CRO-MAGNON (54 page)

He decided not to kill her outright. After she watched him wring her half-breed’s neck, he would pluck out her eyes, then hamstring her and leave her to die.

#

A shaft of reddish sunlight speared Gars face, and his eyes popped open. He tried to raise his head, experienced a round of nausea, and lay back. The position of the sun told him it was dawn. So he’d slept through another night. His head still ached, and he was thirsty again. He closed his eyes and tried to center himself.

Presently he heard a gagging, and opened his eyes to a furry snout. A mess of warm meat dropped into his mouth. Raising his head, he chewed, gulped, and swallowed. The sound came again, and another portion dropped. With a soft growl, Fel backed away. Gar swallowed again, raised his head farther, he glanced around. To the west, the rock-ribbed mountains were tinged petal-pink. Fel stepped forward and gagged again, and Gar received another mouthful of life-giving meat.

When he had finished the meal, he rolled over to scoop water with his left hand. Only then did he notice the trail in the snow where Fel had dragged him from the rock fall, which must have taken a major effort.

After slaking his thirst, he rolled onto his back and tried to take stock. His headache had receded to a dull pounding and he seemed to breathe more easily. He explored the bump on his head. It felt mushy but the skull did not seem cratered. He tried to move his right arm, and experienced the same stab of pain as before. No improvement there.

Sliding his left hand up the sleeve, he ran his fingers along his right forearm. Under the swelling he could feel an irregular break in the bone on the thumb side. The skin was intact, though puffy. The other bone was bowed and felt splintered but not broken.

Well, that was something. He sighed. Broken bones were nothing new. But always before, he had been accompanied by someone. Fel whined, and Gar reached out his left hand and ruffled the young wolf’s fur. He eased upward until he was sitting, and immediately began to have trouble breathing. Gathering his legs, he pushed with his hand and levered up until he stood swaying. He felt weak and dizzy but not nauseous, and he could breathe.

He looked for his spear or club. He needed one or the other, because the narrow valley held no willows or other straight wood. Shuffling to the rock fall, he poked around and found his spear under a boulder. The point had snapped off and the maple shaft was splintered in the middle. He felt a pang of loss. He didn’t care about the point. He could make another one easily, though the hafting was tedious.

But the shaft! He had spent many hours selecting and shaping the length of hard maple. He used the best materials and the latest techniques to make the spear strong and true—a prime example of a close-quarter weapon, useful in almost any situation. Without it, he was at great risk.

But it would serve him one last time.

Squatting, he worked the butt end free. Jamming it between two boulders, he used his good hand to twist the splintered place until the sections separated. Dizziness set his head awhirl and he waited for it to pass. He knew what he had to do.

He searched for his kit bag. Probably it was buried with his club under the pile of boulders by the bluff. His skinning knife was still in a pocket. Shrugging out of his cape, he gripped it in his teeth and sliced off three strips. Laying the broken lengths of shaft across two rocks, he placed his right arm against it and used his teeth and left hand to bind the supports to his forearm above and below the break. Knowing he might pass out during the final step, he braced his back against a block of ice.

Looping the remaining strip of rawhide around the two shafts, above the break, he tied the first part of a square knot, grasped one end of the rawhide and clamped the other in his teeth. Glancing at the worried-looking Fel, he yanked the strip tight.

Amid a flash of agony, his broken arm snugged against the twin splints. His eyes began to roll upward, and he gritted his teeth and hung on, while Fel pranced and whined beside him.

The weakness passed, though not the pain, and he quickly looped the remainder of the knot and pulled it tight. His head whirled and he fought the urge to vomit. After a time, his dizziness receded and he struggled to his feet so that he could breathe better.

The broken arm, still supporting its own weight, began to pound. Knowing he would not be able to stand the pain, he used his left hand to bend the arm at the elbow and pull it horizontal. The pain receded. He sighed. His cape would have to go. Supporting his bent arm on a rock, he clamped the furry skin in his teeth and cut two wide strips and three narrow ones. Using his knife to bore holes, he laced the two strips into a sling.

As soon as the arm was supported, it felt better. Not good, but tolerable.

He took stock again. Things did not look as grim as they had last night. He had taken a hard knock, but his skull seemed to have withstood it. Obviously, some of his ribs were cracked, though he could feel no actual break. His food and water bag were buried under the slide, and his broken arm would prevent him from hunting. But Fel would feed him, and he could drink from streams.

He berated himself for his carelessness. He would be easy prey for any big cat. Everyone knew that one could not make a serious mistake in the wilderness and expect to live. And he had known that the mountainside was unstable in late winter. Yet he allowed himself to be caught in a rock slide! He started to shake his head, but stopped as nausea bloomed again.

The question was what to do now. He knew he should start home. But Fel’s being speared meant some kind of trouble had occurred in the Shortface camp.

What had happened to Leya? He needed to know.

Calling to the wolf, he walked to the stream bank, scooped a drink, and began plodding west, his elongated shadow preceding him over the burnished snow like a guide from the spirit world.

#

Leya trudged up the trail to the next pass, her feet dragging. She must be nearing the pass that separated the People’s territory from the clan’s, she thought. Pausing, she set Brann down and drew a deep breath of wintry morning air. She had walked through the night again and felt heavy with fatigue and weak from hunger. Even with a night and day of lead time and possibly another night, she was amazed she’d made it this far lugging the now heavy Brann. Assuming that Mungo had come after her, he would not be far behind.

Shading her eyes, she checked her back trail as she had done so often. A flash of movement brought a gasp. Scooping Brann, she scuttled over the summit and flopped down. Eyes clearing the crest between two bloulders, she focused on the opposite pass. The movement resolved into two minuscule figures. At this distance, she could not distinguish their faces but could see that each carried a javelin. It had to be Mungo, and probably his half-
brator
Hodr. Who else would be traveling this barren land at the ragged end of winter and with only one javelin apiece?

They weren’t more than a sun-unit behind. Had they seen her? She watched for another moment. They weren’t pointing their arms.

No matter. At this rate, they’d catch her before noon.

And that would be the end.

For her.

For Brann.

She scanned the mountainous terrain for an escape route, but there was none. If she left the trail, she’d break through the crusted snow, leaving clear tracks. Scuttling back, she stood up and hurried downhill, Brann’s weight threatening to pull her off her feet.

The futility of her flight became clear. Where had she thought she was going?

To Gar? The camp was still days away. Besides, the clan had already rejected her and Brann. Gar had been good to escort her back to her people, but by now he had probably forgotten all about her.

So, where had she been heading? Past the clan’s territory, to uninhabited mountains? How would she have survived?

No, her life had been doomed from the moment she struck at Mungo to save Brann. Soon, the long struggle would be finished. For now, there was nothing to do but keep on.

#

Three sun-fingers ago, as Mungo had topped the previous pass, he had imagined movement on the opposite height. Before he could focus, it had disappeared. Hodr had gained the top a moment later—he’d been lagging all morning—and had seen nothing.

Mungo’s confidence that he was at last catching up to Leya led him to increase his pace, even though his eye socket throbbed constantly and was leaking again. The hussy had disgraced him in front of the tribe. Now she would witness her animal
baban’s
death!

He had not spotted his quarry when they reached the top of the next pass, perhaps because the opposite trail led up a twisting ravine to the northeastern territory where the Flatheads still held sway. Ignoring his pain, he loped down the mountain, scarcely stopping for water in the valley, Hodr struggling to keep up.

Now they were high on the eastern flank. As he rounded a bend, a happy sight greeted his remaining eye.

Leya!

She was a score of lengths below the summit. Cocking his head, he shouted, “Slut!”

His voice must have carried, because he saw her glance back, watched her shift the half-animal
baban
and try to run. But her feet dragged. She looked exhausted, as if she would do well to reach the summit before he caught her.

Shrugging his backpack higher, he balanced his javelin—in order to travel fast he had brought only one—and broke into an uphill trot.

At last, vengeance was at hand!

#

Gar approached the next pass, the one that divided the two territories. Despite burrowing into the snow last night and rolling in what was left of his cloak, he had awakened to a deep chill probably brought on by insufficient food. But now he felt feverish, his broken arm in its makeshift splint throbbing with each new stride. He was growing weak, but he refused to slacken. He glanced around for Fel but the wolf, charged with feeding them both, was off hunting.

A masculine shout rode the cold wind above the pass and quickly died. Gar did not recognize the foreign word, but there was no mistaking the enraged tone. Gritting his teeth, he surged upward through the snow.

Intuition had told him that Fel’s return to the clan’s camp with a javelin wound spelled trouble for Leya, and now the angry shout strengthened the notion. When he had first pulled her from the river he had regarded her simply as a possible addition to the clan. It was better to mate with new blood, everyone knew that. Even a Shortface had seemed suitable, given the clan’s shortage of adult females.

When his
mut
had tended the young woman’s injury, he had felt sympathy. And when Bor assigned her to Caw he felt uneasy, but the older hunter was next in line. When Caw mistreated her, and he himself had to defend her wolf pup, he realized his feelings had grown beyond sympathy. And by the time he had finished escorting her to the Shortface camp and was forced to protect her and Fel against the man called Mungo, his true feelings, absurd as they were, had come to the fore.

Now it did not matter if his affections—more, his love—could never be returned. Pain lancing his broken right forearm with every footfall, his gasps for air shooting agony through his cracked ribs, he threw his head back and shouted, “Fel,” and lengthened his stride.

#

Leya was struggling toward the top of the pass—and how was that going to help?—when the hoarse shout floated over the crest. The sound of Fel’s name stunned her. How could that be? Was it a figment of her desperate mind?

She glanced backward. Mungo was five-score lengths down the hill, a chamois bandage covering his left eye; Hodr’s stockier form a few steps behind. Before she could she turn forward, Mungo pointed at her burden, then held up his free hand and twisted it.

Horror squeezed her heart. Brann! He was telling her that he meant to kill Brann.

Fixing her gaze on the summit, she tried again to break into a run. But she was dead on her feet, and Brann seemed to weigh many stones. Imploring Ki not to let her stumble, she hoisted the
baban
in both hands and labored up the final slope, one wobbly step after another.

#

Chapter 23

At the first stricture, Calder saw Blaine’s fear about the latest tremblor come true. The downward-twisting opening had narrowed to the width of his hips.

Stay calm, Ian.

He clipped his flashlight to his weight belt. Blaine’s light, shining from the rear, served only to make the new cloud of silt more opaque. It also reminded him that discarding the heads was not an option.

With only the light from his headlamp to work with, he tucked his chin and struggled to roll his eyes upward enough to see ahead. One-handedly pushing the dismounted air tank forward and down, trying not to tangle the air hose, he felt the cylinder jam in the right angle where the tunnel resumed. Backing off seemed impossible in the close confines while trailing the spear and four heads with his other hand.

He felt the camera, with its hastily snapped photos of the last four paintings, jiggle loose in its pocket. Clamping the spear between his knees, he refastened the flap. The rough walls seemed to close in, crushing the air from his lungs.