Megan Lindholm - The Reindeer People

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'I didn't know,' he complained as he went back to his meat. 'You never told me that before. It wasn't my fault.'

She gave him a warning look and went back to Joboam. As she knelt beside him and put his wrist back in position, his lashes fluttered. He rolled his head toward her, to ask in a thick voice, it's done?'

'Nearly,' she lied. The interruption had occurred at the worst possible time. He was already rousing from the medicine and she dared not give him any more. She moved the oil lamp into position, poking at the wick for a taller flame. She placed one of her knees on his wrist and the other on the inside of his elbow. She let most of her weight rest on her buttocks atop her heels, but was ready to rock forward and pin the arm still if he struggled. She took up his knife and set the blade tip into the wound at the deepest point. Something had dug in there and stayed. She probed with the tip, lightly at first, but when she encountered nothing, she pressed it gently down. Joboam groaned, but did not twitch. Deeper. The blade touched something hard that moved. As it did so, Joboam gave a deep grunt and lifted his head. Tillu rocked her weight forward to pin his arm down. 'Steady,' she told him. 'Lie still.' Again she put the tip of the knife against the object. Joboam's fist clenched suddenly and he took a shuddering breath. She slid her thumb down the knife blade. Bright blood was welling up in the wound; she could not see what she reached for, but went after it by touch. Her thumbnail found it and she clenched it down, pinning it against the blade. She pulled at it. It was stubborn, half grown into the flesh. Joboam was panting now and she smelled pain in his sweat.

Quickly. She gripped hard and tugged.

Joboam gave a wordless cry as it came free. Blood gushed up to fill the wound. Tillu dropped the knife and object onto the skins and pinched the wound closed with a blood-slippery hand, it's out now. It's out!' she assured him. She rocked her full weight onto his arm as he writhed. 'The worst is done.' In a reflex action, Joboam had gripped his injured arm, clutching it above the elbow as if to pull it out from under her. 'That's it, now, hold it tight. Grip as tight as you can,' she encouraged him.

She freed his arm, to grab the herb poultice she had laid out. Joboam lay half on his side now, gripping his arm and staring at the welling blood. She arranged the poultice on his arm, pressed it gently against his flesh. His breath hissed out, but he held steady.

The flow of blood was slowing. He was strong and in good health. He would heal well, she thought. 'Keep it tight,' she encouraged him as she wrapped the arm. Her fingers were slick with his blood and the bandages were stained before she had them in place.

But she wrapped it firmly, the wound held closed. 'This time it will heal and stay healed,' she reassured him. She rose to rinse her hands off. She glanced at the salt in the trough, glad she had not needed to soak the arm a second time. She knelt beside him again.

'Better now?'

'I don't know.' His eyes were shiny, his breathing shallow and fast, 'I feel dizzy.

Weak.' His voice trailed off. Tillu eased him back flat on her pallet. She set the injured arm on top of his chest and covered him warmly.

'Rest, then,' she told him needlessly. His eyes were already closing. She pulled another skin over him and snugged it down around him. There had been more pain for him than she had planned. Sometimes pain could disable a man more than the injury itself. Only rest healed that.

She rubbed her face, feeling suddenly tired. And hungry. But the habits of tidiness were strong. She wiped the knife and set it aside. Herbs and salt were stowed away neatly, the dish lamp extinguished and set away. It was when she was taking up the piece of skin that his arm had rested on that the small object fell to the dirt floor.

Stooping, she took it up and turned it curiously in her hand. This was what she had taken from his arm. She wiped it on the piece of skin and stared at it curiously, 'I know that I know what this is,' she murmured to herself, 'I just can't remember what it is.' It was shaped bone. A line had been etched into it and stained black, perhaps as a decoration. Something Joboam had been working on that had shattered?

She set it down by the knife and with a sigh rose to her feet. Now she could eat.

KERLEW: THE NIGHT

He awoke. As he often did, after a period of not sleeping. He did not need to open his eyes. They were already open, had been open since he lay down on his skins. He had been staring at the peak of the tent, at the smoke hole and the few stars beyond it.

Now he had come back to awareness of himself and his surroundings. A shiver ran over him, and he wondered what had drawn him back. He flared his nostrils, taking in the smells of the tent. There. Joboam. He bared his teeth in the dark.

He turned softly on his skins, but the birch twigs still cracked beneath his bedding. It did not matter. The big man slept deeply. Kerlew smiled thinly, remembering the man's pain when Tillu had healed his arm. He had been tight and silent, even when the blood flowed red. It was only later, when he had become feverish, that he had cursed and roared. His head had tossed about, and his undecipherable words had been full of fury.

Kerlew had giggled to hear him, and Tillu had gotten angry and told him to go to bed.

So he had, but he had still enjoyed Joboam's pain. He had giggled until Tillu had threatened to beat him. Then he had felt angry with her, so he had gone away with the smoke. And now he was back. And Joboam was still here.

By day, Kerlew feared the big man with the cruel hands. Joboam's eyes were hard and mean, angry that Kerlew existed. He was one of the ones who looked and struck.

Kerlew knew and kept clear of his hands. But, in the clear darkness of a shamanic night, Kerlew had only hatred for Joboam. No fear at all. He slipped silently from his bedding.

This was a power time. Carp had spoken with relish of the times when the night opened itself to shamans and the spirit world merged with the day one. Kerlew had never known one until now. Now he could not doubt it. The night surrounded him and intensified him. He felt engorged with its darkness, immune to the daylight world. Cold did not touch his skin and his body knew no hungers. Another shiver ran over him, erecting every hair on his body. Something called him this night. What?

For a long moment, he stood listening. Then he turned back to his bedding, knelt, and gently pushed aside the birch twigs that cushioned his skins from the cold earth.

From the hollow he had scratched there, he took his shaman's pouch. Carefully he lifted the pouch and set his ear against the side. He listened. Knife. Knife was calling him.

Reverently he untied his pouch, reached in with blind fingers. Knife touched them.

He drew it out slowly and returned the bag and other talismans to the hollow. Then he stood again. 'Knife?' he breathed questioningly. He held it in two hands, pointed it toward the dying embers of the fire. He held it a long time, until he felt it grow heavy in his hands. Knife was ready. Slowly he drew the sheath off.

The pale bone blade gleamed even in the dying firelight. It would lead him. It would not be the first time he had followed it. But the first time, he had stumbled frightened and cold in the blackness of the woods, with Owl-spirit peering from every shadow and branch. Then he had wept and pleaded with Knife, and Knife had heard. Knife had led him to the herdfolk's village, to the very hut where his mother slept.

Only one had been awake in that place. In the dimness of the hut, he had stood over her. She who had shaped Knife was there, breathing her pain out in a soundless sigh.