People of the Longhouse(13)

In a clipped voice, Koracoo said, “Do you hear it?”

A few paces away, the leaves whispered.

Gonda braced himself. “Yes.”

Hope swelled fit to burst his chest. They both straightened, and their eyes focused on the leaves. They fluttered. “You go,” he said. “I’ll cover you with my bow.”

Koracoo moved forward on cat feet. The leaves continued to flutter as if from shallow rhythmic puffs of air. Breathing? His heart tightened.

Koracoo crouched down, brushed away leaves, then stopped. In an agonized voice, she said, “Oh, no,” and reached both hands deep into the leaves to pull out a tightly wrapped bundle.

“What is it?” Gonda rushed forward.

“It’s a baby.” Koracoo slumped to the ground and cradled the child in her left arm while she frantically pulled the blanket from its face with her right hand.

Gonda kept glancing up at the forest, his bow still drawn. When he looked down again, a small pale face, framed with black hair, shone within the blanket. The child’s dark eyes were slitted, the lids fluttering as though it was just barely alive. “It’s a miracle that child didn’t freeze to death. The Forest Spirits must have protected it.”

“If we don’t act quickly, the Forest Spirits’ efforts will have been for naught.”

Koracoo rested the baby in her lap, jerked her cape over her head, and pulled open the laces of her war shirt. For a brief moment, he glimpsed her breasts, and it comforted him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Warming her.” Koracoo peeled off the child’s soiled sack—revealing that it was a girl—and tossed the sack into the leaves; then she tucked the baby down the front of her war shirt. “Blessed gods, she’s freezing.”

“Koracoo … we can’t take her with us. You know that, don’t you?”

“If I stand up, can you slip my cape over my head and tie it beneath the baby?”

Gonda slung his bow and picked up Koracoo’s cape. “Yes, but—”

“I’m aware of the problem, Gonda.” Carefully holding the child against her, she got to her feet.

Gonda slipped her cape over her head and then pulled the ends up and tied them around Koracoo’s waist to form a kind of sling for the baby inside her brown shirt.

“Tighter,” Koracoo said. “If I have to fight, I want to be able to use my hands to swing my club.”

Gonda complied, retying the ends as tightly as he could. “If you understand the problem, why are you—?”

“We have to find the nearest village. Fast. This child needs food and shelter. Her afterlife soul is already out wandering the forest.”

Gonda peered at the soiled sack. “The red-and-black spirals mark her as one of the People of the Hills, probably Hawk Clan. If that doesn’t slap some sense into you, I don’t know what will.”

“The nearest Hills village is Atotarho Village.”

Among the Hills People, when a chief died, his clan matron, in consultation with the other women of the clan, selected the new chief, and he was given the name of the deceased man. The new chief was then “raised up” and the dead chief, thereby, “resuscitated.” If the new chief proved unworthy of his position, he could be “dehorned,” and his name taken away. Villages always took the name of their chief, and Chief Atotarho was no friend of theirs.

Gonda said, “Atotarho is an evil sorcerer. We can’t go there. None of us, including the baby, will survive.”

The Hills People were their sworn enemies. In fact—though he couldn’t be sure—there may have been Atotarho warriors with the Mountain warriors who had attacked Yellowtail Village. The Hills and Mountain Peoples were allies and often combined forces to assault Standing Stone villages.

“We don’t have a choice, Gonda.”

“Of course we have a choice. She’s not one of our people. We can leave her here.”

The expression on Koracoo’s face went straight to his heart. Granted, she had just lost her children in a raid and didn’t know if they were alive or dead, but the way she clutched the baby against her made no sense. They could not take it with them.

“I can’t leave her to die,” she said sternly. “Let’s go.”

Koracoo started to walk past him, and he grabbed her arm in a hard grip. “No! If you and I are captured or killed, our children may be lost forever. Leave the baby here!”

Koracoo shook off his grip and glared at him, but he saw bone-deep pain in her eyes. “Very well. We’ll split up. You keep following this trail. As soon as I’ve found a safe place where the baby will be cared for, I’ll catch up with you.”