Silver Moraine sky hand

he longed for caribou, for the touch of his wife, for the hunger of the wind. he longed to see his son again, to lead him on the long march.

his own march was one of hunger under the open sky, eating what he could find. belly stretched with carrion, yikaas left a trail for the red raven to follow.

something here. a heap of knifesilver fur. the caribou man investigated with a curled lip. alive? he prodded the still shoulder with a calloused paw, and none too softly.

The singsong lilt of riverwater pulls him from dreaming. He opens one eye and then the other, vision hugged by dark fingers of cavern wall. Their torn edges blurred indistinct.

Moist stone and algae film his senses, seconded only by the trickling scent of subterranean aquifer.

His gaze climbs to the ceiling where indecipherable carvings faded to monochrome smoke. A carved line points north to south, the channel fading by obscure shadow.

There is a pain somewhere in his body, but so distant now it may belong to someone else.

Anselm shifts to his elbows, the chorus of running water reaching a crescendo echoed in the blood that bounds from his temples. Upon closer inspection he sees the cavern tunnels out to some dark corner -- there is a depression where worn feet have carved the sandstone to a black patina. Along the walls run claw-marks of some ancient sigil. Their inscriptions suggest an age so vast to think of it whittled his very essence to an inconsequential iota lodged between celestial mountains.

A river. Somewhere out of sight, but deep and throaty like the full growl of a beast consumed by the hunt. Anselm's awareness is growing. He sees now he is standing on a silverstone plinth, the carved table jutting out from ancient rock; built and carved and whittled by thousands of generations for some nameless goal-post. The purpose of this singular cathedral was to host the fleshy, beating heart. The arched walls a rib-cage. The boundless river out of sight this ancient faith's lifeblood, and the plinth --

He jolts with a start to see the footstall he laid upon wreathed by bright scarlet petals. Their path winds out from the lazy gloom of the shadow-tongued halls and make their way pointedly towards him.  Each petal so delicate it may be a prick of bright crimson blood left by an indelible fingerprint. As his gaze climbs the pedestal he stands upon he realizes that he is not on some medic table; he is the offering.

The riversong of the water just out of sight joins the heightened scream that loosens from his throat.

At his shoulder, a touch so cold his insides shrivel like they were kissed by glacier water. He turns and is met with the long face of a wolf, whose countenance is so wide it blots out the cavern's dim light. Whose eyes are two swallowing suns, haloed by a red so vivid he knew it could only be blood. Around him the cavern raises its fist, water limning the stones like hungry tongues. As he scrabbles backwards in terror the great beast turns its hideous head towards him, the cavern walls become studded with teeth and conical fangs erupt from the ceiling. At his mouth is a light so blinding that as Anselm scrabbles back from it he feels his fur disintegrate, the nerves along his feet and legs dissipate, reduced to wisps of pale ash and smoke as he is consumed by a god so primordial that time seems to warp around it. He is aware of his ruination and opens his mouth to scream --

* * *

Anselm jolted awake, the scream that tore from his body so loud it nearly split his head in two again. He winced and clutched at his skull with a whimper, eyes flitting around to see a shape lurching near.

The wolf from the cave. He nearly screams anew, but as the seconds turn over and his consciousness trickles in, he realizes this is reality; the crisis of the dream so distant now it was a fading memory in his frazzled brain. Not the wolf from the cave; Amadeo.

No, not Amadeo either -- though the bearing was striking enough Anselm swam in his own confusing thoughts a moment longer.

He pulled his gaze away and cradled his head, flooded now by a sense of nausea that nearly brought him back to his stomach. Somehow, this strange man poking at him was not even his biggest problem -- his spine bent against his own volition and Anselm convulsed in a retch, reduced to a whimpering halfwit at the foot of whoever this man was.

the man's screaming tore at the very soul of cen, plucking him from where he lay huddled beneath that new name, that new clan, that new group. he heard in this his own horrific agony when the moon wench had cut his eye from his head. he had been shoved and beaten, but there was no anguish which had ever compared for cen.

he had shrieked like that once.

the man vomited, and yikaas caught sight of the ugly rent in his head; was that a flash of bone? of muscle? he stepped back as muck splatted upon the earth, but he bent close a second longer to stare at the wound again.

who had done this? what power had chosen this stranger, and why? "be still. i know your pain must be immense," he heard himself mumbling in lanzadoii. why not? why not why not?

what did red leaf speak? did she still hold to that garbled and ugly sharadoii, or had she learned to speak seal hunter? yikaas sneered from where he crouched like a gargoyle beside the sickened man.

"be still." his paw was rough on the grey cheek, turning the fevered head sideways. "i can keep the evil from entering. the rest is up to your strength."

the caribou man paused then to stare at the one who moaned beside his feet, staring through the grey hide as if he could see his salvation beyond.

Not-Amadeo loomed close again, his rounded shoulders hunched in the patient manner of a carrion-bird waiting for its mark to expire. Anselm's gaze tried to travel up to him, and it was then he noticed the disfigurement this man bore --

But his strength had left him. He had just enough energy left to inch away from the putrid collection of his last meal at his feet. The man's paw, rough and textured like those distant halls his mind tried to bury, stroked his cheek.

Anselm felt the thudding in his head grow. It was not riverwater he heard now, nor the strange garbled tongue of the man who spoke in words he would not understand; now it was the unsteady staccato of his blood, the rhythm of his own life, as it pounded against a skull that threatened to split anew.

there were not many things in which yikaas was skilled. but the things he knew, he understood well. 

first, transaction. each supply gathered must be counted, and as the caribou hunter worked over the exposed skull, he felt that sum against this life gather.

secondly — a long slap of sludging trailed now over the wound, covering it as the medicine hardened beneath, slowly pulling the torn edges of skin together again.

"i save you. you answer to me."

yikaas laughed a hard ugly sound as he finished his task and stepped back to look into the rolling eyes of the near-senseless stranger.

he could stop infection. he could not bring back speech, nor walking, nor help the man if his mind no longer worked to keep him alive. only the ice raven knew such things.

Unknown to Anselm, a barter was being exchanged for his very life. He slouched as Yikaas worked the worrisome line of his skull; his senses passing in and out of focus like the dying orbit of a displaced planet. 

For several seconds his eyes found the concentrated, hard expression of his savior-captor. The distant memory of his children came to the surface of his mind, but their faces were blurred as if held under the murkwater surface of a lagoon. He grasped for his waning consciousness and felt it pass through him like a sieve. 

The last thing he heard was Yikaas’ gravelly laugh, if it could be called that.