Son of the Mountains

Even in my sleeping furs, the morning bit hard. The cold slithered through my clothes, biting at my skin, hardening my joints. It was time to move. All the cloth and hide in the world, I knew, made no substitute for warm blood.

I sat up, wringing my mitten-clad hands to warm them. My legs shook as I stood. Taking up my fishing spear, I used it to nose open the flaps of my tent.

Ice covered the world. Leaves, stones and hide tents all lay marbled with frozen fog. Where congealed mist had run down tree branches, icicles hung like puma's teeth, sharp, simple and beautiful. In the starlight that faded against the first rays of the sun, the clear ice glinted like glass.

With cold came silence. Hardly a soul stirred. Old Hagri, the woman who could never sleep, worked at her bench, safely immured in her tent, but the rest would be dormant under their covers, ready to wake at a warmer hour.

Outside, beyond the rock outcropping that held up our village, the mountains rose from the valleys, where streaks of mist marked rivers that snaked between boulders, following cracks in the stone to lower ground.

These mountains were my whole world. Here, the tribes, clans and gangs of lostlings fought for the best places to hunt, the best rivers, the best grasslands, and above all, the right to see the next spring. Always, these mountains had kept us tribes separate, and separation had made us strong.

But it had also made life fragile. In the mountains, life's story was written in water.

Something shuffled behind me, hide scraping against cold grass, and I whipped around, hissing a curse. I covered my mouth, horrified that I might have just offended the spirits. But the wind did not speak; they must have overlooked me.

The tent flaps came gently open, and out stepped Twy, my little brother. Dressed in scarves and a coat made for a man twice his size, he stared up at me with blue eyes so wet I worried they might freeze.

"Olgen?" He mewled. "Olgen, it's early. And it's cold. What are you out here for?"

I looked down at the little boy who was young enough to be my son. "Twy..." I took a moment, getting my words in order, dreading to break his heart. "Twy, it's time. We need to go."

"No!" squeaked Twy. "You're not-"

"Hush! The others are sleeping."

He dropped his voice. "You're not supposed to leave! The chief said you can't!"

"You mean the chief's regent. She's only a soothsayer, Twy, and not a good one. The real chief went off to fight like all the other men. They won't stop this place from being sacked."

"No. You shouldn't talk like that!"

"Keep your voice down. We talked about this. This is your last chance. Will you come with me?"

He squared his shoulders and shook his head. "Never!"

I sighed, pressing my padded hands against my forehead. "I don't want to leave you, Twy."

"Then stay with the tribe!"

It was the same argument we had had dozens of times before. Truly, it was a miracle he hadn't told the others I was planning to desert the village. "Twy," I said somberly. "The dead are no good to anyone."

He stared back at me, blank.

I sighed. "Goodbye." I turned around so I wouldn't have to see his reaction. I paused, expecting Twy to launch into a tirade, or to start howling at the rest of the tribe to wake up and stop this traitor, but he did neither. Recovering my fishing spear, I trudged away, hearing my father's voice with every step:

'A real man never runs from something he started.'

I wished it could have ended any other way, but Twy had the same reckless stubborn streak that my father had once found so irresistible about my mother. It would be easier to move one of the Solstice Obelisks than him.

And neither would I move, for I had a meeting to keep. The stars weren't right for a big change like this, but that wouldn't stop me.

Out I went. I patted the pocket knife on my belt, reassuring myself that it was there, and let my feet carry me off the icy shelf, down the mountainside. Beyond the copse of wind-battered trees, a crisp breeze ruffled the fur lining of my hood, blowing winter chill into my face. My boots snapped frozen twigs and cracked frost as I skirted the deep drifts of snow.

Once I had crossed my first hill, it became easier not to look back, but no less difficult to look ahead. When at last I looked up from the newfallen, sun-catching snow, I saw a dozen wisps of smoke, all braided together by the wind that dusted the mountaintops. Once I focused on it, so disconcertingly near against the faraway heavens, it was impossible to ignore. It occurred to me to go around the source, but leaving Twy had left me ashamed, and shame became a switch at my back, driving me closer to the unknown settlement.

Atop a low crag that was more ice than stone, I saw the authors of the smoke, and I shouldn't have been surprised at what I found.

An army lounged on the hillside, covered in ungainly metal armor, huddling around fires, warming their steel-shod hands against the flame. Masts were stuck in the ground, draped with ostentatiously bright red cloth. Their chiefs were adorned likewise, with crimson capes that flapped and twisted comically in the wind, snatching on roots and twigs or soaking on fire-thawed snow.

I kept walking into their camp. The sight of them should have frightened me off, especially when I noticed a cluster of mountain men like myself scattered in their midst, but I kept walking, boots making a mushy rhythm in the deep powder snow that had gathered here in the crook between hills.

A few lookouts saw me, but could not bring themselves to raise alarm at a lone man no more than twenty winters old. Emboldened, I stepped up to a fire where three scrawny-looking young soldiers boiled some stew, and I sat by their pot, crossing my legs just the way they were. I didn't belong here, but clearly these boys hadn't the spine to tell me to leave.

Three thin-bearded faces gaped back at me. One of them, at last, worked up the nerve to say, "Are you..." then his courage ran out.

"Must be one of the rangers," another boy whispered to his companion. Then to me, louder, as if I couldn't hear him, "Are you one of the rangers?"

"That I am," I lied. "You plainsmen have stripped all the good warriors from our tribes, so why not me too?"

The three soldiers traded baffled glances, then aimed them all at me. "That's not right," said the oldest, in a light, whiny accent. "We're here to fight the Orsbergers, not you."

"I know," I said, as they ladled stew into thin metal saucers. "You didn't come to make war on the mountain tribes. That would've gotten you killed." I laughed through a thin smile. "No, no, you did something far more sinister. You gave us money." The boys stared at my empty lap, clearly expecting me to produce a bowl and share some of their stew. Instead, I took their pot off the fire and tipped it up to my lips. All three cringed, expecting it to burn me, but it's a mountain man's pride that he can stomach food hot or cold. When I finished my sip, I went on, "You pay our warriors to fight in your squabble with the black-armored ones on the other side of the mountains. They do the same thing. That money is changing us. It's making war profitable." I took another sip from the pot. "When my father was a boy, men fought for their tribes. It was for honor, not for themselves. But now they fight for whoever pays them the finest-looking trinkets. Kin fight kin, and they bring nothing back for their wives. Or their sons." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice at that last point. "And now whole tribes are losing their manhood. They're easy pickings for whichever army didn't hire them. Or for one that's willing to forget its alliance for the time it takes to loot and rape to their hearts' content." I punctuated this with another sip, as though it meant nothing to me. "The littler tribes are falling first. The Snow Rats by Old LongLeg's River went, then it was those crazy mushroom-eaters in the dry place. Chief Horta's group went after that. Those sharpened log walls were no help to them."

"That's not our fault," the oldest boy came in. "The Orsbergers burned down the stake-fortress, not us."

"It's true!" chimed in another. "And I heard about magicians who eat mushrooms. The barbarians got them." He felt the need to add, "Not us."

"Oh, I know." I leaned back, letting my arms support me. "If a man offers you a handful of berries to chop down a tree and you do it, did he chop the tree? Of course not. It's our own fault for letting our men abandon us. You're not to blame for this. Except for the looting and raping, but you're hardly the first to do that. "

The youngest one, who had been silent through all of this, finally spoke up. "Is there some way we can help you?"

I stared at him, thinking I might have heard him wrong. But his brow was high and his neck straight, like a puppy waiting for you to throw it a strip of meat.

"No," I told him. "Unless you can command all these men..." I swept my hand out at the armored horde. "...to send home your mercenaries, you can do nothing. Nor can I. I talked to that old mist-reader who's replaced our chieftain, and she won't move us to safer lands. We never had many good fighters among us, and now that we've lost our best, there's no way I can save us when the raiders come." I let out another laugh, this one heavier and darker. "I hear the goatherds in the northern cliffs are teaching their daughters to use the bow and arrow. It's a wise move. Maybe they'll show more sense than we men have."

I wanted to tell them about the druid girl who our tribe had taken in, back in the first few moons after the outlanders showed up, but I could see the mountain-man mercenaries casting me unfriendly glances, starting to realize that I wasn't part of their band. I stood up. "Stay strong, boys. Don't make the mistake my kind made. Stick together." Even as those words left my lips, I realized my hypocrisy. But what good could I do alone? I, a man who was barely a man, alone to defend a whole tribe?

"Peace be on you," one of the soldiers threw out.

I scoffed. "Peace is for the dead." On that, I marched away, wondering how true that was.

For a long march, the Fat Snake served as my guide. A blue ice-choked stream that divided the mountain range neatly in two, the Fat Snake widened into a placid, halfway-frozen lake that tempted me to sit in my favorite spot and try for a fish, but I lacked the time. Besides, this land had become far too dangerous to stay in one place for that long. Already, I was lucky to have survived barging into that outsider camp. What had possessed me to do that, especially with the stars arranged as they were, I would never know.

The river led me downhill, away from the higher slopes that were home to my tribe- my former tribe, as I reminded myself- and deeper into the territory of the savage lowlanders. It was only with mild surprise that I saw a village off to my right, ensconced between two rocky shelves, reduced to ash and rubble. The sedentary peoples suffered far more than the nomads down here, and the small settlements most of all. I approached. If there were any unburied dead, it would be good to see them properly off. I had time for that, at least.

But as I came nearer, I saw that the ruin was not entirely abandoned. A scrawny figure crouched behind the lone standing wall of what had once been a hut. I hurried up to him, feet light on the bare, snow-sheltered grass.

"What are you doing here?" I asked of him.

He jumped hard enough that I thought he might knock over the charred wooden wall. "Shush!" he spat at me. "Be away! Or get your head down! They'll see us both!"

Squatting next to him, I whispered, "Where are they?"

He pointed a shaking finger through a knothole in the wood, then shifted aside to let me see.

In the middle of the village, where ash and blood stained the bare, grassy rock, a few black-cloaked figures kicked around a metal pot, making grunts that did nothing to tell me what dialect they were speaking.

"Wherever they're from," I said, "it's no tribe I know fondly."

"Which tribe are you?"

"Fast-rafters," I said absently. "These men... there are only two of them." Adjusting my grip on my spear, I stood up.

"What are you doing?" gasped the little man.

"A surprise attack. Just once, I can take them."

"What do you mean, just once?"

Stepping carefully out of cover, I edged lightly toward the black-cloaked men and their game, noticing on the way that the metal thing they kicked around was not a bowl, but a helmet.

When I sensed I had pushed my luck enough, I broke into a charge, howling from the bottom of my throat, filling the air with a gravelly roar.

The black-cloaked one farther from me pointed and shouted, "Watch out!" in what was clearly a mountain accent, but in the time it took his comrade to turn around, I was on him.

My spear was meant for puncturing the scales of fish. This man's soft hide never stood a chance. When his hand reached the hilt of his weapon, my shaft was already buried in his chest, and the force threw him onto his back.

The other one charged at me, his ax held high over his head. Planting my boot on the man I had just felled, I wrenched out the fishing spear, only to find that I didn't have time to strike with it. I leapt back, the warrior's ax whooshing thickly through the air in front of me, and- damn my cowardice- I hesitated when his follow-through gave me an opening. He lunged again, making another wild horizontal swing, and I stepped back again, then charged, roaring to bolster my force. But as he spun, the ax came arcing back at me, and on a reflex, my right hand shot out to stop his arm. That move saved my life, arresting the hilt of his ax before the head could chop into my side. At the same time, my left hand drove the spear in for the kill.

His death was not instant. No death ever is. But I had hit hard enough and in the right place that the pitiful spectacle of the mangled man gasping for his life was mercifully brief. When he went still, the rush of battle began to fade.

I shuddered. In all my life, that was only the second battle I had been in, and these were the first men I had ever killed.

'And to think I almost left the mountains with no blood on my hands,' I thought.

The man's clothes were torn and blood-stained, but it was a good ax he had carried. Kneeling, I took the weapon and the belt he had used to carry it, then walked back toward the wooden ruin. "No burials for you," I said over my shoulder.

The thin man did not emerge from behind the charred wood, so I stepped around and knelt beside him.

"Is it done?" he asked, trembling.

"It's done. No need to hide now." I paused. "Did those two destroy your village alone?"

"No. They're only the ones who stayed behind."

My back prickled as I realized how unsafe I was. "I need to get out of here. We both do."

"Wait a moment." The thin man put his left hand on my shoulder. I saw his right hand rise from his belt, failing to hide the steel underneath.

Dropping my spear, I grabbed his hand just as he thrust his knife at my throat. For a moment, we knelt there on the ashen grass, grunting and swaying like an old tree in the wind, until I shifted my weight to the side and let him fall past me. He stood up, bits of frost clinging to his beard.

"Why?" I demanded.

The thin one pointed at the two dead men. "You think they're the first who've sacked this place? No! The Fast-rafters came first. Your tribe killed my wife!"

It turned my stomach to think my father had done such a thing, but I believed it. "It may have been my kin, but it wasn't my tribe. Our warriors..." I struggled for the right words. "They've lost their way."

"Do you think I care? Someone needs to die for this!"

"We're a peaceful tribe." Compared to the others, at least. "It'll do you no good to kill me." Picking up my fishing spear, I brandished it in my right hand, readying the ax with the other. "Though you're welcome to try it."

His mouth fell open as he considered his chances, then he turned and sprinted away, feet pounding the turf and arms flailing. I heard him sob as he disappeared over the ridge.

I replaced the ax on my belt. There was no more to do here. Not here in this wreck of a village, nor in all the mountains. I hurried off to the place of my meeting, eager to be away from the ruin.

Noon drew near. Away from the steeper slopes, in the deep, flat pass that served as the gateway between the mountains and the plains from whence the metal-armored warriors came, I came upon the Spear Stone, the silvery black pointed rock that jutted up from a glacier. There were as many legends of the origin of this great stone as there were skalds to tell them, but today, it mattered none. Laying down my spear, I sat against the base and waited.

Direct sunlight warmed me, and I let down my hood to enjoy the feeling of cold breeze ruffling my hair. 'Does the wind blow in the plains?' I wondered. The simple pleasure of feeling the breeze suddenly took on doomful significance as I realized that it might soon be nothing but a memory.

Finally, a horse's silhouette appeared on the horizon, striding unhurriedly through the broad valley. When it drew close enough, I was able to make out the rider on its back, and I stood up to let her see me.

The rider's outfit marked her as an amazon, a hard-riding nomad from the wind-blasted steppes. She brimmed with foreignness, from her narrow riding boots, her swirl-patterned crimson robe and the strips of leather armor secured over it, all the way up to her peaked snow cap with flaps that protected her ears from the wind. Between those flaps, her narrow eyes stared into mine with acute intelligence, the mouth between her full cheeks a short, flat line.

This was Imutai, an outsider to whom I had done a good turn. As repayment, I had only asked that she take me far away from the mountains.

An amazon, it was said, has three loves: her horse, her bow and her man, in that order. Imutai was an exception only in that she had no man, and already she had made it clear that she was not here to change that. She was here to clear a debt, and for no other reason.

"So you came," said Imutai, sounding almost accusing.

"I did," I said, letting the tip of my spear fall to the snow.

"I am surprised you chose to leave your clan," she said evenly.

"When we met the first time, you convinced me that the world beyond the mountains was worth seeing. Mine is falling apart beneath my feet. I'm no traitor. I'm only a survivor. Away from here, I'll carry on our way of life someplace else."

"Carry on your way of life? As a drifter? The best service you can do to your clan is to stand with them."

Doubt infected me. Those were the words my father would have used. Suddenly, it seemed likely the old brute had been right after all. And with the stars as they were... "But they're in the way of disaster!" I put forward my free hand, palm up. "What good can one man do?"

Her head tipped up. "You are not sure of yourself."

My hope shriveled. "You told me you would bear me away from here!"

"Olgen, your clan is not to be abandoned lightly. I should know."

"Is it wrong to want a life away from this madness?"

"Last we met, you told me peace was for the dead."

Perhaps I had been reckless to adopt the old saying. "But I..."

"Olgen." Her voice became like ice, smooth and cold. "I have until tomorrow before we leave." She turned her horse away. "I will be back here when the sun is halfway to setting. Come back when you know what you want."

So I would not be leaving yet. My fantasy of riding off over the horizon dimmed. "I'll see you again," I said simply.

She drew three fingers from her throat to her heart, an amazon gesture of trust, and her horse carried her off. I had never felt as alone as I did now, watching Imutai trot gently away. She had been right on the mark, saying that I doubted myself. In the time I had until I was to meet her again, I decided to climb the River Crust Mountain. According to the fey old women who knew such things, it was a place where the brave received visions. If ever the spirits would condescend to grant me a vision, I decided, it would be today. I set off. For the long while I spent marching across the even field of the great valley, my mind was blank. The prospect of returning to the tribe with my head down loomed before me like a great troll, spitting and laughing at my foolishness.