The Reindeer People. Megan Lindholm

      ‘It would be easier for you if we just found another group of people for you to heal.’ Kerlew spoke with insight Tillu had not known he possessed. She looked at him sharply.

      ‘What makes you say that?’ she demanded.

      He shrugged stubbornly.

      ‘Well, it might be easier, but there’s no one around here for me to heal, Kerlew. So we’ll have to do for ourselves.’

      He looked at her without speaking, not denying her words, but withholding his agreement. She sighed. He had made up his mind that there was another way to solve their problems. And he’d cling to his own solution for as long as he could.

      ‘Is it done now?’

      She gave the meat soup another stir and nodded. He jumped up to fetch the carved wooden bowls, and to watch ravenously as she poured out their shares. They drank it in a companionable silence, Tillu thinking and Kerlew completely absorbed in eating.

      It was finished too soon. Tillu rose to gather her supplies for the day. Taking up a soft leather pouch, she tied its sturdy belt around her waist. Into this went the bone knife, a long hank of braided sinew, and the smaller pouch that carried her healer’s supplies. Ever since her days on the riverbank when her great-aunt had first instructed her in the skills of a healer, she had carried such a pouch. In it were a few powdered herbs in bone vials and a roll of soft leather for bandages. Over all, she dragged on her heavy outer coat. It had been cured with the hollow-shafted hairs on it and, when new, they had trapped the heat and held it close. But reindeer hair was brittle, breaking off easily, and in places the coat was now rubbed nearly bare. As she often did, she wondered if the weight of the leather was worth the warmth. But she knew that if a storm came up, or if she were caught out overnight, she would be glad of it. The garment was a long-sleeved tunic that could be belted at the waist.

      As she tugged up her mittens, she told Kerlew, ‘Today you should tend the fire and gather firewood, as much as you can. Pile up a lot so that you won’t have to go after wood tomorrow or the next day. And watch for pieces that might make a good bowl or spoon. Tonight, when I get back, we will try some carving.’

      ‘Can’t I go hunting with you today, so I can start to learn?’

      Was he back to that idea again? ‘Tomorrow, maybe. When we have a good supply of wood, so we can bank the fire for the day. Remember, you have to gather lots of wood today if you want to hunt with me tomorrow.’ She took up her bow and paused. ‘Watch, too, for a piece of wood to make a bow for yourself. You’ll need one if you’re going to hunt.’

      ‘Shall I chant to the spirits to bring you good hunting?’ Kerlew offered cautiously. She could tell that he expected her usual snort of refusal at his offer. But what could it hurt?

      ‘While you gather the firewood,’ she agreed and ducked out the tent flap. She heard his thin voice rise behind her in the strange monosyllabic song Carp had taught him. Tillu had never been able to decide if the song was in the words of some strange language, or was merely monotonous noises to lure Carp’s spirits closer. She thought briefly of the beautiful carved goddess of her river-village childhood. The raiders had dragged the image down and burned it as fuel to roast the fat piglets that Tillu had once tended. She had not trembled before any spirit-being since then.

      Graceful white birches edged the clearing around her tent, while tall dark pines made the hills around it green. A clump of twisting willow grew at one end of the glen; Tillu suspected a summer spring hidden beneath the snow. The glen itself seemed an open, airy place in contrast to the hills around it. Sunlight struck the hide walls of the tent during the day and helped warm it, while the pine forests on the surrounding hillsides sheltered it from storms and provided firewood and game. It was a good place to shelter out the winter.

      Tillu spent her days hunting in the surrounding hills. She was beginning to know them now, and to think of exploring the neighboring valleys. It was still dark as she entered the silent pine forest. The cold of night had put a good crust on the snow. Tillu walked on top of it, heading steadily west, instead of having to plow through it. She picked her way carefully, following old game trails and avoiding the snow-laden swags of the pines. She didn’t expect to find game close to the tent. She and Kerlew had been camped there nearly two months now. Their noise and smoke would have spooked away most small game. So she strode along, seeking to put distance between herself and the tent before the brief hours of light dawned.

      The hours of light were few, but the day was long for her. She hunted first under a starry sky disturbed by the pale ribbons of the aurora borealis. She did not turn her gaze up to that spectacle, but peered into the shadows of the forest as she strode silently along. The stew had warmed her stomach but not filled it, and hunger soon chewed at her concentration.

      The gray light of ‘morning’ found her moving silently, arrow ready, through an open forest of pine. The great trunks soared up around her. Brush was sparse, making it easier for her to walk, and to watch for the small game that was her target. She hated the constant tension of keeping an arrow ready to fly, but knew that any game she spotted would be aware of her. A movement such as drawing out an arrow and setting it to the bow would send them fleeing.

      She watched, not for rabbit or squirrel or ptarmigan, but for movement and shape. The flash of an eye or the flick of an ear in a clump of brush, the white curve that might be the haunch of a rabbit beneath a tree. She loosed once and missed, both bird and arrow vanishing silently into the snowy forest.

      Her first kill came close to noon, and had nothing to do with her shooting skill. She had emerged from the forest into a small clearing. A blackened stump and a few fallen trunks protruded from the snow, showing where lightning had started a fire that had not spread. The open meadow was thick with brush. Tillu stood silently on the edge of the clearing, only her eyes moving. Dawn or gray evening would find this clearing alive with small game, she suspected. But she had discovered it at the wrong time of day. It was empty.

      Or was it? A tiny clump of snow fell from one of the bushes, jarred loose by movement when the air was still. Tillu shifted her eyes to study the bush, while keeping her head still as if staring in a different direction. The hare was crouching motionless beneath the bush, thinking his white coat would conceal him. She clenched her teeth. The branches of the protective bush were just thick enough that they would probably deflect her arrow and let the hare escape. She could spook him into the open and try for a running shot. But she knew her limits. There had to be another way to take him.

      As long as he thought he was undiscovered, he would stay frozen there. Tillu began to walk slowly forward, looking everywhere except at the animal. She kept her head high, as if she stared across the clearing, and walked casually. But her eyes were turned down on the crouching animal, and her path carried her within a body’s length of his hiding place.

      The snow crunched lightly under her tread. The bright sun off the open meadow threw light up into her eyes, dazzling her after the soft shadows of the forest. She wanted to rub her eyes, but dared not move her hands. Closer. She was passing him now, and still he was motionless, his ears drawn flat to his back. She did not spring. She fell on him, letting her body crash down on both bush and animal, pinning the wildly struggling animal to the snowy earth in a tangle of snapped brush.

      She gripped at him frantically with both hands, caught a leg, felt him kick free, clutched his body, felt him wriggle from her grip, then closed her hands on his neck. She had him. With a swing and a snap she broke his neck, the tiny pop sounding loud in her ears. She hefted the warm, limp body. He was larger than the other two had been. He’d make a good meal. She pierced the thin skin between the two long bones of his hind legs and strung a fine line of braided sinew through them, knotting the ends. It made a long loop that went over one of her shoulders, so that he dangled upside down by her hip. The weight of her kill felt good. Now, if she could only get one or two more…

      But luck deserted her. She crossed the meadow and moved on, into somber woods where the branches that met overhead defeated the brightness of the short day. Nothing stirred. When the waning light of afternoon forced her footsteps back toward the tent, the stiffening hare was still her only kill.

      She