I put my head down and walk straight for Bur Oak Village. Though the exterior palisade has mostly been repaired, the inner palisades are little more than a collection of flimsy blackened logs, leaning against one another, ready to topple at any instant. Our People believe that the souls of lost warriors move into trees, and it is these trees that we cut for palisade logs, thereby surrounding our villages with standing warriors. I ache for these lost souls. They must feel as though they, too, failed in their duty to protect the People.
Reed Marsh is alive with birdsong. Snow coats the cattails. They are glistening white stalks in a sea of shallow blue water. I can make out the largest birds that perch upon the stems. Hawks. They sway in the cold breeze, hunting the marsh for breakfast.
Voices drift from inside Bur Oak Village. The council is still in session, awaiting my return. I pick up my pace. Wampa guards the gate. She has seen twenty-four summers and wears a slate gray cape decorated with brown spirals. A war club is tucked into her belt, but she also carries a bow and quiver slung over her left shoulder. She has already cut her black hair in mourning—as I will do later today. It hangs in irregular locks around her oval face, highlighting her wide mouth and narrow lips … which press tightly together as I approach.
I ask, “How is the council proceeding?”
A dusting of dark gray ash continues to fall, coating the snow. Gitchi trots through the gates ahead of me and into the plaza, where he stands looking back, waiting.
Unlike the mourners, Wampa stares straight at me, but there is curiosity behind her gaze, as though she’s not quite sure how to respond to me. Me. A friend of more than fifteen summers. Guardedly, she says, “I haven’t heard much shouting. That’s a good sign.”
“Generally, yes. Though this morning I think it’s because no one has the strength to shout. We’re all still staggering about like ducks hit in the head with rocks.”
As I try to pass by, Wampa grips my sleeve to stop me, and whispers, “Sky Messenger, tell me the truth.”
The warriors on the catwalk above us stop, and start to gather, seeking to listen to our conversation. Four men and two women, bows and quivers slung over their shoulders, look down at us.
“I know very little, Wampa. The council hasn’t decided—”
“We lost around three thousand warriors yesterday. What are we going to do? There are barely three hundred trained warriors left in the entire Standing Stone nation. The rest are children and elders barely strong enough to draw back—”
“That is what the council is discussing, Wampa. Give them time.”
With a faint tinge of panic in her voice, she says, “I’ve heard that Chief Atotarho still has four thousand warriors. Four thousand of the eight thousand he started with. Do you think that’s true?”
The catwalk erupts with the low hiss of conversations.
Reluctantly, I nod, and Wampa swallows hard.
“That’s the best estimate we have. Two thousand of his warriors were from Coldspring, Riverbank, and Canassatego villages—the villages that made peace with us. And we think another two thousand died in the battle. That leaves four thousand. Our scouts tried to count the warriors still alive as they fled through the forest yesterday, but no one knows how accurate that number is.”
She releases my sleeve and slowly lowers her hand to rest on the hilt of the war club tucked into her belt. “Even if the true number is half that…”
She doesn’t have to finish. We both know what it means.
I fold my arms across my chest and stare down at her with my brows lowered. “The great warrior woman hasn’t given up, has she?”
“Of course not. We’re going to survive this. I just don’t have the faintest idea how. The Flint People are leaving”—she flings a hand in the direction of Baji, but I dare not look—“and I’ve heard that Zateri’s faction of the Hills People will also be heading home to their villages. It’s foolish for us to remain here. Maybe we should abandon Bur Oak and Yellowtail villages and go with them?”
I shake my head. “That notion has already been entered into the council, Wampa. Chief Yellowtail suggested it, and High Matron Kittle objected. Despite our hasty battlefield alliance with Matron Zateri’s faction yesterday, Kittle does not trust the Hills People. She said our newfound alliance is too uncertain, and that if we move there and they change their minds, we will be surrounded by enemies. There are so few of us left, we can’t risk it.”
“Then perhaps the Flint People? Chief Cord—”
“He is a good friend, yes. But our alliance with the Flint People is just as precarious. While Cord may continue to support us, we have no way of knowing what the other Flint matrons or chiefs will do once they hear that our nation was almost exterminated yesterday. They may use it as an opportunity to finish the job.”