Jumping Badger stood and yanked Wren to her feet. He shouted, “Tonight, even the Night Walkers will hear this girl’s screams! She will tell me the truth, or I will blind her, and then …” He nodded, and smiled. “Then the real pain will begin. I never heard your uncle beg me to kill him. But you, girl, you will.”
He gripped Wren’s rope-burned wrist and hauled her across the dirt to the base of the staff. The sunken, crusted eye that peered from beneath the canted mask sparkled with evil.
Jumping Badger pulled his knife from his belt, and stood up, smiling at the people who watched him. “Now, witness the wrath of the Walksalong Clan.”
He turned, and sprang for Wren, slamming her shoulders to the ground and pinning them with his massive left arm, while his knife pricked the corner of her eye.
Wren trembled like a dying fawn. “Jumping B-Badger, please. You are my cousin! Don’t—”
“Stop this!” Elk Ivory’s voice rang out. “Leave her alone!”
He swiveled his head, and saw Elk Ivory easing up behind him, her bow leveled at his back. The red chert arrow point shone in the flameglow.
“We do not kill our own people, Jumping Badger,” Elk Ivory said. “All of you—look! Do you wish to see a little girl tortured? A member of your own clan? What have we become that could even think—”
Rides-the-Bears’ war club cut through the mist with the silence of a bird. It struck Elk Ivory in the back of the head, and she crumpled to the ground.
Jumping Badger smiled approvingly at the ugly man., “Good work. We will finish her later. Watch them!” He pointed to Dust Moon and Silver Sparrow.
Silver Sparrow had managed to get to his feet, and stood with his legs braced. Blood flowed over his neck bandage and down his chest. His eyes had a strange savage glitter.
Jumping Badger turned back to Wren. He lifted and turned the black stone blade before her eyes, letting her see its long sharp edges.
“I have heard the pain is terrible,” he whispered to Wren. “The knife slices through the eyeball, and as it twists inside the skull, there are flashes of light, and—”
“I don’t know anything!” Wren screamed. “Please, I tell you, I don’t—”
“Where is the False Face Child?” Jumping Badger shouted. “Where is he? He came into this village. We saw his tracks down on the shore. Where is he!” He pressed the knife into the fold at the top of Wren’s right eye. “Tell me now. Tell me where the False Face Child is, or I’ll—”
“No!” a small terrified voice cried. “Leave Wren alone!”
“Rumbler, no!” Wren sobbed, and fought against Jumping Badger’s arm. “No! Run!”
A bizarre sound echoed across the village, and Jumping Badger went rigid.
Deep-throated, it resembled the low moaning growl of a cougar surprised when its prey suddenly turns to fight. The muscles in Jumping Badger’s arms contracted. He sat up and scanned the faces in the mist.
“What is that?” he demanded to know. He rose to his feet, clutching his knife tightly. “Who’s making that sound?”
Shrill high-pitched laughter rang through the mist, then a deep inhuman voice said, “I did, big man.”
Gasps and cries rose from the people in the village. Several of his warriors spun around with their bows up.
Jumping Badger turned slowly.
The False Face Child stood on the hill. In the garish firelight, his white cape glittered, and his eyes shone like huge black moons.
Jumping Badger glared at his warriors, shouting, “What are you waiting for? Kill him! He’s the False Face Child!”
Flickers of light danced through the forest, and for a moment, Jumping Badger thought that sparks from the burning lodges had caught in the dry winter grasses.
No. No! Had the ghosts returned?
His warriors spun around, their mouths open, watching the lights.
“Rides-the-Bear!” Jumping Badger yelled. “Shoot the child!”
A streak of light, like a fiery falcon, swooped over Rides-the-Bear’s head, and he hit the ground, shrieking, “What was that? What’s happening?”
Fear congealed like ice in Jumping Badger’s veins. He ripped Elk Ivory’s bow from her unconscious hands, and reached for the arrow that lay on the ground—
Four lights cut through the mist above him, unfurling burning streamers, as if the gods were playing a game of catch with ball lightning.
“What is this?” Jumping Badger cried, gaping at the mist-shrouded sky. “These are not ghosts! What’s happening?”
“You are about to die, big man,” that strange echoing voice said.
He jerked to look at the False Face Child, not quite able to believe the boy could make his voice sound that way. “Boy? Did you say that? Who said that!”