People of the Longhouse(97)

Odion?

I go rigid.

The voice is inhuman, the haunting song of wolves on a blood trail.

Odion. Are you coming?

Sobs choke me. My eyes squeeze closed in terror. How does he know my name?

Follow me, Odion.

As though my body is moving without my souls willing it, I brace one hand on the ground and I’m rising up, leaves cascading away from me. I sit amid the prickly ash saplings, holding the war club across my lap. After the blackness, the firelit forest seems almost bright.

“Where are you?” I call.

I’m here.

I see him. Shago-niyoh … the Child. Leaning against the trunk of a chestnut. A dark hooded figure. Is it a man? Or a Forest Spirit? He’s tall, broad shouldered. Inside his hood there is only midnight.

Follow me, Odion, he says again, and turns in a sable whirl of cape and heads away through the forest, his steps soundless.

I look around. There is no other choice. I could try to find Wrass, but the warriors will be right behind him now. He may already be dead.

I stand on shaking legs and clench the war club to will courage into my terrified souls. Then I rise and stumble after him through leaf-covered rocks, and over slippery piles of deadfall. Shago-niyoh stays twenty or thirty paces ahead of me, close enough that I can keep following, but never close enough that I can really see him.

When I lurch through a tangle of old vines, I stumble and lose him. The snow-tipped black pine needles reflect the firelight, giving the forest a strange unearthly shimmer.

“Shago-niyoh?” The forest seems to be closing in around me, the trees bending down to stare at me.

A footfall rustles; a sandal crunches in leaves. Warriors!

I spin around on the verge of screaming … but I see only a faintly darker splotch in the night forest. Does he have a hump on his back? Is he an old man? As he moves away, on down the trail, he seems to walk hunched over, and there may be a walking stick in his hand. Clicks accompany his steps, like a stick tapping the ground—or claws on rocks.

I rush after him.

In less than two hundred heartbeats, he’s far ahead of me. Very far. I can barely see him. I run, trying to catch up.

Silent as a shadow, he slides through the nightmare of dark trees, and I swear he’s flying now, sailing between the trunks like an owl on a hunt. Wings whisper … but is the sound coming from him, or somewhere else in the canopy?

Tears trace warm lines down my cheeks. I batter my way through brush, fighting to keep sight of him … and my heart goes cold and dead in my chest.

Ahead, on the deer trail, are four warriors. Coming my way. He’s led me right to a group of warriors. They are marching two girls in front of them, and I recognize Tutelo’s walk. Her head is down. Baji walks beside her, holding her hand. Then I see Hehaka to Baji’s left.

I spin around to look for Shago-niyoh. Where is he? Why did he bring me here? Why doesn’t he do something? Tutelo is his friend, isn’t she?

My gaze flits through the forest, stopping on every shadow, searching for him. Trees sway in the cold wind. Brush rattles.

He has abandoned me.

As the warriors get closer, I hear Tutelo crying … and Hehaka laughing.





Forty-one

Veils of smoke blew around Koracoo’s tall body, drifting past Sindak, who walked ten paces behind her. He cast a glance over his shoulder and saw Gonda and Towa appear and disappear amid the trees. The tempting smells of roasting meat and frying cornmeal balls pervaded the air.

Despite the raucous voices, the clattering of pots, and banging of horn spoons against wooden bowls, there was a strange silence in the wavering firelit shadows of the forest. Wind Mother had stilled to a barely discernible breath, quieting the branches. No owls or night herons called. Sindak’s steps upon the pine needles were ghostly, almost not there.

They had cut across two main game trails as they’d wound around the western side of the camp, and now approached a third. Koracoo took a moment to look down; then she aimed her nocked bow at the trail, telling Sindak to look when he passed, and she continued on.

Sindak slowly made his way to the trail. No wonder she’d wanted him to see. Small footprints covered the mud. Even in the dim firelight, he could tell the children had been running. His gaze followed the deer trail as it curved out into the trees, and his pulse sped up. Reflected firelight danced like leaping giants in the tamarack boughs. He swiveled to look back at the camp, where around thirty children sat—five huddled in a knot, roped together. The braided hide ropes around their necks and hands shone—then his gaze shifted back to the deer trail. Had the running children escaped?

He heard Gonda’s steps closing in behind him, no more than five paces away, and Koracoo had gotten twenty paces ahead. Sindak aimed his bow at the trail, telling Gonda to look, and continued on. He had to hurry if he was going to—