Below them, stretched across the hillside, warriors began rising, dusting off their clothing, and preparing to leave. Sounds of weapons clattering replaced the low drone of conversation.
Thona rose to his feet to stand like a scarred giant behind Kwahseti, waiting to be recognized.
Zateri looked up at him. “Please ask your question, War Chief Thona.”
Thona’s eyes narrowed. He turned first to Hiyawento, then to Waswanosh, as though silently asking what they thought, before he gazed at Zateri with hard eyes. “High Matron, no child could make up such words. We all agree upon that, yes?”
Hiyawento said, “Yes.”
Nods went round the fire.
Thona continued, “If your daughter speaks the truth, as we all suspect, you have been robbed of your rightful position in this nation.”
Waswanosh hesitated, rubbing his chin while he considered. “I agree, High Matron.”
“You must do something about this crime,” Thona said.
Waswanosh nodded. “You can’t just stand by and allow this to happen. Despite the fact that we have the largest and most powerful clan in the nation, it will make us look like feeble fools.”
Zateri turned around to look at Hiyawento. He seemed to be glaring at the ground, but he was seeing something at a great distance, perhaps in the future, or the past. Kahn-Tineta had leaned her head against his broad chest and continued to suck her finger while she glanced around at the adults.
“Hiyawento?”
He looked up with fiery eyes, then they slowly cleared as he returned to the here and now. In a powerful voice, he said, “This only makes a difference if you’ve decided that our nation should be reunited. If we plan to remain as a separate nation, it should be of no concern to us whom the Old Hills People choose as their High Matron. We must define what our ‘nation’ is. Are we the New People of the Hills or not?”
Hisses passed around the fire, Gwinodje shaking her head at something Kwahseti whispered. Thona and Waswanosh stared at Hiyawento with pensive eyes, deep in thought. Finally, Thona nodded in agreement.
Hiyawento said, “Every action we take in the next few days depends upon that decision. If we wish to reunite we cannot, must not, attack our relatives in any of the Hills villages.”
“But what if they attack us?” Waswanosh asked.
“We defend ourselves, but we do not send out warriors to attack them.”
Thona shifted. As his teeth ground, the crisscrossing scars on his face moved like a tangle of white worms. “I do not wish to sit by and allow our villagers to be relentlessly attacked while we bide our time in the hopes that the new High Matron, Kelek, will see the wisdom of reuniting our peoples.”
Zateri noted that he’d said “peoples” not “people.” Thona had already been thinking along the same lines as Hiyawento, assuming that the separation into two nations was inevitable. A similar thing had happened generations ago among the People of the Dawnland. One faction had split off and called themselves the People Who Separated.
Zateri said, “Kwahseti, your thoughts on this?”
Kwahseti ran a hand through her gray hair, and shook her head. “I would hear Gwinodje’s thoughts first.”
Zateri turned to Gwinodje. As all eyes fixed on her, Gwinodje blinked and frowned at the flickering fire.
She said, “I confess that, after Atotarho is dead, I would like to see our peoples become one nation again. We all have relatives scattered throughout the other Hills villages. Frankly, I don’t wish to consider them my enemy forever.”
Zateri nodded, and turned back to Kwahseti. “And you?”
Kwahseti toyed with the cup in her hands. “There is another possibility. If we remain as two nations, and Sky Messenger can create a Peace Alliance between all our peoples, we will still be able to see our relatives—”
“Forgive me for interrupting, Matron,” Thona said. “But that is a very big ‘if.’ I do not believe we should base our decisions upon that possibility. A Peace Alliance is, in my thoughts, the least likely outcome of this war.”
“Yes, probably,” Kwahseti exhaled the words. “But in my heart, it is what I most hope for, and what I am willing to risk almost everything for. What of you, Zateri?”
Zateri’s brow lined. Her gaze went around the fire, studying the tense expressions. At last, she looked at Hiyawento. “My husband?”
Hiyawento seemed to think about it for a time, then he set Kahn-Tineta on the ground, and rose to his feet. As he straightened to his full height, his beaked face went hard. His soft words were powerful, striking at the heart like knives: “Sky Messenger’s vision will come to pass. Elder Brother Sun will cover his face with the soot of the dying world and everything we love will die … unless we do something to stop it. Peace is not an option. It’s a necessity for survival.”