Aurora Wolf

Shaman Born

By Alva Roberts

            A thick sheet of ice and snow covered the land, the only breaks in the endless field of white were the evergreen trees, nature’s last stand against the encroaching winter. It was always cold but the elders said that there had never been a winter as long as this one. Spring should have come weeks ago. Erick Coldeye stood staring at the endless drifts wishing them away.

            Today was his fifteenth birthing day, the day when he was supposed to join the hunters and warriors as a man. If the storms came he would have to wait. His head told him it was a small thing to worry about. He had waited fifteen years. What were a few more days? But his heart yearned for the freedoms and privileges that came with manhood.

            “Erick, I have sent a runner for your father and brothers. If we hurry we will have time before the storm breaks. Follow me,” Horal, the village shaman said, his voice creaking with age.

            Horal was the oldest man in the tribe, some said in the whole world. What little of his hair remained was white as the surrounding snow. His back was hunched and he looked weak. But no man in the tribe, not the largest of them, would challenge the old man to a contest of strength. He could talk to the spirits and command the elements to do his bidding.

            Erick kept a respectful silence as he followed the elderly man to the stables. He would have to master an untrained mount before the eyes of the men of his family to be considered a man. It could take hours. The young mounts had just reached their full height, their shoulders level with the top of Erick’s head. They were young and powerful and would fight against his control for hours.

            Horal chanted in a low steady voice as Erick made his way to the fenced area outside the stable. All the young mounts were there. As Erick watched, one of the young bulls trumpeted and stamped his feet showing his sprit. He would be Erick’s mount.

            The mounts had thick brown fur, heavy ivory tusks, and long winding trunks. It was said that the mounts once had much larger cousins that could not be tamed, only hunted. The elders said a single beast could feed the tribe for a week. Erick was not sure he believed it.

            Shaking his head, Erick hopped the fence. This was not time to be thinking about the old one’s tales. This was the day he would become a man, he needed to focus his thoughts on the powerful creatures that stood before him.

            He pulled a long rope from his belt and wound it around his arm, as he watched the huge creature. He moved downwind from the mount, he could not let the half-tamed beast catch his scent. The beast’s were skittish around humans. The creature’s own smell was thick and musky. Every fiber of Erick’s being shook with nervous anticipation.

            The wind suddenly shifted. Everything Erick knew about weather told him that it was impossible, but it did not matter. The young bull caught his scent. It turned, moving surprisingly fast for so large a creature.

            “Erick run!” his father yelled.

            The bull trumpeted and charged straight for Erick. Its footfalls sounded like thunder, as its huge feet slammed into the frozen earth. Erick felt his excitement instantly transformed into terror. Death was charging towards him.

            He jumped to the side in the last instant before the beast crushed him. It rumbled past him, smashing through the stable yard fence. The bull raised its trunk high into the air and trumpeted its freedom as it made its way into the forest.

The sound echoed through the stable yard, to be replaced by silence as his father, brothers and Horal stared, shocked and unmoving. Erick crawled to his feet and brushed the snow from his hair. Shame filled every fiber of his being. He had failed. He would not become a man this day.

            “Erick, come help us repair the fence,” his father called.

            No one spoke as they worked to bring logs over. Erick did not need to hear the words. He had shamed himself, had shamed his family. It would not be a surprise if his father disowned him. Erick’s eyes filled with tears but he choked them back, he would not dishonor himself any more than he already had.

***

            The storm struck just as they finished rebuilding the fence. The wind whipped around them, driving the hard small flakes into their faces. As they rushed to their thatch covered hut, Erick could see the other tribesman retreating into their homes. Only a fool would venture out in a storm such as this.

            “Erick, how was your trial?” Erick’s mother called out as they ventured into their home.

            Erick’s father caught his wife’s eye and shook his head. She made a gasping sound and reached out to as if to comfort him, but pulled her hand away before it reached him. Erick felt a lump form in his throat.

            “It was not his fault, the wind spirits acted against him,” his father said in a cold voice.

            Fear rumbled in Erick’s belly. Failing the test was shameful but the spirits acting against him meant he was cursed. No wonder his brothers stayed clear of him while they worked. After the storm, he would have to leave before his curse was brought down on the entire Coldeye clan. He would be out cast, there could be no worse punishment. His clan was the most important thing in the world. Without them he was nothing.   

            Erick crossed the entire room, to climb into his own bed. He could feel their eyes on him, judging, and would not let them see the tears he could no longer fight down.  He pretended to sleep, listening as they ate and spoke in quiet whispers about what had happened. No one knew the cause of the curse.

            Erick feigned sleep until the only sound was that of the wind slamming into the yurt. He waited few minutes then climbed to his feet, dressing in his furs. He would not allow his shame to taint his family.

            “Erick, what are you doing?” his younger brother, Leif, asked in a whisper.

            “Shhh. Do not wake the others. I have lost all honor. I will go find the bull and return with my honor.”

            “Don’t you hear the storm? You will never return! The wind spirits are already angry with you.”

            “What better way to test the curse? If I return then I will have a place in the Coldeye clan. If I don’t…tell father and mother that I love them.” Leif didn’t say a word as Erick left the yurt.

            Erick almost retreated to the safety of the yurt the second he stepped outside. The snow was knee deep, the drifts almost to his waist. The wind hammered at him, picking up the snow in great billowing clouds.

            “Hear me Spirits of Wind and Storm, I am Erick Coldeye. I do not fear you, nor your curse. I am a man. You will not stop me.”  Erick’s voice was carried away by the wind, so that he barely heard his own words.

            The wind picked up in strength as if to prove it heard him. Erick lowered his head against the furious strength of the gusts and walked forward. Snow caked the front of his body in white. He could not see.

            But he did not need his eyes to find the stable yard. It was a trip he made almost every day. Erick was shaking with cold and his hands were turning blue by the time he reached the recently repaired fence.

            A large shape was moving near the pen. He had guessed that the bull would try to return to the safety of the stables during the storm and he was right. The mount was leaning against the fence, trying to get out of the wind. There was still a chance to regain his honor.

            His numb hands fumbled at his belt, pulling free his rope. He made a huge loop and wrapped the other end around his arm. Everything had to be done perfectly. He would only have one chance.

            Erick ran forward throwing his loop around the creature’s snout and vaulting onto his back. The mount trumpeted a loud angry warning and surged to its feet, running into the woods.

            The wind tore at Erick’s face so hard that it felt like it was burning. His numb hands threatened to release their grip. It would mean death to fall off the beast so far from the village. He held on, testing his strength and stamina against the huge creature. He rode the maddened beast for hours.

            The mount slowed just as Erick thought his tired muscles could no longer hold on. He could feel the mount’s sides heaving beneath him as the creature sucked in cold air. Erick pulled the rope to the side, forcing the creature to turn. It was time to begin training the creature to obey his will.

***

            Just as the sun shattered the gathered clouds with the light of dawn, Erick turned the mount back toward the tribe’s lands. A huge grin covered his face. He would return with the dawn, as a man.

            “You fell to my strength during one of the worst storms I have ever seen. I will name you Frostfall,” Erick shouted to his new mount.

            The village was quiet in the still morning. The only sound came from the stables as the huge creatures trumpeted the dawn. There were no other sounds, no sounds of warriors checking their mounts, and no smell of food cooking.

            Something was wrong. Erick rode Frostfall straight into the village instead of stopping at the stable. The snow between the yurts was trampled and flat, tinted red with blood.

            Erick could see arms and legs sticking out from the drifts between the yurts. There were two dozen dead and more could have been hidden by the snow. Some of them were not of the tribe. They wore clothing dyed black, a bad luck color that none in the tribe would wear. Many of the yurts had been knocked over. Erick’s mind was numb. He could no longer feel his hands or his feet. He needed a fire soon or the winter spirit would claim some of his toes.

            “Erick. Is that you?” Horthal’s voice quivered.

            Erick turned his mount, and stared down. A yurt had fallen on the old man. The large timbers pinned him to the ground. He still held his bundle of unused spears, in his weak unmoving hand.

            “Shaman,” Erick shouted and started to slide off his mount.

            “Wait! Wait. Your mount is not fully trained. It may flee if you dismount. You will need it to save the rest.”

            “The rest? What happened here?”

            “The Empire’s Slave Takers attacked as we slept. They have a powerful shaman with them. The storm did not touch them. Most were taken before we even knew what was happening. You must save them. Take my spears.”

            Horal tossed his bundle of spears up to Erick who deftly caught it.

            “What about you?” Erick asked, fear and confusion strong in his voice.

            “I am old. I would survive but a little longer if you stayed. Save the tribe, Coldeye.”

            The Slave Takers were easy to follow. They were on foot heading South toward the Empire, as they marched they left a wide path through the snow.

            Erick followed, his anger growing. He had been too shocked and scared to feel angry before, but now he let it flow through him. The powerful emotion brought him energy and warmth. He would teach the Empire men to fear the Clan of Coldeye.

            The slavers came into view quickly, they must have waited out the storm in the yurts and left after the storm broke. He could see twenty or so of the black clad men and a single sled. The entire tribe trudged behind them, chained together at the hands and waist. He thumped his heels into Frostfall’s thick sides and pulled out the first of Horal’s spears.

            It was a thrilling moment. All his life he had trained to be a hunter and a warrior. He had practiced throwing spears from the back of the tribe’s small ponies to prepare for this day. The wind swept past his face and he could feel the freedom that came with being a man.

            His first spear buried itself in a man’s chest. Erick pulled another and threw it with the same result. By the time Frostfall reached the group, four were already dead.

            The foolish slavers grouped together to defend against his charge. Frostfall broke through them as easily as he had broken the fence the day before. Black clad figures flew through the air to the left and right. Erick threw another spear.

            The captured warriors of Erick’s tribe ran forward, using their own chains as weapons. Erick turned to make another pass at the largest group of slavers when pain coursed through his body. Electricity surged around him, and Frostfall.

            The young mount fell to the ground twitching and heaving. Erick tumbled off rolling over the cold snow covered ground. A man stood over him, carrying a long staff of plain white wood, wearing thick black robes the same color as the slavers.

            “What a young fool you are. Did you think your beast could defeat a wizard?”

            The man made a complicated gesture in the air and the dead slavers rose to their feet on unsteady legs.

            “It is a simple enough spell, I learned it when I was about your age. None of the other apprentices wanted to learn it, the reanimated dead cannot tell friend from foe.”

            The bodies stumbled toward the gathered men on unsteady legs. They attacked with hands and teeth, goring and biting both the tribesmen and the slavers.

            “I’ll have to call the whole thing a wash. Perhaps I could take the ivory from your trained beasts to recoup some of the losses. Hhhmmm.”

            The wizard turned his back on Erick obviously talking to himself.

            The necromancer walked over to stare at Frostfall. He made a strange gesture, not even looking at Erick. Erick’s breath was sucked from his lungs. It felt like something thick and heavy was wrapped around his chest.

            Erick struggled to move, but his body only twitched. He could not allow this.

            Then Erick felt a presence all around.  He could hear its simple thoughts and desires. Erick also felt his own panic building as he struggled for breath.

            Erick toiled to understand what was happening. Out of desperation, Erick tried to let the presence know his own thoughts. The ground around them began to shake. The wizard turned back, staring at Erick with a look of fear.

            Fire began to gather around the wizard. The air crackled with energy. The wizard’s eyes glowed with an unnatural green light.

            Frostfall’s thickly muscled trunk struck outward, smashing into the wizard’s back. The wizard tumbled to the ground just in time for a huge man shaped figure to pull itself out of the ground. The elemental was made of the earth itself. The creature knocked the wizard fifteen feet in the air with a single swing of its arm.

            Erick felt his breath return in a huge gasp that tasted sweet as summer berries. He rolled onto his back gasping, then felt something wet nuzzling against his face.

            Frostfall stood above Erick, his long snout rubbing up and down his face. Erick sat up and pushed the mammoth’s trunk away. He had made a new friend in his struggles.

            “Erick, you’re alive.” Erick’s father gave a joyful shout.

            “And a man,” Erick said, gesturing toward Frostfall.

            “And a Shaman,” his father said. “You were not cursed. Those who are touched by the earth and can feel its spirits are often betrayed by the air.”

            Erick stood, shocked into silence by the statement. He knew it was true. He would develop and train his power just as he trained to be a hunter. As a shaman he would be bring more honor to the Coldeye clan than any tribesmen ever had.

            “Let’s go home,” Erick said with a huge grin.