Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains by C.S. Bills Page B

better, Attu, you must come and walk our camp. Perhaps a twinkling eye may catch yours.” Paven chuckled. Ubantu and Yural exchanged looks, but did not laugh.
    Attu felt his cheeks grow hot, and he picked up his knife, suddenly interested in checking its sharpness. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Rika was sewing furiously. She pulled her sinew thread so hard through the furs it snapped.
    “Here, let me help you with that,” Yural said, and the two women examined the break.
    Paven had said Rika would be given at the next full moon as well, to the man Banek, Attu thought. Yet she sits there looking boldly at me. Women. He turned his attention back to his sharpening. The conversation seemed to die out after that, and Paven left soon after, Rika and Rovek following behind him out into the darkness of the Nuvik night.
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    “M other is afraid of Paven,” Meavu told him the next day. The two of them were sitting in the shelter. Mother had gone gathering, and Father fishing.
    “She heard he’s looking for a new woman. Mother is beautiful, strong, and an excellent keeper of our fire. He might try to take her.”
    “Paven? You don’t know what you’re talking about, little Kip,” Attu said. “Paven has helped me fight the ice bear’s spirit. He’s a friend, not an enemy.”
    “Don’t believe me then,” Meavu said, her lower lip full in her pouting face. “Watch Father. He knows. Watch Rika. She’s nervous around her father, also.”
    That much was true. Even though Attu had never seen any reason for it, he knew Rika watched her father closely, always. She acted as if she felt unsafe around him. He remembered the tenseness in the shelter last night, the feeling of fear he had suddenly experienced. Attu wondered.
    Meavu got up from her spot on the furs and knelt in front of Attu, taking his face in her hands as if she were little once again and wanted his full attention. Her hands were soft on his cheeks, but her eyes appeared ancient in her face, not the eyes of a child at all, but of one as wise as Elder Nuanu. “I speak the truth, Attu,” Meavu said. “Paven is not a true leader. He does not treat his women as precious.”
    Attu knew in his spirit his little sister was speaking the wisdom of the women of her clan, as true as the spirits that surrounded them all.
    Meavu turned away and busied herself in straightening the furs, much as his mother did. Attu pondered her words for a long time afterward. Was the Paven he knew on their walks together the real Paven? Or was he as Meavu had said? Perhaps he was somehow both, and if so, Attu must remember to be wary of Paven, no matter how much help Attu had received from him.

Chapter 9
    L ate the next night, Attu overheard his father and Moolnik as they sat talking in the shelter.
    “More game?” Ubantu asked Moolnik. “Why, my brother?”
    “Tomorrow will be a good day to hunt,” Moolnik replied. “This is our home now. Why not?”
    “We can’t stay here, you must see that!” Ubantu hissed, trying to stay quiet but clearly upset.
    “Have you seen an ice bear since the attack?” Moolnik asked. “No, I know you haven’t. No one has, because there are no more. Your son was lucky enough to have the last bear fall on his knife. We’re safe now.”
    Attu almost growled at such an outrageous remark. Leave it to Moolnik to act as if Attu’s bravery had been a lucky accident. But Attu didn’t want the two men to know he was listening to their conversation in the shadows of the shelter instead of sleeping, so he stayed quiet.
    “But the tracks Paven’s hunters have seen-” his father began.
    “Are just a trick to get us to leave,” Moolnik sneered. “Don’t you see it, brother? They want this land for themselves, so they’re trying to convince us to leave. They will leave too, but once we’re out of sight of each other, they’ll turn back and take this great hunting place for their own.”
    Moolnik sighed, as if he were