Two coals remained in the bed of white ash, glowing red when the wind gusted. The bones of a rabbit lay on the hearthstones.
The man and woman had slept together, their bodies pressing down the grass in distinctive patterns. Blue Raven had slept fifty hands away, his back to a large boulder, perhaps as a shield from the wind, or because he wished to be out of the firelight in case his pursuers burst into the camp in the middle of the night. Or because he didn’t fully trust his new partners.
She lifted her eyes and studied the tracks that cut a swath across the grass to the north.
“Springwater has just given you another two or three hands of time, my old friend,” she murmured. “Use them wisely.”
Twenty-Four
Rumbler stumbled down the muddy slope in front of Wren, running home as fast as his short legs would carry him. He’d been falling a lot, and his moccasins and the lower half of his white fur cape bore a thick coating of mud. Old leaves stuck in his short black hair.
Wren followed more slowly, her hand on her bow. She’d thrown her cape back over her shoulders to expose her quiver, and the cool afternoon breeze flapped her long hair. Mud crusted her pants, and speckled her knee-length shirt. The white spirals decorating the blue fabric looked dingy from the long days on the trail.
As they neared Paint Rock Village, the acrid scents of smoke and decay grew stronger.
They had seen no signs that anyone had traveled this trail before them, but Wren kept looking, expecting to see eyes peering at her from behind brush. Whether they would be ghostly eyes, or the eyes of living, breathing warriors, she did not know, but she and Rumbler had been very lucky so far, and she feared it couldn’t last.
She scanned the forest. Ancient sycamores lined the way. Their branches laced together over her head, filtering the wan sunlight, and throwing a golden patchwork over the slope. Squirrels leaped through the trees, chattering and barking.
When Wren noticed that Rumbler had vanished, she hurried after him, slogging through the sucking mud. At the bottom of the slope, she gasped, and suddenly backpedaled, her legs trying to run despite what her eyes told her.
“He’s d-dead. He’s dead!” Her mouth had to say it twice, before her eyes believed it.
She slipped and fell into the muddy trail, staring wide-eyed at the man slumped against the sycamore trunk. A Walksalong arrow pierced his chest, pinioning him to the tree, and an ax had bashed a gaping hole in his skull. Most of the flesh had been pecked from his head, and chewed from his arms and legs. His belly had been ripped out.
From her right, Rumbler’s soft voice said, “His name was Calling Hawk.”
Their gazes held, hers wide with fear, his anguished.
“He was my mother’s uncle’s son.” Rumbler turned and walked away.
Wren got to her feet and shook off some of the clinging mud, then followed Rumbler into the ruins of what had once been Paint Rock Village. A large flock of crows burst into flight, cawing as they circled over the trees.
The destroyed village stunned her.
At the edge of the huge oaks to her left, eight piles of charred rubble marked the locations of lodges. Burned bodies lay rigid in the middle of each, their arms and legs twisted at impossible angles, mouths gaping in silent cries.
Sacred masks dotted the plaza, as if they’d been carried out by fleeing people, and dropped when the people fell. Red-Dew-Eagle rested twenty hands away, his twisted face toward her, his long beak and shell eyes coated with dirt. His glare built a fire in Wren’s belly.
She turned away.
Bodies lay everywhere. The stories Jumping Badger and his warriors had told about their great victory suddenly came into focus. All of the women and girls lay on their backs, their distended legs spread. The animals had torn their bloated stomachs out, and chewed most of the flesh from their bones. To her right, murdered babies sprawled, some on their faces, others on their backs—as if the wolves had dragged them around like toys.
Wren’s heart slammed a dull staccato against her ribs.
The men and boys had been mutilated, their genitals cut off, and stuffed in their mouths. She could see them locked behind half-open teeth. The bodies must have gone rigid before the animals found them, and the wolves hadn’t been able to chew off the lower jaw yet.
Rumbler started walking, his steps painfully slow and quiet.
Wren forced her legs to follow.
“This was Red Pipe,” he whispered and pointed to the old man who lay facedown in the dirt. A beautiful buffalo cape with blue and yellow porcupine quills sewn around the collar covered his back. “He was our clan patron.”
Rumbler took three more steps. After a deep breath, he pointed to a little girl, and said, “This is my cousin Lynx. Remember? I told you about her?” His voice went hoarse, and tears filled his eyes. “The story about the duck and the … the corn gruel?”