“Acorn?” he called, but his eyes remained glued to the misshapen black silhouette on the ceiling. “Keep everyone outside. Do not come until I summon you. Do you understand?”
Panicked voices rose in questions, and dust drifted in as dozens of anxious feet shifted.
“Do you understand?” Blue Raven repeated. “Go back up the trail. Wait until I call.”
“But Blue Raven, what if—”
“Do not question me now! We will speak of this later. Just do as I ask. Please!”
“Yes … very well,” Acorn answered hesitantly. “I—I don’t like it! But we will go.”
People retreated, their voices dimming until only a faint buzz drifted on the wind.
Blue Raven fought to calm his labored breathing. The boy hung silently, high above, his eyes glinting.
“I’m climbing up to get you, boy.”
“No!”
“I will not hurt you. I promise you this.”
A pathetic whisper floated down, “You wish to kill me.”
“No, no. You must believe me. I have never wished that. Nor have my people. We wish only—”
“They burned my village! I saw it!”
A muted cry filled the stillness—the sound of sobs straining against tightly closed lips.
“I vow to you that you will be safe here,” Blue Raven said. “You may trust me, boy. I have never lied to a child.”
Cautiously, Blue Raven made his way to the corner pole, a log about two hands in diameter. Saplings wove around the pole, giving it stability, and creating a strong ladder, which they used for repairing the walls and roof. He lifted his right foot and placed it on the first rung.
“I’m coming, boy.”
The higher Blue Raven climbed the better he could see the dwarf child. Despite his stunted arms and legs, the boy had thick dark hair, cropped even with his chin, and a beautiful round face. Tears glistened in his black eyes. A wound leaked blood down his left arm. The wound Starflower had, no doubt, inflicted. Blue Raven took two more rungs. The boy’s robe, which he had earlier assumed to be decorated with quartz crystals, was really speckled with pieces of exquisitely etched shell. The shapes of Thunderbird and Falling Woman adorned two of the larger discs. The boy’s copper gorget, his pendant, was so large it nearly covered the Power bag he wore around his throat. The gorget bore the grotesque image of a gnarled uprooted tree.
Blue Raven stopped at the junction between wall and roof. The boy stood eight hands to his left, his back pressed to the sloping roof, his bound feet resting on the bole. Is that why Starflower thought he’d “flown” up? The boy had used his arms to climb while his useless feet dangled behind him? The child had been holding so tightly to the roof poles that his stubby fingers had gone white.
Blue Raven reached out. “Take my hand. Please. Don’t be afraid. I won’t let you fall.”
The boy shook his head.
Blue Raven stretched his arm out farther. “Just reach down. I’m right here.”
Desperately, the boy’s gaze darted over the council house, obviously searching for another way to freedom … and landed on one of the smoke holes in the roof.
Panic warmed Blue Raven’s veins. He would surely fall to his death if he attempted it. “It’s too small for you, and too far,” he warned. “Please, don’t!”
The False Face Child’s eyes remained on the smoke hole, as if calculating the risks involved in reaching it.
“And—and our warriors are outside, boy. Even if you should make it, they would surround the house and have you the instant you climbed down.”
The False Face Child gripped one of the roof’s cross-poles, and appeared ready to leap.
Blue Raven shook sweaty locks of hair away from his oval face. He had to keep the boy talking, to shift his thoughts. “Boy? Please. What is your name? The name your family calls you by? Do you have a boy’s name?”
The False Face Child did not answer.
“When I was a boy,” Blue Raven said, “I had a special name. My parents called me Dancing Foot, because I was forever whirling around on one foot. They said I resembled a demented one-legged grouse.” He smiled at the memories. “The other children used to cluck at me when I passed. Do you have a name like that?”
At first silence met his question, then, barely audible, came, “R-Rumbler.”
“Rumbler? That’s a shining name. I’ve never heard it before. Why did your mother call you that? Did she tell you?”
Rumbler lowered his gaze and tears fell from his eyes onto the distant floor of the council house. Tiny puffs of dust sprouted, spinning like tornadoes in the sunlight. “I like echoes.”