Loon

From far across the field of ice, we saw the smoke. The sun had polished the snow to mirror brightness and we hurried, fearing what the smoke foretold. But the beasts that pull our supply sleds can only trundle through the crusted drifts so fast. Too slow, too slow - but nothing could be fast enough, for my sister was there. 

Little Loon, my shadow, my heart. 

The watchtowers we build of sinew, whalebones, and driftwood do not burn quickly; but the stores of blubber caught and soon a billowing cloud of grey and black spread across the sky. 

The first thing we saw were the bodies, deliberately scattered, painting the snow pink. Most had been hacked to pieces with a savagery that seemed wasteful. Rare it was for raiders to venture as far as the outpost, especially a party so large and well-equipped. They must have learned it was there, known when to strike: at dawn, just as we roused and before our eyes could see across the suddenly glaring polar ice.

They knew not to stay, not to set up shop. They killed the men; they claimed the women, my sister among them. 

I haggled with the other hunters, then. We were a dozen strong - more than they'd had at the outpost and better trained. I urged them to pursue the raiders. 

"If we let this attack go unpunished, there will be more. They will fall upon us like rabid wolves. They will find our maps; they will hunt our people!" I cried. 

"We'll stay," replied Sawtooth, who preferred to choose the lazy path, the one on the smoothest downward slope. "And then we'll travel back to the dome. Our orders were to protect the supplies. No more." 

I bared my teeth, but he shrugged and turned away. He's a coward, but twice my size. Now was not the time to fight, to waste my energy or risk an injury. A few of the others gave me sympathetic looks, but heroics are not the way we've survived the centuries. 

Shrugging off my pleas, they hunkered down while the traders and craftsmen clamoured about the ruins. Rescuing the girls would not help fill our always aching bellies.

II

An hour later, I left them behind to eat the food that would not last, to cower behind walls that never keep the darkness out. 

On swift feet sheltered by moccasins made of reindeer fur, I pursued my sister's captors. This close to the sharp edge that marked our territory, high above barren lands beneath, the wind is merciless. The sun set, but I went on; the moon was full, and my eyes eagerly sought the silver and silent path ahead. The raiders tried to hide their trail, but they are not used to travelling the snows. Even in the quarter-light, I could follow with a steady lope.

First, the raiders cut straight south, heading for softer lands, lands less deadly than the predators that live there. Soon the trail turned sharply west, and I wondered if they knew a hidden path to descend the mile or more to the soil below. Easier and swifter, surely, than trying to rappel down the sheer cliff of the glacier. 

As I ran, I wondered what the soil felt like. The mud, the dirt, the earth - I knew these things as words only, read from the books we'd managed to salvage after the war that wrecked the old world forever. 

Inside the dome, we grew our food in water, hydroponic fields fed with recycled nutrients. The glass let through the light, but we also had salvaged solar panels and turbines that unceasingly turned in the wind. Of all the ancient technologies, these were the ones we hoarded. These we defended with our lives, for they kept us fed and warm despite the undying winter.

How my sister loved to splash in the open pools, fed by geysers coaxed up through narrow cracks. She was half seal, born into the water when the labour pains stiffened my mother's back too much to crouch. The midwives filled the tub and out Loon slipped, already an eel. 

Barely five, I watched nearby, led by the cries to investigate. As she suckled, I poked her with a tentative finger, unsure whether this new creature would bring fun or disaster. She gripped my index fiercely; her grey eyes opened wide and found my wary face. And then I fell in love. 

They took her. I'll find her. She's mine. She's mine. I chanted to myself soundlessly whenever the urge to wail clamoured up my throat. A cry on the open ice could mean disaster. The bears might find me. The raiders might hear me coming. I'll find her, I'll find her, my legs pumped to a steady beat that ate up the miles. 

There was no way the raiders could travel as fast or as far, not with their captives in tow. They'd be celebrating, maybe drunk. They would feast and be sluggish. I didn't know how I would fight them all, but I would never let them have her - little Loon, my grey-eyed sister.

III

I slept only enough to shave off the last layer of weariness. I was used to long days away, hunting whales or walruses, but this was the first time I'd braved the ice alone. I ate while I travelled: cured meats and a dense, chewy bread made mostly from nuts and seeds. I snatched the snow in handfuls when I grew thirsty and felt it squeak and crunch between my teeth.

I gained on them slowly despite my haste. Strange prints left in the snow suggested they rode a beast I'd never seen. It left the letter U behind, crisply marked. Hurry, I imagined it wrote. Hurry.

She was in such a hurry to leave the dome. I didn't understand why. I would never understand, though I was eager to venture out with the other hunters - me with my sharp senses, stubborn nature, and boundless energy. 

Loon was quiet, studious. She'd slip away for hours to read, too frail to brave the worst weather with the hunters, too weak to bend to the gruelling tasks required of the labourers. Only a child, she was groomed to teach those smaller still. She seemed content among her students. Gentle, which I only ever managed to be with her. 

So when the call came from the outpost for someone to teach the handful of young housed there, Mother and I were both surprised to hear the firmness in her voice. 

"I'm going. We're leaving in a week before the worst of the storms hit."

"Stay, Loon," I begged. "It's too dangerous!" What I wanted to say was, Who am I when I'm not your big sister? Who am I if you are not my shadow?

Perhaps that's why she went. Maybe I was too protective. Maybe I stopped her from growing up.

IV

Snow-blinded and weather-beaten, I found the raider's camp the second day before dusk. It was the smell - carried on the thin wind heralding spring - that led me there. The smell of rotting furs and unwashed flesh. 

They'd taken a hidden path that cut sharply downward, a narrow crack formed by a massive chunk of ice recently splintered off. I would never have seen it in the monotonous white without their tracks to guide me. 

I slowed to catch my breath after the rigour of my chase. I checked my weapons, freshly honed to razor sharpness before we left the dome. I had arrows and a bow, but with the tumult of wind in the gorge, they were all but useless. 

My knives, then, I thought, longer than my forearms and narrowed to a curving point. We rubbed all but the cutting-edged in tallow to keep them from rust and to stop them from glinting like a beacon.

I inched toward their camp, and soon the smell of smoke and cooking meat mingled with their filth. I spotted their fire just as a girl began to sob. A young girl, too young. The raiders answered her with laughter, and I tightened my grip on my knives. 

A sentry sat nearby - foolishness, not to send him further up the path. Their mounts had long, lean faces and short hair except for what arched along their graceful necks, which they tossed as they ate from metal buckets pockmarked with rust. The captives were huddled in a heap - all, except the poor girl chosen for entertainment.

Minutes passed as the raiders settled into their tasks. Two fell fast asleep, one cleaned a rusty sword, another bustled about the mounts. All counted, they were less than a dozen, and I silently cursed the warriors who had done such a poor job defending my sister. The darkness deepened, and I narrowed my eyes, lest they mirror the fire's light. The sentry pulled something out of the bundle of tattered coats he wore and gazed at it, lost in thought. Distracted.

I slid out of the shadow and cut his throat as he lifted his head. I grabbed his collar to slow his fall and laid him to the earth with barely a sound. A golden locket, shaped like a heart, slid from his hand. These hairless ones and their trinkets, I thought, as I gathered my strength. Their greed was their undoing.

I hefted the sentry's spear. It was heavy, but I'd killed walruses with far heavier. I hurled it across the empty space and hit the raider nearest the pack animals. He flailed and stumbled, startling them. One reared up and floundered through the fire, knocking the pot into the man who stirred it. He screamed and fell, clutching his scalded legs.

Luck was with me, but instinct screamed to move more swiftly still. The others were scrambling now, confused. A log from the fire had rolled onto the bedding of one that slumbered; he awoke, squealing. 

Where is the swordsman? I wondered just as he rushed forward, shouting a warning to his companions. I have never fought a man before, I thought as I deflected his blade. So clumsy and slow. Off-balance, he stumbled past me and I sliced my knife across his tendon, keeping my momentum. I'd often watched, far off, as swift-footed wolves disabled bears in just this way. 

I was the wind, howling. I was the monster from the tales they whispered at night.

The next raider, tangled in his bedding, I caught between the ribs. He sputtered like a kettle and fell. One left, I thought, as I watched the women fall upon the other, who'd used them so freely. His shrieks echoed off the canyon walls as my eyes searched for the final enemy.

A body crashed into me from behind and I felt my knives slip, my hands too slick with blood. He bore me down and I managed to turn as we hit the snow, hard and crusted. He was heavy and foul; I struggled like a kitten, weakly, for he'd found a way to pin my arms. Our eyes met: his, a watery blue rimmed in red; mine, a yellow that glinted in the flames.

Unnerved, he recoiled. 

I grinned, revealing a row of pointed teeth, pearly white. Then I sunk them into his throat and tore, his sour blood arcing over my shoulder. I heaved him off to watch him twitch and whimper as he died. 

Then a softer body enveloped mine, one that smelled of familiar fur and long nights curled up with warmth and love. She purred as she licked the blood from my face. 

"I knew you'd come," she whispered. "My sister."