Tundra

There was a man sitting by the fire, crouched in the dirt and staring into the dancing flames so that they illuminated every crack and crevice of his worn face. Clutching at the furs to protect myself from the cold, I crept over to him. We were alone, just the two of us in the entire campsite. Hackley was preoccupied with random discussions, trying to glean as much about the mammoth people as was possible. Eiron had no interest in learning, but was instead using the time to teach Aais an old Seafarer game. Of the lot of us, only I was too restless to make conversation. I desired simple company and the warmth of a hearth. I held out a hand to the stranger as I approach the crackling flames, but he did not seem to understand my gesture.

‘Ha.’ His creased mouth pressed itself into a grim line, and his charcoal black eyes twinkled. I couldn’t be sure whether I interested him, or whether they were simply hardening, as with suspicion or malice, but then, his face lit up and he laughed heartily.

‘You are a religious man,’ he told me.

I shifted, uncertain of the best reply. I studied him for some sign of his reaction, but there was a wordless awkwardness while he digested my silence. His face quickly composed itself again, becoming unreadable, and, sighing deeply, the man shook his head. Furs tossed around his neck like a mane. 'Spirit,’ he addressed me, slowly and gravely now, as though laden with disappointment, ‘why do you know nothing?’

‘Spirit?’ I wondered aloud.

The old man poked at the fire with a stick, and rolled his shoulders. ‘Spirit,’ he assured me. His eyes still fixed on the fire, he chortled. ‘I was there, too, you know,’ he said. ‘In the great emptiness. My people have learned how to venture there and how to escape from it, but we know that during the spiritual season, your kind will come after us. That’s why we’re always on the move.’

‘I still don’t understand you,’ I said.

His glittering eyes turned up to pierce mine once more, as though he hoped to glimpse some revelation. He must have found only mystery, though, because he turned away again with a grunt. ‘Why not?’

To that, I could give no satisfactory answer.

‘The keepers of the emptiness? The guardians of the great void?’ he prompted me, one feeble last time. ‘No? Ah, well. I thought you might be a spirit. They often come here, and you are not a sort of man I have seen before.’

At just that moment, there was a rustling of leather, and an old woman emerged from a mammoth-skin tent, hoisting a flap over her head. A young man followed her. The woman whispered into the old man’s ear, so that all I could hear was an overflow of hissing. She seemed to be giving him bad news, as he shook his head repeatedly. Each time he did, her hissing grew more vehement.

The old man turned back to me, becoming more solemn. ‘I am mistaken,’ he announced. ‘Sharp Claw reminds me that we have seen one man somewhat like you. The one called Erasmus.’

‘Erasmus?’

‘A mage and a foreigner, like you.’

I wanted to object that I was not foreign, but the young man had joined in our circle, and was seating himself in the dust. He wore skins like his parents, scraps of hide stitched together with sinew. As soon as he spotted me, his face lit up with mischief. Doubtfully, he looked me up and down, taking in the different tone of my skin, my lack of proper clothes and the curious, sleek style of my hair. He grinned, and his teeth gleamed pointedly. His expression reminded me of a coyote’s sly, lopsided smile.

‘Are you hungry?’ he probed me. ‘Well?’

I had paused too long. I nodded, slowly and warily at first. I was sniffing the air, but I couldn’t detect any cooking smells. Nor could I see bones, plates or other evidence of a recent meal scattered around the fire, or in the open mouths of those tents which weren’t sealed. My confusion wasn’t lost on the young man, who seemed perfectly aware of the fact that he was covered in weapons, obviously some kind of hunter.

‘Why don’t some of you bring back food for the rest?’ I asked, sensing the trap I was being lured into.

The young man chuckled softly. ‘We like to eat fresh,’ he explained.

Just then, the woman walked by. From the way she struck the young man in chastisement, I surmised that he was indeed her son. Then, unexpectedly, she stabbed a brutally taloned finger into my chest. She hissed a final reminder at her husband, and strode back into her tent, unrolling a flap so that it covered the hole behind her.