A big man pushes through the crowd of warriors. A dark cold man with ghastly scars, his right eye is missing, plucked out by an enemy long ago. The socket has been sewn closed and creates a shriveled pucker in his face.
“Blessed gods, that’s Yenda,” I murmur to Baji.
“Let’s show them our empty hands.”
We both slowly lift our arms.
From out of a locked chamber deep inside me, the sound of shrieks rise … Father drags us out of our beds and orders us to run … burning longhouses … screaming people racing through the firelit darkness … dead bodies. Then standing in the forest, clutching my eight-summers-old sister’s hand, stunned, as enemy warriors round us up and march us away …
At the command of the man who now stands before me.
Yenda, now called Chief Wenisa, led the war party that destroyed Yellowtail Village when I’d seen eleven summers. He is the reason Wrass, Tutelo, and I were captured and sold to Gannajero.
For a time, Yenda just stares at us, as though trying to confirm a suspicion.
I’ve fought against him many times. Bitter and angry, he is a brilliant strategist, careful to a fault, but slippery as an eel, a man who prefers to achieve his goals through torture rather than negotiation. He has no patience for words. He’s built his reputation by destroying opponents.
He cocks his head in a birdlike manner, and stares at me with one blazing eye. “I know you.”
More warriors emerge from the trees. It’s forty to two, and increasing. Now or never …
I shout, “Baji, take Gitchi and run!” as I launch myself directly at the horde in front of me, roaring like a madman, hopefully distracting them long enough for Baji to escape.
“Shoot the dog!” a man shouts. “Quickly! It’s getting away!”
Arrows hiss, loosed from too many bows to count. I don’t make it ten strides before Mountain warriors fall upon me like starving panthers, dragging me to the ground. Fists knock the wind out of me. Feet slam my sides and face. I’m rolling, fighting.
Yenda calls, “Don’t kill him!” and strides up to glare at me. “Yes, I know you, Deputy War Chief Sky Messenger.”
My name flits through the war party in gasps and blurts.
Yenda lifts a hand to his warriors. “Hear me! We have just captured the infamous Standing Stone Prophet! The one known as the human False Face!”
Like a flock of frightened grouses, warriors scuttle backward to get away from me, and a cacophony of hisses and disbelieving voices erupt, filling the air.
Yenda stalks around me, smiling in diabolical glee. “You have all been afraid of this”—he thrusts a hand at me—“this man! Look at him. He’s pathetic! He can’t even defend himself.”
His warriors apparently do not believe him. There is a rush of men and women retreating through the forest. Twigs and branches crack in their wakes as they flee.
Yenda roars, “You weak fools! Come back here!”
When they do not, he turns upon me like a ravening wolf. “Look at him! All of you. He has no Power. He’s just a man!”
At the edge of my vision, I glimpse Yenda’s war club slicing the air. He brings it down on my skull with a crack that every warrior nearby seems to feel in his teeth. Men and women flinch. Then I am hauled to my feet again, half-conscious and disoriented, still struggling. A futile bellow rises from my lungs and echoes down the trail.
With a low chilling laugh, Yenda orders, “Let’s drag him to Matron Jigonsaseh. She may wish to gaze one last time upon her dying son.”
Fifty
The sound of distant voices woke Negano from a dead sleep. As he blinked up at the glittering Path of Souls, he moved his stiff limbs. His exhausted body longed to return to slumber. If he just closed his eyes, he’d be asleep again in less than five heartbeats. He felt himself sinking back and down, his muscles relaxing.…
Then Chief Atotarho’s voice carried: “I don’t believe it! I sent two of my best warriors to kill him. Are you sure it’s him? How would you…”
A man may have answered, but Negano didn’t hear the response.
He exhaled tiredly and rolled to his side to look out across the dark vista where warriors slept wrapped in blankets and capes. Tree-filtered moonlight fell across their bodies in glowing streaks. When the siege had ended, his surviving warriors had fallen into their blankets like lumps of clay. Only a handful of campfires burned. The night had been so warm that fires had been allowed to die and hadn’t been restoked. These were probably breakfast fires, which meant the warriors had been out hunting the darkness for owls and flying squirrels, and the mice that scampered through the piles of old leaves, anything to fill their bellies.