People of the Masks(168)

“You.”

Jumping Badger didn’t blink, or breathe.

Sparrow calmly walked toward him.

“Stop!” Jumping Badger said when Sparrow got to within three paces. He unslung his bow and nocked an arrow in it.

Sparrow raised his empty hands. “I thought you might wish to talk. Obviously, I haven’t had time to carry out my part of the bargain.” With a smile, he added, “Or you’d be dead.”

Jumping Badger’s eyes flared. “What do you want?”

“I want you to leave. Call in your warriors and go home. Now. This instant. Before it’s too late.”

“Too late? Too late for what, old man?”

But Jumping Badger already knew. A cold wave of air prickled around him, and he could hear them. Closing in …





Acorn tiptoed along the game trail, his bow up. The fog had started to freeze on the tree limbs and twigs that lined the trail, sheathing them in a glittering layer of ice. Buckeye walked behind him. They had come in from the north, drawn by the bubble of the orange light. A lodge stood in front of them, perhaps twenty hands away. Though they couldn’t see Jumping Badger or Silver Sparrow, they’d been listening to their voices.

Acorn swiveled to look at Buckeye.

The huge man’s skin glowed faintly orange. Rage did hideous things to the scars on his face. They twitched and jerked. Buckeye clutched his bow as if his hands were around Jumping Badger’s throat. He opened his mouth to speak.

Acorn put a hand to his lips, and shook his head. If everything Silver Sparrow had said turned out to be true, Jumping Badger would never make it home.

He might not have had the chance to betray the Walksalong Clan, but he’d planned to.

Silver Sparrow said, “Too late for any of your people to survive this night, Jumping Badger. Surely you wish some of them to go back and tell the Walksalong matrons what happened when you faced me and my army of ghosts.”

Jumping Badger let out a hoarse cry, then laughed breathlessly.

Acorn tried to swallow the sourness that tickled the back of his tongue. Ghosts? His eyes darted around the mist.

“Tell your ghosts to stay where they are!” Jumping Badger shouted. “I am alive, and my warriors are alive”—he raised his voice to a shriek—“because my Power is greater than yours!”

Acorn could envision Jumping Badger shaking the staff with the rotting head, and it made him want to retreat and let Sleeping Mist Village have his war leader.

Buckeye’s face had gone bright red. Acorn could see the splotches on his cheeks even in the dim glow.

Buckeye used his blunt chin to gesture to the lodges, and Acorn nodded. They would make a perfect hiding place.

They bent low, and eased forward.

Acorn had taken three steps when a bloodcurdling shriek tore the air less than fifty hands to his right, and an arrow whistled past his ear. He felt the wind of its passing.

Acorn swung his bow in the direction from which the shot had come.

An arrow took him in the thigh, spun him around, and sent him stumbling backward. He tripped and fell, rolled, and dragged himself behind a massive tree trunk.

Buckeye staggered toward him with blood bubbling from his lips. The arrow had taken him squarely in the chest. Buckeye shivered, lost his balance and fell.

“Acorn!” he called out. “Acorn!”

Acorn snapped off the arrow in his thigh, slung his bow over his shoulder, and scrambled forward on his belly.

Buckeye clutched at Acorn’s sleeve as he tore open his shirt. The wound around the arrow sucked and blew. Blood had started to pour from Buckeye’s lips.

“Oh, Buckeye, don’t do this!” Acorn cracked the fletching from the shaft, then rolled Buckeye to his side and cracked off the point. Before he could take hold of the blood-slick shaft to pull it out, several arrows thudded into the ground around him.

He grabbed Buckeye’s arm and dragged him two paces. With his third heave, Buckeye shuddered suddenly, and went limp. Acorn looked into Buckeye’s wide dead eyes, then let his friend slide to the ground.

An arrow hit the tree over Acorn’s head, sliced through a dead branch, and sent it crashing to the ground beside him. Icy splinters flew. He ripped his bow from his shoulder and nocked an arrow.

From the depths of the gray sparkling night, a man emerged, his bow aimed at Acorn’s head. He screamed as he charged.

Acorn shot him in the chest. The man stumbled, twisted around and fell. His hands clawed at the ground until his screams gurgled into stillness.

Acorn crawled toward the closest tree, dragging his wounded leg, and slumped against the trunk. He nocked another arrow.

He heard a shout, then a din of voices. The ground shook with pounding feet. Three Turtle people, two men, and a woman, dashed headlong up the game trail for the village. Behind them came four Walksalong warriors.