People of the Masks(10)

“We will make camp up this trail—”

“To the north? But our war canoes are to the east, on the shore of Leafing Lake.”

“We are not going home. Tomorrow, at dawn, we will start tracking down the survivors. I want Lamedeer.”

“We have no orders to track down survivors!” Elk Ivory objected. “The matrons told you to—”

“Do not argue with me, old woman!” he shouted, and his voice rang above the roaring fires. The dreadful laughter of the men ceased. Heads lifted across the plaza. Jumping Badger pointed at Elk Ivory with his fist. “Just obey my orders. Or you will suffer the consequences.” He opened his fist to the bloody plaza, and a small cruel smile curled his lips.

He turned and walked away up the trail. Firelit shadows fluttered around him.

Elk Ivory glared at his back until he vanished over the crest of the hill, then she let out the breath she’d been holding, and fought to quell her anger.

Gods, she wished Blue Raven were here. He could stop this. He would stop this.

She bowed her head and shook it.

If only he had remained a warrior.

But he hadn’t. He had become the village Headman. She still found that fact strange. As a boy, he’d longed to be a great warrior, to marry and have many children … as she had.

He’d done none of those things—though he’d been a good warrior for a few winters.

Her thoughts drifted to the warm days of her youth, to lazy afternoons of love on the soft newborn grass near Walksalong Village. The thrill of his eyes upon her had been intoxicating. Blessed Spirits, she had loved Blue Raven with all her strength.

A raucous laugh went up from the plaza.

Elk Ivory’s eyes narrowed as she watched a man fling a dead baby into the darkness.

She folded her arms tightly across her breasts, and braced her feet. Her thoughts turned bitter as hate filled her up inside. Hatred for Jumping Badger.

Soon, she would not be able to obey him, despite his position as war leader.

When that moment came, she would have to kill him.





Mossybill threw out his blankets beneath the same blackened, lightning-riven hickory where Skullcap sat, his eyes fixed on the False Face Child. Skullcap had unbraided his hair and the waves framed his narrow face, accentuating the size of his bulbous nose. The young warrior looked stunned, as if he’d been struck in the head with a tree limb.

Mossybill massaged his aching kidney, then stretched out on his blankets. Just after they’d run out of Paint Rock Village, a snarling, barking dog had leaped for Mossybill’s throat. He’d turned quickly, but the dog had crashed into his back, and knocked him flat. Fortunately he’d been able to draw his knife, and kill it before it really hurt anyone, but he’d been peeing blood all day.

Irritably, Mossybill said, “Skullcap, what are you looking at? He’s just a boy. Nothing more. If he were as powerful as his people claimed, would we have been able to capture him? Eh? Think of that.” Mossybill laughed.

Skullcap didn’t even blink. Deep wrinkles etched his young forehead, and his dark eyes took on a frightening look.

Mossybill dug around in his pack for a length of venison jerky.

They could not risk lighting a fire in case survivors of the Paint Rock slaughter had followed them, and the jerky made him long all the more to be home in Walks-along Village with his family. As she did after every raid, his wife, Loon, would cook him a feast, and drape their best hides around his triumphant shoulders. His proud children would crowd around him, asking him a hundred questions about the battle.

He bit into the jerky, and chewed hard to work some juice into the dried meat. “Skullcap?” he repeated in irritation. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been staring at that boy for—”

Skullcap’s eyes widened. “Don’t you see it?”

Mossybill lowered his jerky. “What? I don’t see anything.”

The False Face Child lay curled on his side five paces away, his feet drawn up behind his back, his hands tied to them. By morning he’d be in agonizing pain, but it couldn’t be helped. Jumping Badger had given strict orders that they were to take no chances that the boy might escape. The child had not made a single sound in two days.

Skullcap swallowed hard. “There’s … something … in his eyes. It’s alive. I swear it, Mossybill. Look! Sometimes it flashes!”

“Flashes?”

“Yes! Look!”

Mossybill made a disgusted sound, and ripped off another bite of jerky. From Mossybill’s angle, the boy’s face was in complete shadow. He couldn’t see his eyes at all. “You’ve lost your wits. Try to get some sleep. You need it.”