Veyra Flintstep's Arc

Chapter 2 of 14

By the time they turned the sled back toward the village, the last blue strip was tied and the last pole driven. Veyra counted what was left in the sled bed and found four poles and a short handful of cloth. The western ridge was three days off and needed hundreds of both. She looked at Giloa. He had already done the same count. "Not enough," he said. "Not close." They walked the raptor down the switchbacks in silence. The blue paint on the sled had chipped again where the runners scraped stone. Veyra kept turning the numbers in her head and getting the same answer. More cloth meant the shaman's dye pots. More poles meant cut timber from the village stores. Both meant asking the chieftain. They found him outside the great hall, the one built from bone and dinosaur leather that marked the center of the village. He was splitting wood with his shirt off, old and still corded with muscle. He did not stop when they came up. "Barren Meadow," Veyra said. "I need poles from the winter store. Forty. And dye enough for two hundred strips." He set the axe down and looked at her. "For the western ridge." "Yes." "Half the council wants me to send men to the low fields instead. Planting's short this year." He wiped his hands on his thigh. "Show me your work first. Then I decide." "The eastern turn is marked. Every pole in sight of the next. A blind man could walk it in a storm." He watched her a moment longer. "Go to the shaman. If she gives you the dye, you have the poles." Shahndiin's fire burned behind the hall, ringed by a frame of lashed sticks where finished cloths hung drying. The blue on them shifted from wet gloss to matte as the heat pulled the water out. She was painting a fresh strip across her knee when Veyra stopped at the edge of the ring. The blue lines on the shaman's skin caught the firelight the same as the cloth. "You want more," Shahndiin said, without looking up. "Two hundred strips." "The dye takes root from the ridgeline moss. The moss is thin this year. I have enough for eighty." "Eighty, then." Shahndiin set her brush down. "The forest above the moss beds has gone quiet. Something has moved through it. I will give you eighty strips if you tell me what you see up there when you go." "I'll tell you." The shaman nodded once and began pulling dry cloths from the ring, folding them into a stack. Giloa took the bundle when it was offered. Eighty strips. Forty poles. Enough to start the western ridge, not enough to finish it. "We go partway," Giloa said on the walk back. "We go as far as eighty takes us," Veyra said. "Then we come back for more."