Read Calamity's Child for Free Online

daughter and
yourself in danger, and I do not allow it!"
    A grave breach of
erifu,
that,
and yet, strangely, she laughed.
    "Slade. How will you hunt and gather?
Or will you give your spear to me?"
    "No, never that," he said, lightly. "A
tent mother must not kill."
    "A hunter's work fills the day -- and
a mother's work, too. How will you fit two days into
one?"
    "Let me try," he said, urgently, and
took her hands. "Two days. If I fail to gather, or to hunt, we will
-- think of something else."
    It was perhaps a measure of how weak
she was that she allowed him his two days of proof.
    *
    His scheme worked well: In the
morning, he set his traps; his afternoon went to gathering plant
stuffs. When his sack was full; he turned toward the camp of the
day, collecting game from his traps as he went.
    On the morning of the sixth day, he
encountered Tania, the grandmother of their group, at the edge of
the camp, gather-bag in hand.
    "Good morning, hunter," she said
politely.
    Slade touched the tip of his spear to
the ground in respect. "Good morning, grandmother."
    "I see that the mother of your tent
sends you to gather in her name."
    This
, Slade thought,
could be bad.
He allowed no trace of the thought cross his face. Instead,
he replied calmly, "Grandmother, it is so. Her talent gnaws the
mother of my tent to bone."
    Her eyes softened. "It is a harsh
gift," she said slowly. "Do you prepare the gather?"
    "No, grandmother; she prepares what I
bring, and shows which I should choose more of, and what is not as
needful to the tent."
    "So." She stood up,
shaking out her bag. "
Erifu
is preserved. Good
hunting."
    After that, no one questioned
him.
    And Arika grew ever more
fragile.
    In the evening, she sorted and
prepared what he had gathered, while he performed other needful
tasks. After, they would lie in each other's arms and he would
stroke her until she fell into uneasy sleep.
    So, the short summer proceeded.
Slowly, the sky darkened, and the wind carried an edge of ice,
warning that the time to turn to Dark Camp approached.
    Slade returned to their tent somewhat
later than usual, burdened by numerous kwevits and an especially
heavy sack of gatherings.
    At first, he thought the tent
unoccupied, then, he saw the shape huddled, far in the back, where
the medicines were kept.
    Heart in mouth, he dropped his burdens
and rushed forward. Arika was barely conscious, her body soaked
with sweat. Carefully, he straightened her, turned
her...
    Her eyes opened, and she knew him.
"Slade. The child comes." Her body arched, and she gasped, eyes
screwing shut.
    *
    The baby had come quickly, which had
been a blessing. He cleaned her and put her to Arika's breast,
turned -- and looked up into Tania's hard, old eyes.
    "Hunters do not deliver children," she
said, coldly.
    "This hunter does," he snapped,
perhaps unwisely.
    "So I see." She stepped forward. "I
will examine the mother of your tent, hunter. She is frail and I am
many years your elder in the healing arts."
    He took a hard breath. "Grandmother, I
know it."
    "Good," she said, kneeling at Arika's
side. "Walk around the camp, twice. Slowly, as if you search for
hunt-sign on hard rock. Then you may return."
    Almost, he protested. Almost. He had
just reached the entrance when he heard his name and turned
back.
    "Grandmother?"
    "You did well," she said softly. "Now
go."
    *
    The child -- Kisam, their daughter --
clung to her small life by will alone, and in her stubbornness
Slade saw generations of Clan Aziel. She nursed, but it seemed her
mother's milk nourished her only enough to keep her soul trapped in
her body -- and in that, too, he saw the effect of his
blood.
    His blood.
    She sucked the supplement from the tip
of his finger while he cuddled her and prayed, chaotically,
expecting the tiny body at any moment to convulse, and release his
child's willful spirit --
    "She is stronger," Arika said next
day, Kisam tucked in the carry-cloth against her breast. "Slade,
does she not seem stronger to