Page 5 of The Bone Doll
“I’ve never met a Ruthenian who wasn’t.”
“How many Ruthenians have you met?” he asked.
“Enough.” She shrugged. “We trade with them in the summer. They are too scared to leave their camps.”
Viktor patted his chest. “Well,Iam brave. I came all the way out to your clan’s camp.”
Syra snorted. “Brave? I’ve seen mice braver than you.”
“It must have been a very brave mouse,” he said. “Heroic, almost.”
Her lips quirked, and Viktor thought she might be smiling. But she sobered quickly. Then, she unbuttoned her distinctive coat – made of reindeer hide and trimmed in an intricately woven wool. Viktor had never seen – nor thought about – what lay beneath a Sarnoks’ coat. Her trousers were, in fact, coveralls that extended over her chest and tied behind her neck. They hung loosely off her, made for a woman who hadn’t faced a lean winter.
From the front pocket of her coveralls, she withdrew something small and ivory-colored.
“You wanted to see it,” she said.
Itwas the Bone Doll. As tall as his palm was wide, the Bone Doll was carved from bone, in the shape of a Sarnok in their coat and overalls, a small knife in their hand. The fire spluttered as the figurine took on a faint glow of its own. Gooseflesh puckered across Viktor’s skin.
Viktor arched an eyebrow. Was this what he earned for making her almost-smile?
“My grandfather made it,” Syra said. “He used its magic for all sorts of things, including protecting our clan from angry spirits. But now, it’s angry.”
Viktor looked at the doll and then at Syra, her face painted in hues of blue and red. Magic and fire. “How does it protect you?”
Her fingers tightened on the figurine. “If winds would not stop, my grandfather would bind the angry spirit back to the air. If a spirit flooded our campsite, he could bind the offending spirit back to its rain cloud.”
That was exactly what he had heard from the Parmians who had told him that the Lame Wolves had a powerful artifact that could control errant spirits. And that was exactly what his father wanted. But his father wanted more.
“It doesn’t do any of that anymore,” she finished.
Why?The word was hot on his tongue, but Viktor knew from the flint in her eyes that she would answer no more questions. And so, he nodded as though he understood.
Syra stuffed the Bone Doll back into her pocket. She pulled out her bedroll and flattened it on the other side of the fire. She lay with her back to him, again pretending as though he did not exist at all.
This would be a long three weeks, he thought for the hundredth time.
Chapter 4
Reindeer Moss
Syra endured three days of endless walking across muddy tundra, overflowing streams, and sharp gravel. By the fourth day, the rough road carried them into a pine and spruce forest where snow still clung to the trees’ roots. The place smelled of rot.
She walked a dozen or more paces behind Viktor, but shestillheard him humming. She had half a mind to close the distance between them and choke him. Then he’d be quiet. Syra had been all but forced to help him. Wasn’t that bad enough? What had she done to deserve listening to his incessant noise-making?
Syra hung back further to snack on some berries she had spotted growing in the underbrush. As she crouched there, she remembered how skinny Raya looked. Her stomach twisted. Maybe listening to Viktor’s humming was better than dealing with her homesickness. She started walking again. Her belly hurt whenever she thought about her family, theirmya, her clan, the reindeer…
So wrapped up in her thoughts of home, Syra bumped into the orange-haired Ruthenian, who had stopped along the path. Grunting her displeasure, she sidestepped him and folded her arms across her chest.
Viktor jerked his chin towards a deeply-gouged tree trunk. “Might be a bear.”
Any Sarnok worth their marrow could identify animal markings; and a bear wouldn’t cut that deep into a tree, not to sharpen its claws anyway. But before she could identify the marks, Viktor was talking again.
“It doesn’t look too fresh,” he said – clearly to himself because she wasn’t responding. “Hopefully, it’s not too close.”
She set her jaw and glared ahead. Whatever it was, Viktor would be the one eaten. He clearly wasn’t the brightest. Viktor began walking again, his hand on the hilt of his belt knife. Then, she followed him.
Alas, no animals appeared that day, sparing Viktor the fate of becoming some creature’s dinner.
