Relic

XIV: Aprilus 2 Year 242, A.H.

“What should we do about her?”

“I think we should—”

Without waiting to hear the full response, and without even a final glance at Jasper, I hurry back to my sled. I pad across the growth, praying that I don’t crack a twig and betray my presence. I’m initially so worried about getting caught in the forest close to Jasper that I don’t think about the source of the voices. Only a few ticks later, once I’ve started the business of making camp, does it occur to me that no highly trained Scout would be so careless and unprofessional as to be overheard by a Testor.

Which of the Testors would be talking in the Taiga? About me, the only “her” out here? And why would they take such Lex risks? Were they conspiring? Alliances are banned—whether formed before or during the Testing—but they are not unheard of. In one particularly rampant Aerie rumor, a highly regarded Testor ensured a friend’s equally respected quest for the Archon spot in exchange for a promise; supposedly, the two now serve as the Aerie’s Chief Archon and Chief Lexor. Yes, my father and Jasper’s uncle Ian. We laugh about those rumors at home, but other alliances have been proven and incurred swift punishment.

As I prepare my camp—digging a hole for my dogs, starting the fire, readying the water for the dogs, pitching my tent—I watch the forest. The Testors have to emerge from the evergreen thicket at some point. But no one materializes.

The first horn of the evening will sound soon, and I can’t delay any longer. I have to reenter the Taiga to hunt. My dogs are fighting among themselves as their hunger mounts, and I can’t afford an injured husky. Weaving through trees and underbrush, I return to the area where I spotted the hare. Where one hare lives, others must, too, I figure.

Knives, bola, spear, and atlatl, my spear, in hand, I squat behind the wide trunk of a birch tree. As I wait, I try to imagine which Testors would dare conspire. Eamon’s journal entries contain assessments of my competition. He thought well of Jasper, Jacques, Benedict, Thurstan, and William—but only in terms of physical skills. He didn’t think much of their ability to synthesize the past with the artifacts, a critical talent for the final, and most important, three Advantages. In fact, Eamon described them as “able but addled,” even though they generally did well at School. He outright dismissed Knud, Tristan, Anders, and Petr as serious competitors, believing their parents put them up to the Tests; he believed they lacked the strength of spirit to win. The Commitment by Neils confused Eamon, who perceived Neils as a bookish type, and Eamon understood that Aleksander entered the Testing to prove something to his Ring-Guard father.

Nothing in Eamon’s evaluations makes me think that any particular Testor is capable of forming alliances, other than Jacques and Benedict, whose ambitious fathers serve together.

Movement in the brush interrupts my musings.

I ready my bola, hoping to get at least a couple of hare. But it isn’t a hare that appears from the woodland. It’s a musk ox.

The creature is legendary for its ability to skewer a man with a single swipe of its enormous curved horns, so I fight against every instinct to flee. This one animal could feed me and my dogs for days. Its qiviut, highly prized for its warmth, could help me survive the long nights on the way to the Frozen Shores. If I can only figure out how to kill him. He could easily swat away my bola with a shake of his huge, shaggy head, so that’s not an option. I don’t dare get close enough to use one of my knives; not anticipating that I’d run into a rare musk ox, Lukas hadn’t schooled me in the best way to slay one by hand. Even though the animal has a thick, hairy hide, my only option is my atlatl.

The creature stops to nibble on some caribou moss, and I look at it closely. I decide to aim at an indentation behind its horns. I pray to the Gods for their blessings, because if I miss, the musk ox will charge and gore me. Something he might have done even if I hadn’t decided to take aim, I console myself.

Pointing my atlatl to the ground, I place my spear into the hooked end of the bone stick. Then I lift the spear and atlatl off the ground and align them with that spot on the musk ox’s head. Then I release. I’ve practiced the atltal throw hundreds of times with Lukas—he thought the weapon would provide me with an advantage because it’d give me greater leverage and better aim despite my lesser strength—but I’m shocked at how far the spear goes and how powerfully it launches.

The musk ox falls to the ground with a deafening thud. I race to its side, breathless. My eyes are wide. I am shocked that I actually killed the famed creature. I want to laugh aloud, thinking of the absurdity of a Maiden from the Aerie slaying one of the mammoth musk oxen. But the thought of my mother dispels the smile.

As I examine the spear protruding from the musk ox’s dense hair, still incredulous that the spear is mine, I realize something critical. Something that I forgot to consider in my haste to kill the musk ox. There’s no way I can haul this thousand-pound animal back to camp by myself. None of the Testors could do the job alone. I need to harness my dogs back to the sled to carry the musk ox, and I need to do it fast. Soon, too soon, the first horn of the evening will sound.

Ducking and weaving through the darkening forest, I race back to the edge of the Taiga, where I set up camp. My dogs smell the musk ox on me, and it makes them frantic. They fight my efforts to re-harness them; they want to be let loose to find it. After a few stern cracks of my whip and a tick alone with Indica to set him straight, the team reluctantly forms its pairs and lines. How I’m going to control them and lead them through the forest without ruining my sled, I cannot imagine.

I soon discover that I don’t have to guide my team through the Taiga. With Indica in the lead, the dogs guide me. They follow the scent of the fallen musk ox, and instinctively pull us through. I think of Lukas again: this is something else I didn’t expect to learn.

The first horn of the evening sounds. Sensing my panic at the shortening time, the team quiets as I roll the huge creature onto my sled. I crack the whip as hard as I’ve ever done and we careen back toward camp. That’s when I see them, making their own dash through the Taiga before the final horn. The two Testors who’d been talking in the forest: Aleksander and Neils.