Star Shell tried to erase the image of Tall Man, his stomach sliced open, the. gray entrails running like snakes to the steaming pot. She’d heard of people being killed that way—about how the cooking guts created pressurized steam that swelled the tubes and tried to vent both ways, until the tissue finally burned through. Except that a master torturer kept that from happening.
Robin was a master. Had the Magician not sacrificed himself, all three of them would be lying up there now, dying. After, of course, Robin and his warriors had taken their fill of her … and of Silver Water.
“Run, baby! Run as fast as you can!”
She clutched Silver Water’s hand and pulled her along as they wound down through the trees, following the game trails that wove in and out of the moonlight.
Star Shell cocked her head, hearing faint laughter. Her spine tingled when she realized that the sound came from within the folds of the wolfhide that bound the Mask.
Four canoes. Ten-and-seven warriors, including himself and Grizzly Tooth. Wolf of the Dead pressed his fingertips tenderly to the side of his head where the Anhinga woman had struck him. This was all that remained of his war party. They had searched up and down the coastline, leaving trail markers—
signals to any other survivors who might reach shore.
Lodged amidst the driftwood, they’d located fragments of the canoes, cracked, splintered, and scattered like the rest of the flotsam. But only two bodies had been discovered as they paddled around the coastline in pursuit of the Water Fox.
Two tens of tens left our homeland. Of them, only ten and seven remain. The knowledge burned in Wolf of the Dead’s head as he looked back at the three canoes following his, paddles flashing in the sunlight.
What a terrible land this was. Nothing but water and sand. In places, the dunes piled high and towering, like cropped-off mountains. On their desolate crests, grasses battled with wind, sometimes winning, sometimes losing to long, concave blowouts that scattered a haze of particles over into a treacherous slip face.
Were it not for their nets and bolas, the Khota would have starved. In the evenings, the warriors dove for freshwater mussels to augment the thin stews of fish, duck, goose, heron, and any other creature prey to their weapons.
“Ahead!” Grizzly Tooth cried with rising elation. “Two canoes … but they’re standing out, thick of hull.” His voice was dropping. “Not war canoes.”
And hence not Khota. Wolf of the Dead raised himself and saw that the boats appeared to be working together, dragging a fishing net.
“Let us go and see,” he suggested. “Look around. Tell me if you see anything else. Any sign of other canoes. Perhaps smoke back in the dunes. Your eyes are better than mine.”
As they approached, Grizzly Tooth scanned the water, as did Wolf of the Dead. Just two canoes? Where did they come from?
They were close enough now to make out the details of the nearest canoe. One man, two women. From -‘the silhouette on the water, the second canoe contained one woman and two men.
Stretching between the dugouts bobbed a line of net floats.
“Greetings!” Wolf of the Dead called, usingtrade pidgin.
“Greetings!” the answer came back in the Ilini tongue.
“Who are you? Where are you from?”
“Tell them we’re from the Hazel Clan,” Wolf of the Dead said. “Try to sound more like an Ilini and less like a Khota.”
“Hazel Clan. Far to the south!”
The Ilini began to haul in their net, bundling it neatly into the boats as they pulled themselves closer to each other. The spokesman shouted, “Have you come to visit? Or perhaps to Trade?”
Grizzly Tooth muttered, “Do you suppose they have a holding somewhere near here?”
“Ask them. If they do, and if they believe that we are really distant cousins, perhaps we can turn this to our benefit. Tell them we’re searching for the Water Fox. That … that he took something that wasn’t his.”
Grizzly Tooth cupped his hands to his mouth. “We’re following a Trader who stole from us. Are your clan holdings near here?” “Two days,” the man shouted back. “What Trader stole from you?”
“The Water Fox. He took a sacred object from our clan house.”
By this time, the fishermen had hauled then-catch to the surface.
Wolf of the Dead could see silver tails flopping in the net.
His stomach growled in complaint. He glanced around, noting the hungry stares of his warriors.
“The Water Fox?” one of the women called. “We’ve heard of him. A man from our clan met him. He’s far to the north by now. You’ll have to travel hard to catch him.”
“There’s another way,” the second woman said, her voice barely audible as Wolf of the Dead’s, canoe closed the distance.