Free Godbond by Nancy Springer Page B

spoke out loud for all to hear. Nor did anyone speak to Tyee. His people got up and walked away from him. One of the women handed him something, a bundle of some sort, then turned away like the others. As if stunned or weary, without much talk, they all went to their tents to sleep, for it was very late.
    I stood struggling to center myself, to encompass my anger at the tribe, my Red Hart people: anger because they had received his striving so churlishly. Tyee, my brother, a shaman! And a potent one. He had grown and changed much since I had seen him last. To fly above sky in search of a god—it was a thing seldom heard of, a quest worthy of a master shaman, a hero among shamans. But in those worst of times, the people had no regard for defeated valor, however courageous. They wanted only victory, and their king’s word that all would be well.
    Tyee stood alone, with bent head. Softly I stepped out of my cover and walked toward him.
    Even in heartache he was a king, Tyee, and a warrior, and not easily to be taken unawares. His head snapped up. He swung around to face me. There he stood in the light of the remaining flames, splendid.
    There he stood, cradling an infant in his arms.
    I stopped where I was, at the verge of the firelight, looking at him as if I had never seen him before. He was a shaman, and now—he was a father? I had not known, I had been away from him far too long, too much had changed without my knowing.… He had changed. He had grown very thin, haggard, all bone, taut skin and too-hard muscle, as if he had seen much hardship. And his look as he gazed back at me smote my heart.
    â€œDan,” he murmured, surprised, but—why did he not stride forward to greet me with joy? Something heavy in him, something more than the night’s defeat. In his blue eyes, the numb, glazed look of a creature in a deadfall trap, suffering long.
    â€œMy brother!” I went to him and embraced him as best I could without disturbing the baby in his arms. I kissed him on the temple, held his head between my hands so that his eyes met mine. “My brother, what is it? What has hurt you?”
    His eyes narrowed in pain, and he did not speak. The silence of the night all around us gave me the answer.
    She whom I remembered would not have left him alone at such a time.
    My hands dropped away from him, I stepped back, feeling my knees tremble as a weakness took hold of me. I nearly lurched into the fire. “No,” I whispered. “Sakeema, no.”
    â€œLeotie is dead,” Tyee told me.
    My onetime lover, but his—his life’s love, his lifemate.
    â€œShe died in the birthing of this little one here.”
    It could not be. It could not be. She was all he had in the world.
    â€œTyee,” I said, my voice breaking, “I am sorry.”
    â€œDon’t be.” He spoke with stark calm. “In a way it scarcely matters. We will all be food for Mahela’s maw within a twelvemonth.”
    Ai , his honesty. So it might well be, if my quest failed.
    Something had cracked beneath my clumsy foot. Numbly I looked down, I looked at the objects that had ringed Tyee. All around me, small figures carved of wood, such as shamans often made for the sick. But those were of human form, and the one I had broken was in form of a deer.
    I saw others. Deer, mostly. Standing harts, fawns lying in thicket or suckling at the hinds. But also birds, eagle and partridge and songbirds, hawks with spread wings. And beaver, pika, marten, squirrel. Even the carved figures of foxes. There was a fox lying curled with its brush covering its face. There was a mighty bull bison. There were tens and tens of them, the creature carvings. For months everyone in the tribe must have been making them, and they were very beautiful, some of them, especially the deer. All the animals, all my people’s longings, standing mute by a dying fire.
    I crouched and picked up the hart I had broken, stood erect again and