Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

No wonder he’s done in, Corwin thought distantly, an old man—perhaps as old as fifty — going day and night over the snow in terror for his life. The shaman had slumped again. “But what could make Aryuk do this?”

“It is not clear,” Red Wolf replied. “A demon may have seized him, or the evil may long have nested in his heart…. You truly have no knowledge?”

“None. What will you do now?”

Glance met glance. The silence grew until Red Wolf reached a decision. He’s still leery of me, Corwin knew, but he wants to believe Wanda and I are honest. He wants to show his own goodwill by being candid.

“I will not dance for Running Fox tonight,” Red Wolf said. “With certain hunters I will be bound for the sea. We must bring our friend home.”

“Yes, you must,” Corwin understood.

It was more than sentiment: “We need him here. His is a strong ghost, like Snowstrider’s, to aid us against evil spirits and hostile ghosts.”

“Hostile…. Tulat?”

“Who else? Although I will see to it that Aryuk’s body lies afar with his ghost tightly bound to it. Answerer will give me the tools and words for that.”

“Do you mean to kill him?”

Surprise murmured through the crackling of the flames. “What else?” Red Wolf demanded. “We cannot let a Vole man harm a man of the people and go unscathed.”

“We should kill many of them,” Broken Blade growled.

“No, no,” said Red Wolf. “Then how can they bring tribute? They must be quelled, but I think it will be enough to slay Aryuk.”

“What if we fail in that?”

“Then, true, we must avenge Running Fox on others. Let us see what happens.”

“I wish you would stay your hands,” Corwin exclaimed. Immediately he knew what foolishness that was. He’d been thinking how Wanda would feel when she got back from the field.

The faces before him hardened. Answerer looked up again and croaked almost gleefully, “Then you do favor the Vole People! What is between you and them? That is what Running Fox and I went to learn, and he died.”

“Nothing,” Corwin said. “You went there for nothing. It is truth what Sun Hair and I have told you; we are only sojourners here, and in a while we shall leave forever. We only want friendship with … with everybody.”

“You, maybe. But she?”

“I vouch for her.” Corwin saw he’d better put up a brave front. He roughened his tone. “Hear me. Think. If we had ill intentions toward the Cloud People, need we hide it? You have seen a little of what we can do. A little.”

Red Wolf moved his hands, a calming gesture. “Well spoken,” he said quietly. “Yet I think it best if you, Tall Man, make sure that your wife Sun Hair keeps apart from this matter.”

“I will,” Corwin promised. “Oh, I will. She must not act. Such is the law of our tribe.”

Young hunters could travel swiftly. With brief stops for rest and a bite of dried meat, Red Wolf and his three companions reached Alder River the night after they left home. The moon was up, its fullness gnawed by the Dark Hare but still casting shimmer and shadow across clouds, snow, ice. The three huts crouched misshapen. Red Wolf breathed deeply and took a magic bone between his teeth before he could make himself crawl into the one whose entrance had been blocked. Inside, sightless, he laid hand on something that felt colder than the air. No stranger to death, he nonetheless jerked the hand back.

Mastering terror, he tried once more. Yes, a face lay stiff beneath his palm. “Running Fox, this is Red Wolf come to give you your honor,” he muttered around the bone. Getting hold of the coat, he dragged the dead man forth.

Moonlight grayed skin. Running Fox was frozen as hard as river or sea. Blood clotted black on the left temple and around the chin. Black too were the gaping mouth and the horrible twin emptinesses above.

The hunters squatted around. “They gouged his eyes out,” whispered Broken Blade. “Why?”

“To blind his ghost, lest it pursue them?” wondered Spearpoint.

“Their ghosts will suffer worse,” snarled White Water.

“Enough,” said Red Wolf. “These are unlucky things to speak of, worst by dark. We shall know more in the morning. Now let us take him from this ill place, that he may sleep among his comrades.”

They carried the body above the ravine, put it into the bag they had brought along for it, and spread their own. Wind whittered. The moon flew between clouds. Wolf-howls afar were homelike when men heard, as well, the mumbling of the sea beyond the ice. Red Wolf drowsed off, but his dreams were jagged.

At dawn his band cast about. The tracks they found in the snow, though days old, told a tale they understood. “Some have gone east, some west,” Red Wolf related. “Small footprints are in both sets. Those are surely Aryuk’s kin, seeking refuge till our wrath has been slaked. One trail goes inland, and is a grown man’s. That is Aryuk’s.”

“Or somebody else’s, like a son’s?” asked Spearpoint. “They are sly beasts, those.”

Red Wolf signed a no. “Why should a son mislead us, when we would hunt the father down too? If they meant to protect him, they would have gone at his side, ready for a fight. But they knew they would lose. Best that he die alone for what he did.” With a grin: “We will do as they wish.”

“If he dies before we catch him, Running Fox is cheated of revenge,” Broken Blade fretted.

“Then he shall have it tenfold on the other Voles,” White Water vowed.

Red Wolf scowled. Punishment was one thing, no different from slaying a dangerous animal. Slaughter of the harmless was something else, like killing animals without need of their skin, flesh, gut, or bone. No good would come of it. “We shall see,” he replied. “White Water, do you and Spearpoint carry Running Fox back to his burial. Broken Blade and I will settle with Aryuk.” He gave no time for talk about that, but struck out at once. The quarry had a long head start.

Otherwise there was little more to fear than evil spirits and whatever uncanny powers Aryuk possessed. Red Wolf doubted he had any. The hunters were paired only because the trail might grow difficult and because it was seldom wise to travel partnerless.

The tracks led north. As the shore dropped from sight behind him, Red Wolf saw that he followed a man who had already begun to weaken. Answerer’s story had been confused, but the shaman thought Aryuk took a blow before felling his enemy. The heart laughed in Red Wolf’s breast.

The brief day ended. For a while he and Broken Blade pushed on. If they looked closely they could still trace the spoor by starlight and, later, moonlight. It went slowly, but that did not matter, for they saw how Aryuk had grown slower yet and ever oftener must stop to rest.

Then clouds drew together, smothering sight. Perforce the hunters called a halt. Without fire, they ate of their jerky and rolled up in their sleeping robes. The softest of touches on his face roused Red Wolf. Snowfall. Father of Wolves, make this cease, he begged.

It did not. Morning was hushed and gray, skyless, full of white flakes through which men could barely see a spearcast’s length. For some time they were able to creep onward, brushing the powdery new snow off the old, but at last that was impossible. “We have lost him,” sighed Broken Blade. “Now his tribe must pay.”

“Maybe not,” responded Red Wolf, who had been thinking. “We cannot be far behind him. He may well be on the other side of the next hill. Let us abide.”

The air had warmed sufficiently that they could sit almost in comfort. Lynx-patient, they waited.