The light winks again and vanishes, heading into a grove of birch saplings.
I glance back at Gitchi. He hasn’t moved. His coat shimmers in the newborn light as though strewn with crushed amethyst. From this position, I can’t see where his eyes focus. He seems to still be looking at the aspens, some fifteen paces ahead of me and to my left. If so, he’s not looking at the flashes, but at something else.
Maybe there are two men out there.
I squint at the dense stand of birch saplings that create a slatted white wall, interrupted here and there by black streaks of forest background. The only motion now is a tremble of old leaves clinging to branch tips. The flashes are gone. Which may mean the man has stopped moving because he’s sighted his prey.
Me.
Wind Woman’s breath carries the rich mineral scent of the forest floor at dawn, which tastes like iron on my tongue.
If I continue on this path, the space between my hiding place and next tree trunk is three paces. Without knowing where my opponent stands, that is a killing space. By the time I reach the next maple, I will have been in the clear for three heartbeats. He can easily aim and let fly.
I’d be smiling right now if I were him. I’d inhale through my nostrils, and hold my breath, anticipating the moment my enemy tried to step to the next tree.
I …
Brush thrashes, followed by a hoarse surprised cry, then a man shouts, “Stay back!”
He lunges from the aspens, releases two quick arrows at something behind him, then whirls and flees through the maples with his buckskin cape flying. He keeps glancing over his shoulder in terror. When he charges into the open, he sees me, gives me a wild look, and shouts, “For the sake of the gods, don’t you see it? What is it?”
The faint whisper of an arrow lances the dawn, followed by a meaty splat.
The man grunts and careens forward, tumbling face-first to the ground, rolling several times before he can stop himself. The arrow has punched its way through his cape just above his heart. His voice turns into a high-pitched breathless wail. “It—it’s coming! Help me!”
Sobbing, he manages to shove up on his hands and knees and struggles to crawl away.
I shout, “Gitchi!” and burst from cover, pounding for the man as I search the forest for whatever has so terrified him. There must be another warrior out there, or perhaps a bear, or one of the flying heads—fearsome Spirit creatures with long trailing hair and great paws like a bear’s.
Gitchi leaps up and streaks out ahead of me, his lean, muscled body cutting a deadly swath through the pale lavender light. At the very edge of my vision, I catch sight of Baji leaping deadfall as she dashes for our enemy. She’s slung her bow and grips her war club in her tight fist. Gleaming waist-length hair bounces across her back as she runs.
“Gitchi, don’t kill him!” I shout. “Just guard!”
Gitchi leaps around the man in a snarling bristling blur. If the warrior even tries to grab for a weapon, Gitchi will tear his throat out.
I reach the man before Baji does. Hills People markings cover his cape. He lies on his back, his panicked eyes wide and unblinking. Blood already bubbles at his lips, rising from his wounded lung. He has a severe triangular face with a nose so thin the bones appear to have been removed. When Baji arrives holding her bow nocked and aimed down at his head, the man lets out a shrill cry and tries in vain to slide away from her.
I kneel beside him. “Who sent you? Chief Atotarho?”
Only his eyes move, sliding to me in dazed confusion. He chokes out the words, “What … is … it?”
Thinking that he means he didn’t hear me, I repeat, “Did Chief Atotarho send you to murder me?”
His gaze returns to Baji and his eyes go so wide they resemble those of the flying squirrel, too huge for his face, bulging slightly from their sockets. He tries to speak again, but falls into a coughing fit that spatters gouts of blood across his chest and face. As the life drains from his eyes, a red pool spreads around him, looking faintly blue in the murky gleam.
Baji slowly releases the tension on her bowstring and her aim moves aside. “He was less than one heartbeat from killing you,” she says, “when he suddenly went crazy and started shrieking. What do you make of that?”
I rise to my feet and frown down at him. “I think his soul was loose, Baji. That explains the strange light I saw.”
“You saw a light?”
“Yes, winking in the trees. When a person’s afterlife soul is loose, it tries to stay as close to the body as it can, hoping to be allowed back inside. The flashes must have been his soul chasing after him.”
Gitchi growls and edges forward to sniff the man’s eyes. Bits of wind-blown forest duff stick the wide orbs. After Gitchi has convinced himself that the enemy is dead, he backs away and drops to his haunches, patiently awaiting whatever comes next.