Chapter 12
- Nator’ax -
The cold doesn’t bother me as much as I thought.
I still feel it, of course. The air bites at my face, creeps through seams in the fur cloak they lent me. It presses against skin and bone. But it doesn’t slow me, and it doesn’t distract me. What distracts me is behind me.
I know better than to look back at the village as I leave with the hunting party.
A man who keeps turning around is a man who doesn’t belong where he is walking.
Still, I know exactly where she is. I can see the cave in my mind, the angle of the entrance, the way the wind curls past it.
I can imagine her standing there, watching us go.
Leaving her here is risky. I see how the shaman looks at her. But leaving her is also necessary.
The men spread out as we move onto the open ice.
They don’t march in single line, the way we would in the jungle, but there is order in their spacing.
Each man keeps enough distance to move freely, but not enough to lose sight of the others.
They know this land. They know how to move across it without wasting strength.
I would prefer to not leave these tracks in the ice and snow, but I assume they won’t last long.
Their weapons are functional for their use.
Their spears are tipped with iron, some better forged than others.
I spot knives of bone and flint, worn but cared for.
Their furs are layered intelligently, patched where needed, and reinforced where it matters most. There is a great deal of care taken with it all, securing themselves against the cold the way I would secure myself against certain venomous Tinies in the jungle.
Of course, here any Big can be spotted a long way away.
These men may not be Borok, but they aren’t weak. That makes this more complicated.
A man with a heavy build and a pale scar across his jaw slows his pace until he walks beside me. His eyes move over me without hiding the assessment. “You walk like a hunter,” he says. “Even on ground that isn’t yours.”
“I am a warrior,” I reply. “And a warrior must sometimes hunt. The ground doesn’t change that.”
He huffs out a breath that might be amusement. “You will find that this ground changes more than you think.”
“I’m sure it does. Sometimes it’s slippery, sometimes it’s dry. The hunter must change the way he walks on it.”
Another man moves closer on my other side. He is younger, leaner, with the restless energy of someone who hasn’t yet learned patience. His eyes are sharp and curious. “They say you come from a place with no ice. Is that true?”
I tense up, keeping a bit of distance. I remember Riley’s words, but if these men try to kill me, they’ll find it harder than they suspected. “It is true. There’s never snow in the jungle. Never ice. It has snowed, but the snow melts within a few heartbeats.”
He looks out over the frozen expanse, as if trying to imagine it. “Then how do you track anything?”
I gesture ahead of us, toward the faint depressions in the snow that the others are following. “You look for what doesn’t belong,” I tell him. “Here, the snow shows you everything. There, you learn to see without it: broken branches, disturbed ground, and silence where there should be noise.”
He considers that, then nods slowly. “That sounds harder.”
“It is different,” I say. “Difficulty depends on what you are used to.”
The scarred man glances at me again. “And what are you used to?”
I meet his gaze without turning my head. “Winning battles.”
That earns a low chuckle from somewhere behind us, but it also sharpens the attention on me. They are measuring me. They have been measuring me since I arrived. Every word, every movement, and every decision adds to the shape they are building in their minds.
I let them build it, because perhaps I can make their minds serve me.
We follow the tracks across the ice for some time before the questions begin in earnest.
The younger man speaks first. “Prak’ox says your people will come for you,” he says. “That they will cross the ice.”
“They will,” I answer. “They will fly here in saucers.”
“How many?” he asks.
“As many as are needed.”
He frowns. “Don’t you know?”
“It is the only answer that matters,” I say.
“If a small group is enough, a small group will come. If it is not, then more will follow. But you want numbers? Chief Korr’ax will bring…
I think a hundred and fifty men in the first wave.
Then the saucers will go back for more warriors, if needed. But it won’t be needed.”
The scarred man’s expression hardens slightly. “They must still fight,” he says. “Both us and the land. This land kills those who do not respect it.”
“They will not need to fight,” I say. “There will be nobody left to oppose them.”
Another hunter, older, with a thick beard rimed with frost, speaks from ahead of us without turning. “The beast,” he says. “The flying one. The one you spoke of.”
“Praxigor the dragon,” I say crisply, so they can all hear. “Indeed, he does fly.” The words carry in the cold air.
The younger man glances upward instinctively, as if expecting to see something vast and terrible circling above us. “It is real?” he asks.
“He is real,” I confirm. “Your shaman knows it. But he doesn’t fear the dragon the way he should.”
“Can you control it?” he asks.
“Only Chief Korr’ax can control Praxigor. And only for destruction. The dragon can do nothing else. He can only kill.”
That answer unsettles him more than anything else I have said.
“Then why would it come for you?” the scarred man asks.
“Because Korr’ax takes care of his men,” I say. “And the women of his tribe. In truth, the dragon may not come for me. But it will certainly come for Riley. Can you guess why?”
The bearded hunter slows slightly, enough that we draw closer to him. “She’s a woman.”
“She’s a special woman,” I reply. “All women are special. Riley even more so.”
That is vague, and I let it remain vague. Specifics invite doubt. Certainty without detail invites fear.
The younger man is not satisfied. “If it can’t be controlled,” he presses, “then how do you survive it?”
“Oh, that’s easy: you don’t pick a fight with the Borok tribe,” I tell them. “That’s the only way to survive it. Your council decided to be our enemies. That makes you the enemies of Praxigor.”
That quiets him for a time.
We move on. The wind cuts across the ice in long, low gusts.
The tracks we follow deepen, the impressions become more pronounced.
The dondar is not far ahead. I can see the pattern now, the weight of it, the way it moves, the slight drag of one rear limb.
It’s a large Big, and it plainly doesn’t expect to be hunted.
The younger man’s curiosity shifts. His gaze flicks to me again, then away, then back. “The woman,” he says at last. “She is yours.”
I let a moment pass before I answer. “She’s with me. I am to keep her safe.”
“That is not the same,” the scarred man says.
“No,” I agree. “It’s not the same as Riley being mine. She hasn’t chosen me.”
The younger man smiles, a little too eagerly. “She is different,” he says. “We have never seen one like her.”
“Of course not. If you had, none of this would have happened. You would have known how to act and what to do. Your tribe might have lived.”
“Will you give her to the tribe?” he asks.
The question is asked lightly, but there is nothing light in the way the others listen for my answer.
I stop walking and let my fingers just touch the hilt of my sword. “What was that, young hunter?”
They take another step before they realize I have not followed, and then they turn back toward me. The wind moves between us, carrying the sound of their breathing, the faint creak of leather and fur.
The young man’s eyes flicker to his friends, realizing that he’s made a mistake. “I only mean—”
“No,” I state with weight. “Riley will never be a part of your tribe. That was always a dream only, a fantasy. I know what you think will happen. Get rid of the Borok warrior, and then Riley will be yours. Forget that deadly dream, hunters.”
The younger man tilts his head. “You say that as if you can decide.”
“I say it as if you don’t understand what you are asking,” I reply.
The scarred man watches me carefully. “Then explain it,” he says.
I step forward again, closing the distance I created. I lower my voice to make them lean in to hear. “Where I come from,” I say, “women aren’t taken. They most certainly aren’t shared.”
The younger man’s smile fades. “Everything can be taken,” he says.
“Not everything.”
He opens his mouth to argue, but I continue before he can speak. “You think of her as something you can possess. You’re shamefully wrong. A woman like her will not live that way. No woman will.”
The bearded hunter frowns. “What does that mean?”
“It means she will die,” I tell them. “She’s an alien.
She can make herself die, and there’s nothing anyone can do.
I have seen it, hunters. Twice a woman has died because someone wanted to force her to do things she didn’t want.
The first one simply fell over because a man joked he would make her his.
She believed he meant it. He wasn’t even touching her.
The other… well, a man from a different tribe came to visit our village.
We knew him, and he often had news about the jungle and the Bigs.
He saw the woman, and one dark night he went to her cave.
She screamed and alerted us. But when we came to help her, she was dead in her bunk. ”
“What happened to the man?”
“He was given to Praxigor. The dragon took him in his claws and flew. Not far away, you understand. Just out of sight, in among the trees. For four days and nights, we heard the man’s screams. Then Praxigor returned with his earless, noseless head. We put it on a stake. It’s still there.”
The wind seems to pause around us.