People of the Black Sun(9)
“Not soon enough.”
Hiyawento shifted his weight to his other foot. “Why would you care?”
Ohsinoh’s teeth flashed. He shook the tortoiseshell charm. As it uttered its menacing snakelike rattle, he glimpsed a shadow emerge from behind a broad sycamore trunk, only three paces from Hiyawento. The soft sound of a skillfully placed moccasin carried.
Hiyawento’s shoulder muscles suddenly tensed. But he did not turn.
A contemptuous laugh escaped Ohsinoh’s lips. “You should have killed me when you had the chance, Wrass. Now, it’s too…”
Hiyawento leaped and swung. His war club cut the air like lightning, crushing Ohsinoh’s ribcage. Before Ohsinoh had even fallen to the ground, Hiyawento spun on his toes and lunged for the Flint warrior behind him. The rapidity of Hiyawento’s response had momentarily shocked the tall gangly man. He had his war club up, but he was off-balance, in the process of stepping forward. Hiyawento’s club slammed into his enemy’s, knocking him backward a step, leaving an opening. Hiyawento sprang forward, broke the man’s neck, and danced away. When he was sure it had been a killing blow, he took a deep breath, searched the forest for other foes, and again turned to look at Ohsinoh. His eyes gleamed.
Pain like lightning blasted through Ohsinoh’s chest. He lay curled on his side in the frost-sheathed ferns, his arms wrapped around his crushed chest, groaning. Frothy blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. Gannajero’s hideous charm lay at his side, within reach, but he hadn’t the strength to reach for it. Shock possessed his senses. He could only cough in agony and stare. With each breath, his broken ribs grated against one another.
Hiyawento walked to stand over Ohsinoh like a dark avenging Earth Spirit.
As Hiyawento lifted his war club to finish the job, Ohsinoh gasped, “Sky Messenger’s vision … is false … the storm was … a coincidence.”
Hiyawento’s face betrayed no emotion. He regripped his war club, tightening his hands; it hung in the darkness, stationary, the polished wood gleaming with an edge of moonlit fire.
Ohsinoh chuckled. “You know it … don’t you?”
After what seemed forever, Hiyawento’s deep voice punctured the quiet. “This is for my daughters, witch.”
Hiyawento brought his club down with all the strength in his muscular arms.
* * *
Ohsinoh’s skull cracked open like a ripe melon dashed upon a rock. Hiyawento hit him again, and again, until the soulless witch’s face was unrecognizable. When he finally stumbled back, his fists ached so badly that he had to pry the fingers of his right hand loose from the club’s shaft.
He slipped the club into his weapon’s belt and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. His gaze immediately sought Sky Messenger’s position. His friend had made it unharmed across the battlefield and stood talking with the guards at the gates of Bur Oak Village. The firelight seeping from the village reflected from his round face, giving it a sunlike glow.
Hiyawento nodded in relief.
After the ferocious events of the day, he’d feared someone would wish to kill Sky Messenger. Especially given the whisperings that he was no longer human, but an immortal Spirit. Such claims tempted small men with delusions of grandeur.
It would have never occurred to him that he’d be fortunate enough to find Ohsinoh, his daughters’ murderer, dogging Sky Messenger’s path. The Faces of the Forest must have heard his prayers.
Hiyawento waited until Sky Messenger disappeared inside the Bur Oak gates, then he turned.
On the far southern hilltop, campfires gleamed. His wife, Zateri, the Matron of Coldspring Village, would still be awake, worried, wondering where he was. She’d be holding their last daughter, eight-summers-old Kahn-Tineta, in her arms, grieving, as he was, for all they had lost in the past few days—and no doubt terrified of what the future would bring.
Hiyawento bent down, used the dead witch’s feathered cape to wipe the blood off his war club, and took one last hard look at the body. How strange that he had to reassure himself the man was, indeed, dead.
The white eyes in the middle of the tortoiseshell charm glinted in the grass beside the witch. They seemed to be filled with deadly promise and staring right at Hiyawento.
A chill went through him. He shook it off, and glared at the charm. “Before this night is through, I will have cut your master’s body to pieces and scattered them far and wide. None of his followers will ever be able to recognize him and Requicken his soul in another body.”
Hiyawento lifted his club, and paused, studying the gigantic sycamores that dotted the forest. Each was a lost warrior. They would be watching him now, judging his worthiness.