‘Yaroslav,’ Iwa coughed. Still she couldn’t see him. On the other side of the hut the figure slumped, held up only by the ropes. Hopefully he was only sleeping. Then her face turned white and she began to struggle.
You are unlikely to end your days on the linden tree. Katchka’s words came back to her. Only now did Iwa perceive their meaning. Often the clan would sacrifice animals to the gods. Most times it was a prized kill; the best of the hunt burned before the bones of Karnobog. Afterwards the remains would be hung from a sacred linden tree, the carcass turned to face the rising sun. But there were other, darker rituals to appease bloodier gods. Here the caucuses were hideously mutilated and their faces cut open before they were cast into some deep pit. Is that what Wislaw plans for me? Iwa struggled frantically, the blood dripping across her wrists as the ropes tightened about her. Maybe Wislaw could suck up her power in death. And may it bring him as much luck as it has done to me; but the idea of what he might do to her body was almost unbearable.
‘Yaroslav,’ she began to struggle with the ropes, ‘we have to get out of here.’
‘I will only slow you down,’ the voice from the other side of the hut came hoarse and broken. ‘Will you never learn? It is you who Wislaw wants: what am I to him? I have no power and I doubt that anyone will bother with me until the food begins to run out, and the woyaks will probably have gone long before then.’
‘Are you strong enough to take the path up to the autumn camp?’ Iwa asked as she felt the ropes begin to give.
‘Even if I could, what good would it do? That route is well known and even the woyaks would track us. No, you need to find one of the other ways, you were always so good at finding your path along the backwoods trails, slinking off so far that Godek could hardly find you. I never had the skill for that.’
‘Just let me get free.’ Above her wrist she could see the knot start to loosen. ‘Once we’re free we can slip out of the camp.’
‘Don’t underestimate Grunmir. He keeps a careful watch. Many of the woyaks think now only of escape. If it hadn’t been for the demon they’d have fled long ago.’
‘So these woyaks aren’t as stupid as all that,’ she said, the ropes creaking under her weight. ‘They should have stayed in the lands of the Poles.’
‘But their eyes are sharp and Grunmir only puts his most trusted men on night guard. They’re not about to let anybody get past them and, even if I could get free, what then? I’m too old to go creeping through the backwoods tracks.
‘You flee – get out and find one of the clans: the Boar’s Tusk or the Wolf’s Jaw, those who hunt deep into the forest. They might hide you, but don’t think that Wislaw will give up on you, not if he thinks that he can steal your craft. He’ll convince Grunmir to send his woyaks after you – only the deep forest clans will be able to keep you safe. And don’t trust the Salmon, or any of the other freshwater clans: they have too much contact with the traders and too much love of their coin.’
‘You’ll be able to get out of the camp,’ Iwa said quickly, ‘and the forest paths aren’t as difficult as you think. The woyaks couldn’t find a herd of elk if they ran under their noses.’
‘Remember when I found you in the snowstorm?’
‘I was too young. Fleeting images only: cold and whiteness,’ she replied, anxious to keep him occupied. If only she could loosen the ropes a little. He needed to believe that he could escape. The thought that she might have to leave him was almost too much for her. Not after all she’d been through.
‘I dragged you from the snow, nothing more than a tiny bundle, your red deerskin cloak wrapped around you like a shroud.’
‘I thought that I’d been taken by the ancestors, or maybe I was so close to death that it was nothing more than an apparition. I had so many dreams after the cold left me.’ Iwa shivered. Much of what had happened lay forgotten, but she remembered the cold. Then there was the warm feeling as she collapsed to the ground, too young to realise that death was fast upon her.
‘I would have given my life for you,’ Yaroslav said. ‘There is part of the story that I have never spoken of, even to you. I’d gone back out when the hunters had given up. They laughed, warned me that I’d only get lost and find nothing in the snows but my way to the ancestor world, but I had to try. After your mother died, you were all that was left to me and I couldn’t bear to lose you. So I braved the storm.
‘Sometimes, in the deep forest, a hunter will sense that he is being stalked. Well, I’m no hunter, but I had that feeling all the same. Some animal followed my steps, I was sure of it, though I could see nothing. I told myself that it was just my imagination but, as I pressed further on, the feeling grew.
‘Then I came across my own tracks, less than an hour old. I was lost and must have doubled back across a ravine. Beside my track ran the paw prints of a great bear. At first I thought it could have been a lynx, but they never grow that big. Even a seasoned hunter would have turned back for the camp rather than face such a creature alone. A bear filled with the famine of winter, she’d have ripped the flesh from my bones within
