Page 87 of Moonless

Those three at the river still bother me. I didn’t know a single one of them, and they came down that slope with moonbright in their mouths. The last wolves I couldn’t place left their prints right beside a man’s boots.

Rauk’s looking toward the passage again when I set my empty bowl down, but then he gets up and goes to the preparation stone.

He picks up a fish head.

I stare at it, then at him. It’s on a folded scrap of cloth, picked clean except for a few patches of silver skin along the top. Its mouth hangs open, and the skull’s caved in on one side. Oh, I know that dent. I put it there with a rock.

“Is that mine? The first one?”

“Yes.”

“From the river? The one you tried to catch with your face?”

“You threw it.” He tips it over in his palm to check underneath.

“Into your hands. Your nose interfered.” I get up and come around the hearth with my bad arm tucked in. Turning pulls my shoulder anyway, so I stop next to him.

“I thought you put that with the rest of the scraps.”

“I cleaned it.”

“I can see that. What are you doing with it?”

He looks up from the fish at me.

“I can show you instead.”

He reaches for the lamp near my pallet, lights it at the hearth, and heads for the inner passage, where he stops at the opening and waits for me.

I glance past him into the dark.

“In there?”

He nods.

Okay. I follow him and the lamp. The little stream runs along the path back to the pool, where water’s dripping down through the rock.

“If you’ve made that fish a bed, I’m going to be offended. Mine took several attempts.”

He lowers the lamp so I can see where to put my feet.

“Mind the edge.”

He waits while I get past the pool, then goes around the bend first. I follow the pale bands down his back until he steps out of the way.

Somebody cut shelves into the walls, and there are bundles pushed well back on them with a row of bowls underneath. That’s a lot to keep dry. On the nearest shelf there’s an old shirt laid out flat on a square of hide, with one sleeve turned out.

I stop beside it.

There’s a patch on the elbow, and another thin spot somebody’s gone over with tiny stitches. The cuffs have been pulled straight, and there’s a pair of shoes next to it with the toes facing out.

Clothes nobody can wear.

I said that to his face. Shit.

I keep my hands to myself and look down the shelf. There’s a child’s shoe tucked in against the big pair, with its strap laid over the top. It’s not much bigger than one of Eskan’s. Some little one ran around in that, and the hunters killed them too. I have to look at something else.

Behind me, Rauk sets the lamp on a ledge, so I move closer to the light. There’s a wooden cup with a split down one side, and somebody’s pegged it back together. Keer would’ve thrown it out.