Koracoo walked around a fallen log and saw, behind it, a smooth grassy meadow dotted with boulders. On the far side of the meadow, the mountainside sloped steeply upward. Several trees were down, probably blown over in last moon’s storms. Their roots, ripped from the earth, stuck up like dark crooked arms reaching for the heavens.
Koracoo’s breath, her heart, and time itself seemed to stop. As if he’d heard something, Sindak looked over at her, then out into the darkness. For a long while only the hissing of her breathing filled the silence.
Then at the meadow’s edge, near the blown-down trees, something glimmered.
She cautiously walked toward it. Sindak seemed to understand. He shifted his course to intersect her path.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet. A flicker, like a shiny string of polished blue beads had caught the light just right.”
As they approached, walking side by side, that twinkle came again, brighter this time, as though a stream of pale blue fire had raced down the length of the object.
Sindak murmured, “I see it.”
Koracoo put a hand on his wrist, stilling him. “Let’s go carefully now. It could just be a vein of quartz crystals unearthed by the falling trees, but it could be a decoration on a warrior’s cape.”
As they edged toward the twinkle, Koracoo saw a moose. It skirted the edge of the meadow in the distance, its eyes flashing as it trotted off.
“Stop!” Sindak hissed suddenly and thrust out an arm to block her way. His gaze had fixed on the snow two paces in front of them. “Do you see it?”
“What?” She searched the snow … and saw an unnatural shadow, running straight as an arrow’s flight to connect with the pale blue line that sparkled at the base of the downed trees.
“It’s a trail,” Sindak said. “A deep trail. Despite the snow, you can still see the swale left by the passage of many feet.”
Koracoo tried to fight down the hope that rose sweet and hot in her breast. “Let’s make certain.”
She went to stand over the swale. It was wider than it looked—ten hands across. Starlight glimmered from the frozen edges of the trail like white paint. “Whoever made this path is walking out in the open, going through meadows and probably across bare rock, loosely paralleling the trails.”
“That’s why we’re having such a hard time staying with them. Should I wake the others?”
“No. Let them sleep.” She propped her left fist on her hip. “We don’t know that this is the children’s trail. It could have been made by any stealthy war party.”
“But you think it’s their trail,” he said.
“Yes,” Koracoo said. “But we won’t know until we can really examine the tracks. Come on. Let’s go back. I’ll start my watch, and you can rest. At first light, we’ll pick up right here.”
They walked back to camp, listening to their feet crunching the snow.
When they reached the pine, Sindak stopped and extended his hand to touch CorpseEye, but his fingers halted a hairbreadth away. “Is this all right?”
“You may touch him.” Koracoo extended the club.
Sindak touched the cobble head, then gently ran his fingers over the carvings in the wooden shaft. An expression of wonder came over his young face. Could he feel the warm heart that inhabited the club?
Sindak said, “We’d have never found the trail without CorpseEye. At dawn, we’d have headed back to the fork in the trail, and gone the wrong direction.”
She smiled faintly. “If this is the trail.”
Sindak removed his hand and clenched it, as though to hold onto the sensation; then he looked at her.
Something about the softness of his expression touched her … and worried her. She’d seen that look before in the eyes of young warriors. Usually it was youths who had seen fifteen or sixteen summers. Sindak was a little old for this, but he knew her less well. At this point, it was just attraction, but if his gaze began to get that worshipful glow, she would have to do something about it. And afterward, he would never look kindly at her again.
“Get some sleep, warrior,” she ordered.
“Yes, War Chief.”
Sindak ducked low and crawled beneath the pine into the firelight. He pulled his rabbit-fur blanket from his pack and stretched out beside Towa. Towa said something too low to hear. When Sindak answered, Towa smiled.
Their conversation woke Gonda. He grumbled, threw them hateful looks, then flopped to his opposite side and went back to sleep.
Koracoo spread her feet, heaved a sigh, and watched the trail.
Twenty-four
Odion
Gannajero’s shrill voice makes me sit bolt upright. Crystalline snowflakes fall from a lavender sky.