The Pursuit

Hitty ran to the stern after ringing the ship’s bell, a few steps ahead of Yutu. He had grabbed his club and was in the process of asking what had happened.

Yutu broke off his confused question when he saw a flash of white a dozen yards away as large swell of water formed. “Something grabbed Noah!” Hitty cried as she pointed at the steward. He was partially above water, but something below the waves was pulling him so quickly waves formed around him.

“A naked woman! She was hiding in shadows, she blew dust in his face then grabbed him and picked him up and jumped! Like a macâhcâhk, for sure!” Hitty spoke quickly, a few shouts behind them as the crew got on deck but Hitty could just barely see Noah’s head as he was brought outside the vision of the ship’s lanterns.

The girl swung her unaaq behind her back, her hands tightening the strap around her shoulder automatically as she said, “They are almost out of sight, tell Cap’n I’ll follow!”

The shouts behind her probably included some orders, but she couldn’t make them out. She also rather doubted anyone, let alone the captain, would let her do what she knew she was going to do. Yutu was shouting a response to the others but Hitty had her feet on the railing by that time. One last look at the wake, fixing the direction of the glimpse of Noah in her mind, and she was in the air.

Part of Hitty was randomly thinking that it was good she wore her hunting harness on watch, it was the only reason she was able to use both arms to swim while her 4 foot long unaaq was securely strapped diagonally to her back. It still interfered with her swimming, but she was always one of the strongest swimmers in the village and she got her stroke down and started angling toward shore.

Based on her suspicion about what grabbed Noah Hitty knew there was no way she was going to be able to swim as fast as that, so instead she focused on keeping the occasional glimpse of movement in front of her for 100 yards until she was at the shore. On the rocky sand, she looked downriver and clearly saw the ripples left from the passage of the naked woman (surely a macâhcâhk?) who had grabbed poor Noah. Unshipping her hunting harpoon she saw the wake was heading north, luckily in the shallow water close to shore now. If the kidnapper had swam across the wide Radisson Hitty would have no chance to follow.

Jogging down the shore, Hitty alternated between looking at her path along the riverbank and quick looks to river to confirm she was still on the trail. The river curved to the east here, but the moonlight was already bright on this cloudless evening and at one point Hitty saw a flash of Noah’s head above the waves.

As she ran, the young Kuniq started thinking about what would come next. She had to get Noah back, clearly, but if it was a macâhcâhk - one of the shifting folk - she had to be careful. They were strong, and clever, and prone to trickery.

Of course, contact with the macâhcâhk had been rare for generations now, so all Hitty had to work on was rumour and legend. The macâhcâhk had always been a solitary people, wary of contact and difficult neighbours in the northern sea.

From the comfort of a boat sailing down the middle of the river the shore looked uniform and empty but running along it in the deepening night was another matter. Hitty moved up the bank to avoid running along the broken shale and sharp stones that formed the beach. From the small folds of grassland a dozen paces from the river - barely hills - Hitty was able to avoid the shrubs and roots that threatened to trip her up. She ran.

Ten minutes passed and the young woman was breathing hard, focusing on her path. The night was silent, and Hitty could feel the sheer emptiness of these lands around her. She was worried that she was already more than a mile from the Nawyet, with no clear plan for calling for help, when she looked at the river and stopped dead in her tracks.

No waves, no view of Noah’s head. No ripples of the wake from his passing, just the random motion of the still river on this windless night.

Catching her breath, Hitty approached the river again, looking back, when she heard some movement in the dark. A voice muttered quietly, and Hitty crouched down and scanned the area.

Perhaps thirty paces behind her a small notch in the riverbank was screened with bushes, but Hitty saw a dim shape in the gloom. A low stone building was hidden away by the embankment of the stony soil and grasses. A sudden smell of smoke and a soft orange glow from a window facing away from the river, then a soft clang of metal and Hitty had found her quarry.

Moving closer, Hitty studied the building. A small home, probably, one that over the centuries was now close to being swallowed up by the river. It was well hidden from the water, a broad patch of broken shale leading into the hill behind it. The opening faced south, a layer of moss forming a short path to the river. There was only the one window and one door Hitty could see, the ‘back’ of the home was blocked by soil from an eroded hill and a thick hedge of spiky blackthorn.

‘No heroic sneaking in and untying the conveniently alone hostage and then sneaking out,’ she thought. She was under no delusions about attacking the woman who had grabbed Noah - sure, she had been naked but if she was macâhcâhk she didn’t need a weapon to defend herself. Hitty was strangely calm, she knew she was too far away from the boat to assume the crew would find her any time soon and knew that she was unlikely to be able to fight the macâhcâhk. Which left her… what? To hide and wait for help that may not come? Make a careful note of the stone house and leave, trusting she would be able to lead the crew back to it in time? It was certain to be difficult to find such a hidden spot along the unending riverbank in the dark, with so many leagues of hilly, featureless shore to search.

A sudden pained groan, a man’s voice, came from the stone home, one that was interrupted by a sharp word of warning, then the sound of metal scrapping over stone.

Hitty stood up. She was the daughter of a proud line of warriors, sailors, explorers. She wasn’t going to hide in the dark and hope while Noah was in danger.

She slowly crossed the sharp stones down the hill, making as little noise as possible. Near the water, she walked toward the mossy carpet, idly wondering why you would spend the effort to make a pathway 10 feet long from the water to the doorway.

On the moss, Hitty approached the doorway, which was covered with the leather skin of a river wolf. She could hear movement inside, glassware tinkling and a woman’s husky voice murmuring.

Her back straight, tucking her wet hair behind her ears and trying to hide her fear behind a mask of confidence, Hitty reached out to the leather curtain and called out, “Ho! I am called Hitty, daughter of Jissika, daughter of Ticasuk! I proclaim myself guest, according to the ways of the Thuule of the Untritilik Kikittak! I ask for succor by the rites of all the peoples of the Ice Sea!”

As she spoke, Hitty quickly pulled back the curtain and walked into the home before waiting for a reply.