Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

“What… what do you want?” faltered Aryuk. Though dread clogged his mouth, he could not bring himself to wish these newcomers well as one should for any visitor.

Running Fox replied, colder than the cloudlets that puffed from between his lips. He had learned Our speech better than any other Cloud man—in how many times with Daraku? “I talk to you. You talk to me.”

That, yes, of course, Aryuk thought. Talk. What else have we left? Unless they want to mount Seset. She is young and toothsome. No, I must not let myself know wrath. Besides, they do not look at her. “Come inside,” he said reluctantly.

“No,” spat Running Fox—half in scorn, half in wariness, Aryuk guessed. Crammed into a Tula shelter, he would have no room to wield those beautiful, deathful weapons. “We talk here.”

“Then I must cover me,” Aryuk said. His feet and fingertips were already numb.

Running Fox made a brusque gesture of agreement. Tseshu crept forth. She had put on shoes and a skin cloak, which she held tight as if afraid or ashamed to have strangers behold sagging breasts and slack belly. She brought the same garb for her man. Dzuryan and Seset slipped back and outfitted themselves likewise. They returned to the entrances, very quiet. Meanwhile Tseshu helped Aryuk dress.

That comforted him mightily, as belittling as it was to do this while Running Fox flung his questions. “What walks… between you … and Sun Hair?”

Aryuk gaped. “Sun Hair? Who?”

“Woman. Tall. Hair like sun. Eyes like—” Running Fox pointed at the sky.

“She Who Knows—We, we were friends.” Are we yet? She abides in your place.

“What else? Talk!”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Ho! Nothing? Why she give tribute for you?”

Aryuk stiffened. Tseshu finished tying on the moss-stuffed bags that were his shoes. “She did? What?” Joy rushed over him. “Yes, she promised she would save us!”

Tseshu straightened and took stance at his side. So had her way ever been.

His moment’s happiness blew off across the ice. “What kuyok in knife?” Running Fox snarled.

“Kuyok? Knife? I do not understand.” Was the man working a spell? Aryuk raised his free hand and made a sign against it.

The intruders tensed. Running Fox spoke to his companion. The elder man pointed his carven bone at Aryuk and uttered a short, shrill chant.

“No tricks,” Running Fox rasped. His hatchet waved toward the elder. “Here is Aakinninen—you say ‘Answerer.’ He kuyokolaia. Got kuyok much more strong than yours.”

The word must mean “magic,” Aryuk knew. His heart shook his ribs. The cold slid through cloak and flesh. “I meant you no harm,” he whispered.

Running Fox brought his spearhead near Aryuk’s throat. “My strength much more strong than yours.”

“It is, it is.”

“You see Wanayimo strength at Bubbling Springs.”

Aryuk clutched his hand ax tight, as if its weight could hold him from being whirled up by a gust of forbidden fury. Should I go flat in the snow?

“Do what I say!” Running Fox shouted.

Aryuk glimpsed Dzuryan and Seset, how they quailed. Somehow he stood fast, and Tseshu beside him. “What must we do?” he asked in bewilderment.

“You say what is with you and the tall ones. What they want? What they do?”

“Nothing, we know nothing.”

Running Fox slanted his spear downward. The stone-edged head sliced across Aryuk’s calf. A shallow cut reddened behind it. “Talk!”

The pain was little, the menace bigger than heaven. When at last he meets the lion, a man stops being afraid. Aryuk squared his shoulders. “You can kill me,” he said low, “but then this mouth cannot speak. Instead, my ghost will.”

Running Fox’s eyes widened. Either he knew the word for ghost or he guessed its meaning. He turned to Answerer. They conferred fast and harshly. But always Running Fox stayed mindful of where each of Us was. Aryuk’s free hand found Tseshu’s.

Answerer’s withered face hardened. He barked something. His companion clearly agreed. Aryuk waited to learn the fate of his family.

“You not make kuyok against us,” Running Fox said. “We take one along. She talk.”

He stuck his spear upright in the snow, made a long stride forward, seized Tseshu by the arm. He hauled her from her man’s clasp. She wailed.

Daraku!

A wind roared over Aryuk. He himself screamed as he sprang.

Running Fox chopped with his hatchet. Caught off balance, he missed Aryuk’s head but struck him on the left shoulder. Aryuk neither saw nor felt the blow. He was in against the Cloud man. His right arm swung. The hand ax crashed on Running Fox’s temple. The hunter crumpled.

Aryuk stood above him. Pain smote. He dropped the hand ax and went to his knees, pawing at the hurt shoulder. Dzuryan boiled toward him. A weaponstone of his own, hurled, barely went by Answerer. The old one whirled about and ran off, in among the trees, up the slope. Dzuryan joined Tseshu where Aryuk was. Seset silenced the children.

Aryuk’s soul returned as the darkness ebbed from him. Helped by both women, he regained his feet. Blood ran, a red flame amidst the snow, from his shoulder. That arm hung useless. When he tried moving it, the pain was so vast that the night rolled over him again. Tseshu drew his cloak aside to look at the wound. It wasn’t deep, the edge had hit bone, but surely that bone was broken.

“Father, shall I catch the other man and kill him?”

Dzuryan asked. Did his boy-voice waver, or was that how Aryuk heard it?

“No,” said Tseshu. “He is too far ahead of you now. You are too young.”

“But he, he will tell the Red Wolf what happened.”

Dimly surprised, Aryuk found he could think. “That is best,” he muttered. “We must not make this thing worse … for all of Us.”

He stared downward. Running Fox sprawled limp. The blood that had gushed from the man’s nose flowed no more, only trickled, slower and slower as the cold thickened it. The open mouth had gone dry, the open eyes had filmed over, the open bowels had emptied. A snowbank into which he had fallen hid the smashed part of his head.

“I forgot myself,” Aryuk whispered at him. “You should not have laid hand on my woman. Not after my daughter. We were both unwise, you and I.”

“Come in by the fire,” Tseshu said.

He shambled obediently along. The women tended him as best they could, stanching the cut with moss, binding arm to side with thongs. Dzuryan built the fire up and fetched a frozen rabbit from a small cairn nearby. Tseshu laid it in the coals.

Hot meat gave heart, and Aryuk drew more strength from the bodies pressed against his. At last he could tell them: “In the morning I must leave you.”

“No!” moaned Tseshu. He knew that she knew what he intended. Nonetheless she protested. “Where can you go?”

“Away,” he said. “They will come after their dead man when they hear, and after me. If they found us together, it would go very badly with you. When Barakyn and Oltas return, everybody must go different ways, seeking shelter and help among friends. The Cloud men will know that I and I alone killed him. I think, if they do not see you where he lies, they will be content with my death. Tracking me down will use up most of their anger.”

Seset hugged herself, rocked to and fro, wept aloud. Tseshu sat moveless, excépt for taking her man’s good hand in hers.

“Say no more now,” Aryuk ordered. “I am weary. I need a night’s rest.”

He and Tseshu sought their hut. Lying beside her, he found he could sleep—lightly, skimming above pain, dreams flickering like bits of rainbow. I have lived longer than many, he thought once, half wakeful. It must be time for me to go find our children who died. They have been lonely.