People of the Masks(79)
Rumbler tilted his head and his eyes went vacant. He whispered, “After the warriors took me away into the forest, he did terrible things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“He ordered his war party to rape the women and little girls, and to cut open the bellies of pregnant women. They drew the babies from the wombs. One of them, one … he …” Rumbler swallowed repeatedly as if fighting nausea.
“Rumbler?”
“He—he was a boy baby. He cried when the warriors lifted him from his mother’s belly. The warrior took him, and—and bashed his brains out on a rock.”
Rumbler had started breathing hard, as if seeing it all again.
Wren frowned. “But I thought … didn’t you say that the warriors carried you out of the village at the beginning of the battle?”
“Yes.”
“How could you know what they did afterward?”
Rumbler bowed his head. “I saw it.”
“Did they carry you up on a hill where you could look back?”
“My eyes … they fly sometimes, Wren. I see things in faraway places.”
Wren bit her lip. Dwarfs had strange Powers. She’d heard stories about them all her life. But she’d never heard of a dwarf with winged eyes. A thought occurred to her.
“Can you see my uncle?”
“Are you worried about him?”
“He might get in trouble.”
“Because you helped me?”
“Yes.”
Rumbler closed his eyes and tipped his head back. The blue veins in his temples pulsed.
Quietly, she gathered their bowls and cups and duckwalked to the fire where she emptied them back into their respective pots. She scowled at the dirty dishes, hating the idea of going out into the snow to wash them. I’ll do it in the morning. I’ll rub them clean with snow. That will be good enough. She set them near the fire, and crawled around the pit for her own blankets, which lay near the woodpile.
Before spreading them out, Wren glanced at Rumbler. He hadn’t moved. She unrolled her blankets. The woodpile rested an arm’s length away. As she lay down, she pulled a stick from the pile, and placed it on the coals. Flames licked up, crackling and spitting sparks.
“Rumbler?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
In a soft voice, he answered, “Oh, yes, Wren. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Dust Moon nearly leaped out of her skin when she heard the wind. “What the …”
She sat up in her blankets. It had snowed on and off throughout the night, but now a deep blue sky arced overhead, filled with the glistening lodges of the Night Walkers. She rubbed her eyes, and tried to steady her breathing. The roar had wakened her from frightening dreams about clouds and shadows. Rumbler’s beautiful round face had peeked out at her more than once.
The deep-throated growl grew louder.
“Sparrow, do you hear that?”
They’d camped in a meadow on the southern shore of Leafing Lake, where the snow had been blown clean away. Tall wind-sculpted drifts scalloped the edges of the meadow, and ringed the grove of pines on the hilltop behind them.
Sparrow lay rolled in his hides to her right. When he lifted his head, his beaked nose gleamed silver.
“What, Dust?”
“Are you deaf? Don’t you hear it?”
Sparrow brushed his white hair behind his ears, and cocked his head first one way, then another, listening to the frigid night. His breath condensed into a white cloud before him. “Hear what?”
Dust Moon’s mouth gaped. “That eerie howling as if Grandmother Earth is being torn apart by a pack of wolves! You really don’t hear it? I can feel the roar in my souls!”
Sparrow slowly turned to face her. His bushy brows drew together. “In your souls?”
“Yes! It’s like an earthquake coming. You know how you can hear the quake before it strikes?”
“Yes, I do.” He shoved his hides away, and sat up. “I have the feeling, though, that you may be the only one who hears this roar.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sparrow’s eyes went over the pines, and the snow that packed the forest, then drifted to the lake. It resembled an endless glimmering sea. Silver ribbons of waves rolled onto the shore. “Souls have a language of their own, Dust. Yours may be trying to tell you something.”
“I’m sure it is. It’s trying to tell me that old age has finally grabbed you by the foot, and you’re going deaf. You must hear that!”
“No, I don’t, and I wish you … wouldn’t …” Sparrow blinked as if to clear his vision. “What in the name of the ancestors is that?” He pointed to the northeastern horizon.