Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

How? A long, long walk, yes. Only it’s night. No problem. I’ll hop uptime to morning. Only I don’t want anybody seeing me stalk off. Unseemly display of emotion, and might give wrong ideas. Okay, I’ll hop elsewhere as well as elsewhen, way away to the seashore or out on the steppe or—

Or.

She gasped.

Morning stole gray through falling snow. All else lay white and silent. The air had warmed a little. Aryuk sat hunched in his cloak. The snow had partly buried him. Perhaps he would rise and stagger onward, but not yet, and perhaps never. Although he felt hunger no more, his wound was fire-coals and his legs had buckled under him during the night. When the woman descended from unseen heaven, he simply stared in sluggish wonder.

She got off the unalive thing she rode and stood before him. Snow settled on her head covering. Where it touched her face and melted, it ran down like tears. “Aryuk,” she whispered.

Twice he could utter nothing but a croak, before he asked, “Have you too come after me?” He raised his heavy head. “Well, here I am.”

“Oh, Aryuk.”

“Why, you are crying,” he said, surprised.

“For you.” She swallowed, wiped the eyes that were blue as summer, straightened, looked more steadily down at him.

“Then you are still the friend of Us?”

“I, I always was.” She knelt and hugged him. “I always will be.” His breath hissed. She let go. “Did that hurt? I’m sorry.” She studied bound arm and blood-caked shoulder. “Yes, you’ve been hurt. Terribly. Let me help you.”

Gladness flickered faint. “Will you help Tseshu and the young?”

“If I can—Yes, I will. But you first. Here.” She fumbled in a garment and drew forth an object he recognized. “Here is Lovely Sweet.”

With his good hand and teeth he stripped off the wrapping. Eagerly, he ate. Meanwhile she got a box from the thing she rode. He knew about boxes, having seen her use them before. She came back, knelt again, bared her hands. “Do not be afraid,” she said.

“I am no longer afraid, with you by me.” He licked his lips. His fingers followed, to make sure none of the brown stuff was left behind. The ice in his beard crackled to their touch.

She put a small thing against his skin near the wound. “This will take away pain,” she said. He felt a slight shoving. On its heels ran a wave of peace, warmth, not-pain.

“A-a-ah,” he breathed. “You do beautiful works.”

She busied herself, cleaning and treating. “How did this come about?”

He didn’t want to remember, but because it was she who asked, he said, “Two Mammoth Slayers came to our place—”

“Yes, I have heard what the one told who escaped. Why did you attack the other one?”

“He laid hands on Tseshu. He said he would take her away. I forgot myself.” Aryuk could not pretend to her that he was really sorry for the deed, in spite of the evil it brought. “That was foolish. But I was again a man.”

“I see.” Her smile mourned. “Now the Cloud People are on your trail.”

“I thought they would be.”

“They will kill you.”

“This snow may break the trail too much for them.”

She bit her lip. He heard that it was very hard for her to say, “They will kill you. I can do nothing about that.”

He shook his head. “Do you truly know? I do not see how it can be certain.”

“I am not sure I see either,” she whispered, keeping her gaze upon her busy hands. “But it is.”

“I hoped I might die alone, and they find my body.”

“That would not satisfy them. They think they must kill, because a man of theirs was killed. If it is not you, it will be your kindred.”

He took a long breath, watched the tumbling snow for a bit, and chuckled. “So it is good that they kill me. I am ready. You have taken away my pain, you have filled my mouth with Lovely Sweet, you have laid your arms about me.”

Her voice came hoarse. “It will be quick. It will not hurt much.”

“And it will not be for nothing. Thank you.” That was seldom spoken among the Tulat, who took kindnesses for granted. “Wanda,” he went on shyly. “Did you not say once that is your real name? Thank you, Wanda.”

She let the work go, sat back on her haunches, and made herself look straight at him. “Aryuk,” she said low, “I can do … something more for you. I can make your death more than a payment for what happened.”

Amazed, marveling, he asked, “How? Only tell me.”

She doubled a fist. “It will not be easy for you. Just dying would be much easier, I think.” Louder: “Though how can I know?”

“You know all things.”

“Oh, God, no” She stiffened. “Hear me. Then if you believe you can bear it, I will give you food, a drink that strengthens, and—and my help—” She choked.

His astonishment grew. “You seem afraid, Wanda.”

“I am,” she sobbed. “I am terrified. Help me, Aryuk.”

Red Wolf awoke. Something heavy had moved.

He turned his head right and left. Again the moon was full, small and as cold as the air. From the roof of heaven its light poured down and glistered away over the snow. As far as he could see, the steppe reached empty, save for boulders and bare, stiffened bushes. He thought the noise—a whoosh, a thump, a crack like tiny thunder—had come from behind the big rock near which he, Horsecatcher, Caribou Antler, and Spearpoint had made their hunters’ camp.

“Forth and ready!” he called. He slipped free of his bag and took weapons in a single motion. The rest did the same. They had slept half awake too, in this brilliant night.

“Like nothing I ever heard before.” Red Wolf beckoned them to take stance at his sides.

Black against the moonlit snow, a man-form trod from around the rock and moved toward them.

Horsecatcher peered. “Why, it is a Vole,” he said, laughing in relief.

“This far inland?” wondered Caribou Antler.

The shape walked steadily closer. A badly made skin cloak covered most of it, but the hunters saw that it carried a thing that was not a hand ax. As it drew near they descried features, bushy hair and beard, hollowed-out face.

Spearpoint rocked. “It is he, the one we went after with Running Fox,” he wailed.

“But I killed you, Aryuk!” Red Wolf shouted.

Horsecatcher screamed, whirled about, dashed off across the plain.

“Stop!” Red Wolf yelled. “Hold fast!”

Caribou Antler and Spearpoint bolted. Almost, Red Wolf himself did. Horror seized him as a hawk seizes a lemming.

Somehow he overcame it. If he ran, he knew, he was helpless, no longer a man. His left hand raised the hatchet, his right poised the lance for a cast. “I will not flee,” rattled from a tongue gone dry. “I killed you before.”

Aryuk halted a short way off. Moonlight welled in the eyes that Red Wolf had plucked out and crushed. He spoke in Wanayimo, of which he knew just a few words when he was alive. The voice was high, a ghastly echo underneath it. “You cannot kill a dead man.”

“It was, was far from here,” Red Wolf stammered. “I bound your ghost down with spells.”

“They were not strong enough. No spells will ever be strong enough.”

Through the haze of terror, Red Wolf saw that those feet had left tracks behind them like a living man’s. That made it the more dreadful. He would have shrieked and run the same as his comrades, but clung to the knowledge that he could surely not outspeed this, and having it at his back would be worse than he dared think about.

“Here I stand,” he gasped. “Do what you will.”

“What I would do is forever.”

I am not asleep. My spirit cannot escape into wakefulness. I can never escape.