Red bone's Arc

Chapter 7 of 12

Three clans now crowded one camp, and the camp could not feed them. Red bone walked the rows of frost-covered tents at dawn and counted the grain sacks. Too few. Berry fell in beside him, his breath white in the cold. "The old warriors eat first," Berry said. "The new ones watch and grumble. Starve them a week and they walk home to dead chieftains' names." Red bone knew the risk. Hungry men forget who they knelt to. He needed meat, and he needed it fast. The tundra held game, but his warriors were brawlers, not hunters. They charged and the herds scattered. He had seen their failed drives. He needed someone who could kill at a distance. He found her at the camp's edge, skinning a hare she had taken alone. Artemis Wilde did not kneel like the others. She looked up from her blade, green eyes sharp, and kept cutting. A quiver of arrows hung at her back. "Big chief," she said. "Come to eat my supper?" She was no one's warrior. She hunted for herself and bowed to no man. That was why Red bone wanted her. "My camp starves," he said. "You can shoot. Lead a hunt and my warriors are yours to command on it." Artemis snorted. "Your brutes couldn't track a bear in snow." She wiped her blade on her thigh. "But I know where the elk winter. You give me the men, I give you the kill." Red bone agreed. Before noon she had forty warriors strung along a frozen draw, hidden in the drifts. She placed the crimson hound downwind to turn the herd. Red bone crouched among his men and did as she said. No charging. No noise. The elk came through the draw at dusk, a dark river of them. Artemis loosed first. One elk dropped. The hound broke cover and swung the herd into the waiting line. Then the warriors rose with axes and fell among them. The snow turned red. When it ended, more than a dozen elk lay still. Enough meat to fill every belly in the camp for many days. That night the three clans ate together at one fire. Old warriors and new passed the same roasted haunches. Grok cracked a leg bone and laughed with men who had been his enemies a week ago. The grumbling died. No one spoke of walking home. Red bone watched from the timber hall steps. The camp held. But Artemis sat apart from the feast, cleaning her bow, and her eyes were not on the meat. They were on him. "The herds won't come again till spring," she said. "And your rivals know you're all crowded in one place now." She nocked an arrow and sighted down it at nothing. "Three chiefs left. They won't wait for you to come knocking. They'll come to you — together."