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"Sharh. Go inside." Jonh gestured with his chin toward the warm crevasse where the rest of the family had disappeared.
Inside the cave was warmth and food – enough deer meat for everyone to eat to a painful stomach, everyone. More meat filled a cave nearby, already frozen solid, full to the very entrance. That was how the year had gone. No one had gone hungry since Sharh had joined them at the end of Longest Night the year before; he seemed to think like a deer and knew where to find them even when they were scattered to their summer grazing. Every hunt brought back meat and bones and hides. Fewer of the family got ill and of the adults, only old Dersah had died in late winter. Everyone had new clothes and tools and weapons. More of the babies born lived, and nursed alongside their older siblings with no fear of the mother's milk drying up for lack of food; old Vanh had laughed at how busy she'd been all year, delivering babies. Giving the stranger food and fire and shelter had been the wisest decision Jonh had ever made.
During the days of hot sun they had travelled to the mountains where Sharh had lost his family to a hailstorm; the tracker had found the rotted remnants of the camp hides and the bones of his kin, their cracked and dented skulls proving the truth of Sharh's story. On Longest Day they laid all the bones in a grave with the skulls toward the rising sun and blanketed them with flowers before covering them with a whole reindeer hide, head and antlers still on. Gergh beseeched the god-deer to be kind to the people who now hunted in the land of the dead, and to send fat slow deer to their spears and axes. Sharh had sung in his strange language when everyone covered the mound with earth and stones; he had never again spoken a word of a tongue he alone now knew, and returned to tracking deer on the plains with Jonh's family.
A full turn of the seasons was done. Now the sun was nearly gone and Longest Night was upon them.
The big fire at the cave mouth would keep everyone inside warm and safe from the demons that prowled the land on the longest, coldest night, and its heat and brightness would remind the sun to come out of hiding when the demons were gone. The fire must be kept burning all night, or the sun would never return and they would stay in cold darkness forever. Jonh was the fire-tender; this was how he defended his family now that he could no longer hunt. And for a whole year he had not done it by himself.
In reply the tracker jutted his lower lip at Jonh, swept one hand across his face then thumped his forehead with a fist, before striking his breastbone with a hand and jutted it toward the ground by the fire. You are not my chief. I will sit here.
Ignoring the small spear-jab – Jonh's injury had made one arm too weak to hold a weapon and Gergh was now chief in his stead – the firewatcher replied. "You speak our language well now, Sharh. You don't need signs the way you did last year. Longest Night fire duty is dangerous and cold. It's not like fire-watch on other nights. You should be inside eating marrow and mating the women who ask you, and sleeping with a full stomach."
In return the tracker made a sound like spitting out a bit of gristle. "No demons out any other night. I will stay here and look for them."
Warmth that had nothing to do with the bonfire filled Jonh to his bones. Fire-watching had not been lonely this whole year, and not even Longest Night would keep Sharh from sharing the duty. Perhaps Jonh could teach Sharh some new words.
The sun was a drop of fire on the horizon; everyone shouted and cried, reminding the sun to come back and not forget them, and the kids ran into the cave just before the last sunlight was gone, the adults behind. Only the firewatch and the tracker were left.
Jonh laid four long reindeer bones in the fire; that fat roasted marrow would be good in the bitter cold. Sharh kept his eyes away from the blaze and into the darkness, defying any sun-swallowing demons to come near his new family. Without looking at Jonh he spoke. "I have something for you."
Jonh grinned. Sharh received the deer's livers for his share as tracker, and had gotten so many he shared them among everyone rather than eating them all himself – there were even frozen livers in the storage cave. A broiled liver smeared with marrow was a feast. "I'll cook it for both of us."
"It's better than liver." Sharh grinned.
What could be better in the winter? Milk and eggs were only in spring, honey in the hot months, fish eggs in the autumn. A reindeer tongue would be delicious, but that meant stewing and they didn't have a pot.
Sharh gave Jonh a slab of something wrapped in a furless rabbit-skin, about the size of two men's hands.
Jonh pulled the hide away, and gaped at the dark slab of honeycomb.
"This is from the mountains. I gathered this on Longest Day, while you were collecting flowers to bury my family. Flowers have something to do with honey, I am sure of it, because honey tastes differently when there are different flowers. Someday I will understand. Eat honey with me, Jonh my brother."
That was better than the honey – and the honey was very, very good.