Veyra Flintstep's Arc

Chapter 13 of 14

Veyra could not wait for spring to find out if the chief's great-grandson would live on the pass. If he broke a leg on the western ridge in thaw, she would be burying him with her own hands. She wanted him tested now, on ground she could still turn him back on. She found the boy at the pens, splitting a frozen haunch for the dogs. He wore a blue fur-lined robe and carried his stone axe on his hip. He was seventeen and built like a hunter already, but she had never watched him climb. "Tomorrow," she said. "One night out. The lower eastern pass. You, me, Giloa." Nendo set the axe down. "Why now." "I need to see you walk before I promise your great-grandfather I can bring you home in spring." He did not argue. He nodded once and went to pack. They left at first light. The raptor pulled the blue sled with a light load, a fire kit and a sack of lingon nuts and pine kernels for the night. Giloa walked point. Veyra put Nendo behind the sled and watched his feet. He was quiet on the flat. On the first steep pitch he shortened his stride without being told. He tested every rock lip with the side of his boot before he set weight. When the raptor balked at an ice sheet, he stepped around to its head and hummed at it until it moved. "Who taught you that," Giloa said. "My great-grandfather's dogs." At the marked turn, Veyra stopped him. She pointed at the poles and the blue strips. "Read it." Nendo looked. "Path bends left. Drop-off right. The double strips mean the worst step." "How did you know double meant worst." "You wouldn't waste dye." Giloa almost smiled. They camped in a stone hollow below the ridge. Nendo built the fire without asking where. He set the torches from the fire kit upright in the snow at the mouth of the hollow, points out, so a night wind would not take the flame. Veyra had not shown him that. He had watched someone do it once and kept it. She passed him the nut sack. He ate a handful and passed it back. "You knew I was watching," she said. "Yes." "You didn't perform." "No point." She slept an hour and woke to check him. He was already awake, feeding the fire on a schedule she would have set herself. In the morning they walked down. Nendo took the sled rope on the last pitch without being asked and braked it clean on the ice. At the village edge Veyra stopped him again. "Spring," she said. "Both passes. The cache. Every pole." "I'll be ready." "You already are." She walked to the great hall to tell the chief. She would take his boy in the thaw. She was no longer guessing whether he would come back.