People of the Masks(11)

Skullcap eased down into his blankets, but his gaze remained on the False Face Child.

As though the boy knew it, he lifted his head. A smile turned his boyish lips. “I’m going to kill you,” he said. “Soon.”

Skullcap jerked his blankets over his head and curled into a tight ball on the ground.

Mossybill sharply ordered, “Don’t try to frighten us, boy! We are two of the greatest warriors of the Walksalong Clan. If we wish, we can carve out your liver and eat it for breakfast!”

Soft childish laughter echoed through the stillness.

Skullcap whimpered, and the sound enraged Mossybill.

He rose, tramped over to the boy, and viciously jerked on the child’s ropes until they cut into his wrists and legs. The boy didn’t utter a sound, but Mossybill saw him squeeze his eyes closed in pain. Mossybill grinned as he twisted and secured the ropes in their new position.

“There,” he whispered in the boy’s ear, “learn the price of offending the Walksalong Clan. By morning, you won’t be able to use your arms or legs.”

Mossybill strode back toward the charred hickory. He started to roll up in his blankets, but a strange sound made him go still. A deep-throated sound, like an animal’s growl, a wolf about to attack …

“You will die first, big man,” the inhuman voice said. “Writhing in agony.”

Mossybill lunged to his feet, breathing hard, and looked around.

“Who said that?” he shouted into the darkness. His gaze searched the forest and cloudy sky, then landed on the dwarf child. “Boy? Boy, can you change your voice like that?”

A bare whisper of wind rustled the trees. Branches sawed back and forth.

“Skullcap? Did you hear that voice?”

Skullcap’s blankets shook violently in response.

Mossybill backed to his blankets and sat down, then drew his quiver close. As he braced his bow on his drawn-up knees, the False Face Child lifted his head. Teeth glinted in the darkness.

Mossybill’s fingernails dug into the polished wood of his bow. “Lie down, boy, before I come over there and knock you down.”

The boy gave Mossybill a smile that chilled him to the bones.

“When we get to Walksalong Village,” Mossybill said, “we’ll beat that arrogance out of you, boy.”

But as he rolled up in his blankets, Mossybill pulled his bow very close.





Three



Lamedeer drew back his bowstring and aimed out the cave entrance. Dawn Woman moved in the narrow valley below, the pale blue hem of her skirt trailing through the forest as she walked. His release came smooth and silent. The arrow sailed out.

Throughout the tangle of trees, shadows leaped as men dove for cover.

“Blessed Falling Woman,” he whispered, and sank back against the stone wall. He lifted a shaking hand to wipe long silver-streaked black hair away from his brown eyes. Sweat pooled in his deepest wrinkles, and trickled coldly down his square jaw.

From the cave’s darkness, a timid voice asked, “Are the Walksalongs still there?”

It sounded like one of the younger warriors, and Lamedeer couldn’t find it in him to answer. When he’d led his people into the ambush last night, they’d split into three groups, trying to fight their way out. His group of fifteen had been forced back against the cliff on the north side of this valley. Most of the women and children had died as they’d scrambled up the rocky slope trying to reach the shelter of this small cave.

“Lamedeer?” the boy called again.

“Try to rest,” he forced himself to say. “You will need it.”

He squinted into the cave’s dim recesses. During the night people had shifted, hunting for comfortable sleeping positions. Lamedeer no longer knew who lay or sat where. Or, for that matter, which of his relatives lived, and which had died. One wounded man had been panting for over a hand of time, panting as if he couldn’t get enough air.

“Lamedeer? Are there very many? Can you tell?”

He hesitated, and people stirred. A cloud of dust filled the cave.

“Lamedeer, please!” the youth begged. “Tell us. What’s to see out there? Are we to fight, or—”

“You will fight,” Lamedeer answered, and gazed into the darkness to his left. He thought the speaker was young Crowfire. Barely sixteen winters old, the youth was probably too frightened to rise and look for himself into the faces of death that filled the forest below. “But not for a time yet. Drink the last water in your gut bag—if you have any—and rest.”

Three of Lamedeer’s seasoned warriors came forward, among them his oldest friend, Blackstone. The men joined him in the entry, silently surveying the valley. Down the slope below the cave, and along the narrow creek that cut a winding swath through the meadow, the dead lay sprawled. The frozen eyes of women and little children stared up at them, their gaping mouths rimmed with frost. The scene paralyzed Lamedeer’s souls.