‘You’re lucky I didn’t slit your throat.’ The figure put the knife back in its sheath. Even in the dark Iwa caught sight of the scraggy ends of eagle feathers dyed yellow and tied about the hilt with a silk ribbon. Only then did she realise it was Jarel, one of the younger hunters with his first kill marked barely a summer ago. ‘If I hadn’t had this to slow me,’ he pointed to a bandage high on his left leg, ‘you’d have entered the spirit world with my knife at your throat.’
‘Do I look like a woyak?’
‘You move like one.’ He winced as he transferred the weight from his wounded leg. ‘It would’ve been an easy mistake to make. I thought I knew all the women who’d managed to escape.’
‘That’s no excuse to go clodhopping through the forest with a knife and go about attacking the first person you come across,’ she retorted sulkily, her throat stinging from his grip.
‘I’d like to see you do better.’ He rested clumsily against a tree, with tiny sharp intakes of breath as he moved.
‘Let’s take a look at that.’ Not that she’d ever liked the boy, but suddenly she realised how scared she was. Anything was better than having to go back to the camp. Grunmir would skin me alive if he caught me, Katchka too if I don’t come back with those stupid mushrooms. And she’d spent far too much time alone in the forest.
‘You shouldn’t put too much weight on it.’ She tried to sound as comforting as possible. She’d never forgiven him for accusing her of stealing a brace of pheasants from the Salmon clan. She’d been less than ten summers old but he’d strung her up to a branch and threatened to whip her unless she confessed, and she’d have handed them over too, if Godek hadn’t cut her loose.
After that she’d been careful to keep well away from Jarel. He was always quick to involve himself in the squabbles of the younger children, but around the campfires of the men he was slow to speak.
‘It’s nothing.’ He turned sharply. ‘An arrow grazed my leg last night when the woyaks attacked. I should thank Bielobog that the archer didn’t take better aim.’
‘You’d be little use to anybody if the wound goes bad. There are some herbs deep in the forest, I’ve watched Katchka use them before.’
‘I’m one of the lucky ones. I saw Gedymin killed, Pasek too: taken from behind with a spear. I’d have joined them if it hadn’t been for Kazik. At least he managed to take down a woyak before he pulled me to the safety of the trees.’
‘Godek’s dead too.’
‘The hunt master,’ Jarel said. ‘I prayed that he would have lived. I even offered some rabbit bones in supplication to the gods, but they do not listen to us any longer.’ The boy turned to hide his tears. Hunt master Godek would have been the one to cut his forehead with the teeth of his first kill. She’d little idea about the hunter’s ceremony, but such bonds went deep.
‘The best have died before us,’ Jarel said. ‘We’re nothing more than a shadow clan, without flame or gods to bind us.’
‘At least let me take a look at your leg.’ Until then she’d only been concerned about not being left alone, but the tremor in his voice had softened her. ‘I could make up a poultice to ease the pain,’ she continued, surprised at the gentleness in her own voice.
Shaking his head, Jarel didn’t reply. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ she continued quickly. ‘I’ve helped Katchka with the sick often enough.’
‘Save your poultice for those needier.’ With a wince he levered himself from the tree and began to pick his way along a narrow, rough path. ‘There are those who will be of better use than me.’
‘We don’t have to be a shadow clan.’ Iwa followed, afraid that he would leave her. Then he slipped, his leg twisting stiffly as he began to fall. Iwa was quick to catch him, his weight bearing down on her shoulder as she tried to right him.
‘It’s only when I stop for too long.’
‘That’s not a good sign,’ she said as she struggled to support him. At least he’d never taken more than his share of the kill.
‘I’ll be better once I’m rested. This,’ he tapped his leg, ‘will be better once the heat of day gets into my bones.’
‘I know where the woyaks keep their weapons,’ Iwa said as she began to guide him round the roots. ‘We could sneak up on them in the night. They spend all their time feasting and pouring vodka down their throats. We’ll wait until all that drink has made them stupid like the traders and then they’ll be easy to kill.’
It didn’t take Jarel long to recover his movement and, after a few painful winces, he was able to push clear of her. At least he’s still able to move. Iwa clung to his heels, scared in case Jezi Baba came back for her. She’d been spared once, but the night hag could be tricky: it was best not to take anything for granted when dealing with the likes of her. If only there’d been a trace of the moon or a glimmer of light. All around her the forest was dark, the dim forms of branches reaching out as if to grab her.
Jarel must have known the forests well. His feet hardly made a sound as he slid past a morass of roots. And if it hadn’t been for his laboured breath or the occasional break in his stride, there was little sign of his injury.
But still he felt the pain of it, like a wounded animal, anxious to tease some movement into his bloodied foot. It was hard for him to keep track of the forest paths. Even in the dark he should have
