Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

He should have been scouting for strays, as his brother and friends had for the last three days. But there was no pleasure in that, or in the hundred small and large duties that fell to him as youngest nephew of the chief of the Windrunners. Ar’tor’s greatest satisfaction was to recreate the songs that the old men sang and played around the campfire. To feel them vibrate in his flute, to hear the music buzzing in the back of his head.

Leadership of the Windrunners would never be his. Regardless of his lineage, he would be a songsinger, a Bard, not a warchieftain of the Hilltribes. He would see his sixteenth spring in two more moons, but his brother Karls had seen twenty summers, and was already a blooded warrior. Better for Ar’tor that he accept the gifts that Spring had given him.

The thought of Ar’tor leading the Windrunners was absurd. His singing and playing were tolerated, but not totally understood. He was of a warrior line. His father had lived a warrior and died a warrior’s death, a Lowlander sword in his guts. His uncle, the mighty Syman, was like Karls, a giant in physical strength and a leader of men. Syman was respected by all hundred factions of the Tribes. Ar’tor could never bind them with the power of his words, negotiate treaties, make war on the savage Lowlanders. The very thought terrified him.

Uncle had parlayed with Lowlanders, the mighty Horseclans themselves, winning an honorable peace. Then again, the role of peacemaker came easily to the leaders of the Windrunners, whether such peace was won by treaty or force of arms. Ar’tor remembered seeing his uncle contending with the chief of the Steelteeth for water rights. His cudgel had broken on the second pass, but his mighty fists lashed out, striking Old Keeshan senseless by the light of the council torches! The Windrunners celebrated loud and long, the hills ringing with their songs and drunken revels until dawn.

No, that was not a role that he could claim for his own.

Ar’tor rucked his whittled bone pipe into the leather pouch at his waist and felt out around himself in the dark. His fingers closed on his spear. Had he forgotten anything? This was his hidey-hole, but if he ever made the mistake of leaving something edible it would be quickly discovered by the scavengers that haunted the hills.

Ar’tor crawled out of the crevice and looked around.

“Ar’tor! Where are you, boy?” Karls’s rough growl of a voice called him, echoed by the laughter of his two companions, Rollif and Marrin. Ar’tor knew that his backside would sting if Karls found out that he had been loafing again.

Ar’tor brushed the dirt and snow back into place, tidied up the trail, turned the rocks so that the damp sides were down, and prettied up the brush. There—anyone who came across it now wouldn’t know what was there.

The wind changed, and for an instant he smelled it. Oh, yes, it was a cat, and it was strong. Ar’tor was not the hunter that his uncle and brother were, but his senses were sharp in ways that theirs were not. And when the wind shifted for that moment, he smelled Old Cat, strong and clear. Ar’tor froze, sudden terror bitter in his mouth.

True, Old Cat had never been known to hunt Man, only cattle, only the wiry goats and chickens of the Hilltribes, and those mostly in the wintertime. But hunters sometimes vanished into the howling wind, never to return. When this happened some said that the ’Ginni Truce had been broken.

But there were also whispers that Old Cat had lost his taste for goat, and now found manflesh more to his liking.

The Hillpeople had hunted him for more years than Ar’tor had been alive. They had never found Old Cat. The flowing feline shape floated through Ar’tor’s dreams like a bleeding moon. Mothers hushed the cries of their children by telling them that Old Cat would hear and come.

Ar’tor slid his right heel back to brace himself and gripped his spear. Terror made his stomach feel heavy and hot, made his breath sour.

“There you are, boy!” Karls laughed. He grabbed Ar’tor and spun him around, spanking his broad hand against Ar’tor’s narrow leather breechbottoms. “Where’ve you been?”

Ar’tor winced, but threw his shoulders back. “Patrolling. Keeping the edge secure.”

Bearded Marrin howled with mirth. “Secure from songbirds, certainly. They flee when they hear that noise you call music.”

Ar’tor shaped a retort, then considered: Marrin was as large as two of him, and not renowned for his even temper.

His brother laughed. “Come along, little one, and we’ll get back to the camp.” Karls had two small goats roped before him, half frozen and three-quarters starved. They would be happy to be led back to the village, even if they were eventually destined for the stewpot.

Martin herded along three sheep, while Rollif One-Eye had two more goats at tether.

With his brother’s warm arm around his shoulders, Ar’tor feared nothing. Karls was almost as strong as their gigantic uncle, and he feared nothing. One day Karls would be leader of the Windrunners. Ar’tor would be content to be storyteller, to chronicle the adventures of his brother, and his uncle, and his uncle’s uncle, and one day passing on the job to his own nephews.

The two brothers climbed up through the ravine, by the fall of rocks that formed a staircase. Ice cracked and tinkled with every step.

They guided their strays through the shallow creek which fed into the river bordering their land from the Lowlanders’. The smaller waterway bordered their land from the Steelteeth, the wild men who traded with all and paid tribute to none.

“And what if I tell Uncle you’ve been slacking again? Dreaming?” Karls’s broad strong hand felt around Ar'tor’s belt, discovered the offending musical instrument. “Playing music rather than hunting goats.”

“Don’t,” Ar’tor wheedled. “And I’ll write you a love poem for Eloi.”

Karls barked laughter. “I might take you up on that, small fish. Hah!” Karls had a big, square face that resolved their mother’s fineness and father’s broad strength into an elegant but utterly masculine profile. The men followed him willingly. The women groomed and prettied themselves when he passed. He might choose a bride from them, but he would probably take his cousin Eloi in marriage, thereby sealing his succession. Whoever he chose, Ar’tor knew that he would make strong, healthy children.

Ar’tor could smell the cookpots before he heard the voices or saw the rise of the village fence. As they crested the hill, Ar’tor saw the Hollow, the home that his granduncles had carved here in the hills.

The houses down in the Hollow were built into the trees, carved into the mountain, pitched against shelves of rock. Snow was swept clear of the ground in patches, revealing the sunbaked adobe paths which separated the little clusters of sloped roofs. Feathers of smoke rose from a hundred rooftops, savory wisps from a hundred cookpots. They tickled his nose, made him suddenly, maddeningly aware of his stomach’s emptiness.

The gate dogs barked and squatted back on their haunches, welcoming Karls and Ar’tor with arfs and passionate licks, Ar’tor scratched one of the great hounds behind her ear, then froze as a ghastly howl rose up from within the encampment.