If there are any herds, she thought gloomily, as she remembered how the hunters had returned. It was as if the animals had fled. They’d laid their traps well, hidden in ambush along the trails, but there was hardly a sign of a badger or a fox, let alone anything larger.
‘The Leszy have not been kind,’ Godek, the hunt master, muttered as he led the hunters into the camp, his spear dragging behind him and his quiver still full. ‘If the forest spirits do not cast their favours upon us then not even the fastest arrow or the strongest spear will avail.’ At least he’d managed something. Across his shoulders hung a deer, a mere winter buck of gristle and bone. Few of the other hunters had made even a single kill.
‘Always you blame the woodland spirits,’ old Katchka was quick to scold. ‘And the Leszy who looks over this place,’ she paused to make the ritual gesture of supplication, ‘has always been good to us. I glimpsed him in the wind as I dug for roots.’
‘Then you have been blessed with a vision,’ Godek said as he handed his spear to a waiting boy and pulled the deer from his shoulders. ‘But other Leszy have driven the herds from their paths. We cannot hunt what is not there. Animals are not roots and berries to keep to their place and wait for you to pick them.
‘Marzanna, the mistress of winter, keeps her hold over the earth still and,’ he pointed to the river and the fingers of ice still gathered in the centre, ‘the waters do not seem to keep to the season. Perhaps Kostroma has forgotten us. We should sacrifice to her again so that she will breathe the thaw into the earth and bring the herds to the river. Tonight, I will offer her the best meat of my kill wrapped in fat so that she will be pleased with us once more.’
But the women were not impressed. ‘Why is it that the animals have gone?’ they muttered as they began to skin the carcasses and decide which meagre strips of meat to dry on the branches. ‘We have not even heard a bird sing. Marzanna has silenced them with her cold and Kostroma will not come to breathe spring into the earth.’
By Iwa’s side Tomaz shifted, his legs digging into her through hides and furs. ‘Are you hungry, little one? Do not worry,’ she continued as she remembered Godek’s words, ‘the first of the kill does not make the season.’
‘Can’t you leave an old woman to her rest?’ From the other side of the tent Katchka stirred, her deerskin blankets drawn thickly around her. ‘Isn’t it enough that these old bones have had to scamper across forest paths still thick with snow and ice?’
‘He could do with a walk outside to settle him,’ Iwa said, hoping the baby wouldn’t start to cry.
‘Go if you must. What am I, a newborn goat with fur to keep the chill from my bones?’
‘Hush now.’ Iwa hugged the baby to her. She could still feel the last traces of the cold etched into the furs. It hadn’t been the worst of winters, with only a thin film of snow so that the herds were easy to follow as they drew deeper into the forest and skirted the base of the mountains. But it’d been a long trek all the same.
At first the animals, elk and deer, had kept to their well-worn paths so that the hunters were able to keep close to the camp. Iwa had been able to sneak out and follow them almost to the hunting grounds before she’d been caught, a stray footfall marking her out as the hunters stalked close. Katchka had beaten her raw, but it’d been worth it to get so far. Who would want to stay around the camp when the herds were about? But such
