Ammonite

The Moon of Knives, Aoife said, was the time of great blizzards, of the howling cold that swept over the Ice Sea from the north. Strange beasts traveled on the breath of the ice wind. From the wastelands they would come, across the frozen waters. While the land lay quiet under the days of dark, nine days of night barely lightening to gray before deepening again to full dark, the beasts would roam northern Tehuantepec. The creatures of the Great Forest—the tree-dwelling yanomao, the glimmer flies, the rare and beautiful jewelfeet—would be driven deep into its snow-shrouded fastness by the cyarnac and the goth. Cyarnac, it was rumored, were four-legged, smaller than a horse and swifter than the wind. Those who had seen one and survived said they were as alien and cold as the great mountain glacier, and that they drew heat from a woman’s body and soul as swiftly as meltwater. Thick-furred and white as bleached bone, they kept their hairless young in pouches and ate anything that moved.

Marghe listened, appreciating the storytellers’ art, analyzing the content.

The goth were different. Tall they were, half as high again as a big woman astride a big horse. Gray and gaunt, they were creatures of the cold mist and the dark places under trees. They stood on two feet, and a woman who had seen one, Aoife said, told of strange, flat eyes which she swore on her mother’s blood were intelligent. Intelligent or not, the goth were said to live on lichen and bark scraped from the sides of trees and under the snow. Their faces were round, like platters, their mouths horny-lipped. Their fur was shaggy and streaked and it was said that a woman could stand next to one in a forest and not know it was there until it moved.

Marghe wondered if these half-mythical goth could be the builders of the stone circle, driven from their usual habitat by warm-blooded aliens. But none of the Echraidhe would admit to having seen one themselves. It was all tales from the past. Perhaps they were long dead.

Near the end of the Moon of Shelters, when foul weather had penned the Echraidhe in their yurtu for more than two days, the tribe gathered in the enormous yurti of the Levarch, the story tent. Most were drinking. The circular tent was low and the air heavy with the smell of unwashed women, their fur and leather clothes, grease, and the animal stench of taar chips. It was very hot.

Marghe took a long swallow of ale; her face was already flushed but she filled her bowl with more of the dark, slightly bitter stuff. Cuirm, the Echraidhe called it; a great improvement on the ever-foul locha. She looked around the tent. The former Levarch, Nehu, whose old voice was like the whispering of dry leaves, was telling a tale of a young Echraidhe adopted by the beasts of the forest. Even to Marghe it sounded well-worn, the phrases ritual and well-practiced. And the Echraidhe were restless.

She sipped at her ale again, licked foam from her lips. Even the Levarch was flushed and wild. Aoife sat a little apart, knotting bright colors, occasionally looking up from the thick strands under her hands. A half-full cup stood on the floor by her knee. Borri lay with her head on Aelle’s lap. On the opposite side of the hearth, Uaithne stared fixedly at a point two handsbreadths above Aoife’s head. She did not drink from her cup. To Marghe, unused to so much ale, it seemed that Uaithne’s hair flamed with violent thoughts. The air was bright and thick with sexual tension.

Nehu’s tale wound to its ending and, as was then her right, the old Levarch requested a story about a raid from Mairu. Mairu stood and held her palms outward for silence; the Echraidhe quieted. She struck an over-solemn pose and told the tribe she would tell of a time, last spring, when she and her soestre had, by trickery, parted the women of Singing Pastures from the possession of four sacks of grain, a sack of dap, and a saddle. She pranced and postured and pulled faces, exaggerating her cunning and her victims’ stupidity. Roars of laughter, and shouted interruptions from Fion, her soestre, accompanied the story as Mairu ruthlessly reduced the women of Singing Pastures to creatures with no more wit and wisdom than snow worms. Though the end of the tale was greeted with stamps and shouts of approval, Marghe heard the heat and wildness surging and building in the tent. At the back of the tent, two women were kissing in endless, slow intensity; their furs were undone. Marghe watched a weather-dark hand stroke soft breasts and became aware of her own muscles coiled sleek and plump under her too-tight skin, of hot air rubbing at her throat and widening her nostrils.

She could have taken her sexual energy and smoothed it down, but she wanted to let it burn through her, she wanted to enjoy being alive. She turned away and gulped from her bowl. The ale made her reckless.

She scrambled up and held out her palms for silence. The tent quieted abruptly.