other as they pushed Armun aside and jammed their way into the cave. While Kalaleq opened Kerrick’s furs and tore them off him, two of the others were undressing as well, laying their still-warm clothing out on the frozen ground. Kerrick’s chilled body was placed carefully on the furs and the naked hunters lay beside him, holding him tight to them, using their body heat to warm him. The others piled all of the rest of the furs over them.
“Such cold — I will freeze myself for sure, sing my death song!” Kalaleq cried out.
The others laughed, their good spirits returned now that they had found the hunters alive.
“Get wood, make a fire, melt snow. They must be warmed and will need to drink.”
Ortnar was treated in the same manner. Armun realized that she could help best by getting the wood. And he was alive! The sun was warm on her face, warmth penetrating her body at the realization that both she and Kerrick were safe now, alive and together again. At that moment, as she leaned her weight on a branch and cracked it free, she made a promise to herself that nothing would ever separate them again. They had been apart too long. The invisible cord that bound them one to the other had been stretched too far, had been near to breaking. She would not let that happen another time. Where he was — there she would be as well. No thing and no person would ever come between them. Another frozen branch broke free with a loud crack as she hauled on it with all her strength, a mixture of anger and happiness filling her. Never again!
The fire roared, the cave was warm. Kalaleq had gone over Kerrick’s unconscious body, pushing at his extremities and nodding happily.
“Good, very good, he is strong — how white his body is! Only here on his face is there freezing, those dark spots. The skin will come off, that is all right. But the other, look how bad.”
He pulled the furs back from Ortnar’s feet. All of the toes on his left foot were frozen, black.
“Must cut them off. Do it now and he won’t feel anything, you’ll see.”
Ortnar groaned aloud, even though still unconscious, and she ignored the grisly chopping sounds behind her as she bent over Kerrick. His forehead was warm now, becoming moist. She stroked it with her fingertips and his eyelids moved, opened, closed again. She took him around the shoulders and lifted his body, held the leather cup of water to his lips. “Drink it, please drink it.” He stirred and swallowed, then slumped back again.
“They must stay warm, have food, get some strength before they can be moved,” Kalaleq said. “We’ll leave meat here from the boat, then maybe go catch some fish. Back at dark.”
The Paramutan left her a great mound of wood as well. She kept the fire banked high, stirred it, and uncovered the glowing coals. When she turned away from it later in the afternoon she found Kerrick’s eyes open, his mouth moving as he tried unsuccessfully to talk. She touched his lips with hers, then stroked them as she would silence a baby.
“I’ll talk. You are alive — and so is Ortnar. I found you in time. You will be all right. There is food here — and water — you must drink that first.”
She supported him again as he drank the water, coughing a bit at the dryness of his throat. When she laid him back down she held tight to him, whispering, her lips close to his ear.
“I made an oath to myself. I swore that I would never allow you to leave me alone again. Where you go, I go. That is the way it must be.”
“The way… it must be,” he said hoarsely. His eyes closed and he slept again: he had been at the brink of death and it is most difficult to return once you have come that close. Ortnar stirred and made a sound and Armun brought water to him as well.
It was almost dark when the Paramutan returned, shouting and calling out to her. “Look at this tiny thing I bring,” Kalaleq called out as he pushed into the cave — holding up a great, ugly fish covered with plates, its mouth bristling with teeth. “This will give them the strength they need. Now they eat.”
“They are still unconscious—”
“Too long, not good. Need meat now. I show you.”
Two of them lifted Ortnar until he was sitting up, then Kalaleq, moved the hunter’s head gently, pinched his cheeks, whispered in his ear — then clapped his hands loudly. Everyone shouted encouragement when Ortnar’s eyes opened slightly and he groaned. One held his mouth open while Kalaleq hacked off chunks of fish, then squeezed the juice from this into the hunter’s mouth. He spluttered, coughed, and swallowed and there was more excited cheering. When he came blurrily awake they pushed bits of raw fish in between his lips and encouraged him to chew and swallow.
“Tell him in your Erqigdlit tongue, he must eat. Chew, chew, that is it.”
She fed Kerrick herself, would let no other near him, tried to give him her strength as she held him tightly against her breasts.
It was two days before Ortnar was fit to travel. He bit his lip until there was blood upon it when they cut more black flesh from his feet.
“But we are alive,” Kerrick told him when the ordeal was finished.
“Part of me isn’t,” Ortnar gasped, the beads of moisture standing out on his face. “But we have found them — or they have found us — and that is what is important.”
Kerrick had to lean most of his weight on Armun when they went down to the boat: Ortnar was carried on a litter of branches. He was in too much pain to take much notice of his surroundings, but Kerrick was wide-eyed and appreciative when he looked about him at the boat as he climbed in.
“Made of skins, light and strong. And all the oars! These Paramutan can build as well as the Sasku.”
“Some of what they make is even better,” Armun said, pleased at his interest. “Look at this — do you know what it is?”
She handed him the length of carved bone and he turned it over and over in his hands.
“It is from some large beast, I don’t know what kind. And it has been hollowed out — but what is this?” He shook the dangling leather tube, put his eye to the hole on top of the bone, pulled the knob next to it and discovered that a length of round wood, the thickness of an arrow, was attached to it. “It is wonderfully made, that is all I know.”
Armun smiled, her split lip revealing the evenness of her teeth, as she poked the end of the tube down into the water that was sloshing at their feet. When she pulled up on the knob there was a sucking sound, and when she pulled a second time a thin gush of water shot from the top opening and over the side of the boat. He gaped — then they both laughed at his astonishment. Kerrick took it from her hands again.
“It is like something that the Yilane have grown — but this was made, not grown. I like this kind of thing.” He turned it over and over with admiration, tracing the carvings on its length that pictured a fish spitting out a great stream of water.
The return to the paukaruts was a great triumph with the women pushing each other, screaming with laughter, for the privilege of carrying the litter with the blond giant on it. Ortnar looked at them with amazement as they fought to touch his hair, barking at each other all the time in their strange language.
Arnwheet stared at his father in wonder; he had very little memory of any Tanu hunters. Kerrick knelt in the snow to look at him more closely, a solid, wide-eyed boy with little resemblance to the baby he had left. “You are Arnwheet,” he said and the boy nodded gravely — but shied back when Kerrick put his hand out to touch him.
“He is your father,” Armun said, “and you must not be afraid of him.” But the child clung to her leg at the strangeness of it all.
Kerrick stood up, the word bringing up long buried memories. Father. He dug into his furs and found the two knives that hung about his neck, his fingers touched the smaller one and pulled it free. This time when he knelt down the child did not pull back. Kerrick held out the shining metal blade, glinting in the sunlight.
“As my father gave this to me — so do I give it to you.”
Arnwheet reached out hesitantly and touched it, looked up at Kerrick and smiled. “Father,” he said.
Before winter ended Ortnar was on the mend. He had lost flesh, was still in pain, but his great strength had pulled him through. There had been more black flesh on his feet, pus and an awful smell, but the Paramutan knew how to treat this as well. As the days grew longer the flesh healed and scars formed. With fur padding in his boots he hobbled out of the paukarut each day and learned to walk again. The foot without the toes made this difficult, but he learned nevertheless. He was walking far out along the edge of the ice one day when he saw the boat approaching from the distance. It was one of the larger ones with a large skin tied to a pole and did not look familiar. Nor was it. When he stumbled back to the paukaruts he found that everyone had turned out, were shouting and waving as the boat came close.
“What is it?” he asked Armun, for he had learned only a word or two of the strange tongue.
