Page 2 of The Bone Doll (The Ruthenian Chronicle #1)

The Bone Doll

Tying her hood tighter around her face, Syra walked out onto the river with her brother Ngarka and sister Raya.

Though they were no longer in the dead of winter when the sun did not rise, the river was still frozen; and it would remain that way until summer.

Partially obscured by drifting snow, a bone bobber peaked out of the ice.

Syra tilted her head and paused. “I hope there are more fish than last time.”

“The more you worry,” said Raya, “the more unlucky you are.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Syra said.

Raya gave her a wan smile. Like everyone in the Lame Wolf clan, she was thinner than she had been before winter, her cheek bones angling sharply out. “It might be. You never know.”

Syra snorted, shaking her head. “The fish won’t catch themselves. And nyebya needs the food.”

They didn’t discuss their mother’s lingering cough, or how she had lost more weight than anyone else this winter.

They had spoken about it enough this past season.

So instead, they turned to their fishing.

Stepping onto the frozen river, Syra and her siblings broke the ice with their harpoons.

Raya picked up shards of ice and flicked them and her older brother and sister.

Syra knocked her with the blunt end of her harpoon, while Ngarka ignored them both and pulled the bobber from the narrow hole they’d made.

Carefully but quickly, he extracted the net.

A half-dozen muksun and a yellow-speckled pike flapped around, trapped.

“See?” Ngarka offered a gap-toothed smile. “More than last time.”

Syra cocked an eyebrow at her sister. “My worrying isn’t unlucky.”

“You got lucky this one time,” Raya protested.

Stripping their gloves, the siblings delicately peeled the fish from the net and then dropped them in a canvas bag. All the while, Raya muttered insults about how slow her siblings were at freeing the fish.

Her bare hands burning from the cold, Syra plucked the final muksun from the net just as her sister whistled low under her breath. “Munku is coming.”

“Someone is in trouble,” Ngarka said.

The Lame Wolf Pathfinder, the clan’s leader, sat in her sled, drawn by a pair of reindeer with bells on their harnesses.

Munku tapped her reindeers sides and rumps to steer her sled to the very edge of the river, where she stopped and stood.

Munku was a giantess of a woman, who crowned herself with the preserved head of a gray wolf, its hide cascading down her back. All who beheld her paused.

“Syra, come with me,” she demanded.

Syra just stood there. The Pathfinder had better, stronger vidutana than her to serve as advisors. Syra couldn’t think of any good reason that Munku wanted her.

Ngarka elbowed her, muttering from the corner of his mouth, “Go.”

Swallowing, Syra dropped the fish into the bag and then staggered across the river. She opened her mouth to speak, but Munku cut her off.

“I need you at camp.” The Pathfinder gestured to the sled. “Now.”

You asked questions of Munku sparingly, and you argued only in desperate situations. So, Syra sat in the back of the Pathfinder’s sled, pulling her knees to her chest. Munku tapped her reindeers on the rump.

They rode across melting snow and slick mud back to the campsite.

About 60 Lame Wolf clan members lived in ten myas, conical tents made of reindeer fur and wood.

They were transportable and easy to set up, perfect residences for following the reindeer herds as they migrated south in the winter and north in the summer.

Now, the camp was alive with men and women chipping ice off their belongings, or chopping firewood.

A cloud-white dog chased alongside Munku’s sled for a moment, barking at the reindeer, but it eventually ran off.

Munku’s mya was the tallest and widest, marked with wolfskulls that dangled above the doorflap.

She had killed at least two of them this winter when the starving beasts tried to eat the clan’s reindeer.

Munku had then skinned, boiled, and eaten them.

Yet another reason why any Sarnok – Lame Wolf clan or not – thought twice before crossing the woman.

“Inside.” Munku left the sled and crawled into her mya.

Following her into the tent, Syra was greeted by the smell of heavy smoke and boiling fish so strong that her eyes watered.

Next, she noticed a man with hair like orangebush lichen, sitting on the wolfskin rug.

She bit back a curse. That Ruthenian. He had found them.

And went straight to their Pathfinder? She sucked on her teeth.

If he had gotten her in trouble with Munku, she would personally blacken both his eyes.

Loosening the top button on her coat, Munku sat on a low, cushioned stool before her hearth. “Sit, Syra. This will take awhile.”

Syra knelt. That man approached her in the middle of the night and asked to share her company. Like a pervert. She should have gutted him. Because now, who knew what he had told Munku? That she had been rude to him – a guest? Well, he deserved it.

“This is Viktor Igorevich.” Munku gestured to the orange-haired Ruthenian, who sat with his legs folded in front of him and wore an entirely innocent expression. “He comes on behalf of a Ruthenian lord, seeking our aid.”

I can’t help him. Syra kept her mouth shut and refused to look at the Ruthenian. Viktor.

“A forest spirit has broken free of its domain and now threatens to destroy human homes,” Munku summarized. “Viktor seeks a means to subdue this spirit and return it to its woods.”

A cold, hard lump settled in Syra’s stomach.

The Pathfinder held up her hand before Syra had a chance to speak. “I’m not asking you to give it up. I’m asking you to help him.”

Viktor watched the two of them, his expression almost oblivious. Syra knew he could understand Sarnok. But did he know what they were talking about?

“I buried the thing,” said Syra.

Munku sighed and then spoke slowly as though to a petulant child. “Then, dig it up and help him. That is not so hard. He knows we have it, and he has offered to pay us.”

Syra’s throat constricted. The clan could use the money after the winter they had endured.

But she couldn’t fathom using it. “I dig up that thing and risk everyone within a hundred feet of me. You remember last winter before I buried it. How it gave us nightmares and lured Yeyka out into the wilderness and sent half of our herd running to their deaths.”

“Exactly,” Munku said. “We have half the herd we used to. Viktor has offered us 1,000 silver coins in exchange for the Bone Doll. With that money, we can purchase reindeer from the other clans and rebuild.”

Syra turned to Viktor for the first time. “It whispers and drives you mad. You can’t carry it.”

“You can,” the Pathfinder said. “It has never affected you. Your grandfather thought it was because you shared his magic.”

That lump of ice in Syra’s stomach grew even larger, and she pressed her hand against her abdomen.

Syra’s grandfather had been one of the most powerful shamans in Sarnok history, capable of unfathomable feats.

Before Syra had been born, before her father had been born, her grandfather had traversed the sky to where the stars lived.

There, he had found the bones of a sky spirit and, from it, he fashioned a little doll.

The doll looked like nothing more than a carved sculpture of a genderless Sarnok in their reindeer-skin clothes, but this little doll held untold magic.

Her grandfather could do almost anything by using its power.

Now, it was scourge, a curse.

Except to Syra.

“You will carry the Bone Doll for him,” Munku said. “The Ruthenians will never touch it.”

Syra felt exposed. Munku was supposed to be her ally, but she was willing to feed Syra to a wolf with orange fur for enough silver.

“The Bone Doll will remain safely in your possession,” agreed Viktor. “I have no desire to take it from you. I’m only here to facilitate a mutually beneficial exchange between the Lame Wolf clan and the Lord of Zoldrovya.”

Syra clenched her fists until they ached. “What about me? I do not want to go.”

“You are the only one who can,” the Pathfinder said.

“I do not care about the Ruthenians and their woodland spirit.”

“I can offer an advance,” Viktor said. “250 grivna. In good faith.”

“Your offer is generous, Viktor Igorevich,” Munku said before turning back to Syra. “Your clan needs this. If you will not do it for us, then do it for yourself. Your grandfather used the Bone Doll to augment his powers. Perhaps learning to use it will make you stronger.”

Syra took a deep breath, doubting the Pathfinder’s logic.

“I’ve decided,” Munku declared, setting her jaw in a way that brooked no argument. “You’re taking the Bone Doll to this Lord of Zoldrovya. Bind the spirit back to the forest, and bring back the silver we need to rebuild our herd.” She turned to Viktor. “We will gladly accept your advance.”

Syra opened her mouth to object but no sound emerged. All she could do was stiffly crawl out of Munku’s mya before she found her voice and said something she would regret.