Heads nodded, but warriors shared uncertain glances with one another.
Saponi looked confused. “What kind of a raid is this?”
“As soon as we’re finished here, I will order every pack in the village emptied and delivered to you. All I expect you to do is find a way to fill them.”
Saponi’s brows drew together. The warriors looked around at each other.
Sindak laughed suddenly, and a slow admiring smile came to his lips. “Blessed Spirits, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, the effect will be utterly demoralizing. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”
Thirty-two
Gonda lay on the third row of benches in the council house, surrounded by around fifty men and women wounded far worse than he, many dying. Most of the victims were children and elders, not trained warriors. Their moans and tears tore his heart.
He squinted up at the ceiling poles and gritted his teeth, trying not to yell as the Healer, Old Bahna, set and splinted his broken leg with oak staves.
“The bone is aligned, now I’m going to tighten the cords to secure the staves,” Bahna warned.
“I’m ready. I think.”
Bahna had survived fifty-three summers. His deeply furrowed face cradled kind eyes. Gray hair draped like spiderwebs over his ears. He’d been working all night, Healing, and his brown cape bore the evidence of his efforts. Blood and gut juices spattered the buckskin. It had probably absorbed a river of tears as well.
Gonda concentrated on the roof poles. Like spokes, they radiated outward from the smokehole. Coal-black soot coated them. The mist outside must be thickening. He could see it glistening through the smokehole, reflecting the fires outside.
Bahna grunted as he jerked the five cords tight, and Gonda gasped, “Blessed Ancestors!”
“All right, Gonda.” Bahna placed a hand upon his forearm. “That’s the best I can do for now. I want you to remain here for at least one hand of time, so I may see how you’re doing, then you may return to the Hawk Clan longhouse. Tomorrow I will send poultices to your wife, Pawen. Ask her to place them on either side of the arrow wound. And be glad,” he added pointedly, “that you were not shot with one of the feces-coated arrows, as so many others were. We found many such arrows lying in the plaza, arrows that missed their marks.”
Gonda propped himself up on his elbows, grimacing as pain shot through him. The five cords around the oak staves had been woven together, creating a kind of net. His left leg was one gigantic aching throb. A minor concern compared to the wounds of everyone else.
“I can leave now, Bahna. I’m all right.”
“No,” Bahna said firmly. “Your leg is going to swell. I need to check on you later, to loosen the cords, if necessary. If Evil Spirits slip into the arrow wound and fester it, I’ll be forced to cut off your leg to kill them. You don’t want that, do you?”
Gonda scowled at him. “I’ll stay. But only for one hand of time.”
Bahna nodded and moved on to the next victim, a little boy of perhaps ten summers. He’d taken an arrow through the head. Gonda did not understand why he was still breathing—but he’d seen similar enigmas on the battlefield, things he’d rather not remember.
Firelight streamed around the entry curtain, and Gonda turned to see Jigonsaseh enter the council house. She stood for a few moments, allowing her eyes to adjust. A very tall woman, she towered over nearly everyone else in the village. Still slender and muscular, her beautiful face had just begun to crease—lines around her full lips, crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. She spotted him as he sat up. She walked forward.
As it had for many summers, the sight of her was like the feel of a war club in his hands; it eased his fears. He could not count the number of times she had saved his life—and he hers. If truth be told, there was no one he trusted more.
Jigonsaseh’s cape, covered with wet ash, moved pendulously as she came to a stop at his side, looking down at him with concerned eyes.
“Sindak told me you’d been wounded.”
Gonda braced his hands on the bench to look up at her. “I swear he’s the worst warrior I know. I ordered him to leave me in the marsh. Instead, he dragged me home. The fool could have been killed in the process, and we need him more than we need me. He’s a powerful symbol of our alliance with Zateri’s—”
“Yes. Yes. I’ve already attended to Sindak’s errors in judgment.” Jigonsaseh sat beside him. “Someday I hope to tell him how much I appreciate his gross disobedience. Assuming any of us live that long. How’s your leg?”
Gonda stared down at it. “Bahna ordered me to stay here for one hand of time, or I’d already have hobbled back to the Hawk Clan longhouse. Tell me how the battle went. How many did we kill?”