Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains (16 page)

“Elder Nuanu, please forgive me for not asking you if there were rituals you needed to perform before we set out again,” Attu said. He lowered his head.

“I accept your apology,” Elder Nuanu replied. “You did not know that a journey across unfamiliar ice requires rituals. You have only traveled the established route of our clan, the circle we travel from land to land to find new game. First south, then east, then north and west again, the territory of the Ice Mountain Clan as it has been for generations. I have traveled the entire route twice. And your father, once.”

She shot Ubantu a look. “But you should have known. Didn’t Elder Tovut teach you this?”

Ubantu hung his head. “Please remind us of what is required, Elder Nuanu.”

“There are rituals for beginning and ending each day, as well as for good resting at mid-sun,” Elder Nuanu explained. Attu caught the hint of a smile in her voice at putting Ubantu in his place.

“Would you please perform these rituals from now on, Elder Nuanu, healer of our clan and embodiment of Shuantuan?” Attu asked in the formal manner of one requesting such an important task be done by a woman of Elder Nuanu’s status.

“As you wish, Mighty Hunter and Leader of the Ice Mountain Clan, Attu,” Elder Nuanu said, her voice now serious.

S
he means to make me see myself as leader.
Attu winced.

Elder Nuanu cleared her throat as they continued walking. Changing the subject, she said, “Moolnik is a tooth fish, biting just to bite. This time he bit himself.”

“Sooner or later, the tooth fish bites us all,” Attu replied.

“That is true, young hunter,” Elder Nuanu agreed.

So now, when she wants to give me advice, I’m suddenly ‘young hunter’ again,
Attu thought.

“
Still,” Elder Nuanu interrupted Attu’s thoughts, “only a fool puts his arm near a tooth fish’s mouth.”

Attu agreed with Elder Nuanu’s warning to be careful around Moolnik. Glancing down at her, Attu saw Elder Nuanu wink at Ubantu, who had moved up to walk alongside Attu as well. All seemed forgiven between these old friends.

“I have warned him also, Elder Nuanu,” Ubantu said. “Attu isn’t the only one who must watch himself. You must also be wary.”

“I’m old meat, too tough to get a grip on, even by a tooth fish,” Elder Nuanu laughed.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Attu’s father said. “I know my brother. He won’t forget what you said, how you shamed him with the truth in front of the whole clan.”

The three walked on in silence. Attu shivered.
Were the restless Moolnikuan spirits already at work helping Moolnik seek revenge?

––––––––

T
he clan struck out south and east, in the same direction Paven had taken his Great Frozen Clan days before. The sun shone directly in their faces as they walked. Attu adjusted his bone goggles against the ice glare and turned his thoughts to the journey ahead as the day grew brighter. He was anxious to make as much distance as possible this sun, but he also knew the people would tire more easily again until they regained their traveling stamina.

Elder Nuanu fell back with the women, and Attu’s father moved away from him, putting a safer distance between them. After a while, Ubantu moved closer to Attu again as they walked, calling so he could be heard, “I think we need to position two hunters at the back of the clan to watch for ice bears.”

“Suka and Kinak?”

“Yes, that’s a good choice. They’re still near the back anyway.”

Will my cousins do what we tell them to do?
Attu wondered.
Or will they be as stubborn as their father, Moolnik?

“Now’s a good time to find out where their loyalties lie,” Ubantu said, as if reading Attu’s thoughts. “I’ll walk back and tell them.”

Attu nodded, relieved not to have to do it himself.

A while later, Ubantu returned, a bit out of breath from working his way back to the lead, but smiling.

“They agreed,” he said.

“Good.”

“And Suka said to tell you this traveling pace is good for his mother and Shunut, not too fast.”

Attu nodded.
Is he acknowledging my wisdom to lead, over his father’s? Was that the meaning hidden behind those words?
Attu hoped so. If he had been Suka, he’d have a hard time following the orders of someone his own age, even if Elder Nuanu insisted on it, let alone someone who’d been a part, although not by his own choice, in making Suka’s father look bad.

Attu called a halt when the sun was only halfway to its highest point in the sky. He passed word along that no one should unpack anything except for a bit of food and drink, and that they’d be stopping again at sun high. This was just an extra rest, a short one.

Attu smiled at the look of relief on the women’s faces, and everyone dropped packs and sat, enjoying the unexpected rest. The people chattered among themselves, still in the initial excitement of beginning their journey again.

Attu was kneeling in front of his pack looking for an extra bit of padding for his carry strap as the hum of voices suddenly stopped. Suka was loping toward the front of Attu’s group. He was not yelling for help, but his long legs ate up the distance between them. Attu stood as Suka reached him.

“We’re being followed by an ice bear,” Suka said. “I’m sure of it.”

“W
hat did you see?” Attu asked, as Meavu, hearing the words, “ice bear,” buried her head in her mother’s parka. Everyone else looked on the edge of panic.

Careful now,
Attu thought and he glanced to the sides, hoping Suka would get his message. The last thing the clan needed was to begin fleeing across this tricky ice, trying to run from an ice bear that might or might not be after them.

Suka took in a deep breath and let it out, apparently to calm himself before he spoke.

“I began thinking we were being followed shortly after you told us to guard the rear,” Suka began. “The hair on the back of my neck kept rising, and I had this feeling...”

Attu knew that feeling well, like suddenly you were the prey, not the hunter. He nodded.

“So I let the others go ahead, and I stayed back. I lay flat upon my pack, very still, against that ice mound we passed a while ago.”

“A good idea,” Attu said.

Attu’s father moved to stand by them as Suka paused, looking around the group. He seemed to choose his next words carefully.

“I saw a strange mound of ice off in the distance, back towards the land we’d come from. It hadn’t been there before. I thought of how the ice bear had hidden behind the mounds before attacking the women, and how you said the bear you killed had pretended to be a mound, lying still, blending in with the surrounding mounds, before it attacked Meavu and Shunut.”

Attu nodded.

“I waited. And the mound moved. After a long time, the ice bear raised its head as if it were sniffing in our direction, catching our scent on the winds blowing from the south, and it began to walk toward us.”

Several women popped their lips in fear.

“It wasn’t running,” Suka said in a rush, looking around at the frightened faces of the clan. “Just following.”

“Where is it now? Has it continued to follow us?” Ubantu asked.

Suka turned and looked back along the path they’d come. He pointed to a vague spot, a slight lifting of the edge of the horizon, barely discernible in the glare of the sun.

“It’s there,” Suka said.

“What do we do?” cried Meavu suddenly, running from her mother into her father’s arms. He lifted her up, and she buried her face in his neck. “I’m afraid,” she cried, “I’m afraid.”

Ubantu looked at Attu.

“Tell the other hunters,” Attu ordered Suka. “We’ll meet here. Hurry, but don’t panic.”

“I’ll take Meavu and the others over there to rest,” Yural said, pointing to a spot on the path back the way they’d come.

The group shouldn’t stand closely together on the ice, and Yural seemed to be using that excuse to allow Attu and the hunters a chance to talk without having to worry about scaring the women and children any more than they already were.

“Thank you, Mother,” Attu said. He was grateful for Yural’s wisdom in the face of danger.

––––––––

T
he hunters gathered. Even Moolnik came. Attu tried not to be intimidated by the older man’s sullen presence. He looked to his father, who gave a slight nod of encouragement.

Attu opened his mouth to speak but stopped when Yupik, the hunter who’d been injured while fighting off the ice bear, placed his hand, palm down in front of him. Surprised, Attu nodded, giving Yupik the chance to speak first.

“It’s the bear that attacked Taunu,” Yupik said, his voice trembling. “I feel it in my spirit.”

“What do you mean?” Attu asked. Glancing around the group, Attu saw that the rest of the hunters looked as surprised as he was by Yupik’s claim.

“He seeks revenge,” Yupik answered. “He won’t stop until he gets it.”

The hunters popped their lips in dismay.

Could an ice bear be smart enough to seek revenge?

Attu looked closely at Yupik. Yupik had joined the other hunters in spite of Elder Nuanu’s arguing that he wasn’t well enough yet. Yupik’s wounds were healing, but he still couldn’t see out of his left eye, even though Elder Nuanu could find no injury.

Yupik’s eyes looked wild as he stood there, his face feverish. Healing scratches laced his left cheek and forehead. Attu knew Yupik was plagued with headaches and sharp pains in his eye now, which caused him to tear at his face, especially in his sleep. Elder Nuanu had ordered his hands bound at night, to prevent him from hurting himself as he slept.

Perhaps there is a connection between Yupik and the ice bear now, even though the ice bear didn’t die.

Attu decided to have Elder Nuanu begin working with Yupik’s Remembering, just to be sure. He didn’t want to lose a hunter.

“Whether or not it is the ice bear that attacked Taunu,” Attu said, his thoughts returning to the group, “we’re being followed. I trust that what Suka has seen with his keen eyes is true.”

The other hunters nodded, and Suka stood taller.

“I don’t see that we have any other choice except to continue, but we must circle the women and children with hunters to protect them,” Attu added. “Do we agree to this?”

A few of the hunters nodded immediately, the older ones, who were used to the time when Ubantu was leader and they’d been asked their opinion on matters of such importance. Suka and Kinak looked surprised, then thoughtful. Suka nodded first, and Attu noticed he hadn’t waited for his older brother to decide for him, as he’d done in the past. After a pause, Kinak nodded also, although Attu sensed he was reluctant to agree to Attu’s decision in front of his father.

Moolnik was standing slightly apart from the group. Attu looked at Moolnik, holding his face calm, his voice steady.

“What say you, Moolnik?” Attu asked.

“I do what my sons do,” was Moolnik’s terse reply.

He agrees to his son’s choice rather than to say he agrees with mine. Tooth fish Moolnik might be, but unlike that stupid fish, he is clever.

“Suka, since your eyes are sharp and you’ve already seen how the ice bear tries to fool us by lying down and blending in with its surroundings, are you willing to continue guarding the most dangerous part of the group, the back?”

“We will guard the back,” Suka and Kinak said at once. Moolnik nodded his head. “I guard with them.”

Starting out once again, Attu put the other hunters at points in the front and sides, leaving Moolnik and his sons to guard the rear of the group.

Moolnik would probably be useless to his sons in a fight,
Attu reasoned.
But perhaps to save them he might step up to the task like a real hunter for once.

As the clan set out again, silent as always to listen for cracks in the ice, they were also scanning the horizon for the ice bear. Twice, Attu thought he spotted something moving behind them, but it was so far in the distance he couldn’t tell.

Perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me.

When no attack came, the initial rush of fear at exposing the whole clan to the ice bear receded, and Attu’s thoughts began drifting. He wondered how far the Great Frozen Clan was ahead of them. If the two clans had been able to travel together earlier, the ice bear attack wouldn’t have happened, Taunu would still be alive, Yupik wouldn’t have been injured, and they’d probably not have an ice bear following them now.
And I would still be able to see Rika, even if she is promised to another.

Attu’s anger rose as he considered the consequences of Moolnik’s stubbornness.
Did the man even begin to realize the harm he had caused?

But there was nothing Attu could do about it now. Taunu was dead and Yupik injured. Rika was gone, and they were one small clan, fleeing on the ever-thinning ice with an ice bear on their heels, to the safety of the land Elder Tovut and the storytellers of Banek’s clan had promised was there. Attu prayed they were right.

A
full moon bathed the clan in its white light as the people slept through the long Nuvikuan night, warm in the skin shelters they’d erected as the sun was setting.

Attu stood guard on the northwest corner of the camp, looking back in the direction they’d come, searching for signs of the ice bear. He saw nothing but a fine dust of snow, occasionally blown up into tufts of crystals, sparkling in the moonlight, circling in the air like trystas. Attu hoped they were trystas, the ones of protection. His people needed protection right now, as they lay huddled together in shelters placed as close to each other as the ice would allow. The hide of a tent was no defense against the teeth of a bear.

Attu turned to see Yupik, who was guarding the opposite side of the camp. Attu watched as he slowly moved his head back and forth, turning occasionally to see the Expanse with his good right eye. As he watched, Attu saw Yupik bring his mik up to his face, then apparently he remembered he needed to leave the painful eye alone and dropped his hand again.