“They went north—to Starsky. I can feel it.”
“Why not south? Down toward Serpent City? Once they reach the river, they can go in any direction. Or west, to the Many Paints. For that matter, the Magician might have taken the Mask east, where most of the High Head Clans live. Or to their clans south of the Serpent River.”
“Star Shell has been the spoiled daughter of privilege all of her life. She will run to her father.” Robin was already staring northward, up the wide valley of the Moonshell. That’s the way she will have gone. “But just in case, send scouting parties in every direction. I will take no chances with this.”
Woodpecker exhaled a frosty breath, then trotted back to the warriors and issued orders. >
When he caught them, he’d have to act quickly, take go chances. If possible, he’d kill the dwarf from ambush, give him no opportunity to cast a spell or don the Mask. If ambush was impossible, he’d just walk up, smiling and warm, and dash the Magician’s brains out before the little dwarf could suspect anything.
Robin chuckled at the vision. And then I will have everything.
Influence and status, the Mask … and Star Shell!
He noted Old Slate’s pensive gaze. She was looking at him in the way she’d stare at a dying man. He waved her away with disgust and followed Woodpecker. By nightfall, he’d be far to the north.
The Anhinga were experts at catching alligators, and Pearl had caught more than her share. Her people ate the meat, tanned the skins, and rendered the fat to mix with insecticidal plants. This ointment they smeared on their bodies for protection during mosquito season.
The Anhinga often trapped the alligators alive—at least the smaller ones—and carried them back to camp. In doing so, they used a thong to tie the mouth shut so the animal couldn’t bite, and they bound the legs tightly to the body with cord.
Pearl now knew what the alligator felt like, for the Khota had bound her in much the same way. Like an alligator, she could wiggle, but that was about all. Any respect the Khota might have had for her vanished. Instead of a bride, she had become a war trophy, except that Grizzly Tooth insisted none of the men touch her.
Grandmother, did you know I would be treated like this?
Would you have sold me had you known they were going to carry me bound like a piece of meat?
Desolate, Pearl stared out at the banks of the river. She knew the price of her life, she had watched it pass from Khota to Anhinga hands. She could see her grandmother’s brown ringers tracing the cool surfaces of copper. Each piece of metal would be earned by Pearl’s suffering in a far-off land. Those stroking fingers that glided over the polished metal might have been flay iflg away bits of her own soul.
I Hate you … I spit upon everything Anhinga! She would never look down river again without experiencing that feeling of betrayal.
Patches of snow—the first she’d ever seen—whitened the ground in the shadow of the trees. The eastern bank of the river rose into tall bluffs, their rounded and worn tops blurred by a fuzz of winter-bare tree branches. To the west, the forest grew to the banks of the river. In places she could see back along quiet waterways thick with ice, and beyond them to gray sandstone cliffs that loomed like half-hidden sentries.
A year ago at this time, she’d been on a deepwater Trading canoe, far out in the gulf. The season of horrible storms had passed, and she’d joined some of her cousins, saltwater Traders.
They’d traveled to the islands to obtain tobacco, shells, and sweet cane. If only she were so free now.
Closing her eyes, she could remember the smell of the breeze as the big canoe rose on the crests and slid into the troughs.
How marvelous the water had been, a blue so rich that it hurt the eyes. Dolphins had leaped and plunged, keeping company with their vessel until the head Trader, Bleeding Starfish, had harpooned a young one.
What a fight that had been, the dolphin making wailing sounds and pulling their canoe so fast that water boiled white around the bow.
When they finally landed the puffing prize, it had taken several thrusts of a dart to kill it, the blood clouding the water around them. Without fire, they’d eaten the rich red meat raw.
And then my luck began to turn.
No more dolphins had appeared. The weather had grown worse and the swells had mounted. By the time they’d weath ered the storms and made shore, they were so far off course that it took them weeks of paddling down the coast to reach Anhinga territory.
Bleeding Starfish had known the way. And on that journey, he’d taught her to read the stars and the patterns of the waves.
Beyond the excitement of making the crossing and seeing new lands and people, that knowledge might have been the only good to come from that trip. For within weeks of their homecoming, the Khota had arrived. ;