“Human beings are the same as the seeds. All different. And just as no two plants grow up to be identical, neither do human beings. Some, like Dreamers, have old souls, souls that are trained through time and allowed to see things ordinary people can’t. Some souls are women, others are men. Some are meant to be Traders, and others to be warriors.” A twinkle grew in his eye. “And some, of course, are meant to be just stupid.”
“Which am I, Granduncle?” Black Skull had reached down to pull on the old man’s big toe with anxious fingers. The answer was particularly important to him. Earlier that day, the other children had called him stupid after they tricked him into falling into the mud. To make matters worse, he was wearing his best ceremonial clothing. At sight of him, his mother had called him stupid, too. Then the odd light had come to her eyes.
Her broad mouth had hardened, her voice sharpening as she berated him. Louder, always louder, until everyone could hear.
As her rage built, she pushed him, then hit him. When he began to whimper, she kicked him. That day she’d driven him, cowering, out the door. He’d tripped, falling into the mud again.
There, as he was wallowing and pleading, she’d kicked him one last time.
“Stupid boy! Stupid! Live in mud, for all I care!”
He’d lain there—calling on Power to come and save him— motionless, trembling at the expectation of another blow. With eyes closed and mud cold on his hot skin, he’d heard her stalk away, still ranting.
Stupid. ‘ thought of being stupid for the rest of his life horrified him. If he weren’t stupid, maybe Mother wouldn’t beat him.
Granduncle considered, his lips pressed into a serious line.
“I’ve watched you, boy. I’ve seen your soul. You’re meant to be a warrior. It’s in the way you walk, in the set of your head and how you see things. You watch the world the way a warrior does. That’s your gift, boy.‘What you do with it is up to you.
Your mother has tried to beat it out of you. Power gave you the soul of a warrior, but it’s up to you to become one … no matter what your mother does.”
“A warrior?” Not stupid! His mother, his friends, they were all wrong—and Granduncle was right! “How?”
“You must train your muscle and bone. Pain can be controlled, fatigue denied. Skill and balance must be honed, just like a ground-stone ax, lest it grow dull and awkward.” The old man’s eyes had gleamed in the firelight. “Duty, boy. Discipline, order, respect!” He knotted a fist and shook it. “Those things rule a warrior’s life!”
That night had changed Black Skull’s life.
As he paddled, he could still see the old man’s face just as it had been that night long ago. The firelight had turned his weathered skin golden, accenting both the shadowed wrinkles and the tight crow’s-feet around the eyes. The leathery hands had knuckles like walnut burls as Granduncle rested them on his swollen knee—the one the Copena war dart had maimed.
The dart had driven in between the knee bones, just back of the kneecap, and lodged there, leaving the leg forever pinned in that position.
The words had eaten into Black Skull’s soul like termites into a log. “Practice, boy. Be what you are … and let other people be what they must be. To do otherwise is to act against Power.
Follow your way as a warrior, boy. But remember, you must follow it better than any other man. Dedicate yourself. Learn.”
Fire had burned in the old man’s eyes.
Fire, yes. Fire as bright as the day Granduncle had called Black Skull to that last final test. “She’s possessed, boy. The lineage Elders have spoken. Kill her. Are you a warrior … or a boy?” The words echoed hollowly over the years of memory.
War had become his Dance; when he fought, his soul floated free of the darkness of the flesh and surrounded him like smoke.
To be a warrior, however, was more than simply cracking heads and ripping out throats. The true warrior used his ability to think, to win without risking body and limb. The best warrior could defeat his enemies without shedding blood.
That ethic of the true warrior goaded Black Skull now, pricking his soul with poisoned barbs for allowing himself to be lured out of the City of the Dead with the most important men in the world—and only two warriors to guard them.
Those four canoes full of strange warriors had knotted his guts with fear. How easy it would have been for them to turn, to capture the soul of the Four Clans, and the lunatic Green Spider—without more than a minor scuffle.
I couldn’t have stopped them!
The thought twisted Black Skull’s soul around the way a young girl spins cordage from nettle and milkweed.