Read Online Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains by C.S. Bills - Free Book Online Page B

ears. The girl seemed bold, as if Attu were not lying right there in front of her as she spoke. He wanted to be angry with her for hurting him, and when she touched a new part of his back it was all he could do to hold still.
    “He has always been strong,” Attu heard his mother reply while he struggled against the pain that smeared across his back, flaring with each stroke of Rika’s hand as she rubbed still more of the goo into his raw flesh. The two women continued speaking over him as if he were a small child. He wanted them to stop. And the pain... he desperately needed that to stop...
    Attu took in a breath to steady himself, as a hunter must. The salve was spicy, and the whole shelter was filling with the smell. Attu’s eyes watered from the pungency, and he buried his face in the furs to protect them.
    “Just one more,” Rika said, her voice like soft wind now, wind across newly fallen snow. “This is the deepest one, and will have to be stitched, but I must clean it with the salve first. Do you want a bone to bite on?”
    Attu realized she must be looking at him, and he raised his head again. She was gazing at him, calmly waiting for his reply. Her message was clear. Here comes the real pain, as if what he’d been feeling before was just the preparation before the true test.
    She will finish the cleansing, no matter how painful it is for me, Attu thought. Who is this girl, that my mother trusts her over Elder Nuanu to heal me? He studied her. She is so confident in her healing she’s able to sit there, knowing her treatment is excruciating, yet she proceeds to discuss the pain she’s causing me with my mother as if she were considering how best to cook a stew.
    No matter who she was or how painful this last cleansing was going to be, it had to be done, Attu realized. He felt sick.
    “ Finish,” he said, and quickly shoved his fist into his mouth as Rika spread another glob of salve into his back. It felt like she was cutting him again, like the beast had done. The shelter began to spin, and Attu cried out, biting down on his own knuckles in agony as everything went black.
    ––––––––
    “Y ou should have used the bone,” Rika said, a hint of teasing in her voice as she took Attu’s hand in her own.
    “How long have I been in the Between?” Attu asked, as he looked at the hand Rika was holding. His teeth had penetrated the flesh, and she was spreading more of the spicy salve on it by the light of a nuknuk lamp.
    “One night, one day, and now it is the second night,” Rika replied.
    Lit from behind by the lamp, Rika’s face was deep in shadow; only her hair, outlining her form, shimmered around her as she moved, and the dark strands caught the light. The rest fell loose across her face as if she were trying to hide herself behind it.
    Rika finished spreading the salve and taking a soft hide, bandaged his hand in a few deft movements.
    “Next time I will,” Attu said.
    “Will what?” Rika asked. She looked into his eyes.
    Attu realized his hand was still in hers as he gazed at her in return, and before she could remove her hand from his he gripped it, wincing a bit from the pain, but holding on to her still.
    “Your hand,” Rika protested.
    “I’ll take your advice,” Attu said, trying not to smile. “Next time. I’ll bite the bone instead.”
    Rika laughed and pulled her hand away.
    He let her go.
    “Do you think you can sit up now?” Rika asked. “You need to eat.”
    Pain flared across Attu’s back as he struggled to sit up, but he was ravenous, and the nausea caused by moving seemed to be overridden by his hunger. He watched Rika scoop up some nuknuk meat from a stone platter over the lamp onto a bone plate and arrange a few thin slices of raw tooth fish on the side. He reached out to grasp the plate, wincing as his back protested the movement.
    Rika turned away again to fetch him a small pouch of water. “You need to eat and drink as much as you can,” she said as