Enra seemed to be in her element. Her steps were light on the leaf-covered ground, and she held out her hands for balance when jumping from rock to rock when we had to cross icy-cold streams. I wasn’t tired from the climbing, the walking, or the cold, but I was surprised that she wasn’t either. She was energized by it. She was heading home.
Skrew, on the other hand, kept his distance and complained the whole time. He’d brought several of the blankets with him and had them wrapped around his body so many times, I doubted he could touch any two of his hands together or turn his head. As the walk grew longer, he left them behind to free up his load, and the loss of each individual item seemed to upset him, as though the scraps of material were his most prized possessions.
He was still refusing to make eye contact with me, but at least he wasn’t antagonizing anyone. And he was still sticking to his word to stay with me.
I thought about the phylac and what it meant. I was now, according to Enra, his master. The subject weighed heavily on me.
“Skrew,” Enra said after we’d stopped for a moment.
“What?” he spat back.
“Stay here. Do not approach my people.”
The nearby conifers looked much the same as all the others we’d passed, so I wasn’t sure where the Ish-Nul lived exactly.
“Skrew is curious,” he countered.
“They do not care for your kind. They will kill you. They know some of your kind are slavers and have no tolerance for such things.”
“Skrew is no slaver!” he said, puffing out his skinny chest.
“She knows,” I interrupted. “But not everyone knows. Just stay here, okay? I’ll return as soon as I can.” He’d already proven himself capable of not getting killed by the local plants and animals, so I figured he’d be safe here by himself. Not only that, but he’d proven himself to be loyal. Maybe it was because of the phylac, or maybe he knew his best chance of a new life was by following along with me.
Skrew slouched and made sad eyes at me before looking around for a place to hide. The ground was rocky, and the sparse vegetation grew close to the ground. My guide settled on a pile of leaves propped against a tree and climbed into the middle of it, leaving only his eyes showing.
Enra nodded and turned to me. “Let’s go. My people will be happy to see me. And they will be happy to see you.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but when we reached the top of the next hill, a small valley opened before us. Smoke from a half-dozen fires disappeared into the air from as many shacks. Another 10 appeared to be more utilitarian, as they were smaller and did not seem to have chimneys at all. The buildings appeared to be constructed of a darkly colored wood, parts of them covered in animal skins, irregular-shaped plates of metal, and bright banners of red cloth. The largest, the ones with chimneys, had wood roofs. The rest were thatched.
What caught my attention the most was beyond the right edge of the village. Ocean waves crashed against against a rocky shoreline and hurled gray water into an equally gray sky.
“Do not move!” a male voice growled from somewhere to my right.
I turned and saw a large man pointing a long spear in my direction. It was difficult to tell how large he was because he was covered in a patchwork of furs. His blond beard was so long that, even braided, it almost touched the ground as he crouched in a fighting stance.
Two other men emerged from behind him, each holding double-bladed battle axes. They also had long beards but not nearly as long as the man I assumed was their leader. I didn’t see any advanced weapons, but lack of tech didn’t make them any less dangerous. Primitive people survived and knew how to use the land and their surroundings to their advantage.
They almost reminded me of vikings from Ancient Earth.
I took a deep breath and prepared to charge, but I paused when Enra touched my arm.
“Do you not remember me?” she asked.
The man was speechless for a moment before the tip of his spear started to sag closer to the ground.
“Well, do you?” Enra asked. “Or should I remind you? Perhaps I’ll break your nose again like I did last summer when you wouldn’t share your salted fish?”
A barking laugh ripped from the leader’s throat as the two in the back lowered their spears and smiled. The man in front tossed his spear to the ground where it bounced and clattered out of his reach.
“I told you it was mine!” he roared. “You had no right to take it from me!”
I blinked at the exchange.
Enra took two steps toward the man, lifted her sleeves, and raised her fists like she was going to go box with him. My eyes flickered to the leader’s rearguard, and I waited for them to move in. Enra seemed to know what she was doing, so I didn’t want to intervene—at least, not yet.
I had to hold my breath when the bear-like man crouched into a wrestling stance, arms out wide, one leg forward. Enra charged. The other two men watched impassively as if I wasn’t even there.
She hit him full speed, went low, and caught him around the leg. My eyes widened as Enra swept out the man’s leg in a textbook takedown and knocked him on his back. A moment later, they were both laughing and one of the men with a spear approached, dropped his weapon while he was still a dozen feet away, and held out a hand to me.
“I am called Cais-du,” he said in the same rolling accent as Enra, “and you are welcome here, friend. Thank you for bringing our cousin home.”
I relaxed a bit and tried to shake his hand, but he grabbed my forearm and
