People of the Longhouse(34)

Sindak swallowed and ripped off another chunk of jerky to chew.

Akio and Ober walked up, Akio panting. “Anything interesting happen?” Akio couldn’t walk more than twenty paces without panting.

Towa shrugged, and Sindak said, “Have you ever heard the name Gannajero?”

Akio said, “No, who is he?”

“She. She’s a Trader who hires men to steal children.”

“Sounds like my grandmother.” Ober gestured over his shoulder to Kelek’s longhouse. “She’s always demanding that we bring back more slaves from our raids.”

“That’s different,” Towa insisted. “Everyone takes children as slaves, but we adopt them into our families. Gannajero, apparently, makes money by allowing them to be used abominably by outcasts.”

“What? That’s impossible! Anyone who would—”

“Wait. I think I’ve heard of her.” Ober’s face suddenly slackened. “When I was a boy, my grandmother told me a story about an evil woman Trader. She said there was a Trader who stole children’s souls and condemned them to wander the forests forever. Could that be Gannajero?”

“I don’t know,” Towa said. “What’s the rest of the story?”

Ober swung his war club up and rested it on his shoulder. The chert cobble on top shone in the moonlight. “I don’t remember much, just that the Trader used a sucking tube—you know, the sort our Healers use to suck evil Spirits from sick people? Anyway, she used a hollow eagle-bone sucking tube to suck out the children’s souls; then she sealed them in a pot and hauled them far from their homes before she blew the souls out into the air again.”

Sindak shifted his weight to his other foot. “So that the souls could never find their villages or loved ones?”

Ober shuddered with disgust. “I guess so.”

“That’s inhuman. If a ghost is near its village, it can see its loved ones now and then, eat the dregs left in the cooking pots at night, and maybe even sit around fires with old friends. But if she releases the soul in an unknown territory, it’s utterly alone, cast adrift among strangers, perhaps even enemies. That’s a fate only truly evil souls deserve.”

“Yes, certainly not the souls of innocent children.”

Sindak tried to imagine what that would be like. Sometimes, usually after an illness, or a hard knock to the head, the afterlife soul wandered away from the body and couldn’t find its way back. Families hired great Healers to go out into the forests, find the lost soul, and bring it back to the body again. If they couldn’t, the soul became a homeless wanderer, forever condemned to travel the earth.

Sindak added, “If I ever meet her, I’m going to kill her as fast as I can.”

“After what Atotarho said,” Towa pointed out, “I don’t think that’s as easy as it sounds. What makes you think you’re smarter than the dozens who have already tried?”

“I’m not smarter. I’m sneakier.”

“Thank the Spirits,” Akio said. “I was so afraid.” He shivered for effect, and Ober chuckled.

Towa said, “This is not a joke, my friends. If Gannajero is behind this, you’d better think twice before crossing her.”

“I’m not good at thinking,” Sindak responded. “If I have to do it twice, I’ll be dead.”

Akio and Ober laughed out loud, and they heard stirrings in the prisoners’ house. Someone cursed, probably Gonda.

“Shh,” Towa said. “War Chief Koracoo and her deputy have to be back on the trail long before dawn.”

Ober hooked his thumb toward the house and whispered, “I don’t think my clan will allow Atotarho to free them. Two summers ago, she killed my cousin, Roton. CorpseEye bashed his brains out.”

Sindak said, “So? You don’t look all that brokenhearted.”

“Yes, well, he was a worthless worm, but nonetheless, my family has sworn a blood oath against her. I am obligated to kill her.”

“Well, don’t do it before you get an approval from Chief Atotarho. He might let Koracoo use CorpseEye on your brain.” Sindak paused. “Assuming, of course, that she can find it.”

Ober’s bushy brows drew together over his pug nose. “Does the chief favor her?”

“Maybe. He was here earlier. He spoke with Koracoo for a long time.”

“About what?”

Towa answered, “We couldn’t hear most of it. Just that our chief fears his daughter is being held by Gannajero, along with the Yellowtail Village children. He has authorized Koracoo to buy his daughter back.”

“Really? For how much?”