Brotherband 4: Slaves of Socorro (3 page)

She noticed that several past residents had carved their names into the timbers of the hut. None of the carvings were fresh, she thought, as she traced them with her fingertip.
Arn. Johann. Detmer.
One name was carved on a wall opposite the others and was obviously not Skandian. Nor was it a male name. She studied it curiously.

‘Evanlyn,’ she said to herself. She wondered who Evanlyn might have been, and what a woman was doing here in the first place.

‘Maybe hunting, like me,’ she said. She took her small utility knife out and deftly carved her own name under the other woman’s, studying her handiwork with satisfaction.
Evanlyn. Lydia.

‘We girls have got to stick together,’ she said.

She ate a quick supper of bacon and boiled potatoes, then turned in for the night.

The following day, early in the morning, she set out a series of snares for small game and birds. Her atlatl was too brutal a weapon for such prey. It would tear them apart, leaving nothing for eating. She saw some deer tracks and followed them. But they were several days old and she caught no other sign of the animal that had made them. That was hunting, she thought. Sometimes, no matter how skilled you were, you came back empty-handed.

Not that she cared too much. The hunting trip was merely a ploy to get her out of Hallasholm for a few days – and away from the attentions of Rollond.

Rollond was a contemporary of Stig and Hal. He had been the leader of the Wolf Brotherband, who had competed with Hal and his Herons two years ago. He was tall and well built, and extremely handsome. She knew from idle conversation that the members of the Heron Brotherband liked him and respected him. She had heard vague stories about how he had helped them during their brotherband training period. In addition, he was popular throughout Hallasholm. His crew had come third in the competition, but that hadn’t prevented the Wolves being chosen to join one of the leading wolfship crews in the port – and Rollond had been appointed as second in command.

Trouble was, Rollond had a massive crush on Lydia. She had been pleasant to him at first, because he was a nice person – and an attractive one. But she didn’t reciprocate the depth of his feelings for her.

He was constantly asking her out: a picnic, or a fishing expedition, even a hunting trip from time to time. Occasionally she agreed. More often, she cried off. But it was getting harder and harder to find believable excuses, and she certainly didn’t want to hurt Rollond’s feelings. After all, he
was
a very likeable person.

It was just that she didn’t want to like him too much. Casual friends? Fine. Anything more than that, and she felt constricted, confined.

Lydia was a free spirit, and something of a loner. She had spent her early years largely by herself, hunting, tracking and wandering in the dense forest that crowned the cliffs above her hometown. As a relative newcomer to Hallasholm, she resisted the concept of being known as ‘Rollond’s girlfriend’, as she knew she would be. She didn’t want to be defined in terms of some other person. She was still trying to establish her own identity in her new home.

Of course, she was known as a member of the
Heron
’s crew and that had gained her a certain level of respect. She still enjoyed the company and camaraderie of the Heron Brotherband. They made her welcome whenever she joined them – at festivals or feasts or other social occasions. And she knew that to them, at least, she wasn’t an outsider, but a tried and proven member of their brotherband. She still wore her knitted watch cap, emblazoned with a white heron symbol, with pride.

But since the
Heron
had returned from her triumphant voyage to Raguza, Lydia had little to do on board. After a long winter lay-up, the crew had been engaged in short cruises in local waters, keeping a protective eye on the Skandian trading fleet. Since Lydia was part of the fighting crew rather than the sailing crew, using her deadly accurate atlatl darts to bring down enemy crewmen, the day-to-day task of escorting the trading fleet left her sitting idle in the stern of the little ship. Stefan and Jesper looked after the raising and lowering of the tapered yards. Ulf and Wulf seemed to have mastered the intricacies of sail trimming, working together, with that instinctive sense of oneness that twins so often share, to produce the most efficient sail shape, wringing every possible knot of speed out of the ship.

She supposed she could learn to steer. But with Hal, Stig, Edvin and even Thorn more than capable of doing that, the
Heron
was well served with helmsmen.

Even big, short-sighted Ingvar had his position on board. His immense strength was put to use helping Jesper and Stefan. And of course, he was the only one who could cock and load the massive crossbow they called the Mangler.

‘I need a long cruise,’ she said. If they were sent on another mission, like the hunt for Zavac and his black ship, the
Raven
, she knew she’d find plenty to do. For a start, the mere fact that they would be a long way from Skandian home waters raised the odds of encountering hostile ships. Also, her hunting skills would be put to good effect as she could provide food for the crew. And a long cruise would solve the problem of having to continually avoid Rollond.

For now, she’d have to resort to hunting expeditions like this to keep her distance from him. He’d already inveigled her into agreeing to be his partner at the upcoming haymaking festival. But at least there’d be plenty of other people around – the entire town, as a matter of fact. And Hal, Stig and the other Herons would be on hand as well.

As she turned these thoughts over, a separate part of her mind was taking note of the terrain around her, searching for hoofprints, broken branches on low-lying bushes, scraps of fur caught on thorns, scars in the bark of trees that might indicate a stag had been rubbing his antlers against them to rid them of the irritating ‘velvet’ that coated the horns, or to mark his territory – searching for anything, in fact, that might indicate the recent passage of a large animal.

She saw none of these things, until she rounded a bend in the narrow game trail, stooping to make her way under a tangle of thorny vines. She straightened and found herself looking at a large tree several metres away, with marks on its trunk that set her senses jangling.

Something had gouged two sets of parallel scars in the thick bark – four in each set. She looked around warily, her left hand automatically dropping to draw one of her darts from the quiver at her belt. Her right hand already had the atlatl ready.

The marks were those made by a bear, tearing its claws through the bark of the tree, to sharpen them or strengthen them, or just out of sheer contrariness. She knew that bears would be abroad at this time of year but this was the first time she had seen evidence of one so close to Hallasholm.

She took a pace or two towards the tree, touching the scars on the trunk. The sap in the torn bark was still tacky, meaning the bear had been here sometime in the past one or two hours. Again, she looked all round her, but there was no sign of a bear anywhere she could see.

‘It’s the one you don’t see that’s the problem,’ she told herself. It occurred to her that she had been talking to herself a good deal lately. ‘That might not be a good thing,’ she said, then realised she was doing it again. She frowned and shook herself. She would have to stop this.

The bear was a big one. She had to look up to see where the scars on the tree trunk began, well above her head. From their position, she estimated that the animal would stand half a metre taller than her own height. And it would be correspondingly bulky. She wasn’t armed to fight a bear, so she turned and retraced her steps down the game path.

On the way back to the cabin, she detoured to check the snares she had set several hours earlier. She found two plump plovers, a grouse and a rabbit in the snares. A good haul, she thought. Obviously, nobody had hunted this area for some time. She gathered them into her game bag and made her way to the cabin. Her full attention was turned to the woods around her as she stayed alert for any sign of that bear. She considered what she would do if she saw it. Initially, remain very, very still and hope it would go away. But if it charged her – and if it had cubs it might well do so – her best chance would be to climb a tree. Accordingly, she continually made note of suitable trees within reasonable running distance.

She reached the cabin and breathed a small sigh of relief. Bears were not animals to tangle with. They were unpredictable. And they were big and strong and had claws. That was not a reassuring combination, and the fact that there might be one somewhere in the vicinity had set her nerves on edge.

She shut the door, and smiled as she realised how false was the sense of security it gave her. The wood was old and warped and the leather hinges were dried out and fragile. One good shove from a bear would undoubtedly smash it open, tearing it from its hinges. But, flimsy as it was, it was a psychological barrier and, as far as she knew, bears did not tend to enter buildings – unless they smelled food.

She moved outside again, and away from the cabin. She skinned and dressed the rabbit, and cleaned and plucked the birds she had taken from the snares, throwing the residue into the bushes that fringed the clearing where the cabin was set. She hung the birds from the edge of the verandah and took the rabbit carcass inside.

While there was still light, she made a hurried trip to the stream that ran nearby, cleaning the blood and feathers from her hands, and filling the old water bucket that she had found in the cabin. By the time she returned, the shadows were lengthening. She shut the door again, dropping its locking bar in place, and lit a candle from her pack. She had other items there as well – basic cooking ingredients. She jointed the rabbit, rolled the joints in seasoned flour and stoked up the fire once more. There was a big black iron frying pan hanging behind the fireplace. She set it on a grate over the flames to heat up.

She cut a large pat of butter and dropped it into the pan, tilting the pan from side to side to coat it with the sizzling, spitting butter. Then she quickly placed the joints of rabbit onto the pan, swirling the pan to roll them around in the butter, watching as the joints quickly sealed and browned in the heat. She moved the pan to one side, away from the direct heat of the flames, and set the rabbit pieces to cook through, shaking the pan every so often to move them around. The steady sizzling sound continued and a fragrant smell filled the cabin. When she judged that the rabbit was almost cooked, she took a handful of wild bitter greens that she had picked the day before on the way up the mountain, and tossed them into the pan. She watched as they wilted down to a third of their original bulk, then took the pan off the heat and spooned several joints and the greens onto a platter.

She burned her fingers and her lips as she tried to eat the rabbit. Having learned her lesson, she left it to cool for several minutes, then devoured it hungrily. The meat was tender and full of flavour, and the bitter, astringent taste of the greens cut through the butter taste. She ate quickly. Nothing sharpens an appetite like a day hiking in the fresh, clear air of the mountains. She picked the last strands of meat off the bones and sat back, replete. She put her feet up on the table and let out a most unladylike burp.

‘Delicious,’ she said to herself, sucking the last of the butter and grease from her fingers. She recalled hearing somewhere that an unrelieved diet of rabbit would not sustain life in the long term. The meat was too lean, and free of fats and oils. She shrugged. Maybe not. But in the short term, it was delicious.

Remembering her earlier thoughts about bears and their reluctance to enter buildings, she tossed the remnants of her meal out into the clearing. Even if there was no bear around, she knew there were plenty of smaller creatures who’d dispose of the scraps before dawn.

A short while later, she prepared for bed. It had been a long day. She snuffed the candle, wrapped herself in her blankets, stretched out on the bed and sighed happily. The glow of flames from the fireplace flickered on the inside of the cabin. It was a comforting sight and before long she was asleep.

The flames had died down to a dull red glow when she suddenly snapped awake. Something was moving on the warped boards of the porch. Something big. It brushed against the wall of the cabin. The wall creaked and the cabin shook. Carefully, she pushed the blankets back and reached for the dirk that hung in its scabbard from the bedhead. There was a small window set in the wall looking onto the porch and she stepped towards it.

And, in the unfamiliar surroundings of the cabin, blundered into a small stool in the middle of the room, sending it clattering over. Instantly, there was a rush of movement from the porch, as a large body moved quickly away. Rubbing her shin, Lydia made her way to the window and peered nervously out.

There had been three birds hanging from the porch when she went to bed. A grouse and two plovers. Now there was only the grouse. The other two had gone. She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

‘I think I’ll head down in the morning,’ she said.