Douglas Niles: The Messenger

The boy skipped out of the way, pleading earnestly for her ear. “Grandmother Dinekki, it’s true! A great kayak sails the coast, coming this way! Moreen saw it, and Bruni too! We’ve got to light a smoke fire and bring back the hunters!”

“I saw it also!” claimed Feathertail, the girl hopping up and down beside Inga Bayguard. “It’s coming toward my papa, toward the kayaks!”

Already another young woman, Tildey, was whipping a coal from her firepit into bright flame. Other women were busy grabbing logs from various woodpiles, dousing some with oil, and casting them into a great pile in the village square. Tildey touched her fire to the kindling, and quickly the bonfire crackled into a smoky conflagration.

“Are you sure it’s ogres? Couldn’t it be a ship of men?” asked matronly Garta with a quaver in her voice, three small children clinging to her gown.

“Not Arktos, and not Highlanders either,” Bruni declared with a shake of her big head. “Can’t be men.”

“This tusk will tell.” Dinekki’s dry, brittle voice somehow cut through the commotion. The shaman held up a curved ivory tooth, one of the many talismans she wore on various strands around her neck. She removed the thong from the hole that had been drilled through the base of the object. Next she blew softly on the ivory, then muttered a rhythmic prayer in the language of the goddess Chislev. Raising the tusk, she held it in her fingertips at the end of her rigidly extended arm.

“ Ogre tusk shall show the truth-seek thy owner, lonesome tooth !”

She released her grip on the tusk with a sudden gesture, but instead of falling straight down to the ground, the tooth spun away toward the sea, finally clattering to the stony ground some ten feet distant.

“Yes! There are ogres there,” Dinekki said, pointing along the line of the tusk’s flight.

“That’s the direction to the great boat,” Moreen said, feeling a sickening tightness in her belly.

By now the fire was crackling hungrily through the wood, and a plume of black smoke was rising high above the village. A gentle breeze curved the smoke over the land, but it rose as a clear beacon. The kayaks were beyond the point of the bay, now invisible from the square, but Moreen felt certain they would take immediate note of the time-honored signal and return.

“Everyone to the Hiding Hole!” declared Inga Bayguard. “Gather your precious things.”

“I will stay here to fight alongside the men!” her daughter declared in a sudden burst of emotion.

“You will lead this tribe to the Hiding Hole,” Inga replied in a clipped tone that somehow halted any attempt Moreen might have made at an argument. “Bruni, you must carry Grandfather Oilfish. You bigger children help with the youngsters-start out now, and your mothers will be right behind. Now hurry, all of you!”

The chieftain’s daughter hastened into the hut. She looked at the huge black bearskin on the wall and for a moment felt a pang as she remembered Wallran Bayguard’s legacy. She should take it-the pelt was a rare treasure in this land where all other bears were white. Even more, it was symbolic of her family’s place, as chieftains of all the Arktos in their many coastal villages.

Nonetheless it was more than she could carry alone, and there was no time for such a burden. Picking up three of her harpoons, she also grabbed a heavy woolen cloak and a large skin of water. By the time she emerged the other women were gathering in the village square. Little Mouse was directing a file of several dozen children who were already making their way up the winding hillside path, some suppressing frightened sobs, others casting longing looks toward their homes.

“Let’s go,” Moreen said, coming to her mother’s side.

“I said you will lead them,” Inga replied. “I will follow when I know that you are safe and the men have seen the beacon. Until then, I will stoke the fire.” Her mother indicated the signal pyre, and Moreen saw that the initial fuel had already been reduced to crumbling coals. “Now make haste-and Chislev be with you!”

Giving her mother a quick hug, Moreen gathered the rest of the women and the elders. She saw that Tildey had armed herself with a bow and arrows, while Bruni carried a stout stick.

“What about Grandfather Oilfish?” asked Inga. That elder, his legs crippled years earlier, would be unable to walk on his own.

“He refused to come-he has his harpoon and sits inside his doorway.”

Inga blinked, then nodded. “Very well-now, hurry!”

Several other women had armed themselves with harpoons, but for the most part the group consisted of frightened, white-haired grandfathers and grandmothers wrapped in woolen shawls and wide-eyed hearthwives who bit their lips and, for their children’s sakes, made brave efforts not to cry.

They started out of the village, moving as quickly as they could, many of the women helping the elders. Moreen cast one glance back to the sea, despairing as she saw no sign yet of the kayaks returning to the bay. Inga was tossing more wood onto the fire, and she dumped the contents of an oil lamp into the rekindled blaze. Quickly she retreated as a black, smoky cloud once more erupted into the sky.

It seemed to take forever to climb the hill, though in reality the tribespeople ascended the twisting path in just a few minutes. Moreen and Bruni brought up the rear, watching the last of their village-mates slip through the narrow crack in the rocky cliff to enter the deep, dry cave.

The shelter was perfectly concealed, for the irregular surface of the precipice curled around itself here, so that the cave mouth was not even visible to one who peered straight at the hillside. Still, as she glanced down Moreen was dismayed to see the trampled brush and dusty tracks leading up the hill.

“Here, help me sweep this away,” she declared. Pulling up a brittle willow bush she moved partway down the path and started brushing away the footprints. Bruni followed, dropped tufts of greenery onto the trail until it looked no different from the rest of the hillside.

“There are the hunters,” Moreen said, as she saw that the kayaks had come around the point and reentered the bay. The men were paddling with crisp, efficient strokes, and the little boats fairly skipped over the gentle swell, racing like gliding birds toward the shore.

“The great boat, close behind!” Bruni exclaimed.

Her observation was unnecessary as the chieftain’s daughter, too, saw the immense vessel glide into view. It seemed to move impossibly fast for a craft of such size, for it churned around the point and surged toward the shore, closing the distance on the nimble kayaks, looming over the smaller boats like a mountain over mere huts.

“Let’s get out of sight”

The big woman knelt and Moreen shrank beside her, dropping behind the cover of several boulders. She looked back quickly, saw that the mouth of the cave was still. None of the other villagers were showing themselves.

The first kayaks reached the shore. She could spot the men scrambling out of their little boats, turning to help their fellows onto shore. The great ogre vessel loomed close behind, churning toward the beach. Golden rails gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight, and the burnished image of a great, tusked head loomed awkwardly above the bow. The deck was crowded, teeming with figures bearing tall, golden-tipped spears.

A spot of color flashed along the graveled beach and the women saw Inga Bayguard running toward the men, her dyed cloak trailing from her shoulders. She was carrying Redfist’s bear spear, his mightiest weapon, as with a flurry of powerful strokes the chieftain pushed his red-striped kayak right up to his wife.

The big rowing ship churned right through some of the kayaks that hadn’t reached shore, breaking a few of the little boats like child’s toys crushed under heavy booted steps. Arktos hunters boldly hurled their harpoons at the hulking figures lining the gunwale of the great vessel. Moreen couldn’t see if any of these casts scored hits, but she groaned as she saw big spears fly outward from the ogre ranks, easily piercing several hunters and some kayaks. A few of the boats sank, carrying their men into the chill depths.