People of the Lightning(179)

The club came down again, and again, pounding him. face-first into the pine-scented forest duff.

In a last desperate act, he got his knees under him, and lunged for his attacker’s legs … .





The hoarse guttural scream woke Diver from a sound sleep. His eyes jerked open, but he lay completely still, staring up at the thatched roof, listening.

Muttering broke out in the village. Several babies started crying simultaneously. Diver turned his head. In the gleam of moonlight, people ran, blankets flapping around their shoulders. Shouts rose from the forest. Woodduck’s hostile voice ordered, “Go back to your shelters! Get away! This is none of your concern!”

“But what happened?” a woman demanded. “Who screamed?”

“Get away from here before I do the same to you! Go on! You heard me!”

More people woke. Men with weapons trotted across the plaza.

Diver filled his lungs with the cool night air. The smell of burning pine wafted on the wind. Diver worked his bound hands, and winced. His raw, rope-burned wrists ached with fiery intensity, as if every frayed rope fiber had been dipped in the lethal poison of coast spurge. Gingerly, he rolled over, facing the plaza.

The entire village appeared to be in motion, arms waving, legs pumping. The three guards around Diver’s shelter turned as one, in Woodduck’s direction. They muttered to each other, voices harsh, speculative.

Gullwing hissed, “Littlehorn, why don’t you and Cloudfish go and see what’s happening? I’ll stay here.”

“Yes, Gullwing.” Littlehorn trotted off with Cloudfish on his heels.

They ran through the plaza, passing a lone woman who stood frozen, long black hair fluttering around her beautiful face. Her gaze had fixed on the point in the forest from which the scream had come.

After a few moments, the woman turned her back, and walked away.





Forty

Musselwhite knelt at the edge of the fire pit, staring at the red eyes of coals that winked when the wind blew. She felt sick to her stomach and cold, despite the warm gusts that rustled through the blossoming golden creeper shrubs which surrounded their camp. The small white flowers flashed with moonlight. Their sweetness perfumed the wind, blending with the tang of pines.

She shivered and looked over at Pondwader to make certain the blanket still covered him. He lay on his back, white hair arrayed like a glistening halo around his head, the blanket under his chin.

She rubbed the back of her neck. All night long she had been lost in a haunted forest of memories. Unable to sleep. The fact angered her. She had learned long ago that on a war walk sleep was more precious than food or water. Without it, a warrior would certainly die. Yet she had spent the past three hands of time in desperate nightmares, twisting away from cast darts, rolling to avoid club blows, running … running with every shred of her strength, but she did not know from what, or to where.

She knew only to whom.

The sandstar pendant moved between her breasts. She tugged on the leather thong and drew it out. Her flesh had warmed the shell. As she tipped it to study the petal-like designs, the surface caught and held the crimson gleam of the dying fire. Such a perilous thing. The past thirty summers had been filled with so many partings, so much death and suffering—this small pendant, too. Why, then, did it bring her such joy?

“Oh, Glade,” she whispered.

A moon before her son’s death, Musselwhite had been sitting on the beach, weaving a basket, when she’d heard Glade’s bubbly giggle. She had turned in time to see the little boy trotting up the shore with the perfect sandstar clutched in his pudgy hands. He’d dropped to his knees, beaming up at her, and lifted the shell.

“For you, Mother. I love you.”

Musselwhite pressed the pendant against her cheek. When Glade had taken sick, madness had possessed her. Every instant of that tragic Moon of Falling Leaves, each flicker of sunlight, each of Cottonmouth’s rages, every touch shared in pain had been woven into the fabric of her souls.

Strange, that those three brief summers seemed more real to her than anything in the past two-tens-and-six summers. Not because she loved them better—she didn’t—but because everything she was today, and everything she would ever become, had been forged there … with Cottonmouth.

She closed her eyes, and tried not to think. Not to imagine how it would be. If all went well, she would glimpse him only from afar. She could stand that. Surely she could. They would not speak. They would not gaze into each other’s eyes. He would never even know she had stood in his village. Not if she could help it. She would get in and out quickly, for both their sakes.

Deliberately, she forced her thoughts to Diver, and a scarcely endurable longing grew in her chest. Diver … my Diver. Her mind drifted back through the long summers to the hot, muggy day when she had given birth to their first son. Diver had knelt at her side through the agony, gripping her hand to transfer his strength into her body. She remembered that she had thought, “Look at those burning eyes. How powerful he is. How composed.” And when their son finally slid out onto the soft blanket, Diver had released her hand, walked several paces away, and broken down into wrenching tears.