Olivia (119 page)

“Thank you.”

He nodded, then gave her a hard, formidable stare.  “
But know this, Olivia Blake.  I indulge you in this fantasy of free will because it is harmless and it makes you happy.  You warn me not to own you?  I own you already.  You are free only because I allow it
.”

She cocked her head to one side, studying him.  “I’m going to ignore that because you were so gentle today, but for future reference, I don’t appreciate being scared into blind obedience.”

There was a pronounced silence.

“
Ignore me
,” he echoed.

“I don’t like to be threatened.”

“
You’re going to ignore me
.”

She sighed, exasperated.  “It’s too hard to ignore
you
.  I’m just going to ignore your threats.”

He took a deep breath, held it, and released it without striking at her, despite his very plain desire to do so.  “
So be it
,” he said finally. 

She didn’t want to leave like this.  Olivia turned away from the doorway and came back to him.  She cupped the back of his neck, pulled herself up and kissed his unyielding mouth.  “You are being very patient with me,” she said.  “And you were very gentle and very, very pleasurable.”

One corner of his mouth lifted very slightly.  “
Hm
.”

“Very,” she repeated.

He threw back his head and growled out a long-suffering sigh.  “
You are dismissed, Olivia.  I am not angry with you.  Return to me…when it pleases you to do so.  As you have said, I shall have all of eternity to enjoy the reward of your body.  I suppose I can wait a little while longer
.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

FAREWELL

1

Olivia spent the next day in the women’s tunnels, working holes through her new bear teeth with a metal awl.  She broke two of them, but the rest came out all right and made a pretty impressive, if surprisingly heavy, necklace.  She received several admiring and envious glances as she put it on (she suspected most of the glances had more to do with the man who had given her the teeth than for the trophy itself), and after that she had nothing to do except sit around being in season and on Horumn’s nerves.

She tried to make herself useful, but Horumn had no patience for her and Olivia, her thoughts already morbidly fixed on the journey she was soon to take, gave her no reason to want to be.  After she was thrown out of the cooking space, she went to the clinic, but Tina and Tobi were absent, no doubt catching up back in their own lair.  The conspicuous absence of the other humans—particularly Amy and Sarahjay, who had always been good about helping out with women’s work—made Olivia think there was a feast in progress back in the commons, but she couldn’t risk attending while there was the slightest chance she was in season.  At last, desperation drove her to try Cheyenne’s company, but the other woman lay as still as if she were in a waking coma, her mouth open and dark eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.  Examining her for sores was too much like moving a corpse, and the clammy feel of Cheyenne’s naked flesh made her own skin crawl.  Olivia made a token attempt at conversation, but it seemed obvious that she was being drugged with whatever Horumn gave to Victoria, and so she withdrew to her own lair in the women’s tunnels.

The next morning, Olivia figured her season had to be over.  She went immediately to the baths, discarded her well-worn bra and rabbit-fur skirt for a T-shirt and leather breeches, and emerged feeling distinctly better, as well as warmer.  Her good mood lasted just long to arrive at the commons.  There, she found Doru crouching over a dazed-looking older male who had both hands clasped to his blood-matted scalp.

“What happened?” she asked anxiously. 
And was it about me
?

“Unar here tried to challenge Sutung for Sarahjay,” Doru said mildly.  “Without her permission.”

“She fought him?” 

“She got her spear first, but yes, she fought him.”

Olivia looked past him at a scowling Sarah J., who stood close to Sutung with the spear in question gripped in her fist.  Sutung didn’t seem as though he had quite decided whether to be impressed or disturbed by this turn of events, but he had his hand on her shoulder. 

“Is he going to be all right?” she asked.

“Tina says so.  He just needs to sit still for a night.  And  remind himself repeatedly that she could have given him the tip through his heart as easily as the butt to his head,”  Doru added pointedly, and the older gulla grunted and gave a grudging nod.  Satisfied that all was well, Doru straightened and faced her, smiling.  “And you.”

Olivia smiled back, her heart beginning to lift.  “Me?” she teased.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day.”  He turned and summoned his spear as if by force of thought alone.  “Let’s go hunting.”

She blinked at him.  “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“Too bad.  Your tribe is hungry and I have enough problems trying to feed them without leaving you behind me with one challenge already hanging in the air.  I want you with me tonight.”  He slipped an arm around her, took several steps towards the chasm entry, then stopped short and looked down at her.  “Unless of course, you really mean not to?”

Olivia didn’t want to, but his arguments were certainly pervasive.  And for the next two weeks, at least, it was still her tribe.  Doru was running himself ragged trying to provide for it and lead it as well, and her frequent absences couldn’t be helping.  She put out her hand.  “I’ll give it a try,” she said.

Doru beckoned to one of the males and a spear was brought.  He showed no hesitation giving it to her despite the dubious glances and mutters from the other gullan in the commons, but when they reached the entry shaft and he’d lifted her to make their ascent, he murmured, “You’re sure about this?”

“I doubt I’ll catch anything, but at least I’ll get some fresh air.”

When he reached the aerie, Doru set Olivia down, threw back his head and unleashed a deafening roar.  As the echoes rolled down the mountain, he tipped his head to the side and cocked his ears forward, listening.  “There’s Bodual,” he muttered after a moment.  “And that’s Mudmar.  Huh.  I wonder where the others are.”  Doru tapped the haft of his spear on the aerie and waited.

Shortly, Olivia’s eyes could make out moonlight on wing as two gullan swooped in out of the night.  Bodual landed lightly on her left; Mudmar sank his claws into the overhang and looked at them over his broad shoulder.

“Well?” Doru said expectantly.

“Hodrub and Augurr are away raiding a hive,” Mudmar said.  “Damark is showing Thurga and her crook-nosed little friend how to check and set traps.  The others are fishing.  Wurlgunn’s dropped his fool self in the lake twice already, but be damned if he hasn’t caught four fish.”

“Not bad.”  Doru glanced down at Olivia.  “Any sightings?”

Mudmar followed his gaze.  “For a human-hunt?  Nothing my way, unless you want to go after goat.”

One year ago, Olivia might have gone along with this, unaware of the true dimensions of a mountain goat.  However, she had seen goats by now and she was horrified by the prospect of hunting one with a crude spear.  She stepped back at once, both hands up as if the suggestion could be physically pushed away. “Absolutely not!”

“It’s a good time for it,” Mudmar said, shrugging his wings.  “They haven’t started rutting yet and the males are everywhere in small groups.”

“Hate to go after them so damn soon,” Doru muttered. 

“Doru, they’re huge!” she protested.

“Big, but dumb,” Bodual agreed, and gave his horns a slight toss towards Doru.  “Like someone else I could mention.  Easy, Olivia.  Just about everyone goes after goat for their first hunt.”

They looked at her, all three of them.  Olivia gripped her spear in both hands and looked at Doru.

He raised a brow at her.  “It’s your decision,” he said.  “I could as easily drop you at the lake and let you spear for fish, or I suppose we could fly out on a wide-patrol and see if we can’t scare up something else.”

“But the goats are already here,” Mudmur inserted.  “I’ll take easy meat, even if it is early in the season, over a whole herd of maybes.”

Olivia sighed, her shoulders slumping.  “So would I.”

Doru gave her a clap to the shoulder and scooped her up.  “Let me clarify your role in this,” he said, leaping into the sky.  His wings caught the wind and he soared out over the mountainside, allowing Mudmar to take the lead.  “We’re going to circle the goats and drop you downwind.  Don’t worry about charging them.  This is your first time out and I don’t want you getting hurt in a ground fight.”

She didn’t like the sound of that—ground fight—and told him so.

“Goats aren’t as aggressive as, say, elk, but they can get plenty mean if they think they can get away with it.  At this time of year, they’ll be in small groups of males, and half-growns at that.  They’ll fight if they’re cornered, so stay back and keep your wits.”  He caught a hand-signal from Mudmar, nodded, and banked sharply.

Olivia looked down around his arms and saw a handful of white drifts like clumps of snow lying against the dark rock, motionless, perhaps even sleeping.  She shivered and clutched Doru tighter.

“Easy, Olivia.  We’ll take them from the air if we can. It’s not in the nature of large animals to look up.”  He landed and pried her off.  “Look, it’s very simple.  We’ll circle around and get them from the air.  If any of them come your way, stab one with the spear and get out of the way.”

“They’re enormous!” she cried.  “They’re bigger than cows!”

“It’s mostly wool,” he said.  “Remember, come in from below, stab up, and let the prey do all the work.”  He jumped back into the sky and quickly soared out of sight.

Olivia hunkered down, her eyes huge, her spear gripped tightly in both hands.  She waited.

There was a bleating scream, then another, and then a thunder of hooves headed straight for her.

Olivia braced her spear against the ground just as the first goat leapt over a jutting stone and onto the point.  She felt the crunch of its body as it was impaled, and then all its weight came down and knocked the spear and Olivia in different directions.  The goat fell over awkwardly around the shaft, landed on its back, kicked the spear out of its body, and stumbled away, bleating.

“Olivia!”  Doru vaulted over the stone and saw her.  He looked at her bloody spear, then at the receding shape of the wounded goat.  Grimly, he picked up the weapon and held it out.  “After it.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“It’s suffering,” he said.

She stared at him, silently begging him to take the spear and finish for her, but he merely met her pleading eyes and waited her out.  And in the end, yes, it was suffering. Olivia took her spear and went after her goat. 

She must have chased it for an hour.  The three gullan hunters followed at a discreet distance as she climbed over rocks, slid down slopes, and jabbed feebly at the terrified animal.  The fifth time she got close enough to hit it, it wheeled about and launched a back hoof at her.  She wasn’t quite fast enough to get out of the way.  The blow landed high on her chest and she dropped hard against the ground as the goat staggered clumsily away.

She lay there, wishing she could go home.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Doru standing tensely nearby, ready to help if she were seriously injured.  She was tempted to let him think so, but only for a moment.

She got up and started after the goat again.  It took another two steps, gasping, then turned to fight.  Its head lowered, aiming the small spikes of its horns at her.  It charged, all its remaining strength rallied for one last attack.

If she’d thought about it, she would have frozen.  Instead, her mind a perfect blank, Olivia’s hands braced her spear against the ground and shoved the head in under its thick throat, letting it drive itself headlong into death.

It made a sound, an awful sound.  Its front legs folded underneath it and it slumped towards her.  The tip of her spear ripped through the back of its neck, parting the wool and turning it pink.  It glared at her with muddy, confused eyes.  “Bleh?” it said.

“Please forgive me,” Olivia whispered.

The goat kicked its back legs and toppled drunkenly over on its side.  Its bladder voided.  It died.

Olivia held onto her spear, not trying to pull it free.  She shivered.  She didn’t move.

Doru put his hand on her back.  She hadn’t heard him come up behind her.  “That’s as bad as it gets,” he said.

“Good,” she said tearfully.  “Because that was pretty goddamn bad.”

Doru removed his hand and turned to the others, standing quietly nearby.  “Clean it up,” he ordered.  “I’ll take her home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” she said, although she did.  “I want to see.”

He gazed at her closely, but seemed satisfied with what he saw.  “All right,” he said, pulling out a narrow, much-weathered knife.  “See.”

Olivia watched the animal be butchered.  The heavy pelt pulled free with a wet ripping sound.  The guts were separated into what was useful and what was not.  The meat was hacked free of most of the bones and wrapped in bundles to be carried back.  Very little was left behind.  Nothing was left that could be used.

Doru loaded up the last of the meat and sent it away with Bodual.  He turned, picked up Olivia’s spear, and offered it to her.  “It might not be what you want to hear,” he began, “but you did well tonight.”

“You’re right,” she said, taking her spear.  “I don’t want to hear that.”

His brow furrowed, not with concern, but with conviction.  “It’s important, Olivia.  You’ve helped today to provide for your tribe and the females that bear our young.  You respected the life you took and took it only from need.  Olivia, there is no shame in this death.”

He took her hand, leading her away from the bloody stain on the stones, to a place that overlooked the valley.  “Not everyone can do what you just did.  Liz would like to be a hunter, but she hasn’t got the stomach for it.  Wurlgunn would like to be a hunter, but he doesn’t have the eye for it.  If he weren’t needed so badly, I’d make him stop trying.  I won’t make you hunt again.”  He held her hand in his, looking out over a dark world.  “But a good hunter is new life for the tribe.  You could be a good hunter.”