It was certainly getting warmer as we moved south. By the time we reached the end of the wood Crane’s nervousness was affecting us all. The next time she landed on Mammoth’s back behind me I decided to try to get a conversation going with her, despite her spiky attitude.
"Is Sinotsu doing well at his new task?"
"Very well." She looked surprised at being spoken to. "He gets very skittish when anybody is ill. But I do my best to persuade him that he knows what to do and can do it. Otherwise he seems confident enough. He has already approached several spirits of place and two - no three - are now helping the group with warnings and advice."
"I am pleased, though I had confidence in his abilities. He is lucky to have such a well-travelled spirit-guide. I’m sure you are a big help to him."
She raised her beak in pride and started to say something. But then her head drooped and she obviously changed her mind.
"Only in some ways, I think." She suddenly folded her long legs and sat down in Mammoth’s fur as if she were brooding eggs.
"More than anything I want to help Sinotsu make a success of our group’s trek. But… oh, every day something happens to make me realise I know nothing about humans and their needs. Everything I know is about birds." Looking at Owl and Eagle who were flying high and well forward of the rest of us she added
"Perhaps only about cranes."
"I think I understand you. When Hare and I bonded the attachment was immediate, but I knew little of hares and Hare knew little of people. Knowledge of each other’s ways came slowly and keeps coming."
"That’s right" agreed Hare. "Love does not necessarily mean understanding."
We were trying, but Crane still looked deflated so I said
"You must have seen so many places that we haven’t. Will you tell us about the sea?"
"The sea? Do you think it is something exciting? It’s terrible, don’t go near it. It is huge, beyond anything you can imagine, and so dangerous, it will pull you in and drown you if it can. There are no thermals over it, you see."
We must have looked blank because she added
"No uplift. You keep going down towards it unless you work hard with your wings. It is said many cranes have died in the water when their energy fails them. You must not set out over it unless you know there is land near enough that you can fly to it if you have to. Always get as high as you can from the uplift at cliffs or mountains, then you can soar for a lot of the way."
"We have no wings, Crane."
She drooped again. "You see what I mean? I know nothing of hares or humans. I cannot think without wings."
"You could practise by walking along beside Mammoth for a while. You have fine long legs."
"Yes. I could hold my wings folded firmly in to my sides and keep repeating ’I can only walk’ to myself. Do you think it would work?"
"It’s worth trying." I stopped her doing it immediately by asking
"Will you tell us about crossing the sea?"
She hesitated a while then asked
"Do you know the shape of the sea?"
"No. Neither of us has ever seen the sea at all."
"No….I see…right….To the west there is an endless sea. Nobody would cross that. Kizkur you should think about it because I have always thought that it makes the weather. It may be making it so cold. The wind and storms always seem to come from there. You know more about it than I do, but it may need offerings. But that is your task. The sea to the south of here is the one that cranes, many other birds too, cross when the seasons change. Some birds are braver than I and cross it further east where it is quite wide, but I always go at the furthest west possible. At that point there is a very big cliff on our side of the sea where it is the narrowest. You can easily see the south land that you are heading for. You position yourself just so above the cliff and start to spiral up, then comes the joy of feeling the heat pushing your wings up and you tilt them to catch every bit of uplift you can. When you can go no higher you move to face south, set your wings, and soar away over that gap in the land. If the weather is right you can glide to the south land without ever having to flap your wings once. I can’t explain the relief when you touch your feet down on the other side of the sea and you are still alive."
"How wonderful to have wings. I would love to try it, if only once."
"Once would be no good, it takes a lot of practice."
"I’m sure it does. But the sea is beautiful as well as frightening, isn’t it?"
"Oh yes. When the sun shines, by the shore it is beautiful shades of green merging into each other, then further out they become green/blues, blues to dark blue even purple sometimes, then blacks as it gets to bottomless deep. And then there’s white surf crashing into black rocks when it’s stormy. Bad weather makes it muddy browns and greys though, I don’t like that much. Even at its best I think it is dangerous in its attraction. Perhaps all beauty has some danger."
That made me think of Leopard. She was walking beside us and glanced up as she passed through my mind. A look passed between us as I thought of her teeth and claws. Despite feeling a frisson of fear I thought that even they were beautiful.
She was plainly nervous though. I had thought it was because Owl and Eagle were away, but Eagle came back then and she became even more agitated, lashing her tail about and circling round us.
Eagle told us that he had found our group and Sinotsu was with my family collecting news and messages for me. He had left Owl there to rest as she was finding daytime waking a strain. But he also said that they both felt that something was wrong. Eagle said he felt it the strongest just beyond the wood and thought we should emerge from the trees carefully. We asked what kind of danger he thought it was, but he couldn’t be specific and said we should be prepared for anything.
He was right. It felt cold as the trees became more sparse. We bunched together with Leopard and Eagle in front and I drew my dagger. Starling came and sat on my shoulder.
"It’s…um…I’ve sent for my flock to help."
Though I didn’t know what they could do, it felt like something positive. But the cheering effect was negated when I put up my hood against the sudden cold and Starling crept inside it.
Suddenly Ice Giant Spirit appeared and the Spring appearance changed to mid-winter. A bitter wind with spindrift of ice crystals attacked our faces. Starling chattered
"Why is…if…oh…I was rude." And he buried himself further into my hood.
We started to move forward, I thought to get us into voice range. But a huge white ice bear appeared beside Ice Giant, reared up onto its back legs and roared, showing us its savage-looking teeth. Surprise as much as fear stopped us moving and left us gazing at it. Perhaps it thought we were not sufficiently impressed because it roared again and bared its claws. Ice Giant smiled nastily and in case his champion were not enough he was then surrounded by a pack of white wolves facing us and drawing back their lips to show us their teeth.
The message was clear and Leopard roared back. Eagle screamed and flew up extending his talons at them. With watching him the first I knew of Wolverine’s being there was when he gave Leopard’s tail a strong-jawed bite. She rounded on him but he was too quick at jumping back for her swinging claws to do more than scratch him.
Mammoth started to swing his head from side to side and shuffle his feet preparing for a charge. I was very glad I was on the right end of those huge tusks and grabbed his fur tighter after putting Hare inside my coat. He would be likely to forget he had passengers.
The wolves were watching those tusks as they moved slowly forwards. The outer ones were moving sideways to try to encircle us. Crane saw the planned move and flew up onto Mammoth’s back behind me. Eagle flew at the lead wolf which was trying to get round our right with his talons aiming at its eyes. The wolf backed away fast causing confusion behind it and Eagle went for the lead wolf on our left. It worked well but not for long as he could only be on one side at a time. Leopard tried to help him but she had to take care because three or four wolves could easily pin her down on the ground.
Ice Giant moved behind the white bear which had started to move towards us in the centre. Mammoth suddenly trumpeted which I felt resonating up my legs. He was aligning his tusks for an attack on the bear when we saw blood and white fur spray up at the back of its head. It turned with a yelp and I saw Owl struggling to gain height before it could reach her. He put out his black claws to swing at her but she was too high by the time he had got round. The sight of those claws made me think suddenly of mine. Hare knew what I was doing and held my dagger safe from falling while I struggled to get the claw off my belt. Losing track of the fight while I pulled it free and got it held firm between my fingers, I was shocked to find almost no distance between the bear and Mammoth when I looked up. Thinking I would be knocked off when they collided I raised my hands with the dagger in one and the black claw in the other and screamed at my loudest.
The white bear looked up on hearing my screaming and saw the black claw. The effect was instantaneous. It roared again, spun round, grabbed Ice Giant and they both vanished. There was some confused dashing about and growling but then the rest of our enemies vanished as well.
I wasn’t the only one left staring at where they had been and not knowing what to think, let alone say. Owl seemed to be quite unsurprised though as she landed on Mammoth’s head and said to me
"Well done, quick thinking."
I tried, and failed, to say that I had done no thinking at all and, though I realised it must have been the northern bear’s black claw that had done something, it was accidental on my part.
Owl’s voice was smiling
"There are no accidents here."
"That was a good talon strike you made on the back of the bear’s head." said Eagle.
"I thought it would get me with those black claws."
"Not you."
There was similar mutual congratulation amongst us until a flock of starlings arrived. They performed a triumphal fly-by, turning in unison again and again. When they had settled on the ground beside us Starling told them all about it, making Leopard a particular hero, which she had been it was true, but Starling made as much as he could of the story. We all listened, certainly in the right mood for being told how brave we’d been. I had done nothing at all but still got a prominent place due to the bear’s claw having won the day. Everyone agreed that it had although nobody could explain how. It was agreed that it was a supreme object of power and nothing further need be said.
As well as Leopard’s badly bitten tail, Mammoth had two wolf bites one on his trunk and one on a leg. Other than that there was only Eagle who had lost some tail feathers. He made more fuss about them than Leopard and Mammoth did combined about their bites. Owl told him not to be such a baby.
Leopard soon pulled her tail from me when I tried to treat her with the medicines I brought with me. Mammoth was more patient and I did a full healing on his bites. Crane seemed interested and tried to help. She wasn’t very good at it, she didn’t seem to have learned much from Sinotsu.
"I saw you swoop down on a wolf and stab it with your beak." I told her.
"I watched Eagle. But my feet are no use like that, so I thought my beak might do some damage. It didn’t have much effect."
"You kept its attention, even if you didn’t wound it much."
"But what did they attack us for?"
"It could hardly be that they didn’t want us to reach Sinotsu, could it? It’s nothing to them. It must be more generally that they don’t want it turning warmer. Quite encouraging. They must think my spirit-work is having some effect."
I couldn’t tell Crane that I thought it was my baby. Through Sinotsu Mother could find out that I was pregnant.
We journeyed on and, when we found Sinotsu, I wouldn’t say it was an anticlimax but it had less impact that it might have done after all the fear and excitement of the battle.
It was a great relief to find that they were all doing well. There had been no deaths at all. But he said the Elders had had some tough negotiating with the groups who held the land they were passing through. It had not come to fighting yet. Our group had been allowed to hunt but the incumbent groups had taken some of the kill as a toll, some groups more than others.
He asked me about a fever case he was struggling with.
"He has all the usual symptoms of a fever. It is not a high fever and I can make him comfortable. It goes in a few days and I think he is cured, but he isn’t. After…oh…twenty, thirty days it comes again, with just the same symptoms. And that happens over and over. I don’t know what to do."
"Has anybody else got it?"
"No, he’s the only one."
"I’ve never met such a thing. All fevers I know, the patient recovers or dies and that is the end of it. Ikaseraz never mentioned such a thing to me either. Remember carefully all symptoms and what treatments have what effect, for the future. It sounds like a new spirit that we have never seen before. Is that what you think?"
"Yes. But I wanted to check with you. I have made offerings to all the new spirits we have found here asking their help. Will you offer to them too?"
"Of course I will. Tell me all about them."
He did, in considerable detail. I was impressed with how diligently he was undertaking the task of being the group’s Enchanter. The swan’s skull was the first thing he had tried so I couldn’t even suggest that.
He gave me all the family messages, and I gave him mine for them. I tried to keep it light and cheerful, but I ached for Mother and Father.
On the return journey I walked beside Stag for a while to ask him about the spirits Sinotsu had met. He knew them all but couldn’t say that any one amongst them would be able to help with the unknown fever. He thought that the spirits of Gabillou, particularly of the cave, would be more help when I got home.
Performing a healing ceremony for the man with the unknown fever in the cave by myself was rather bleak. I missed everybody and even the practicalities were difficult. I had to play the group’s sacred drum which I had inherited from Ikaseraz, do the dances and play my harp one after the other. Really they should have been simultaneous. The spirits of the cave would understand I hoped. I paid particular respect to Ikaseraz’s raven to ask forgiveness because he had been so strict with me to get everything exactly right.
The first thing I saw as I went back into my shelter was Ikaseraz’s skull. I looked deep into his eyes and felt warm all through, he knew I was doing my best.
I slept long and deeply that night but the next morning I still felt drained after the journey in spirit-world. An easy day would be the best thing. Luckily the sun was shining and it even felt quite warm so I decided on a slow walk along the river bank. There would be the last of the nuts and berries to collect before the cave bear got them. He would be fattening up for hibernation now. I knew which cave he would choose, not Gabillou of course, and would avoid the area when he would be awake. It was a very small one that he slept in, it must have been a squeeze to get in, but curled round in it he would feel snug. I rather envied him for not being here for the worst of the cold, but I had the regular ceremonies to attend to. The group would need all my help now.
The spirits were kind that winter. I couldn’t say it was mild, but it was the least cold I could ever remember. With all my preparations made for a wicked one like the previous year’s I had a lazy time. The only exception was the midwinter solstice ceremony. There was a lot of work to do for that, it was the most important of the year held in our cave. The midsummer ceremony was equal to it in importance but that would be at Lazcux. The baby would be past the newborn stage by then and I thought that we could make the journey. Ukitu would be pleased to see the baby and we could introduce him to the Lazcux spirits. Ukitu’s wisent had already given a blessing on his growth inside me.
By the time the first signs of Spring appeared I was having difficulty walking. I had to lean backwards a bit because of balancing my huge abdomen, but there was still ice about and I couldn’t see where I was putting my feet from back there. Everything I would need for the birth was to hand beside my sleeping furs. I had a cover to put over them to protect them from the mess, all the herbs and tinctures I would need and the sharpest knife I had for the umbilical cord. There were boiled cloths and constantly replaced boiled water where I could reach them easily. Whenever I got nervous I told myself that I had done this successfully many times. I rarely left my shelter at all once the signs showed that it would happen soon.
The day the contractions started coming was cold and windy with some sleet towards evening. But even that poor light would have been welcome when the baby started to come down to be born and it was completely dark. The one thing I had forgotten was lamps, it had always been daylight in my imaginings. I crawled about leaking and lit all I could find, some were still in the cave. The floor of the shelter was a real mess by the time I lay back on my protected sleeping furs to rest, but I was past caring. Ikaseraz’s skull gave me a "Trust you to forget them" look, but Hare gave me gentle support in my mind.
When the leaking stopped and I felt what I thought must be the baby’s head move into the top of my birth passage the pain became very much worse and I screamed and found myself sweating. My patients had usually tried not to scream to avoid frightening their other children but I had already decided that the one advantage of delivering myself was that I could scream all I wanted. And I did. When the pains became almost unbearable I took the drugs for them that I had hoped not to have to take. They certainly worked. The pain was there but much reduced as my patients had always said.
Valerian and various fungi, that’s what’s in them. Then I saw that Snow Leopard was there with me. She was clawing my lower abdomen and then pulling at me with her teeth. Even through my pain it was how beautiful she was that struck me first.
"Stop it, Leopard" I shouted at her. "It hurts so much. I can’t bear it."
"Well who do you expect to bear it then? Of course you can. The baby’s head is positioned just right and it’s coming now. That’s why it is so painful."
"Leopard you’re hurting me. Stop."
"I’m helping you. The pain has to be. Push. Push harder, scream if you want to."
I didn’t need her permission for that. I breathed in, pushed down hard then let the breath go in the loudest scream I could manage. Hare whispered that I was doing fine and everything was normal. It seemed unimaginable that this pain could be normal but I knew it was true if Hare said so.
It went on and on until I felt almost too exhausted to care, and then I saw that Leopard was holding something.
"The head’s out. Turn a little - yes - now lift up a bit."
"Watch your claws on his head!"
"They are well sheathed. Arch yourself, right, one more push. Right, got him. Relax."
What a thing to say - "Relax". First thing was to check that he was breathing, which he was quite regularly as if he had not just had a dangerous adventure. I pulled myself back from where he lay and reached for the lemming gut fibres and my knife. Much nearer to him than to me, on the cord joining us, I tied two loops of thread knotting them tightly and cut with one fast slice between them. There was already blood everywhere so that bit more wasn’t noticeable. Then I washed him, put a nappy on and wrapped him up tight and warm.
Exhaustion must have overcome me, the next thing I remember is waking to find that the cover and I were stiff with dried blood. It was daylight so I had probably slept for hours and Leopard was gone. Atutxa was sleeping, there was never any doubt of his name. It was Father’s name. I would feed him when he woke, there was milk amongst the dried up mess so I knew that was going to work, another needless worry. But I had known from experience that the babies of dry mothers never thrived. While he slept I cleaned up as best I could with the remains of the boiled water.