“. . . genuinely engaging reading . . .”

Kirkus Review

PUBLISHED BY BURNT RIVER BOOKS

VILLAGE OF BURNT RIVER, ONTARIO

CANADA K0M 1C0

burntriverbooks@gmail.com

ISBN 978-1-63068-774-8

(c) 2014 David Slabotsky

Thanks to Adam Bisby for inspired, judicious editing

As the Ice Age waned,

the earth was still too young for mercy or kindness.

Life was a river of blood.

To the memory of my father, Philip, a great story teller, and to my sister, Lisbeth, who listened to the stories with me

Chapter One

He was so entranced by the fire exploding into the black night sky that he failed to hear the tell-tale signs - the snap of a twig, whispering voices, the sound of a stone knife being drawn from a stiff leather sheath, the soft swish of braided rope being unwound.

When he heard the war party scream out of the forest and grab him from behind, it was too late. In a moment it was done. A gag was wound around his mouth, and a hood made of deer hide was thrown over his head and quickly tied around his neck so that he was effectively blind and could barely breathe. While he struggled to free himself from the hood, quick hands grabbed his hands and secured them behind his back with a rope made from the fibers of a soft tree bark. The bark had a deep and sweet aroma, a bleak contrast with the violence in which he was swamped and overwhelmed. A moment later, his feet were bound and he was tied onto what felt like a litter of some sort, like saplings lashed together into a rough-made platform. Within a few minutes, it was done. He was being dragged through the forest like a wild animal being hauled to camp by hungry hunters.

As the litter banged across the forest floor, rocks, brush and tree roots pounded his young body without mercy. He began to scream and something hard struck the side of his head. He could feel the line of blood wetting his hair and dripping down his cheek. He didn't scream again. He held his body tight against the pain and began to sob quietly, and shake. He was not struck again.

They travelled through the forest all night long. The forest terrain with its sounds of footfalls on earth and brush and the smells of the deep woods, ever-deeper and richer in the damp night air, gave way to the sounds of feet crossing a rocky surface. The air became clearer, and he knew that he was out of the trees and into the foothills. As they climbed higher, freezing winds blew from the ice mountains. Whereas before he shook from pain and despair, now he shook from cold. He could tell from how he lay on the litter that he was being carried upward. At last, the cold overwhelmed him, pain overwhelmed him, terror overwhelmed him, and somewhere in the night, he lost consciousness.

He dreamed it all again: His clan was marching through the wooded mountains to hunting grounds that belonged to the Shells Clan. They were prepared for war. The Shells Clan controlled the ground on the far side of the river. His family and their allies would cross the river at night and overwhelm them. Although he was still a boy, he had already been to war. He could pull a bow and shoot an arrow, which, light as it was, could still kill a man at close range. He could race into the middle of a battle and jump onto the back of a larger man and cut his throat with a stone knife. He had been wounded twice, once with a stone blade, another time with a stone mallet. The clan leader had praised him and dressed his wounds with a plant that he pulled from the river.

It was a moonless night. The clan moved like a cloud through the pass, and then began the descent to the river. The impenetrable ice fields loomed above them. Below lay the river, and beyond it the plain, and on the plain were the wild grazing herds whose flesh would feed them. But between them and the herds were the Shells Clan, warriors and hunters like all humans who lived on the planet. There was not enough food for both clans. There was never enough food. Humans were crowded toward each other, as if the moving mountains of ice were herding them, corralling them, forcing them face to face, testing them in battle, testing their worthiness to walk the earth. The earth was still too young for mercy or kindness. Life was a river of blood.

In his dream, he remembered the winding path down the mountain, and he remembered how in the darkness even his own kind were invisible. He could hear their footsteps, hear their breath, but he could not see them, they had all been swallowed up into the black ocean of the night. And yet they moved as one, quietly and surely, with the mind and spirit of a herd, one blood, one body, moving down to the river. What dreams did the Shells Clan dream at that moment, curled together like a knot of muscle and bone, some under the skin of an animal, some under the open black sky beside the embers of a dying fire? They would die when his herd crossed the river. They would die beside their dying fire. There would be a slaughter, and it would be good. And then there would be a slaughter of animals on the plains. And that, too, would be good.

His heart beat fiercely as they approached the river. At times, it beat so powerfully that he could barely take a breath. There were moments when he could not feel the earth underneath his feet, and, at those times, he moved only because the herd moved, the herd pushed and pulled him forward, like a stick pushed and pulled by the tide.

And then the horror began. It started with the sound of a single pebble bouncing down the mountain and striking the root of a small tree at his feet. It made a soft, dull sound. But then more pebbles came raining down, followed by waves of rocks and boulders. With a shattering sound, the mountain broke apart and threw out rivers of fire and a rain of ash. The force of the eruption threw him into the air and he landed on a rock ledge which saved him from the flood of mud and fire that consumed the path below him. But the rest of the clan was swept away. The noise of the mountain exploding drowned out their screams. The mountain split apart, and then there was no one but himself. The clan herd was gone. And gone, as well, was the mind of the herd. He had only his own mind now. He stared at the fire reflected off the mountains of ice. Could he hunt alone? It was more likely that he would be hunted. The Shells people would kill him. No one would protect him now. And at that moment, the warriors screamed out of the forest and grabbed him.

When he awoke, it was dawn. He could tell by the fragrance of the mountain air and the sound of the birds. They had covered him with an animal hide but his body was still rigid from the cold. Were these the Ice People? Were these the ones who lived in caves carved out of the frozen mountains? The Ice People took slaves to dig deeper into the mountains. Is that why they took him? Is that why they covered him with a hide, to keep him alive until he could be put to work? He did not think he would live very long in the cold mountains.

He lost consciousness again, only to be jolted awake as the litter was dropped roughly to the ground. He could hear many voices, and the sounds and smells of a night-time encampment, meat cooking, a woman singing. One voice stood out from the others, strong, insistent and commanding. It grew louder, dominating all the other sounds in the camp until, at last, there was only this one voice to be heard. The voice came closer and closer, and soon it was louder than a voice, louder than a roar, It became an inhuman sound, wild and savage. Soon the voice was directly beside him and the sound of it made his body shake uncontrollably. He felt the breath of the voice on his skin.

As his body shook, his wrists and ankles pulled against the ropes that bound him. He gagged inside the hood, he began to gasp for air, and then, all of a sudden, the one who owned the voice ripped his hood away. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the firelight, but when they did, he saw that he was looking into the face of a monster. He screamed, tearing at the ropes that bound him. He could see the blood pouring from his young body but he could do nothing but scream and thrash as the horror stood over him. Then the horror reached down and touched him, and the young man wailed.

At the sound of his wailing, a huge cry went up from the camp and suddenly people were running everywhere. Their effort was directed to gathering wood and piling it in the center of the camp. The pile was higher than a man in no time, and yet they continued to stack the wood higher and higher until they could stack it no more. No sooner was that task completed than a silence descended on the encampment. The only sound was ice cracking on the mountainsides and frozen lakes. A wind blew over the ice fields and sounded like a bird. It only made the silence seem deeper.

At last, a tall man, dressed in bearskin, came forward carrying a hollowed stone containing the oil of an animal that had been lit to make a small flame. With deep attention, he lit some brush and set it on the pile of wood. He watched as the flame grew from one twig to another until the fire was fully ablaze. He stared into the fire, allowing his arms to move in synchronous patterns with the flames. As the flames rose, he rose, as the flames descended, he descended, leaping, crouching, swirling. One by one, the onlookers came closer and closer to him, until they were all crowded together as one. The man raised his hands and everything was still . There was no movement, no sound, except for the fire and the cracking of the ice. Then, slowly, the crowd moved back and away and left him standing alone still staring into the flames. At last, he turned and faced the people. He closed his eyes, and then, in a deep, sonorous voice, said: "Where is he?" A woman pointed to the young man on the litter. Even at a distance it was clear that he was still shaking uncontrollably. The man took a few steps toward him and said to the woman, "Make him ready."

He watched as several people moved away from the fire and walked slowly toward him. Their gate was deliberate, they walked with purpose. As their faces came into view he could see they were set and serious. They stood over him for a moment, as if to study how best how to prepare him. Then they knelt down beside him and carefully released the ropes at his wrists and ankles. He instinctively began to rub them, and as he felt the blood returning, so did he feel the pain of the days of bondage. He began to cry. The people around him said nothing. They watched and waited. A young man his own age sat down and handed him a bowl of hot meat, but the young man on the litter couldn't hold it because his hands were shaking so terribly. The young man from the camp took a small piece of meat from the bowl and placed it in his mouth. With tears streaming down his face, the young man on the litter ate one piece after another. At last his tears were spent. He looked around and tried to understand what might become of him.

Another young man arrived with a robe made from a variety of skins. He recognized rabbit and bear, but the others were not familiar to him and he supposed they came from the mountain regions where he had never hunted, or from trade with people at the rivers that ran from the base of the ice mountains into the deep forests. These forests were filled with danger, not a place for a man or woman alone, but only for clans. There were people, wild and cunning, but also other races that vaguely mimicked humans in appearance, but were truly savage. There were tigers, wolves, bear, and then there were the humanoid monsters that had bred with animals and produced races that were horrors to behold. He had already encountered one of these monsters in this camp. Doubtless it had been captured as an infant when its parents were killed in the hunt. He could see it now, chained to a pole in a far corner of the camp. It was feeding, but it was impossible to say on what.

Without a word being said, the skins he was wearing, torn to rags from the journey, were replaced by the fur garment. His shaking had subsided, and the hot meat had calmed his spirit at least a little. With assistance, he struggled to his feet. It required all his effort to keep his balance. As he stood there, being held under each arm, a light rope was attached to his wrists and ankles. This caused him no discomfort, but it reminded him that he was a prisoner and that they could do with him as they wished. He was then escorted to a mat of woven bark facing the fire. As soon as he was seated, everyone from the camp began to gather behind him. They sat in silence as the fire burned down to a glowing bed of coals. The heat was so intense that he felt as if the flesh could burn on his face, or that the furs he wore would burst into flame. But with the crowd behind him, he dared not move. He could feel the crowd behind him beginning to stir and then the hollow sound of wood drumming against rock . Very slowly, the people of the camp stood up and made a half-circle around him, and then separated into two groups with a space between them. Into this space came an old woman dressed in robes made from an animal he had never seen before and trimmed with shells and feathers. She put a mat of woven bark down beside the young man and stared into the fire. She stared into the fire for a very long time and did not acknowledge him.

The wood pounded on the rock with greater intensity. The people around the fire began to wail. The old woman raised her hands and her body swayed. She bent toward the fire and then pulled away, she reached toward the fire and then pulled her hands back. She wailed along with the clan, and then she cried, and then she called out in a wild voice the young man had never heard before. And then, suddenly, she reached forward again, and thrust her hands deep into the fire, and scooped up a handful of blazing coals in her two bare hands.

The camp fell silent. The sound of wood pounding on stone was replaced by the soft sound of two sticks tapping one another, wood on wood, a forest sound. Quiet. Serene. But not serene for the young man. It was obvious to him that a surge of emotion was building in the people who surrounded him. Where this emotion would take them was something he could not know. Instinctively, he moved his wrists and ankles in the ropes which bound them. He was their prisoner. They would do with him as they wished.

The old woman let the coals fall from her raised hands and tumble back into the fire. She rocked forward and back, forward and back, with the insistent tapping of the wooden sticks, and then, again, she reached into the depths of the fire and raised up a handful of blazing coals. She repeated this again and again, but she no longer wailed or cried out. Instead, she pursed her lips and made a low humming sound as she thrust her hands into the coals and raised them into the air, and then, as she released them back into the fire, she sighed, as if she regretted letting them go.

Clouds gathered, covering the moon and stars and cast the camp in complete darkness, except for the fire. Even the crowd of people so close around seemed to vanish into the night. It seemed to the young man that he and the old woman were alone, as if they were the only humans on this earth teeming with wild animals and monsters.

Again and again, the old woman reached into the fire, raised up a handful of coals, and let them drop from her hands. But he became aware that her eyes were turning to look at him as she performed the ceremony. Could she see his terror? She turned her head toward him and he could see every line on her face. Her eyes reflected the reds and blues of the fire. The coals gave her skin the smokey color of deerskin. The skin on her face was drawn tightly across her cheekbones. Her neck showed deep scars that looked like they were from a stone blade. Did the Ice women go to war like the women of his own clan? Did they carry weapons? Did they kill? Her hands appeared smooth despite her age. Had they never been hurt by the coals?