As though to affirm her suggestion, the yips and growls of the huge army moving across the valley outside penetrated the palisades, and the warriors on the catwalk muttered darkly. Several nocked bows. Other’s reached uneasily to dip cups of water from the pots hanging from the palisade wall, getting one last drink while they had a chance.
Jigonsaseh’s eyes suddenly cut to Sindak. “If that is his intention, we are no good to him dead. He needs us alive to work the fields, to build new longhouses, to repair his vast new territory and help to guard it.”
Sindak nodded. “A few of you, at least.”
“Does that mean he plans to negotiate? Is that why he didn’t attack last night?”
“Well”—Sindak’s head waffled—“you know as well as I do that night attacks are unwise. In the darkness, it’s hard to tell your own warriors from the enemy’s. Too many accidents happen. The only thing night is good for is sneaking warriors closer to their targets. As to whether he plans to negotiate your surrender…” He shrugged. “If so, why didn’t he send a messenger to you yesterday?”
Gonda’s souls sifted the information, trying to think like his enemy, and a feeling of impending disaster seeped through his veins. “Maybe he plans to wait until we’re desperate enough to give him everything he wants. When our food and water run out, when our warriors have no more arrows to let fly…”
He let the conclusion hang.
“Anything he wants?” Kittle asked. “Including Sky Messenger’s dead body?”
“Or live body. He probably thinks Sky Messenger is still in this village.”
The litter bearers reached the inner palisade gate, and the warriors on duty obediently checked with the second palisade guards to confirm it was safe to exit, then swung the gates open. The guards had been instructed to allow the dead to be transported beyond the walls, for as long as it was safe to do so, to keep the plaza from becoming filled with rotting corpses.
Gonda watched the middle palisade gates swing open. As the litter bearers moved toward the exterior gates, he returned his attention to Sindak. “You realize, don’t you, that in the end Atotarho will also demand that we turn over you and your warriors?”
Sindak gave him a level stare. “I do.”
“Well,” Kittle exhaled the word. “I give you my oath we won’t do that.”
Sindak smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s nice to hear. However, High Matron, there will come a time in the struggle when the circumstances will require that you make a choice between my people, and your own villagers. I assure you, it won’t be hard.”
Kittle’s eyes flashed in indignation. “If you were intelligent enough to allow us to adopt you into the Standing Stone nation, that choice would cease to exist. You would be my villagers.” Her eyes blazed. “And in the future, do not presume to tell me what I will or will not do, or your next sight will be from high up on my longhouse wall.” Meaning she’d keep his severed head for a trophy.
A breath of icy wind swept the plaza, swirling up snow, and sending it gusting about.
Jigonsaseh clutched her white cape beneath her chin. “With respect, Kittle, adopting Sindak and his people may change their status in our own nation, but it will also obliterate their status in the eyes of the Hills nation. Right now, though they have opted to fight on our side, the Hills nation may reunite and the new Ruling Council may forgive them. Especially if there are other Hills matrons and chiefs who think Atotarho is insane—”
“And there are,” Sindak said.
“However, if Sindak and his people become sons and daughters of the Standing Stone nation, it’s treason. A death penalty.”
Kittle cocked her head slightly, as though seeing an opening to Sindak’s vitals. In a soft deadly voice, she said, “I want to know the names of every matron and chief who thinks Atotarho is insane. If we can win them to our side—”
“I’ll give them to you.”
Sindak and Kittle stared at each other.
As the exterior palisade gates groaned open on damp leather hinges, the litter bearers trotted outside. Elder Brother Sun was still below the horizon, but a yellow halo arched into the eastern sky. The shadows of the hills scalloped the valley, and the dismantled ruin of Yellowtail Village glowed sadly, its palisade missing in too many places to count. The last two rings of palisades remained upright only because the gaps were held together by the catwalk. Through one of the gaps, Gonda spied movement, low to the ground, probably dogs hunting the ruins of the refugee shelters that had been built between the rings. Piles of debris cluttered the bent pole skeletons, which leaned precariously. Many of the ruins would collapse in the next strong wind.