“I hate to say it, Saponi, but it’s hard to imagine how the Standing Stone nation can survive another assault.”
Saponi turned to look at his old friend. Disu had seen twenty-four summers. A thin, lanky man, he stood two heads taller than Saponi, but what Saponi lost in height, he made up for in muscles. His burly shoulders spread twice as wide as Disu’s.
This was the first either of them had spoken since they’d made it to the southern hilltop at midnight, less than a hand of time ago. The future was just too terrible to think about.
“I believe in Sky Messenger’s Dream, old friend,” Saponi said with a sudden fervency. “I believe he can stop this war. Whether he can do it before his own people are gone … I do not know. Perhaps the destruction of his nation is what triggers the unfolding of his Dream. If it is, he’ll pay a terrible price.”
Disu hesitated. His hood, which lay upon his back, waffled in the wind, creating a soft thumping sound. “We’re never going to make it back into Bur Oak Village with this food. You know that, don’t you?”
He squinted at the campfires. “I know.”
War Chief Negano had apparently decided to take no chances. He’d lost many warriors today. Though Saponi couldn’t guess how many, at least two hundred bodies were visible in the flickering firelight. That meant many more lay freezing in the darkness beyond. Rather than moving his forces back to their camps across the valley, Negano must have known that he had to keep the noose tight, or Matron Jigonsaseh would manage to restock the village with food and water. The noose was tight indeed. Camped approximately one hundred paces from the walls, Negano’s warriors completely encircled the village and the marsh. No one could get in or out.
Saponi shifted to brace himself on one elbow so he could look back over his shoulder at the twenty-eight warriors gathered in the shadows. Sixty packs of food made a dark hump behind them, piled in a small clearing surrounded by leafless maples. Soft voices eddied, his men talking over supper, finally able to eat after a long day of tireless effort. They couldn’t build a fire, but they’d filled their fire pots with coals before they’d left Atotarho’s camp. The scent of roasting crickets, being tossed with hot coals, wafted on the cold breeze. That had been the real find today. Ten pots of crickets! Negano must have had warriors out in the forest kicking over every pile of leaves to find them. When parched in ceramic bowls, the crickets had a crunchy exterior and creamy interior that tasted just like crab legs. His mouth watered. They were all starving. They’d spent most of the day hauling food into the forest, supposedly to transfer it to shadowed area beneath the trees where it would stay frozen. Instead, they’d filled as many packs as they could carry back, two each, and buried the rest beneath piles of leaves and branches: bags of nuts and acorns, venison haunches, and rabbits that had yet to be skinned.
Their mission today had been a great success. He hadn’t lost a single warrior, nor had they been forced to kill any of their relatives in Atotarho’s camp.
Disu propped his cheek on a fist, and stared at Saponi with tight eyes. “From what I could see today, they poured a lot of water on the palisade.”
He left the question of how much to Saponi’s reckoning. The glowing holes in the exterior palisade of Bur Oak Village stood as a mute testament; they’d probably been forced to use every drop they had to quench the flames. “Yes, and since we can’t get back with our packs, they have very little food left, too.”
As Wind Woman’s daughter Gaha softly moved around the village, fanning the smoldering logs, reddish light wavered over the bodies piled against the base of the palisade. Including the dead from the battle six days ago—corpses they hadn’t had time to bury—there had to be six or seven hundred bodies total. Even from his position on the hilltop, he could see the contorted arms and legs, bent-back heads, and gaping mouths. White teeth glistened. Over the next few days, as the temperature warmed up, the stench of rotting corpses would become unbearable.
If they have a few days, which I doubt.
Disu said, “How many do you think deserted tonight?”
“I counted a group of around one hundred trotting away up the trail before it got too dark to see. More probably left under the cover of night.”
“I was surprised that Negano didn’t try to stop them.”
“He didn’t want to split his army in half. People would have been forced to take sides. If he’d tried to stop them, another two or three hundred warriors would have sided with them and left, too.”
“You’re probably right. I always liked Negano. To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for him.”