Page 4 of The Bone Doll (The Ruthenian Chronicle #1)

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 she still heard 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, their mya, 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.

By sunset, a fierce northern wind swept through the trees.

Gritting her teeth, Syra wished she was back in her mya, sheltered by reindeer hides and warmed by a fire.

And the place Viktor found for a campsite was lackluster.

Only a few thorny, leafless bushes served as cover, letting the wind buffet them mercilessly.

Viktor cut branches and then struck his unmarred blade against his flint.

But the fire was stubborn, the wind blowing it out repeatedly.

Syra kept her advice to herself, setting out her bedroll. The Ruthenian finally got it.

“All I have is a small bag of dried bilberries,” Viktor said.

Syra would have complained, except he had given the rest of his food to her clan. It seemed wrong to belittle him for that kindness.

So, she begrudgingly accepted half of the berries, and shared the last of her salted fish. It wasn’t enough, but she knew better than to complain in lean times.

After their meager supper, she crawled into her sleeping roll with her back facing him, as she had every night since this ludicrous journey had started.

She listened to him set out his own bedding – across the fire from her – and tried to read the stars through the trees.

Her exhaustion caught up to her eventually and she drifted to sleep.

Her sleep wasn’t easy. Syra tossed and turned, plagued by nightmares that she couldn’t remember.

After one particularly frightening episode, she sat up in her bedroll, panting.

The fire was nothing but embers now, and the air was frigid.

Her teeth chattering, Syra rubbed her arms in an attempt to get warm.

That was when she noticed humming against her abdomen. She unbuttoned her coat. It was the Bone Doll. Syra slid it free from her pocket, and its carvings glowed beneath her fingers. She had never heard it hum before.

Something moved in the forest. Carefully extricating herself from her bedroll, she padded towards the movement.

There, amongst the trees and shrubs, a creature crouched.

It had hair like gleaming copper and a heavy brow that shadowed its rowan berry-colored eyes.

Slowly, it peeled back its bloated, red lips to reveal a set of teeth filed down to points.

It made a clicking sound like a cicada and shuffled towards her on its feet and knuckles.

Syra staggered back. This was a spirit, but not one she knew.

And she did not want to risk an encounter with an unknown creature.

Her fingers tightened on the Bone Doll. She remembered how her grandfather, his clothes rattling with wolves’ teeth, bound a snow spirit to its storm, ending a seven-day blizzard.

Syra was not strong enough for that magic, so she tried something else – her grandfather’s dispelling chant.

The world is ash, our hearts are stone.

Go! Return to your rightful home.

She hissed as the Bone Doll suddenly seared her hand, the pain racing up her forearm. What was happening? She concentrated and said the words again.

The red creature clicked. Then, the trees rustled and it was gone.

The pain in her hand eased, and the Bone Doll stopped glowing. She stared at it for a long moment. Had her magic … worked? Maybe Munku was right: the Bone Doll would augment her powers?

Viktor propped himself up on his elbow. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she lied. “I just had to pee.”

Syra turned away from him and pulled the blanket over herself. The Bone Doll had hummed. And then that creature appeared. A shiver passed through her. Had it warned her?

She closed her eyes and tried to think of something else.

She didn’t manage to sleep the rest of the night, so she dragged even further behind Viktor the next day. And she had to stop every once in a while to scrub the exhaustion from her eyes. When she did, she glanced around, searching for any other strange spirits but finding none.

When she looked back to the road, Viktor was walking slowly, his gait slightly stilted like had a hidden limp. She had nearly caught up with him despite her own trudging pace. Syra tried to slow even further, but then Viktor stopped. Sighing loudly, she let him fall in alongside her.

“Do the Sarnok tell any stories?” Viktor asked.

Syra gave him a sideways glare. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you tell stories – about the gods or heroes – to pass the time?” he said.

“All people do that.”

“Tell me one.”

She shifted her pack on her shoulders. The man with the orangebush hair wanted to hear a story? Fine. “I’ll tell you a children’s story. Hopefully, you’ll be able to grasp it.”

“I do hope so.” The corner of his lips twitched.

“Dog lived by himself in the southern forest,” she began.

“And he was lonely. So he left his house and went to look for a friend. He first met Eagle, who lived in the southern forest too. Dog asked to share a house with Eagle, and Eagle agreed. And so Dog climbed up into Eagle’s nest. But at night, Dog started barking and Eagle told him to stop: bad things roamed in the dark.

“Dog thought to himself that Eagle was proud but cowardly at night, and so Dog set off to find a braver friend. Also in the forest, he found Owl, who also lived high in the trees. Owl wasn’t scared of the dark. But when Dog barked in the daytime, Owl told him to stop: Fox might hear them.”

Syra felt ridiculous prattling off this children’s story to an adult man, but he had asked for it.

She continued the story: Dog lived with other animals, but found each too cowardly for his liking.

So Dog continued wandering until he found Human, who was not scared of anything. And Dog lived with Human still.

“That is an interesting choice of animals,” Viktor said. “Eagle, Owl, Fox, Wolf, Seal.”

“They’re sacred animals,” Syra said. “There’s the Deer, too.”

“But Dog didn’t live with them?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Deer was dead by then.”

Viktor didn’t ask any more questions after that – which was fine by Syra – and so they walked several more miles until the forest thinned, giving way to a broad but shallow river.

While her companion filled his waterskin, Syra forded the river to scrape reindeer moss from a boulder on the far side.

It was not a particularly tasty or nutritive food, but it would fill her belly.

Scooping water into her soapstone bowl, she climbed the bank and then started a small fire, over which she boiled the moss.

Crossing the river, Viktor found his own place to sit a dozen or so feet away from her.

Using a twig to stir her strange concoction, she silently acknowledged the moment of privacy.

Again, her stomach knotted. She had never been away from her family for more than two days.

She had been gone five days now. Not only was she homesick, but she worried about her mother’s persistent cough, her siblings’ ability to fish and trap without her help, her father’s reluctance to sell the wares that he carved, and her newborn nephew surviving until summer. She scrubbed at her stinging eyes.

Her water boiled over.

The contents of her bowl were nothing more than dark mush, but it meant the moss was edible. Rummaging in her pack for her spoon, she glanced at Viktor, who stared emptily at the river.

Syra grunted and, taking her bowl, strode over to the Ruthenian.

“There’s enough for two,” she said.

His gaze climbed slowly from her boots to her face. “I didn’t ask you to cook for me.”

Syra folded her legs and sat. “I cooked for myself.”

“Still.” His eyes were the color of hardening sap, the midday light catching on flecks of brown and orange. For a moment, Syra wanted to know what he was thinking. “Thank you.”

“Eat,” she said. “It doesn’t taste good, but it’s something.”

Viktor didn’t speak as he ate, his movements efficient and economizing.

He reminded Syra a bit of a stray dog. An unfamiliar pang touched her heart before she shook herself and swallowed down the bitter-tasting moss.

She didn’t need to imagine him as anything but the man who had taken her away from her family.