Mal sourly regarded the horn around his neck. At times, it was too hot to hold, and when it was not, Bellu said that meant it was time to blow on it. Mal doubted she knew this; it struck him as something she had made up.
At the small end, another hole had been chipped in the horn, allowing air to flow in from both sides. It occurred to Mal he might blow in this end, rather than the other one. Did that not that make more sense? He could fit the small end entirely in his mouth.
He put the small end of the horn to his lips and blew, but his wind was blocked. He blew harder, and still could not get any air into the thing. He expanded his lungs, held tight to the horn, and blew as hard as he could.
The contents of the horn exploded out the large end, igniting instantly when the embers hit oxygen. Mal blinked in amazement at the cloud of fire he had created, which rained down to the ground, still burning.
Using a stick, he managed to shove some coals back into the horn and patiently reconstruct the fire. He was grinning, though—he doubted anyone in the Kindred knew what happened when you blew in the small end of the fire horn.
It felt good to have some secret knowledge. Allowed him to be less a boy, somehow.
* * *
“I love our summer quarters,” Bellu told Mal.
He could see why: as hunt master, Urs was allowed an actual cave for his family, a small one that sat above the large communal cave, like a tiny nose over a huge mouth. Even more delightful than the commanding view was a natural, scooped-out depression in the rock near the mouth of the family cave, as if a large egg had been pushed into mud and then the mud had become rock. Filled with water and then warmed with stones from the family fire, it was a place where Bellu could bathe, stretched out, her face above water. Nearly every single day Bellu was found in her bath, especially now that she had a fire boy to carry the heated rocks with a hollow log and drop them in the water for her.
Her hair reacted to the daily rinsing by becoming soft, so that all the men of the Kindred were giving her the same sort of glances she had earned when she had been young and unmarried.
Bellu lay back in her bath and sighed. “Would you warm the water, Mal?” she requested lazily.
Mal was wearing the most neutral expression possible. He used a branch to manipulate a rock from the fire into the hollow of a log, then carried the rock to the water and slipped it in. It sizzled and Bellu moved her legs so it would not touch her.
“Thank you, Mal.”
Mal nodded, not looking at the woman considered the most beautiful in the Kindred as she floated naked in the water.
She splashed him playfully. “This is not such hard work, is it?”
“No,” he agreed. “Though sometimes a man wants to do hard work.”
“If he can,” Bellu responded.
“Yes,” Mal responded evenly.
“A man,” Bellu said idly.
Mal nodded and made to leave.
“Wait. Stay for a moment. Look at me.”
Mal glanced at her face, then away.
“Mal. Look at me.” Bellu spread her arms. Her nipples were touching the surface of the water, and from where Mal stood, down by her feet, he could see between her legs. She was watching him, seeing him look at her. He glanced away again. “Mal,” she repeated. Her knees separated slightly, and the tip of her tongue slid out from between her lips. Mal could not help himself; he stared openly, feeling a hot sensation start in the pit of his stomach and move down. “Not such a bad job, being in charge of keeping my bath warm,” Bellu observed.
“No,” Mal croaked.
“I can see I am making quite the impression on you.” Bellu smiled.
Mal dropped his hands to cover his crotch. He turned away, feeling his face burn. Bellu laughed.
“I must leave,” Mal told her. The sensation between his legs was painful and pleasurable and perplexing, and his heart was pounding. This was far from the first time he had had a hard penis, but there was something new about this one, something complex and mysterious.
That night his dreams were vivid and wild, with an exotic pulsing element to them, so that when he woke up he wondered if he had a fever.
He had planned to go sit with Hardy, who let him observe toolmaking and did not object when Mal seized a rock and shaped a stone ax head. But in the end he wound up climbing up to the hunt master’s cave, to see if Bellu wanted another bath.
FORTY-ONE
Since Mal had so work little to do, he took to wandering around looking for prey, carrying a spear with him. He hoped for rabbits but instead discovered a tree with little green fruits that crunched when he bit into them, his mouth puckering at the sour taste.
“They are better when they are not so green,” a voice called behind him. Mal turned and it was her, of course, the one person he did not want to see: Lyra.
“You have been so busy I have not spoken to you in many days,” she remarked, joining him at the base of the tree. She idly reached up and plucked a fruit from a low branch, examining it. “Yes, still too early yet.”
“I have been very busy,” he agreed coldly. She wore flowers in her hair and also spliced into the vines she had woven around her neck, vividly colorful.
She met his eyes. “I think you are deliberately busy for some reason having to do with me.”
“No, that is not it. My job is just much harder than anyone realizes,” he corrected sternly.
“Of course it is.”
He inhaled. “I can smell the flowers you are wearing.” He meant to continue that the smell was too much—overwhelming, unseemly—but he bit off the lie. In truth the bouquet enraptured him.
She smiled. “Thank you. We should talk about what else besides your job has you too occupied to spend any time with me. To go from speaking to you every day to speaking not at all is very strange.”
He did not reply for a moment. “Well…,” he began reluctantly, “my mother says you and Dog are…” Mal trailed off.
Lyra, nodded, considering. “Is that why you have been avoiding me?” she asked.
So. She did know how he felt about her. For some reason it made him glad and sick in equal measure.
“Mal. I am not taking your brother away from you, even if we marry someday. He will always be your family.”
No, she did not know. Mal felt even worse. “My mother,” he finally replied, “says you speak your mind and are wise for your age.”
Lyra blushed. “That is a very nice compliment.”
“I do agree that you speak your mind but sometimes I think you are a stupid hyena.”
Lyra stared at him with shock and hurt in her eyes. Mal looked away, not sure why he had said that, or what he was doing.
“Well,” she said finally, “in this case I will not speak my mind, because what I have to say to you is that you are trying to ruin our friendship because your brother and I are in love. You do not seem to understand that this was bound to happen, your brother would eventually want to start a family with somebody, but instead of being glad that he wants me, you insult me. You are a spiteful, mean boy.”
He watched Lyra walk away from him, his dissatisfaction gnawing at him. I am not, he wanted to shout, a boy!
But he was. He was Mal Crus, the fire boy.
* * *
Silex took cooked deer heart with him to Brach’s fire, wordlessly squatting next to the other man and handing him a piece. For two men to share the organ was considered a sign of deep friendship.
“You have done wrong, Brach,” Silex finally said.
“I know this,” Brach sighed regretfully.
“You are married. Men, like wolves, mate for life,” Silex continued. “When we had a good supply of bachelors, I encouraged unmarried mating because I wanted to rebuild our tribe. And it worked; we have children. But as was predictable, strong bonds developed and love flourished and people married and they, like you, must not commit adultery.”
“Silex. It is widely said you and Ovi do not share a bed at night. Do you
not get cold sometimes, by yourself?”
Silex sighed wistfully. “There are times when I miss Fia so much,” he admitted after a moment, “and that longing is often for her in that way, as well as so many other ways.”
“I am sorry, Silex.”
“But despite that, I cannot violate my vow.”
“You have never had a child of your own. Is Ovi unwilling to receive you at night? My wife says she is consumed with a peculiar melancholy.”
“It is not Ovi, but my own reticence, that keeps me from her bed.”
“Then … we have young women with no husbands, plus the two older women, Kele and Mili, who I … whom my wife found out about. All of these women are anxious to have children.”
“It is a problem,” Silex admitted.
“Cragg is sixteen. He could help fill the, the need … with your permission,” Brach continued.
“I have noted he spends considerable time looking at the women with some appreciation,” Silex responded. “I have been meaning to tell him how things work between husband and wife, but it is a difficult subject to raise.”
“If you do not raise it I believe Kele will do it for you,” Brach noted.
Silex looked at him appraisingly, and Brach nodded sheepishly. “She brings a certain enthusiasm to a man’s bed.”
“You are right, then. I will speak to my son.”
“Silex, we still have the problem of the unmarried women who need men. So what is the solution?” Brach pressed.
“It is not to commit adultery, Brach,” Silex said sharply.
Brach raised his hands. “I do hear you saying this. I speak now not for myself, but for the good of the tribe, and for you. If you and Ovi are not lying with each other as a wife lies with a husband, how would it be adultery?”
* * *
Albi sent word to the men’s side and Palloc answered her summons. He looked wan and exhausted, his ribs showing and dark circles forming under his eyes. “When will the hunt go out again?” she demanded.
Palloc collapsed into a sitting position as if lacking the strength to stand. “I do not know, Mother. The hunt master does not consult with me on such things.”
“We need to eat. I am starving.”
Palloc sighed.
“This would be a good time for you to show leadership. The hunt must go back out.”
“Leadership!” Palloc snorted in disgust.
“You never listen to me, which is why you are like a hyena, always arriving late to the glory, always feeding on rotten meat.”
“You are an old woman.”
“And you should respect that. Does it not occur to you that the curse has finally been flushed into the open?”
Palloc frowned at her in noncomprehension.
“It is as I foretold. By harboring the crippled boy, by giving him a job in the Kindred, we have given great offense, and that is why the hunting is thin. Urs refuses to address the issue and has proven himself unable to find food. And Bellu,” she continued, “has turned the cripple into her personal servant. Do you know she lies naked before him while she bathes, in ways that a woman should only lie in front of her husband? Ah, I see that bothers you. Bellu, the beautiful woman that you could not have, and she offers herself to Mal Crus. Do not worry, the boy has not enjoyed more than just the view—she thinks to taunt him, though I imagine he is more grateful than tormented. Bellu is stupid and the men who pant after her, you included, are even more stupid. What is required now is discipline. Whether the council votes to rid the Kindred of the curse and then replaces Bellu as council mother, or they make me council mother first—either way, it will happen. But only if you remove Calli as a factor! As council mother, I can manipulate Urs. You will soon be back to being spear master, and all will regard you as the logical choice when they finally see Urs for the fool that he is. Only Calli can stop me, so you must stop her!”
A hard determination was on Palloc’s face. “I may kill the hunt master first,” he declared.
Contempt flickered on Albi’s face. “Yes, you have said that before, and never once taken action. What matters now is Calli. Understand? Calli.”
* * *
The hunt had been out for four days and had not spotted any game except for some horses, far distant. Unlike the stocky reindeer, horses were skittish and impossibly fast. Men lusted to spear them, but no Kindred had ever gotten close enough to try.
The grass was sparse; this summer, the air dry and considerably cooler than was normal. Urs was getting worried—his men were growing as gaunt as they did in winter, but this was summer, when they should be putting on weight. His wife had complained to him about being hungry, though as hunt master his share of any kill was always the largest. Where were the reindeer?
When Markus, the least experienced of the stalkers, failed to report back to the hunt when he should have, Urs sent four men—Nix, Nix’s brother Vent, Palloc, and Dog—out to find him.
Palloc could feel Dog insolently watching him as they followed the elusive trail Markus had left in the dusty ground. Palloc scowled. He had not spoken words with Dog since the two of them had fought, and being this close to him now made him uncomfortable. Palloc endured it as long as he could, finally deciding he had had enough. He stopped walking. “I have a question for the hunt master,” he declared.
The other men halted, regarding him curiously. Dog’s expression was more of a smirk, and Palloc turned away from it, feeling his face grow hot. “I will return to the hunt,” Palloc announced stiffly. He walked back the way from which they had come.
“What is he doing?” Nix asked as Palloc’s back retreated.
“He has a question for the hunt master,” his brother Vent replied.
Dog shrugged. “He is not a good tracker. We can do just as well without him.”
The men nodded and followed Dog, whose head was down, trying to see a sign of where Markus might have gone.
There were coniferous trees here, and the terrain was hilly. The pine needles on the ground were much like the color of rouge, the powder that could be used to turn things red. The men lost the trail, but pressed on anyway.
“If he came here, he found no game,” Dog remarked. “There is no grass.”
Nix nodded, then stopped. “What is that?” he asked.
The other two men halted, cocking their heads. They heard it again, a shrill, piercing noise, like a bird might make but unlike any bird they had ever heard. A whistle, answered by another eerie whistle from behind them.
“It is like the call of the elk during mating season,” Vent observed. And it was, indeed, a little like an elk. A novice like Markus might have thought he was on the trail of a herd of the big mammals, but there was a sharper quality to this sibilant trilling.
Another whistle from their man’s side, and an answering one on the woman’s side—piercing and different, two notes from one, three from the other, and then a long one from behind them.
Whatever was making the sound was getting closer.
The three Kindred men frowned at each other. It was as if they were surrounded by some unseen creatures. Dog peered around, but could see no movement.
The men reflexively tightened their grips on their spears. They were in a small clearing but the trees were thick all around them.
The whistles came even closer, and then with a sudden, single drawn out note, they went completely silent. The men waited.
“They must have left,” Vent noted. Nix nodded.
“But how? Are they birds and have flown off?”
Nobody knew. Dog scratched his head. “I wonder what they were,” he murmured.
And then he turned at a sudden motion, seeing men move silently out of the trees. Strange men, with faces smeared with charcoal and rouge so that their eyes appeared starkly white. Hideous, wild-looking men. Men carrying clubs.
Cohort.
FORTY-TWO
Palloc did not get very far when he thought better of his plan to return to the hunt. Urs would be angry with
him for disobeying instructions, and probably intended for Palloc, as the senior man, to lead the search for Markus.
It had just been too much to bear. Dog evinced obvious but unstated contempt—clearly, he felt that he had somehow bested Palloc. Dog might be much taller, but Palloc was broad shouldered and in an actual fight might have easily defeated his adversary. In fact, he could imagine it, could practically feel his fist upon Dog’s jaw, knocking the younger man senseless.
But they were not children and a fight was forbidden. Punishment might include banishment from the hunt, essentially turning Palloc into a woman. And Palloc had no doubt it would be his punishment, and not Dog’s, even though it was all Dog’s fault.
Bitterly, Palloc turned and went back the way from which he had come. Dog, Vent, and Nix were easy to track. He would advise the three hunters that he had spoken to the hunt master and returned. What was said was no one’s business but his.
No, that made no sense: he could not have made it back to the hunt in so little time.
Scanning ahead, Palloc could see that the three men had entered a pine forest. On his woman’s side, a tall hill bristled with deciduous trees. If he climbed a tree at the top of the hill, he could see into the pine forest and much of the surrounding countryside. If Markus was lost, wandering in circles, or injured, Palloc would spot him from up there. Palloc would be the hero. The hunt and the Kindred would admire his initiative and celebrate his success.
Palloc had not climbed a tree since he was a child, and he was startled at how difficult it was. His arms were soon trembling from the effort, and he dropped his spear when he had to make a panicked grab to keep from pitching headfirst onto the ground. He was right, though: from the crest, he could see far in every direction. Why did the stalkers never think to climb trees? Palloc decided that he would keep this idea to himself, so that when he was hunt master someday, his first command would be to climb the trees at the top of hills to spot for game, and everyone would agree he was a wise leader who should have been made hunt master long ago instead of Urs.