"Not Tral!" Garu said, anguished. "My mate has lost one child already this day. Where?"
"There. The creek."
"Stay."
Aruk shook his head, which ached as though it might crack apart into fragments like an egg. He saw the darkness in Noav's thoughts, the burrow, the prey beyond reach. Hands digging furiously at the earth, trying to widen the hole, trying to get in. A yearning, strong, to strangle the life from Tral.
"I will go with you," Aruk said.
Garu set off at a run, and Aruk did his best to keep up. They came to the stream, saw Noav's club lying on the bank, heard his muffled voice cry out in sudden triumph. Heard Tral's squeal of fright turn into a choked gurgling.
"Tral!" Garu did not hesitate at plunging into the hollow beneath the tree. "Noav, no!"
Aruk stopped, feet in cool water that rushed and swirled around his leather foot-coverings. He saw it through three sets of eyes, a fractured and spinning scene as Garu drove the point of his spear between Noav's shoulderblades and Tral, wheezing for breath, dropped to the ground. Noav's pain was Aruk's, sending him to his knees.
The spear, pulling free with a gristly, sucking noise. Noav turning, a plea forming on his lips. Garu kicking him over, ramming the spear down into his belly. Punching through skin and muscle. Plunging into the guts.
Grunting, Aruk fell to his side, arms curled around his midsection. He saw Garu through Noav's mind, towering, lips skinned back in a fearsome grimace. Saw the boy, sitting, coughing and gagging, holding his bruised throat with one hand.
And then Noav's mind was dwindling, as a stone cast from a high clifftop might grow smaller and smaller before disappearing forever. His eyes saw no more, and neither did the eyes of Aruk. Only a darkness that was somehow not dark at all, but a howling white emptiness shot with a frigid blue. Ice. Walls of ice, relentless, unstoppable.
Aruk felt himself being dragged with Noav into that freezing nothingness. It loomed all around him, and in it he seemed to hear the whispers of other voices.
He knew them … his mother and her mate, dead long ago, calling him by name. The leader before Garu, mauled by a cave lion, warning him away. And here was Beyi, the girl he might have had for his mate if he had not been set apart from other men. Pretty Beyi as he remembered her, small and round, curly-haired.
Others. His tribe, his own.
Surrounding him. Calling to him. Welcoming him.
Among them, he was alone in his mind. For the first time since the gift of the spirits had come upon him in his boyhood, that gift sometimes as much a curse as a blessing, he was alone in his mind.
They wanted him to join them. Be one of them. Be with them forever. They loved him. They were his family, his friends.
Elsewhere, Noav was screaming.
Far and faint, his voice nearly lost to Aruk, but the terror in his cry was bone-piercing.
Death. This was death. Noav's, and Aruk's as well if he could not find his way back to himself. He knew with absolute surety that if he stayed, his spirit would be lost in this endless blizzard. And his body, left behind, would die.
They urged him to let it happen, be with them, stay with them. Beyi could be his now, as she had never been in life. He would not have to keep apart from the tribe, driven to madness by the constant hum and buzz of their thoughts. He …
He wished to live.
Old though he was, lonely though he was, he wished to live.
Somewhere far behind him was warmth, the warmth of yet-living flesh and blood. Aruk struggled toward it, fighting his way through the whirling white, pushing aside what felt like hands that clasped at him, tried to hold him back.
Aruk slipped away from them, and heard one final, awful cry from Noav.
His senses returned to him with a jarring jolt. Aruk realized he was falling but could not catch himself. He splashed into the creek, breathed water, and came up spitting and sputtering.
But alive. Alive, and himself.
Shuddering, the Spirit-Man crawled to the bank and sat with his knees drawn up, his forehead resting upon them. He sat in that pose for a long time, slowly recovering his wits.
A hand touched his shoulder.
Aruk opened his eyes, and looked up to see Garu before him. Beside the First Hunter, Tral's arm was bound to his side with strips of leather. Marks from Noav's fingers stood out livid on the flesh of his neck. But the young man was smiling through his pain.
Garu extended his hand, uncurled the fingers.
Aruk's breath slipped out in a sigh as he saw the Eye of Mammut cradled in the leader's palm. His own hand shook as he caressed its smooth surface.
"Let us put this back where it belongs," Garu said. "Let us go home."
###
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About the Author
Christine Morgan divides her writing time among many genres, from horror to historical, from superheroes to smut, anything in between and combinations thereof. She's a wife, a mom, a future crazy-cat-lady and a longtime gamer, who enjoys British television, cheesy action/disaster movies, cooking and crafts.
Her stories have appeared in several publications, including: The Book of All Flesh, The Book of Final Flesh, The Best of All Flesh, History is Dead, The World is Dead, Strange Stories of Sand and Sea, Fear of the Unknown, Hell Hath No Fury, Dreaded Pall, Path of the Bold, Cthulhu Sex Magazine and its best-of volume Horror Between the Sheets, Closet Desire IV, and Leather, Lace and Lust.
She's also a contributor to The Horror Fiction Review, a former member of the HWA, a regular at local conventions, and an ambitious self-publisher (six fantasy novels, four horror novels, six children's fantasy books, and two roleplaying supplements). Her work has appeared in Pyramid Magazine, GURPS Villains, been nominated for Origins Awards, and given Honorable Mention in two volumes of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.
Her suspense thriller, The Widows Walk, was recently released from Lachesis Publishing, and her horror novel, The Horned Ones, is due out from Belfire in 2012.She's currently delving into steampunk, making progress on an urban paranormal series, and on a bloodthirsty Viking kick.
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