Desperately she willed herself back into the creature’s mind. If only she had an inkling about what she was doing. Part of her rebelled against the thought. Better to die than have truck with such things. She’d never actually consciously tried to get inside an animal’s head before. When such things had happened she’d been able to convince herself that it’d been nothing but play, a wild imagination getting the best of her.
Part of her wanted to swoop, her heart longing for the rush of the wind against her face and the warm flood of blood in her mouth. Fighting down the temptation to hunt, Iwa forced herself on.
Dimly she was aware of her body, the soft tread of the earth comforting beneath her feet as she made her way along a half-forgotten track. It was difficult to focus; it was still as if she were in two places at once, looking out through the hawk’s eyes as well as her own. Around her the trees swelled. She put out her hand to stop herself from falling and realised that she recognised it, the bark hard against her hand. She must have wandered across the barrier and back into the world.outside. She drew some comfort from that at least, if only she could make out where she was. The owls had flown so far, so fast.
Finally, she rounded a bend and saw the trickle of water through a gap in the trees: she was almost at the cave. Maybe she hadn’t travelled far at all. By now the sun was high in the sky and she could feel the bird’s hunger as it swept away, leaving her with little more than the memory of the breeze tingling along her arm. Dazed and confused, Iwa shook her head and sank against a tree. Getting used to her own eyes proved difficult, her vision so impoverished compared with the hawk’s. How did I ever manage to see anything with these stunted eyes? Through the forest, a dark shape came towards her: it was Jarel.
‘Hush, you idiot,’ he hissed, ‘do you want to bring every woyak out of the camp?’
‘I lost my way.’
‘You should have known better.’ Jarel nodded to the track. There was little to mark her passing, except for a few broken twigs and a patch of earth disturbed under her tread, but the hunters were used to tracking animals and Jarel could pick out the trail as clearly as if she’d cut her way through with an axe. ‘Why not just call out to the woyaks if you’d like to bring them here?’
‘They’re not hunters,’ Iwa replied, as she eyed the thin hare in his hand. ‘They couldn’t track a herd of elk through the forest without losing the trail.’
‘Elk herds move more quietly, and leave less trace of their passing.’
‘Well, at least I’ve managed to gather something useful.’ She held the bag defensively between them.
‘A few measly berries! Half an hour’s work at most.’
‘And you’ve done better, I suppose?’
‘Fresh meat is hard to come by,’ Jarel turned the hare in his hand in an effort to make it look larger, ‘and cunning too. Not like berries, which hang in the bracken waiting for you to come along and pick them.’
‘But they cured Godek’s old hound. Remember how sick he was? Even Katchka’s herbs hadn’t helped. He was howling for the ancestor world and I cured him, with these.’
‘Dogs are one thing, men another.’ Without looking back Jarel began to move off in the direction of the cave, his leg dragging heavily across the ground.
‘Yaroslav!’ Iwa cried, and she felt a stab of panic, but the hunter didn’t even break his stride. ‘He is all right?’ Suddenly Iwa realised why Jarel only had the one hare. ‘No!’ she cried.
Jarel paused as if to say something, but decided against it. It would be better to let her learn the truth for herself, and besides, she’d already pushed past him.
‘Father…’ She scrabbled into the cave. The air was oily with the stench of fire and decay. Around her the paintings shimmered as she ran to her father’s side. ‘Yaroslav!’ she cried as she turned over his body, cold as a winter frost. ‘Please be alive.’ She touched skin, tough as bleached leather. His eyes were black, the light reflecting dully from his pupils as Jarel fed a few twigs to the fire.
‘I tried to give him some meat,’ Jarel said, ‘but he wouldn’t take it. There was nothing more I could do,’ he continued, as the fire flickered into life.
Iwa wasn’t listening. The tears were hot on her cheeks as she pulled the body towards her and buried her face in the folds of his cloak. ‘We should prepare his body for the ancestor world,’ Jarel said grimly. ‘I would have done so myself, but there were no women to help. Your father never claimed his first kill, so the hunters’ rites are not for him.’
‘No.’ Iwa looked up. ‘I won’t let you take him.’
Jarel placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘I won’t do it,’ she managed through her tears. ‘He’s not dead, he can’t be.’
‘That’ll not bring him back; nothing will, not even your berries.’
Iwa put her head against her father’s body and her heart leapt as she felt a gurgle of air draw through his lips. So he was alive – but the scent of death hung over him. Now that the fire had flared up Iwa could see his skin, cold and clammy, and his face tinged with blue. The spirit world lay ready to call him.
‘We could try the berries,’ she said, aware of how pitiful her words must sound.
‘Soon he will have his fill by the undying fire that burns before the sacred body of Karnobog. His tent is already pitched and the eternal hunt calls for him.’
‘Let me try the berries at least.’ A deep anger swelled within her. Jarel had already given up, ready to cast her father into the ancestor world. All this
