Ursus of Ultima Thule by Avram Davidson

Yet the memory that went with the words was of his father’s face dappled by leaf shadows as he held for a passing moment a branch he presently threw upon the fire.
I have —
    “I have done ill enough for him by getting him,” said his father now to the strange woman. Who said a strange, strange thing indeed.
    “You may get him back with you whither you both came — on a ship already prepared in all things — at dawn tide three days hence,” she said. “You have only to renounce the curse on iron and to swear by your shadow and by his that it shall stay renounced. And you may even delay compliance to the last — when the third day’s sun comes up and shadows first appear — upon the very shore beside the ship.”
    The sick, confused look, which had been absent since her entrance, now returned to the man’s face. He muttered, uncertainly, “The third day’s sun?”
    “It is three days’ journey to where the boats are.”
    He squinted, trying to resolve all into sense. Then he in one swift rush was on his feet and Arnten cried out and put his hands on his own head as though feeling the pain of his father’s crash into the tunnel top. But one or two fingers’ breadth away, the man’s head stayed, stooped. The woman had not moved. She did not even raise her eyes. And the man fell to a charging position, his eyes level with hers, his face very close to hers, his eyes now suffused with blood.
    “Innahat — erex,” he cried, “ah, eh! Does that crow still live, that he has stolen all the wits of thee? ‘Wither we both came?’ ‘By ship?’ ‘Renounce the curse on iron?’ What babblement is this? From nowhere did we come by ship! No word of any curse on iron heard I ever till my cub here did mention it, before we fell into the nets of your long-tongued lord! ‘Swear by my shadow and by his?’ Eh, ah! By my shadow and by his, then — ”
    • • •
    More than once, after having returned in from out, Arnten had felt sickened and dizzied. The sun might have been the cause, beating as it did on him all day. Such a moment came upon him suddenly as he wondered what great oath his father was about to swear upon their twain shadows. He closed his eyes. He did not hear if the oath were sworn. He did hear the distant droning of the nains as they returned, as their voices rose suddenly and dropped again. The strange woman was now gone, he saw. He saw his father’s eyes were fixed on his and all manner of strange things he saw in them.
    “Eh, ah, Bear! What odd thing we seed by yonder tunnel-mouth but two, or three! Howt did leap! A hare! Was’t an omen, eh?”
    “I ken’t not, if omen ‘tiz,” another nain said. “But ‘twas as thee say, senior Aar-heved-heved-aar, a great puss-longears indeed, and would I’d a snare to catch she doe-hare, do she return — eh? — cub?”
    For this other nain looked now at Arnten, who had stood up, although still dizzied, waving his hand, trying frantically to put a thought into words before the thought fled. “The hare came in!” he said, almost stammering. “The hare came in! What way she came in, would she not go out?”
    The man put an arm around his son. The comforting nain-drone and nain musk surrounded them. The boy’s head drooped upon his father’s side. He felt weak and sore and hungry. Food would come. Words sang in his head and faint fires danced there.
Bee and salmon, wolf and bear
. A rough hand rested gently on him.
Tiger, lion, mole and hare
.
    Fetters do not bind the moles.
    And the nains see them
.

Chapter
VIII
    Aar-heved-heved-aar that night sent a youngster nain to search out the passage where the hare had run. Guards did not trust the lower levels at night, would not even if the nains were gone. Posts and watch fires were at pit mouth only. Even wind and rain could not drive the guards more than a few feet inside after full dark. The nain-senior knew this, but did not trust the slickskins as cowards any more than he trusted them as braves;