Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains (29 page)

If I pull hard enough at the end so the ice chunk slams into the shore ice, it will knock Moolnik off his feet. That will give me a chance to get the knife away from him. My spear will still be stuck in the shore ice, so I’ll have to go after Moolnik with just my own knife.

However, this proved impossible. The ice underneath them started scraping the ice under the water at the tip of the peninsula, preventing Attu from pulling them any closer. Instead, they were going to have to jump across more than a spear length of water to reach the shore.

Attu gathered up the rope, but left the spear in the shore ice, tethering them to the land. The water was already tugging at them, urging their ice chunk around the peninsula and back out into open water. Attu couldn’t risk taking the spear out. The water was deep here, and if they drifted only a few more feet away from shore they would pass the peninsula. Without more ice chunks to throw to, the distance would become as impossible to cross as what they had just traveled, just as deadly. Moolnik pulled Rika over to where Attu stood, Banek’s knife stuck against her back. She was struggling to carry the three loaded packs.

“Hold the rope,” he ordered Rika.

Rika let the packs fall and took the rope from Attu, her eyes downcast.

“Throw the packs and supplies across first,” he told Attu.

Attu grabbed two of the three packs and walked to the edge of the ice sheet. As he did, the ice chunk sank towards the water. With a cry, Attu leaped back, and the ice bobbed the other way.

“You fool, the ice bottom is almost melted,” Moolnik said. “Be more careful.”

Attu threw the packs from well back on the ice, one at a time. His movement as he hurled them to shore caused their ice to bob again, but not as badly.

How are we ever going to jump off?
Attu thought.

He tried to catch Rika’s eye, to tell her to be ready, to watch for the one chance, maybe when the ice moved again when someone jumped, something that might give her a chance to escape Moolnik, but Rika was busy looking off into the distance, as if deep in thought.

“The woman next,” Moolnik said. “Throw her over, too, but give me your knife first.”

So that was it,
Attu thought.
Moolnik will jump after Rika, taking the rope with him. When he jumps the ice will move far enough out from the shore to strand me, or if I jump in and struggle to shore, he’ll be waiting there, knife in hand, to kill me.

Reluctantly, Attu handed over his knife. Moolnik stuck it in the belt of his leggings. Attu wouldn’t have attacked Moolnik until Rika was safely on land, but Moolnik didn’t know that. To him, the woman was a prize, nothing more. If their roles were reversed, Moolnik wouldn’t let endangering Rika stop him from attacking Attu.

Moolnik grabbed the rope from Rika and she lost her footing, falling hard against him. Moolnik swore and shoved her in Attu’s direction. She fell into Attu, and they both landed on the ice, almost sliding off as it tilted under their combined weight.

Attu grabbed the rope that was stretched between the shore and the land with one hand, and Rika with the other, pulling them back from the edge just before they both tumbled into the water.

Moolnik laughed.

Rika got her feet back under her and stood up again. She straightened her parka, then without warning, Rika wrapped her arms around Attu and kissed him, hard. He stared at her wide-eyed as she pulled away.

“When I land, I’m going to scream,” she quickly whispered. “Don’t look to see if I’m safe, Attu. Attack. That’s your chance.”

Rika turned, and before Attu could help her, she took three quick steps toward the edge and leaped. Her lighter frame hardly tipped the ice at all as she flew over the gap towards shore. Attu forced his eyes off Rika’s jump and concentrated on Moolnik instead, watching for his chance to attack.

A look of wonder changing quickly to desire crossed Moolnik’s face as Rika soared across the open water to the shoreline on the other side. Attu had never hated him more. He heard Rika land behind him and fall.

“My leg, my leg, I broke my leg,” Rika screamed.

Moolnik took a step forward, his eyes still locked on Rika.

Attu was on Moolnik in a heartbeat, knocking Banek’s knife out of the older man’s hand before Moolnik even saw him coming. The knife skittered across the ice, coming to rest against Elder Nuanu’s body.

Moolnik struck Attu in the face with his forehead. Attu fell back, blood flowing from his nose, his head spinning. Moolnik reached for Attu’s knife, the one he had wedged in his belt, but his hand came away empty.

“You!” Moolnik roared at Rika as he realized she had taken Attu’s knife from him when she’d fallen against Moolnik, just before she kissed Attu and jumped. “You will pay with a beating for that,” he yelled as he turned and launched himself toward Elder Nuanu’s body and Banek’s knife.

Where was Moolnik’s own knife?

Attu watched as Moolnik grabbed for the knife. The ice tilted down and Attu thought Elder Nuanu’s body would slide off into the water, taking the knife with it, but her body remained motionless.
How could it be holding fast on the ice?

Moolnik grabbed the knife laying against Elder Nuanu’s body and leaped up, scrambling uphill against the ice tilt, back to the center.

A grin lit up Moolnik’s sunken cheeks and wild eyes as he circled Attu again. Moolnik slashed out, missed, and slashed again, his knife nicking Attu’s parka sleeve.

Moolnik continued circling, at first slowly but increasing his speed as Attu dodged strike after strike. He seemed unnaturally strong for someone who’d been fighting a fever and had been drugged. The ice began to tilt, first towards the shoreline, then away, as the two continued their macabre strike and dodge dance.

Attu leaped aside again, and water washed up over the ice chunk behind Moolnik and over Elder Nuanu’s body. No one was holding the rope, and it uncoiled as the ice chunk drifted out, their movements drenching its surface.

Attu dodged again and fell on the now water-coated ice as Moolnik lunged for him. Attu rolled away, perilously close to the edge now. He scrambled furiously to get back to the center of the ice, his miks wet and stiffening.

“Attu!” Rika screamed, and Attu heard, rather than saw, his knife hit the ice beside him. He grabbed for it, but his icy mik was too stiff and he couldn’t close his hand on it. Instead, his mik pushed it forward, past Moolnik and toward where the body of Elder Nuanu still lay.

Attu couldn’t believe the old woman’s body hadn’t rolled off the ice yet, as much as it had been tipping and swaying, but there it was, and Attu’s knife, just like Banek’s had before, lay wedged in front of it.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Moolnik yelled and turned to leap for the knife.

But Elder Nuanu’s body HAD slid while they were fighting. It was now dangerously close to the edge. Moolnik, thinking to grab the knife as he had the other one, pushed himself off in the direction of the knife and body just as he had before. But Moolnik slid on the slick surface into Elder Nuanu, and her body slipped off the ice as easily as if it had been waiting for this moment: Moolnik was reaching for the knife, then he was sliding with the body, and then both disappeared over the edge and into the icy water.

Attu saw his chance. The ice chunk was still elevated on this side from Moolnik and Elder Nuanu’s body weighing it down on the other side. Attu slid, fell, got up, and fell again, scrambling up to the apex of the ice. Just as he reached the edge, still elevated at least half a spear length in the air, Attu leaped and landed on the shore ice, next to Rika. He grabbed the rope, now dangling loose in the water, and reeled it in as fast as he could, afraid Moolnik might somehow be able to get to it and pull himself ashore. The ice crashed down again – the water was still deep close to the shore – and broke into pieces. As Attu and Rika watched, the ruins of their ice sheet began drifting back into the even deeper water.

“Where’s Moolnik?” Attu asked searching the water in front of him, spear in hand.

“I saw his head come up out of the water, and then one of the ice chunks crashed down on him. That one,” Rika pointed to one of the larger pieces, now drifting out from the shore.

Attu thought he saw movement behind it, but as he watched, a snow otter chirruped in agitation and swam away. It dove into the water, out of sight. Had that movement he’d seen been Moolnik, or the snow otter? Could Moolnik be hiding in the water, behind the ice chunk?

If Moolnik was alive, wouldn’t he be trying to get to shore?

“If the ice chunk knocked him out, would he float or sink?”

“Elder Nuanu’s body sank,” Rika said. “I guess Moolnik would, too.”

Attu and Rika stood on the shoreline until it was almost dark, watching and waiting. The ice pieces continued to float away to the south, and the water grew unusually calm as the sun set and the wind died down, but there was no further sign of Moolnik.

“He must have drowned,” Rika said. She shivered.

“We need to set up camp before dark,” Attu said.

They turned and walked up the peninsula toward the main shoreline.

R
ika looked toward the line of trees where the peninsula met the land. It was dark in the gloom of evening.

“Let’s stay here,” Rika said, her voice small. The peninsula was rocky, but from where they stood, Attu and Rika could see out over the water on both sides of the land and it would be difficult for someone, or something, to sneak up on them. They moved back a bit from the shore and set up the shelter next to the largest rock, out of the wind, which had picked up again. Once in the shelter, they didn’t even need the oil light for warmth. Attu left the flap open, gazing out over the water where Moolnik had fallen in. Just in case. He still couldn’t believe Moolnik had drowned.

Rika took the last of the dried meat and divided it between them. They ate silently. Neither seemed to want to talk.

“I’ll have to hunt tomorrow,” Attu said after the silence began to wear on him. “For what, I don’t know.”

“If you kill it, we’ll eat it,” Rika said. She yawned.

Attu patted the hide beside him, and Rika snuggled up to him. She fell asleep after a few more yawns.

But Attu lay awake far into the night, haunted by the sight of Moolnik and Elder Nuanu’s body disappearing over the edge of the ice into the water. The rocky beach was hard underneath his furs, and even in the shelter, Attu felt vulnerable. They were off the floating ice and alive, but he was anxious again. He didn’t know this new world, didn’t know its dangers or how to protect himself or Rika, and he knew he’d have to learn fast. They were out of food now and almost out of fresh water.

When he finally slept, Attu dreamed of the white-haired, blue-eyed man who had spoken through the body of Rika, the wheel on the rock wall, and the spearhead shaped rock they needed to find. As he slept, the images jumbled together with the sound of trees moving in the wind, warning him of danger. But no matter how hard he listened to their whispering in his dreams, he couldn’t tell what they were saying.

––––––––

“W
e should get moving, I suppose,” Attu said the next morning. He felt stiff and still tired. It’d been days since he’d been able to sleep free from thoughts of imminent death or impending danger.

Attu studied Rika. Dark circles marred her cheeks.

She looked up to see him staring at her and tried to smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“We should be curious about what’s in there, what it’s like, don’t you think?” Rika asked as she studied the gloom of the pine forest. She looked anything but curious.

Attu took her hand, and they walked slowly to the edge of the trees. Rika put her hand out first, touching the long greenness that grew from the tree arms in clusters.

“Ouch,” she said as one of the needle-like pieces poked her.

“They’re sharp at the ends,” Attu agreed, running his fingers along the edges.

“The smell is strong,” Rika said, touching her hand to her nose. “It’s on me, just from the contact. I don’t know if I like the smell or not. I can almost taste it, strong and sharp.”

Attu studied the ground in front of him. It was brown and covered with dead tree arms and dead needle pieces. “It’s so full somehow, almost like a crowded clan tent, so many trees, so close together. It makes me feel trapped.” Attu shook his head. It was all so strange; it didn’t seem real.

“Did you hear that?” Rika said as a shrill call, almost like a whistle, but not quite human, came from deep within the trees. “What was that?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Attu replied. He stepped away from the pines. “For now, let’s stay close to shore.”

“All right,” Rika agreed. She looked relieved.

After glancing at the forbidding trees once more, they turned and walked back to grab their packs. Rika picked her pack up, then began looking around the gravel surrounding her.

“What is it?” Attu asked as he saw her searching.

“I had two small knives slid into my pack where I could reach them if I needed them quickly. One’s missing.”

“Did it fall out when I threw the packs from the ice chunk to land?” Attu asked.

“No. I was sure I saw it afterward. It was there...” Rika slid her hand along the two small pockets she had sewn into the side of her pack. One held a bone ullik knife. The other was empty.

Attu and Rika scoured the camp, and Attu walked back to the area where he’d thrown the packs, but they found nothing.

“I lost my own knife in the fight when Moolnik fell...” Attu didn’t finish. He caught the look on Rika’s face and added, “It’s a good thing Suka had an extra in the pack he gave me.”

“I guess I must have been mistaken, with everything that happened and all,” Rika concluded. “I was pretty upset.” She wiped her hand across her face. “Let’s go.”

They gathered up their packs again and walked south. Air as warm as the inside of a shelter flowed down from the forest, and soon their miks and parkas joined the other items in their packs. Both of them were sweating.