Read Online Skraelings: Clashes in the Old Arctic by Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley - Free Book Online

firelight. “He thinks,” Kannujaq added, “that this piece on my necklace, given to me by my grandparents, means I have some kind of power in common with the Glaring One.”
    Once again, Siaq laughed, and the response irritated Kannujaq. “Siku believes what I want him to,” she said. “He knows what I permit, and he makes up therest, like always.”
    â€œThen tell him the truth,” pressed Kannujaq. “Tell him I have no special destiny here. Our futures are what we make of them. Maybe the Tuniit believe in destiny, but you are not a Tuniq! You are one of my kind. You must understand what I’m saying. We don’t have to die. We can return the stolen property. Leave it on the beach for when the Glaring One next arrives. Flee and never speak of him again ….”
    â€œNothing will stop the Glaring One,” muttered Siaq. Her arms were now folded around herself. She rocked, staring into the dying fire, and seemed almost to forget that Kannujaq was present. “Nothing,” she added, “will make him quit.”
    Kannujaq sighed, rubbing at his sooty eyes. Maybe Siaq was right. He recalled the raid’s end that he had witnessed. Such bloodshed. Such unnecessary murder. Perhaps the Glaring One wanted his property returned; but the way of his men was hardly that of a group in search of something. Unless that something were madness.
    But these were barely men, were they? These were folk whose ship prow was carved to resemble a beast—a wolf. And that was how they attacked. The Tuniit were like mindless caribou, panicked and chased and inevitably slaughtered. They were all the victims. The caribou.
    And the Siaraili were wolves.
    Wolves,
Kannujaq thought.
    The notion repeated itself over and over in his mind.
    Siaq was stuffing more heather into the fire, when Kannujaq asked her:
    â€œHow does a Tuniq hunt a wolf?”
    â€œThey don’t,” she said. “Wolf pelts, among the Tuniit, are rare and valuable. Because it is almostimpossible to get near enough to a wolf to kill it.”
    But Kannujaq knew how his own folk hunted them.
    One did not catch a wolf by running it down. Nor by ambushing it. The creatures were too wily. They could sense humans, evading them every time. Instead, one used a wolf’s habits against it. A wolf was like a dog. If it found food lying about, it would stuff itself with as much as its gut could carry, eating faster than it could think. So Kannujaq’s folk used this observation to their advantage: They crafted a trap that was frozen into a large chunk of fat or meat. The wolf gobbled it down without thought. When the food thawed in the wolf’s stomach, the trap sprang.
    Dead wolf.
    Siku walked in while Kannujaq was trying to explain this idea to a disinterested Siaq. The boy shaman, however, immediately bent an ear to Kannujaq’s words. He even seemed to grasp what Kannujaq was implying, and began to rummage through his bags. In a few moments, the lad had retrieved a handful of dried, hideous, near-black lumps. He held them out to Kannujaq, smiling, his blue eyes dancing in the firelight.
    â€œIs that,” Kannujaq asked, “what you burn to make people sleepy?”
    Sick, too,
he thought.
    â€œIt has a few uses,” Siaq said without emotion, “depending on how it is prepared. It can make people dreamy, wanting to talk and tell the truth about things. But it can also make one very sick. It is rare, and very dangerous. It can make one forever stupid—even kill, if used by one who is already stupid. But an angakkuq, like myself or Siku, can prepare small amounts of it properly.”
    After a long moment, Kannujaq asked Siaq and her son, “You said it can kill?”
    â€œIf we made a thick soup of it,” said the boy,grinning his toothy grin.
    Siaq frowned, her dark eyes growing wide. She glared at her son.
    â€œWhy would you do such a thing?” she asked him. “You know