A small terrible cry pierced the quiet.
Wren spun around, calling, “Rumbler?”
He had climbed into the forest behind the burned lodges, and lay curled on his side near a pile of scorched debris.
“Rumbler?”
She ran across the plaza, veering around the gnawed corpses, and climbed the hillside to him.
As soon as she knelt, she could see that it wasn’t a pile of debris, but a body. The burning roof must have collapsed on top of her. Melted hair matted the right side of her head, but wolves had ripped away the scalp on the left side, revealing the skull. Wren could see the places she’d been struck in the head with a war club. Dents and cracks covered the bone.
Rumbler touched the silver gorget at her neck, then drew his hand back, shucked off his mitten, and tucked his one good finger in his mouth.
Wren sank to the ground behind him.
Blessed gods, Briar-of-the-Lake had been alive after the battle. Alive and determined to get away. Fragments of burned clothing marked her path from the lodge to the hillside. It didn’t seem possible. In her condition, to crawl out from under a burning heap, and drag herself this far up the hill …
“She told me s-she would come for me,” Rumbler said. “That was the last thing she said.”
Wren braced her bow over her knees. “She tried, Rumbler. She tried very hard.”
The afternoon air had gone still. A whisper of wind, the distant chirp of a squirrel, roared in her ears.
Silent tears shook Rumbler.
Wren put a hand on his arm and squeezed. Briar could be here, right this instant, screaming at Rumbler, trying to hold him and speak with him, and he couldn’t hear her.
For a time, Wren studied the wolves prowling the forest. Now and then she caught the glint of a yellow eye, or a lolling tongue. She thought she could count five.
“Someday, Rumbler, when we are great Traders, I promise you that we will hire the most Powerful shaman in the world to find her soul and carry it to the Up-Above-World. She won’t have to stay here forever.”
Rumbler rolled over, his round face wet with tears, and reached for Wren. She set her bow aside, stretched out beside him in the old leaves, and hugged him close while he cried.
Wren had never seen her mother’s body. As she gazed upon the burned, chewed corpse, she did not know which was kinder, seeing and knowing, or not seeing and suffering the terrible hope that someone you loved still lived.
A big black wolf came to the edge of the trees, no more than fifty hands away, and lifted its muzzle to sniff the air. Baring its teeth, it took a step down the hill, and let out a low growl.
Wren whispered, “We have to go, Rumbler. We have to go now.”
As Grandmother Moon rose through the branches, a seashell opalescence spread across the deep blue sky, and flooded the forest, lighting the path at Dust Moon’s feet. She heaved a sigh of relief. She could still see the children’s footprints descending the trail toward Paint Rock Village.
They had come down several hands of time ago, before the trail froze, their feet slipping and sliding in the mud.
Dust Moon sighed. She had desperately wanted to be here when Rumbler arrived, to cushion the blow of seeing the devastation and the faces of so many dead relatives. The failure hurt.
She trotted to catch up with Sparrow.
“Well, they beat us here,” she said.
Sparrow’s bushy brows lowered. In the moonglow his long white hair blazed. “They had a day’s head start on us, Dust. Let’s just hope that they haven’t been here and gone.”
“Gone?” she said, surprised. “Where would they go?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But we need to find them tonight.”
Dust Moon frowned. The Headman strode down the trail in front of them, his graying black hair and the elk hide over his broad shoulders shimmering.
Dust quietly asked, “Why? Did he say something?”
“No. But he has to make his move soon. With or without us, he can find the children now. Even if they didn’t camp near Paint Rock, they’re leaving a clear trail, and they can’t be more than three or four hands of time ahead of us. Maybe less, because Rumbler certainly wandered the ruins for a while.”
Dust Moon looked at Blue Raven and her eyes narrowed. The stench of battle and death rode the night wind, growing stronger as they neared Paint Rock Village. It seemed to be drawing him down the hill. His pace had picked up to a near run.
“What do you recommend we do to protect ourselves?” she asked.
“I recommend that we keep a close watch on him.”
“What else can we do that we haven’t been doing? I sleep half the night, you sleep the other half. We’re both exhausted. Shall we tie him up?”